Headscratchers / Pom Poko

• So is transformation magic a learned ability, or some innate to only a few foxes and tanuki? Even tanuki who "can't transform" are shown shifting between an animalistic form and an anthropomorphic one, and into the less detailed ones when their defeated or celebration. Furthermore, it's implied early that Ponkichi wasn't interested in learning to transform (at least into non-tanuki forms) , but it's implied later on the he and others like him physically can't.
  • It gets explained early on that transformation is an innate ability, but one that has to be honed and practiced to become more convincing and useful. It seems like maintaining a tanuki-like form is easy (hence why they all can shift into varying levels of realistic-to-cartoony and add clothes and such on top), but becoming something distinctly not a tanuki is much harder.