Inugami Gyobu is a character from the anime film Pom Poko. He is one of the most powerful and revered elder tanuki, or raccoon dogs, and serves as a leader from the island of Shikoku, where he is known for commanding a famous clan of eight hundred and eight tanuki. His name and sharp, angular features, which make him resemble a dog or wolf, connect him to the Inugami, a type of dog or wolf spirit from Japanese folklore. In the narrative, he is established as one of the three great sages summoned from Shikoku to help the tanuki of the Tama Hills in their struggle against urban development.

As a figure of immense power and experience, Gyobu is initially portrayed as being supportive of humans, having been worshipped by them in the Iyo province, in what is present-day Ehime Prefecture. However, his perspective shifts, and he joins the other elders to seek revenge against the humans destroying their habitat. His primary motivation is the preservation of the tanuki way of life and the defense of their forest home, which leads him to participate in the most ambitious counterattack planned by the tanuki council.

In the story, Gyobu's most significant role is his participation in the grand "Monster Festival," a massive illusionary parade designed to scare the human population into halting their construction projects. Alongside the other Shikoku elders, he channels his vast magical abilities to create a terrifying and spectacular procession of ghosts and phantoms. His key relationships are with these two other elders from Shikoku, who are his peers, and with the leaders of the Tama Hills tanuki, who look to him and the other sages for guidance and a solution to their crisis.

The character's development is brief but pivotal. After exerting an enormous amount of energy during the Monster Festival, Gyobu suffers a fatal heart attack and passes away. His death is a significant turning point in the film, representing a major blow to the tanuki's cause and highlighting the immense physical toll of their magical operations. In a poignant scene, his spirit is shown being carried to the afterlife by Buddhist deities, a visual motif inspired by the religious concept of Raigō.

Inugami Gyobu possesses several notable supernatural abilities common among the tanuki, but at a level befitting a legendary master. He is a master of transformation, the core magical skill of his kind. More specifically, his demonstrated powers include energy conversion and transferring, materialization, pyrokinesis, the ability to cast powerful illusions, and flight. These abilities make him one of the most formidable tanuki in the film, and his death from exhaustion underscores the monumental scale of the illusion he helped create.