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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Unevaluated |
 Stretch
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[series:4904#628] | ||||||
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(Four episodes watched): This animal is, of course, almost certainly a Tanuki, a racoon-like creature with a reputation for cleverness and trickery in Japanese folklore at or beyond the human level. This one doesn't seem to have any malicious intentions, it just wants a home and free food. While Fuji is a probing writer who muses about subjects like where we come from and where we're going, she just assumes this is a dog (even though it always has a small leaf on it's forehead, a trademark of the Tanuki) and leaves it at that. Another givewaway is when the Tanuki writes that his line of work is 'making masks with leaves'. In episode one several people see that she has gotten it wrong but no one cares to make it clear to her. One of my first thoughts as the premise was laid out was that I hoped this show would have a plot of some sort and not be just an animated 4-koma comic. After an episode, I'm left wondering where this can possibly go from here. How much humor (the best laugh I got was the logic a guy in the park used to demonstrate that this was not a cat) can possibly be squeezed out of this odd premise, much less plot? In episode three Fuji is visited by two old high school friends of hers (one of which notes than this creature looks like a Tanuki). Later Fuji and the Tanuki pay a visit to the beach. If I'm not imagining things, this show seems to have a dramatic, almost tragic, tone at times. We get to know Fuji in part by the fact that she prefered to go to the beach without her friends, even though they had invited her. She seems to be an introvert. Indeed, this show may be powered more by drama than by comedy, since there weren't any really LOL jokes as far as I could tell. In episode four Fuji takes Tanuki to a fireworks show and something touching happens. In episode five Fuji is offered a job writing the plot of a manga—it can be virtually anything she pleases, which is odd—and there is disagreement about whether the creature is a tanuki, a racoon, or a dog. Last updated Tuesday, August 12 2025. Created Sunday, July 06 2025. | ||||||||
