Poco's Udon World

Episode 8

Souta goes into full-on “worried parent” mode in a powerful and funny Poco's Udon World. When it comes to Poco, Souta has mostly taken the situation in stride and rolled with the punches, never reflecting for too long on the true nature of his relationship to the little tanuki. However, that changes this week when Poco suddenly goes missing, and Souta finds himself beset with fear and anxiety. True to form, things don't get terribly serious, but Souta's sense of peril comes across as genuine and incredibly palpable.

While visiting the touristy island of Shodoshima to meet with the proprietor of Team Planet (the small-scale ad design company Souta hopes to freelance for), Souta and Poco become separated after the tanuki-parent rests his eyes for a few minutes. Lured in by a plethora of Gaogao-chan paraphernalia, Poco then becomes an unwitting stowaway on the fishing boat of Team Planet's eccentric president. Fearing the worst, Souta proceeds to comb the island in search of the lost tanuki, all the while reflecting on what Poco truly is to him. He acknowledges that he initially viewed Poco as an unconventional pet, but he's now come to regard him as something more like a son. A vacationing Hiroshi, who somehow biked all the way to Shodoshima, also gets in on the action and provides some of the episode's funniest moments. Following a chance meeting with Rinko, the young programmer is instantly smitten, going to ridiculous lengths to win the heart of his friend's (unbeknownst to him) married big sister. Although Souta and Poco are reunited in the end, Souta uses this opportunity to give Poco his first genuine scolding.

No show that involves parenting is complete without a story about a child vanishing from sight after their guardian looks away for “just one minute,” and Poco's Udon World is able to pull it off without getting either too serious or too flippant. Even without dialing down the comedy, the show is able to make Souta's anxiety believable. While Souta's reaction to his child wandering off isn't as raw or realistic as Sweetness & Lightning's Inuzuma Kohei's in a similar situation, it's clear that the experience has him spooked. He doesn't even stop to reflect on the fact that he almost became road pizza in an effort to rescue a run-of-the-mill tanuki he believed to be Poco.

While Poco's Udon World is largely a comedy, this week's episode featured a few too many coincidences: Hiroshi managed to successfully plan such a grueling bike trek around Souta's arrival in Shodoshima, where he happens upon Rinko multiple times; Rinko just happens to be a passenger in the vehicle that almost flattens Souta; Team Planet's president is the owner of the boat Poco boards. I could probably accept one—maybe two—of these, but taken together, it comes across as pretty unbelievable.

In addition to meeting his new employer, Souta undergoes some noticeable growth this week. No longer content with viewing Poco as a pet, the young man now seems fully committed to raising him as a child. (Whether or not Poco will actually grow remains to be seen.) Even though we haven't seen very much of them after their memorable introduction, the husband-and-wife duo at the helm of Team Planet seem poised to play a compelling role in Souta's future.

Rating: B+

Poco's Udon World is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Amy is a YA fantasy author who has loved anime for over two decades.