# Poco's Udon World (2016)

> A visiting city man discovers that a strange udon-loving child is a tanuki in human disguise, and a gentle slice of life unfolds in rural Kagawa.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/59906

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 12
- Episode runtime: 23 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: animation, comedy, fantasy
- Network: Nippon TV
- Cast: Shiho Kokido, Yuichi Nakamura, Tomokazu Sugita, Kujira, Kana Hanazawa, Mai Nakahara, Kaede Hondo, Yuko Minaguchi
- TMDB rating: 7.4/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6344982/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: slow
- Intensity: subtle
- Complexity: simple
- Violence: none
- Tone: gentle, warm, whimsical, comforting, soothing

## What critics say

Audiences rate the series positively for its gentle, warm tone and charming portrayal of rural Kagawa life.

## Synopsis

Poco's Udon World (2016) is a Japanese animated slice of life series created for Nippon TV and produced by LIDENFILMS, adapted from a seinen manga. Visiting his hometown, Souta Tawara (voiced by Yuichi Nakamura) meets a child named Poco who loves udon and frogs, only to learn that the child is a tanuki in human disguise. Poco is voiced by Shiho Kokido, and Souta's life becomes entangled with the gentle, slightly eccentric family that takes Poco in, including Shinobu Nakajima (voiced by Tomokazu Sugita). The engine of the series is small and domestic: meals cooked and shared, neighborhood encounters, and the quiet friction of a human and a creature learning to live together. Each episode is a self-contained vignette in a single twelve-episode season, following the rhythms of everyday life rather than a driving plot. Set in Kagawa prefecture, better known as Udon Prefecture, the story unfolds in a rural landscape where time moves at a slower pace than in the big city. The mood is warm, soothing and gently whimsical, with folklore and shinto traditions woven quietly into ordinary days. Fans of Mushishi and Natsume's Book of Friends will find similar comfort in its iyashikei calm and its mingling of the supernatural with the everyday.

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