As humans, there are few things we enjoy more than seeing an animal doing something typically viewed as “human”, like listening to and enjoying music, wearing clothes, or riding a skateboard; it’s that intoxicating blend of silly and sweet that makes these moments so enjoyable. TANUKI: Pon’s Summer may seem like a game solely about this rather charming concept, but at its heart it is an informed and heartwarming look at life in a small Japanese town, its people, and the sense of community that brings these quiet pockets of life together.
The first game from indie developer Denkiworks and published by CRITICAL REFLEX, TANUKI: Pon’s Summer is a relaxing open-world sim game set on a fictional island off the coast of mainland Japan. You play as the titular Pon, a lazy but well-meaning Tanuki who “works” as the guardian of the island town’s only shrine. Summer has rolled around, but this one is special, as it marks the return of a festival that happens once every 50 years, called a Matsuri.
Over the years, the shrine has fallen into disrepair, and with only a month before the festivities, the great tanuki god Donzapon wakes our squat hero from his slumber to resolve the dire situation. There is a lot to be done, though, with several important fixtures of the shrine needing repair or replacement, as well as decorating for the festival. It’s going to cost a lot to get it done, and with only a few weeks to get ready, Pon will have to get a job to pay for it all.
Fortunately, Pon meets the exuberant post office worker Fumi, who invites the tanuki and his BMX bike to the post office. Here, the boss of the post office, Bunta, offers Pon the job of delivering mail to townspeople around the island as a way to earn money for the Matsuri. Not only that, but he’s expected to help anybody with anything they need, no matter how strange or time-consuming the task, as is the post office’s mantra. With a deadline fast approaching, and a swanky new postman’s cap perched on his head, Pon gets to work.
The gameplay of TANUKI: Pon’s Summer is broken up into days, with Pon delivering mail every day except Wednesdays and weekends, as well as decorating the shrine. Most days start with you travelling to the post office to pick up that day’s deliveries, which takes the form of a small puzzle: fitting Tetris-like parcels onto a grid. Once loaded up, you’ll then cycle across the island to each drop-off, meeting the locals and lending a helping hand where needed. Once you’ve delivered your last parcel, Pon is called back to the shrine to finish up, with a results page tallying your actions, profits, and costs for the day.
Pon’s main way to get around the island is using his trusty BMX. Not only does it make delivering the mail much quicker, but Pon can pull off some impressive tricks, comboing them together for higher scores and some extra cash. Luckily, the island and the town are designed to facilitate this, with ramps and rails everywhere; Pon can even grind along telephone wires, for Pete’s sake! There are BMX challenges to take on, ranging from races and point challenges to collecting all the letters in TANUKI, which also reward Pon with cash prizes. While not my forte, it was impressive to see how well incorporated and catered to this Tony Hawk-esque side of TANUKI: Pon’s Summer was, and I can imagine a lot of players chasing high scores and completely forgetting to do their deliveries.
Speaking of deliveries, they are another way that Pon gets to show off what a talented tanuki they are. While each week is focused on getting a particular fixture of the shrine Matsuri ready, Pon will also take on extra work from the townsfolk, leading to the game’s many minigames. Spearing chunks of meat and veg to make yakitori skewers, cleaning up litter, working the local konbini, and playing in a baseball game are just a couple of the activities that Pon gets roped into, and each one has its own setup and controls. While not all of these could be described as memorable, I greatly appreciate the time and polish given to each of these mini-games, and they offer the player some fun reprieves from the daily cycle. A few of these extra jobs open up side activities to do around the island, like catching insects and fish, giving players even more to do as they race between deliveries.
In the mornings before starting their postal round and during the days off, Pon can decorate the grounds of the shrine with items earned from helping the islanders and bought from Kit, the scheming kitsune-themed merchant. All of Pon’s hard work goes to revitalising the shrine, reflected in the Reputation level, with higher levels unlocking new decorations at Kit’s shop. These range from various chairs, tables, and other fixtures to more exciting and niche pieces, like gacha-ball machines, fossils, paper banners, and racks of fresh fish. I loved theming the different areas around my shrine using what I had unlocked, and while it didn’t feed back into the gameplay loop in a big way, I appreciated how many of the items worked as reminders of the odd jobs I had done to get here.
Each element of TANUKI: Pon’s Summer’s gameplay is nicely fleshed out, with nothing feeling tacked on or half-baked, but I do wish that there were fewer breaks in the flow. There is a hard division between when you decorate the shrine and when you go out around the island for any other activity, and the BMX challenges cannot be done while you do your deliveries. These are small grievances, and I think that the game’s calendar/day structure helps create a steady feeling of progression, but it would have been nice if there was a little more fluidity between certain parts.
TANUKI: Pon’s Summer is a great time from a gameplay perspective, but what elevates the whole experience is how charming and detailed the little world and small cast of characters you meet are. Over the course of several deliveries, you’re introduced to and get to know some truly delightful and hilarious people, often learning about their relationships with other characters and slowly knitting together a very colourful community. Pon quickly endears themselves to the rest of the island, becoming part of the fabric and a welcome contributor that the people support in kind. What starts as an uphill struggle reaching out to strangers for help slowly becomes a heartwarming example of how small communities come together to help one another, and it’s genuinely so sweet.
Bringing this wonderful world to life is an art style as rich with colour as its characters are with personality, and music that dynamically matches whatever Pon is up to. Different regions of the island take on their own colour palettes and details, from the architecture to the topography, all the way to the signposting and streetlights. The island is a vibrant place, with rich green hills, long golden beaches, neatly kept gold greens, and clean high streets lined with welcoming shops under a web of power lines. The main cast of characters you interact with look like manga designs wrapped around 3D models, and every character’s silhouette is distinct, perfectly reflecting their personalities, from the sushi-pompadoured Danzo to the crotchety Kushida. The way characters are animated, how the music shifts from a calmer, more traditional style to electric guitars and pounding drums when you get on your BMX, even Pon’s little Naruto run, all feed into this feeling of being inside an issue of a manga or anime episode, and it feels great!
Final Thoughts
As unassuming as its multi-talented mascot, TANUKI: Pon’s Summer is a fun and laid-back life sim with a sincere message about the importance and power of community. While its varied activities and charming world make for an enjoyable time, it is the people who inhabit the island, and the relationships they share, that really make the experience special. TANUKI: Pon’s Summer is a wonderful reminder that great experiences can come from small games, and a timely reminder that community matters.
TANUKI: Pon’s Summer is out now on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, XBOX Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and Switch 2.
TANUKI: Pon’s Summer was reviewed on XBOX Series X/S using a controller.
Thank you to Denkiworks and CRITICAL REFLEX for the review code.
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