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Tanuki: Pon’s Summer Preview

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June 5, 2025

On June 5, 2025

The old shrine has seen better days, not ruined but certainly showing more than a few signs of wear and tear. It’s functional enough as-is, but with a big festival on the way it should really be spruced up and restored to its former glory. The only problem is the caretaker, a tanuki named Pon, means well but is also lazy, so while he’ll do his best to get the shrine ready, there’s no guarantee it will be anything more than serviceable when the big end-of-summer event arrives. It’s going to take a fair amount of focused work to earn enough money for repair, but Pon’s got a job and a bike so he’s off to a good start.

A Busy Season For a Lazy Tanuki

Tanuki: Pon’s Summer is an open-world adventure set in four small towns in the Japanese countryside. Pon is a little tanuki with a bike and not a lot of motivation, but there’s a deadline coming up and he needs to at least be somewhat ready when the festival arrives. Fortunately Pon’s delivery job brings in a steady income in addition to sending him all across the countryside, delivering packages to everyone and getting caught up in whatever may be going on at his destination. The gameplay is divided up into three main focuses, with biking and delivery being the first, engaging in mini-game missions with the townsfolk the second and fixing up the shrine being the third.

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While it’s possible to stick to the road, Tanuki: Pon’s Summer contains a full set of bike tricks that are fun enough to pull off that it’s hard not to look for air on the way from one checkpoint to the next. Once Pon has loaded up on packages at the post office he heads out into the world, and in the demo I got to play, it felt like the first few days of summer felt like they’d be mostly about learning the town layout and its shortcuts. For a traditional small Japanese town there are a surprising number of ramps everywhere, and while you can stick to the road, there’s probably a better line running across the rooftops while tricking away to keep the combo alive.

Once at the destination Pon delivers the package, but this is where the second gameplay focus comes in as the person receiving the package will frequently have a story moment leading into an all-new minigame. The first package I delivered went to a retired sumo wrestler, for example, who roped Pon into learning a bit of sumo in a sparring match with one of his students. There’s also a baseball minigame, bartending, fishing, food prep, etc and it wouldn’t be much of a biking game without needing to chain a few solid trick runs together either for the fun of it or to meet a townsfolk’s objective.

What’s a Shrine Supposed To Look Like, Anyway?

After Pon has got his feet under him he can start to work on fixing up his temple, placing walls, torii gates, stone lanterns and other accessories around the place to make it look properly impressive again. Some items are bought while others are earned from helping people, but once received you can set up the shrine any way you’d like. Although hopefully with a few helpful hints for those of us who aren’t quite sure what a proper tanuki shrine ought to look like.

Tanuki: Pon’s Summer is shaping up to be a charmer, bursting with the personality of its nostalgic Japanese countryside (or someone else’s nostalgia, if like me you’re not actually from or have ever even visited Japan). Pon himself is particularly well animated, which he has to be seeing as he doesn’t talk and communicates by gesture. The townsfolk all seem to get the gist of what he means without too much effort, roping Pon into helping them as needed, so it all works out for everyone. So long as he keeps himself busy then the shrine can be fully revitalized in time for the festival and there will be plenty of time to be lazy again once Tankuk: Pon’s Summer is complete.