‘TANUKI: Pon’s Summer’ Game Review: Cool Tricks, Chill Vibes, and One Adorable Courier
TANUKI: Pon’s Summer felt like one of those games that was announced ages ago, but in actuality, the debut trailer only dropped in February 2025. I’m just so tuned in to various media events that I kept seeing it over and over again, so much so that it felt like years. Well, after a media blitz, including a playable demo, TANUKI: Pon’s Summer is finally out on PC and consoles.
Beyond it looking adorable as a Ghibli-infused life-sim, I wanted to play it since that debut back in February 2025 because raccoons are my favorite animal. Tanukis are different, but they’re close enough. Animal allegiances aside, let’s talk about the titular Pon and his misadventures.
The slow roll of TANUKI: Pon’s Summer
The game begins with Pon covered in trash, sleeping in a park, providing insight into his laziness. This laziness has led to the shrine he looks after coming into disrepair. After traveling to the nearby village to do a few odd jobs, Pon is eventually hired to be a courier for the mail service.
The simple game and story goal is to get as much money as possible to repair the shrine to its former glory and to appease the god that is overlooking Pon. It’s an odd premise to be sure, but a goal is a goal, and thankfully it doesn’t beat players over the head with it.
Throughout the course of the game, there aren’t many strict time limits for you to gather “x” amount of money by this time; otherwise, it’s game over. Likewise, when you drop into water (you can’t swim) or crash your bike, you’re not going to lose health.
There are NPCs and items that do have HP on deliveries, but again, the difficulty is very chill about objectives. If you want to chase high scores, you certainly can, but it sort of goes against Pon as a person, er, tanuki, so I advise you to take your time and drink in the Japanese summer presented in TANUKI: Pon’s Summer like a digital vacation.
A Cozy BMX Life-Sim game
As lazy as Pon is, he’s naturally talented with his bike. You can pedal normally, speed up, or perform tricks to earn points. Grind on rails, hop onto houses, and flip around like the late great Dave Mirra if he were a tanuki. Making deliveries as stylish as possible will earn Pon reputation all over town, along with performing adequately with the many mini-games you’ll encounter on deliveries.
A day will typically begin with Pon going to the office, performing a Tetris-like package assembly on his bike, and then traveling all over town and the country to the local yokels, all of whom are bursting with personality.
It’s not just about going to an NPC, giving them a package, and then moving on. Oftentimes, there’s an associated quest that can involve pouring drinks correctly, chopping down trees, sumo wrestling, and so on. The deeper you get in the game, the more activities will be at your disposal.
As for the driving itself, it’s not perfect. Riding the bike can sometimes bring you back to childhood, when it felt wobbly before you got your balance. Moving forward is simple, but pulling off a hop to make it onto rails or onto roofs takes more precision than I would want in a game all about biking.
It’s not something that detracts from the experience, but you may be wishing a few hours in that TANUKI: Pon’s Summer was just a simple platformer with the bike being a secondary mode of transportation instead of the main one. Pon can run around, but his movements are very limited, so the bike is the best way to travel. He is an oversized tanuki after all, so it makes sense he can’t exactly bounce around like Mario.
Eventually, you’ll also unlock the ability to rebuild the shrine by buying and placing things around designated areas, from walls to benches to photo booths. The menu system and movement make the mechanics a bit clunky, like the bike riding. It feels inefficient compared to other games, like Animal Crossing, with decorative gameplay more so than bad. Thankfully, these mechanics don’t overstay their welcome.
This game’s vibes are on point
My favorite thing about the game is the visuals. The anime style works well for this Japanese-infused world full of colorful characters and the silent but festive tanuki hero. The expressions on Pon’s face are as priceless as the animations Link had in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, which I still feel is his most expressive game to date. The music isn’t groundbreaking, but it fits the chill vibes of the area.
The game runs well for the most part (on an Xbox Series X), although the game is not without hiccups. Sometimes Pon got caught in the environment after crashing his bike and falling off. In these cases, I simply had to save and then exit. Thankfully, whether you manually save or not, the checkpointing in the game is rather generous.
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TANUKI: Pon’s Summer final thoughts
Honestly, TANUKI: Pon’s Summer would have been a better game to play literally in the summer, and I bet if it had been ready, the developer, Denkiworks, would have liked that too. Playing a game about being in the summer is more fun when you too are in the summer, and the same goes for other games set in specific seasons, holidays, or climates.
Playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in the winter feels right because of all the mountains, and enjoying Costume Quest in October is equally perfect.
That doesn’t mean playing TANUKI: Pon’s Summer was worse for me now. It’s just that come next summer it will be a fun treat to go back to so that I can relive those summer vibes. The visuals are amazing, the characters stand out, and the side activities are a nice break in the delivery monotony.
On the negative side, the bike controls aren’t perfect, but because the punishment levels are so low, you aren’t going to care that much about them. The building aspects could have been better too, but at this point, I’m being nitpicky. Overall, Pon’s Summer was well worth the wait and exactly the right level of chill my soul needed right now.
- Game Title: TANUKI: Pon’s Summer
- Developer/Publisher: Denkiworks/Critical Reflex
- Genre(s): Life-Sim, Sports, Open World
- Version Being Reviewed: Xbox Series X/S
- Also Available to Play on: Xbox One, Switch 1/2, PC, and PS4/PS5
- Release Date/Year: November 10, 2026
- Reviewer’s Score: 4 out of 5 Stars
