Poco's Udon World

After his father's death, Souta Tawara, a web designer who left his hometown in Kagawa prefecture to live in Tokyo, returns to the countryside where he grew up. His father ran a popular udon restaurant, but with no one to take over, the restaurant has closed down. Inside, Souta finds a child fast asleep in an iron pot—a shoeless, dirty, and absolutely starving child. But when Souta tries to take the lost tyke to the police, the rug rat grows an ears and a tail before his very eyes. This is no ordinary child—it's a tanuki in a human form!

Souta is freaked out by his encounter with a shape-shifting tanuki, but how could anyone leave such a lonely-seeming little thing to fend for itself? He offers the hungry crybaby some shoyumame to eat, and a bath to boot. After that, Souta decides to take the kid into town via the Kotoden train line for some much-needed clothes shopping. There he runs into his first love, Manabe-san, now the mother of two young children, and coincidentally enough, she has her own little ones in tow, too. Caught off guard, Souta introduces the tiny tanuki by the first name that pops into his head: "Poco."

Souta is sleeping with a tossing and turning Poco when his longtime friend Nakajima Shinobu shows up for an impromptu fishing trip... at 3 AM. The trio cast their lines under the Red Lighthouse, but the fish just aren't biting. With a bored Poco playing nearby, Souta and Nakajima have a heart-to-heart about their thoughts on marriage and the future. When Souta sadly reveals that he might sell his childhood home and restaurant, Nakajima presses him to take over the restaurant, but Souta won’t give him a clear answer. Will Souta go through with selling the house? And what about Poco?