The Fall 2024 Anime Preview Guide

Kinokoinu - Mushroom Pup

It's early yet, both in Preview Guide and in the day, but Kinokoinu - Mushroom Pup is an early contender for the strangest show of the season. Hotaru, a writer, is grieving the loss of his last remaining family member: Hanako, his pet dog of 17 years. Two months after her ing, a pink mushroom growing in his yard pops out of the ground, revealing a walking, sentient mushroom in the shape of a puppy.

It's bizarre! It's not a concept that should work! Yet, maybe because I've had to say goodbye to pet dogs in my life and because there are multiple fresh sources of grief in my life, but I wept watching it. Hotaru spacing out during a book g, the flashbacks to his life with Hanako, the feeling of emptiness that pervades the big house where he lives alone… it got to me. The background music went further to highlight the mood of the scenes, and it was just too much for my heart.

But even as the tears rolled down my cheeks, I was unsure if Kinokoinu had the juice to sustain itself for a full season. Focus obsessively on the grieving process, and it becomes schmaltzy or, even worse, sadstuck. On the other hand, without that element, it doesn't have much to do other than be a cute slice-of-life about a man and his slightly uncanny dog-shaped mushroom. While I know quite a few people who would vibe with that concept, "kind of surreal, heartwarming slice-of-life" just doesn't do much for me.

Boy howdy, was this one a disappointment! I was all-in on the concept of the adorable mushroom dog from the moment I saw Kinokoinu's trailer; the Mushroom Pup was the part of the show that I figured I'd like the most, honestly! Having seen the premiere, though, while Kinokoinu is pretty cute, I never expected this show to be such a freakin' bummer, man. Also, Kinokoinu? He's kind of a monster!

To be fair, I'm still a bit touchy about dead pet stories, even though it's been a full two years since I lost my cute little guy. Hafter losing his beloved canine companion, Hotaru is definitely showing signs of severe post-pet-lost depression, and he's barely had a couple of months to process his loss. I don't begrudge the story taking its time to show how low Hotaru is at this point in his grief, and the anime does as good job of putting us in his dreary headspace, but man, it just isn't very fun to watch. It's not even compellingly depressing in an artistic way, either; the experience mostly just reminds me of those regular everyday grief days where things just kind of suck in a quiet and nebulous way that there's no way to fix.

Again, I don't necessarily consider this a “flaw” on Kinokoinu's part, since the mood is clearly an intentional choice, but what I do think is a problem is the way the premiere doesn't manage to pick up the pace or provide any kind of meaningful shift in tone after our protagonist finds himself the owner of a magical, sentient mushroom-abomination that is vaguely shaped like a dog. His editor is thankfully reasonable enough to at least be curious (and somewhat concerned) about Kinokoinu's arrival, but Hotaru just can't be bothered to care, because of… well, you get the idea. Given the mushroom dog's design and the general way these sorts of cartoons tend to go, you'd think that the little pup would liven things up a little but the premiere is as lugubrious as ever right until the very end, all the way through the scene where Kinokoinu burns Hotaru's mementos of his old dog to help him “move on”.

Look, I get what the show is trying to do, and the guy is clearly struggling to cope with his grief, but this episode simply doesn't go far enough to make its titular pooch likeable or compelling enough to earn the catharsis of this moment, so the whole sequence comes across as creepy instead of moving. The mushroom-thing is just standing there, tossing the dead dog's collar into the fire, staring coldly into Hotaru's eyes, and the effect was personally a little horrifying. Maybe I'm just too involved and can't imagine forgiving a creature for violating my treasured memories like that. Or, maybe, Kinokoinu just isn't that good. Watch the episode yourself, and then you can make the call!