YMMV / Pui Pui Molcar

• Awesome Music: "Run, Molcar!", played whenever a Molcar stampede happens, perfectly captures the whimsical, irreverent and unhinged tone of the anime. It's considered by many as the defacto theme tune of the series.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Despite only showing up in the beginning and end of Episode 2, Shiromo's owner is beloved for his brief but heartwarming moments with his Molcar. That's to say nothing of Shiromo himself being the dark horse among the five main Molcars.
  • Teddy's owner, despite his actions in episode 4, is also one of the few owners who gets a lot of fanart.
• Fanon:
  • Most fanart operates under the rule that all the characters are proportional to real-life heights. If anything, the show implies the opposite; Episode 10 has Abbey's barbells measured in grams (of which his limit is 100-200g) while other scenes show how small they are in comparison to other human objects.
  • Artwork of Abbey's owners flip flop on whether they want to make the woman with the yellow apron or the Otaku Abbey's primary human. To solve this, many fanartists reason that Abbey is a family car, and the woman is instead the Otaku's wife or mother since both share similar color palettes. This seems to be confirmed in merchandise and other official art made after Season 1, where both the Otaku and the woman are depicted together with Abbey in certain images. For the purpose of Driving School however, the Otaku is the primary driver. Further information revealed that the Otaku was related to the woman as everyone expected, but he and the racecar driver are also related as father and son and he is the woman's husband.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • Guinea pigs have been used in medical testing because of how similar their biochemistry is to humans, so it's not that big a stretch that the zombie virus can also affect Molcars.
    • Additionally, a zombie Molcar can be seen in episodes 8 and 9 outside of the zombie apocalypse most likely Shiromo because he was absent beginning from episode 7 until the end of episode 11. How exactly are they civil? According to the bio of Zombie Shiromo, it says that "He's able to eat meat. But he doesn't really care about it." meaning that Zombie Molcars can also eat vegetables.
  • In Episode 8, Treasure Hunter Molcar is the Badass in Distress. Why would the criminals lock them up? They were probably trying to get information from the former about some treasures they found. Treasure hunting is a real job, as revealed in Driving School Episode 5 so they have likely known them before.
  • Time Machine Molcar is seen as one of the judges in episode 9. Considering that the Molcars who were skating elegantly on the ice were luxury Molcars, and TMM is Cher (who's a luxury Molcar), it makes for a fitting choice.
  • Driving School episode 5 has the main Molcars doing job tryouts, the picks for each main one make sense:
    • Potato and Ambulance Molcar because the former helped the latter.
    • Potato Teddy and Peter and the Greengrocer Molcar. Peter has never been in a job before, Potato can be tempted and Teddy is an Extreme Omnivore.
    • Abbey and Choco tryout the police patrol because Abbey has a strong sense of justice (alongside Morumi) and Choco has good physical skill.
    • Treasure Hunter Molcar and Potato because the latter can be adventurous sometimes.
    • Rose and Shiromo with Taxi Molcar because the former likes to be a luxury Molcar and for Shiromo, it's the simplest job.
    • Potato, Abbey and DJ Molcar. Potato invited the latter to the Molcar party in the season 1 finale and Abbey likes to be cool as shown in season 1, episode 10.
• Funny Moments: Abbey receiving another beginner's sign with it being placed on his own in Driving School Episode 12.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Shiromo and his owner's relationship is considered this, with the latter being a Nice Guy towards the former. A highlight is when Shiromo's owner was shown that Shiromo was carjacked in a robbery and goes to comfort him.
  • Abbey saving cats despite most Molcars actually fearing them in episode 3, episode 10 and a virtual one in Driving School episode 4, showing that Abbey genuinely cares about them.
  • The whole of Driving School episode 8 is one of these. It involves the student Molcar Doohoo who keeps failing the tests in school and ran away to a corner. There is also a would-be Molcar owner that also failed her tests (with her Imagine Spot having good times with a Molcar that looked like the previously mentioned one and even having a model of them). She then runs to the same corner, meets the failed Molcar, fed them a carrot and took them home, all with a playground set up.
  • Cher being Happily Adopted by a loving family after being abandoned by his previous owners and went to the driving school as an honour student in Driving School Episode 10. Peter's admiration for Cher is also sweet, with the former wanting to play with the latter. Later, they hang about with each other, and Cher gets picked up by the previously mentioned loving family.
  • The main Molcars encouraging Peter to practise signalling in Driving School Episode 11 after Peter's nightmare wakes him up and allows him to conquer his fear.
  • Time Machine Molcar coming to see Peter after being assigned a beginner's mark in Driving School Episode 12 and snuggling with him, confirming that the former is actually Cher.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • This wouldn't be the first time guinea pigs were used to collect and drive a bunch of cash in a money heist, with The Bad Guys (2022) coming out the following year. At least Shiromo wasn't brainwashed...
  • Molcar was often compared to Tamagotchi due to similar aesthetics and the fact Bandai Namco have involvements in them. Come late 2021, a Tamagotchi Nano model with included Molcar was released in Japan and later a TamaSma card for the Tamagotchi Smart platform containing the Molcars which are special buddies.
  • One of the recurring film parodies in this series is one for the Transformers franchise. In 2023, it looks like Hasbro's taken notice, and they've made Potato an honorary Beast Transformer in their crossover commercial for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Humans are fools" is a common reaction among Japanese communities to the human characters in the series and how consistently despicable they are compared to the Molcars, as well as chronicling the many crimes that they commit in almost every episode (bank robbery, leaving pets in hot Molcars, littering, dangerous car mods, texting while driving, causing the downfall of society through a zombie apocalypse...). Part of the reason why Shiromo's owner is so popular is that he's such a credit to his race by being a kind and loving owner.
  • "Ass-car" (or "Ketsucar") is a rather popular joke among fan artists, in which a character will have a Molcar face drawn on their butt cheeks because of the similarities between the shapes of butts and Molcar faces. And yes, this does extend to...racier artworks.
• Moe: Shiromo's helplessness and adorable vulnerability made him the fan favorite. All of the Molcars, by extension, are just as cuddly, excitable, gullible, and easily spooked as real guinea pigs, which makes you want to give them a big hug.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • The ending of episode 1, where Potato helps an ambulance Molcar get past a traffic jam caused by DJ Molcar and their owner. Potato picks the ambulance up, throws them up onto Shiromo and lets them go over all the other Molcars. Potato follows suit, climbs onto and over Shiromo, with all the other Molcars following, creating a stampede. This results in DJ Molcar being trampled, ejecting his owner and running away whilst the latter gets arrested. We cut back to the ambulance Molcar and the stampede behind them on another spread of road. Cue "YEAH!" Shot and Iris Out on Potato.
  • Shiromo unintentionally foiling the robbers plans in Episode 2 by pooping out the money out of stress.
  • Abbey saving a cat left in him, despite being afraid of them, by heading into the Molsan Restaurant and creating a pool in Episode 3.
  • Teddy wastes no time rushing into a garage and putting on a piece of armour with a Gatling gun attached to her back in Episode 6. The Gatling gun actually scares the zombies away when it fires. Small wonder why Shiromo looks up to her.
  • The whole of the Mol Mission in episode 8 is full of this:
    • Teddy and Choco being airlifted inside of a helicopter towards the building housing Treasure Hunter Molcar hostage, then crawling through an air vent to get there.
    • They then scare away the robbers who were guarding their hostage.
    • After escaping the building, the three Molcars attempt to escape and get out, but their helicopter was shot down by a Giant Flying Shark Robot, and Teddy was blown back by one of its lasers, performing a sliding stop.
    • She is then flung up into the air and manages to poop a fusion bomb into the robot's belly, blowing it up from the inside.
  • Abbey, despite being glum about being turned into an Itasha, manages to save another cat by channeling Morumi's power, complete with transformation sequence in episode 10.
  • The Molcars standing up against the Oni instructor in Driving School episode 2 after how he treated them during this episode.
  • Abby and Peter's rescue of a virtual cat in Driving School episode 4 with the help of Morumi.
  • Teddy saving a Shark's life in Driving School episode 7. Upon realising that the shark was cranky because it ate too much trash, Teddy crashes through a wall of the glass underwater tunnel and into the belly of the beast despite being told not to by the instructor. Teddy then eats the trash and then gets the shark to take her to shore.
  • Peter overcoming his fear of going onto an actual road in Driving School Episode 11. The ending is also framed like the ending of episode 1.
  • Time Machine Molcar going back in time and space to celebrate the graduation ceremony in the Driving School finale, equipped with a pair of confetti cannons and to also meet up with Peter again.
• Quirky Work: It's a series of shorts about the misadventures of guinea pig cars. Not cars in the shape of guinea pigs, mind: guinea pigs in the shape of cars, that walk on their wheels, have windows built into their skin, and poop out trunk cargo when stressed. Sometimes it just follows a typical day for them, but other times they can be squaring off with zombies or participating in high-octane action movie stunts. Think Tamagotchi with the design aesthetics of Cars.
• Signature Scene: The scene where the robbers hold up, and Shiromo's comically shocked reaction to it, drew the most attention to the series and helped get it viral.
• Sweet Dreams Fuel: The animation has an element of charm with its hand made aesthetic, and the character designs are simple but expressive.
• Tear Jerker: Cher's past as revealed in Driving School episode 10. A family once owned him with a girl who played with her. The girl's father, however, decided to kick the ball down a slope, resulting in Cher trying to get the ball, but ends up getting injured and losing her left eye with the family leaving. She then found the driving school, where she was nurtured as an honor student.
• The Woobie: Poor Shiromo gets this treatment greatly thanks to his Butt-Monkey status. Getting carjacked, being zombified, and even being accidentally launched off a seesaw during the Molcar party in the season 1 finale, launching Potato's owner onto another Molcar. Good thing his owner is caring towards him, which is the reason why he is an Ensemble Dark Horse.

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