Anime / Pui Pui Molcar

Pui Pui Molcar is a Stop Motion series of shorts created by Shin-Ei Animation and directed by Tomoki Misato (previously known for his Tokyo University of the Arts short films Atashi Dake wo Mite and My Little Goat). The series began airing during the Winter 2021 season, with episodes uploaded weekly onto Bandai Namco Pictures' WONDER YouTube channel (known at the time as Bandai Namco Arts).

This series focuses on a world where Molcars, vehicles that look and act like giant guinea pigs, are the most common mode of transportation. Most episodes will follow them as they get through their day, but there will be plenty of wacky adventures awaiting them as well. Five Molcars maintain focus: the courageous Potato, the shy Shiromo, tomboyish Teddy, elegant Choco, and the greenhorn Abbey are the stars.

Netflix announced that they would be bringing the series worldwide in March. It made a proper television debut on the children's program Kinder TV in January. In addition, the DVD/Blu-ray home release announced two additional shorts that came with the original twelve episodes. Summer 2021 introduced a theatrical compilation film and a mobile game, with a second season confirmed for fall 2022. Titled Pui Pui Molcar: Driving School, this one follows the Molcars in a school setting, doing exercises and courses in preparation for becoming normal molcars.

Due to the short length of the episodes, all spoilers are unmarked.

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Tropes Present in Pui Pui Molcar:

• Aerith and Bob: The range of Molcar names leans heavily towards nonsense and regular pet names (Popomu, Potato, Shiromo) if they're not outright description names (Wasabi, for instance), but actual names sneak by sometimes. Even those range from somewhat rare (Teddy, Cher) to normal (Peter).
• Air-Vent Passageway: Episode 8 features vents big enough for two vehicle-sized guinea pigs to crawl through. Teddy and Choco successfully sneak into the villains' lair this way and get the drop on them.
• All Just a Dream: The events of Driving School episode 9 are revealed to be the result of a dream Shiromo or Peter was having as they were read a picture book by Shiromo's owner. However, the end of the episode calls this into question as Popomu comes into frame and pulls a moon carrot out of Shiromo.
• All There in the Manual:
  • The genders of the main Molcars are given in their descriptions. Potato and Shiromo are boys, and Teddy and Choco are girls. Abbey was unidentified but was revealed to be male in an article in Animage magazine.
  • All of the background Molcars have names and personalities as well, but they're explained away on the official Twitter and some merchandise.
  • The puzzle game introduces more information about the Molcars and their personalities that wouldn't otherwise be seen in-show. Popomu, in fact, has their powers foreshadowed by the game before they become relevant in Driving School episode 9.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Molcars come in all sorts of colors. Our main Molcars are more standard colors for real life guinea pigs, but more exotic colors (like purple or blue or chick yellow) show up quite often.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: The fate of Shiromo at the end of Episode 6 in which a zombie accidentally bites him, then gets zombified.
• Animal-Vehicle Hybrid: The Molcars themselves; they're car-sized guinea pigs with wheels instead of feet, and humans can get in and out of them and drive them like regular cars. Episode 11 reveals that Molcars are descended from real guinea pigs.
• April Fools' Day: 2022's celebration was a joke crossover with the Shonen Jump hit Jujutsu Kaisen. This gave way to an actual collaboration days later.
• Art Shift:
  • Whenever the humans are in a Molcar, they're presented as stop-motion clips of real-world people rather than the plastic miniatures they are everywhere else.
  • When Abbey imagines everyone laughing at his embarrassing new paint job in Episode 10, the humans and other Molcars are animated in 2D.
  • Peter's Nightmare Sequence in Driving School Episode 11 is done in hand-drawn animation.
• Ascended Extra: Rose, the Molcar with red windows and hoop earrings, becomes part of the main cast in Driving School. Downplayed in that she still largely serves as an ensemble character, with the driving school student Peter treated as the main extra instead.
• Ascended to Carnivorism: Episode 6 ends with Shiromo turning into a zombie, as well as immediately switching from nibbling on a lettuce leaf to stealing a giant beef patty from the human zombies that turned him.
• Back to School: The main Molcars (and Rose) have their licenses revoked for getting part of the city destroyed. As part of their punishment, they all must return to Driving School and relearn their basic driving skills.
• Bank Robbery: Episode 2 focuses on three goons who successfully robbed a bank and use Shiromo as their getaway car.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Not alien per se, but Molcars can see inside their interiors by rolling their eyes back into their head and looking out through their dashboard.
• Bland-Name Product: Molsan Restaurant is a pastiche of the Japanese restaurant chain Johnathan's. In Japanese, the names of both restaurants are sounded out similarly, and the logo of the former is the same color and style as that of the latter.
• Blatant Burglar: The bank robbers in Episode 2 all wear black while covering their faces with balaclavas. When they force Shiromo to be their getaway car, they make him wear a black mask over his eyes just to show that he's working for them.
• Bookends:
  • Just as the first episode of season 1 begins with Potato and his owner on their commute to work, its last episode begins with them coming home after a long day.
  • In the first and last episodes of Driving School, the first and last scenes respectively focus on the main Molcars going about their day in the city, only by the end they've learned proper driving etiquette.
• Brand X: The Animate parody in episode 10 is simply called "anime store".
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Shiromo seems to get the brunt of the series’ abuse, from being carjacked to being zombified. After all that he accidentally gets launched in the air during the big Molcar party, landing on the sofa where Potato's owner is sleeping, launching her in the air.
  • Abbey is next in line for bullying—from having a cat stuck inside of him, to having his share of a carrot stolen, to being blown up with rockets, and finally being turned into a Itasha on the day of his beginner sign removal.
• Call-Back:
  • One of the obstacles featured in the Molcar race in episode 5 is the pool made from the giant Molsan Restaurant logo. The obstacle is even placed near Molsan Restaurant.
  • When Teddy's scouter locks on to Treasure Hunter Molcar in episode 8, a picture of them at the Molcar wash from episode 7 appears.
  • A zombie Molcar is spotted among the traffic in episode 8 and among the skating Molcars in episode 9. Whether it's Shiromo or not is unclear, as its concept art is merely credited as "Zombie Molcar".
  • Two of the bank robbers from episode 2 show up as hired goons in episode 8.
  • The otaku's room in episode 10 has a rocket from episode 5 on the shelf.
  • As it turns out, the Molcars have driving errors that extend well beyond the season 2 opener—when they're being lectured in Driving School episode 3, the Oni instructor shows footage of misconduct from all over the first season, such as Teddy (after gaining a taste of trash) veering into a road and disturbing Himalayan Molcar in episode 4, the Molcars climbing over each other in episode 1, Shiromo's haphazard driving as a getaway car in episode 2, and the Molcars busting into a restaurant to cool off in episode 3.
  • Teddy is still equipped with bombs as of Driving School episode 5, confirming that the more fantastical episodes happened in some fashion.
  • Teddy still has a taste for trash in Driving School episode 7 and said episode also features a shark, in reference to episode 8, which had a flying robot shark.
  • Driving School episode 11 repeats the climax of the first season's first episode by having Peter at the center of a Molcar stampede whilst the female Driving School instructor sticks out of the window like Potato's owner does, even having the song "Run, Molcar!" play. In the background, Ponta gets hijacked and used as a getaway car like Shiromo in episode 2, and the next time that Molcar is shown, he has a medal commending his bravery (again, like Shiromo).
• Call-Forward:
  • Driving School episode 1 has a billboard on one of the buildings being knocked over advertising the clear underwater tunnels that episode 7 of the same season takes place in.
  • A poster for sports day can be briefly seen in Driving School Episode 4 which is done in episode 6 of the same season.
• Cat Up a Tree: In Episode 10, Abbey is upset about being turned into a Morumi-themed Itasha until he notices a cat stuck in a tree. Abbey channels the power of Morumi to save the cat, growing wings and rescues it when it falls out of the tree.
• Caught Up in a Robbery: Episode 2 is about Shiromo being hijacked by a couple of bank robbers using him as their getaway vehicle, as well as the Hot Pursuit between them and the police.
• Contrived Coincidence: In Driving School episode 8, focus is put on the Molcar Doohoo who keeps screwing up all of their driving tests. That same day, we see a woman who also is repeatedly failing all of her own driving tests, when she simply wants a Molcar to spend time with (and who, also coincidentally, imagines her ideal Molcar to look just like the episode's focus Molcar even having a stuffed toy of her ideal one). The two encounter each other, hit it off, and the Molcar gets adopted by her as a pet.
• Creator Cameo:
  • The guy who plays DJ Molcar's owner is Tomoki Misato, the series director.
  • Likewise, his sister's pet guinea pig Tsumugi, who provides all the voice samples for the Molcars, shows up as the guinea pig on the DJ Molcar driver's phone and as the guinea pig ancestor of the Molcars in episode 11.
• Crossover: Along with the Jujutsu Kaisen crossover in April 2022, Molcar collaborated with fellow Shin-Ei and similarly cutesy property Chimimo towards the end of the year, Tamagotchi for both seasons, and even Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.
• Cyborg:
  • The design of Time Machine Molcar has an element of this, as the rest of the Molcars are just made from needle felting. Its wheels have hex nuts for hubcaps, there are electronic components on its rear based on the Back to the Future DeLorean, has robotic guinea pig sounds, and has another hex nut in its left eye. The only eye it cries out of is its right one implying this trope.
  • It's implied that the moon rover Molcar is this, as it has robotic guinea pig sounds, and it's the only Molcar shown that can breathe in space without an apparatus.
• A Day in the Limelight: Some episodes spotlight certain Molcars.
  • Season 1:
    • Episode 1: Potato
    • Episode 2: Shiromo
    • Episode 3: Abbey
    • Episode 4: Teddy
    • Episode 5: all 5 main Molcars
    • Episode 7: Treasure Hunter Molcar
    • Episode 8: Teddy and Choco
    • Episode 10: Abbey
    • Episode 11: Time Machine Molcar
  • Driving School:
    • Episode 5: Postal Molcar and other work Molcars
    • Episode 8: Doohoo
    • Episode 9: Popomu, Peter and Shiromo
    • Episode 10: Cher
• Delicious Distraction: The Episode 2 robbers narrowly avoid arrest during their chase scene because they threw carrots at the police Molcars to keep them distracted. It works, and the cars are left confused while having their fill of vegetables.
• Depending on the Writer: Who drives in Abbey depends on the episode. In episode 3, it's a cat owner with a yellow polka dot apron. Episode 5 instead uses a racecar driver, while episode 10 features an Otaku man. However, the rocket in the latter's room implies the two may be the same person and in Driving School Episode 1, the Otaku being the racing driver is more heavily implied as he bought a pair of rockets and attached them to Abbey. Official art confirms that both the cat owner and racecar driver are the parents of the Otaku.
• The Dinnermobile: Episode 6 gives us Hamburger Molcar. A food truck Molcar who has a giant hamburger strapped to their back to match its burger products. Unfortunately, they are at the mercy of both hungry civilian Molcars and even hungrier zombies.
• Disaster Dominoes: Abbey, startled by a curious Rose, tries to get away from her. He accidentally steps on a can Potato was pushing around, causing the rockets strapped to his back to loosen and fly off. Teddy tries to catch one, but the force of the rocket is so strong that it sends her into the side of a building—which sets off a chain of buildings literally toppling like dominoes one after the other.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Attempted but subverted. The Oni instructor is a muscular and overly strict man who attempts to scare the Molcars into uniform, but when the instructor thinks he can ride in Potato he's forcefully shoved all around the Molcar's insides before being pooped out, then gets intimidated by the Molcars stacking themselves in a pyramid shape. The instructor now has a healthy fear of the Molcars and lets them go back to normal.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Postal Molcar shows up in the first shot of Episode 1 on the bottom right corner and makes their debut 16 episodes later in Driving School Episode 5.
  • Time Machine Molcar was first seen as one of the judges for some of the Molcars dancing on ice in episode 9 before officially debuting in episode 11.
  • Doohoo and Cher were first hinted at in Driving School episode 3 before making their appearances in episodes 8 and 10, respectively.
• Episode Title Card: The series uses Potato as a screen transition before showing off a cartoon-style title card.
• Expressive Accessory: In episode 10, Abbey's Morumi decal is just as shocked as he is when they spot a Cat Up a Tree.
• Failed a Spot Check: In Episode 12, Potato's owner briefly wakes up during the huge party Potato is hosting. The other Molcars hide, but they don't do a very good job of it. Potato's owner looks around and immediately goes back to sleep, since she's clearly too tired to realize what's going on.
• Feed It a Bomb: In Episode 8, Teddy defeats the robotic shark pursuing her, Choco and the long-haired Molcar by pooping out a fusion bomb which the shark immediately eats. A moment later, the bomb blows up the shark from the inside.
• Flashmob: Episode 9 has a fiance coordinate a Molcar ice show for his girl, in an effort to propose to her. She says yes, and they are somehow instantly wed and drive off into the sunset.
• Flowers of Femininity: Choco wears small blue flowers above her ears, indicating that she's female and also girlier than the tomboyish Teddy.
• The Freelance Shame Squad: When Abbey is spotted with an Itasha paint job by other Molcars and humans across the street, he imagines the crowd morphing into laughing silhouettes. In reality, though, they show concern when Abbey runs away in tears.
• Giant Food:
  • Human food is normal-sized, but vegetables made for Molcar consumption are several times larger than their regular counterparts. A single leaf of lettuce can get to the size of an average-height adult man!
  • Molcars associated with food also have giant food items on their backs, like the burger truck Molcar in episode 6, the Greengrocer Molcar in Driving School episode 5 and the sushi Molcar that has a shrimp in episode 9. Driving School episode 6 adds a few more sushi Molcars to the supporting cast such as one that has a Tamago, one that has a Gunkan Maki with Salmon roe, and a gag involving a tired Molcar named Shirley (who is textured like a ball of rice) walking into a sack (that looks like a tofu pouch) turning her into an energized Inarizushi Molcar. Their website character descriptions eventually defy this since all of the giant food the sushi Molcars carry with them are actually either fakes or something else entirely (Tamago Molcar's egg being its mattress, for example).
• Good-Times Montage: Used in Driving School Episode 10 after Cher chooses a loving family. This montage shows Peter hanging around with the former before the family adopts them.
• Graduate from the Story: The final episode of Driving School, fittingly, focuses on all of the Molcars at their graduation ceremony and getting their licenses reinstated, while Peter finally promotes into a beginner Molcar.
• Guilt by Association Gag: The first episode of Driving School ends with all the main Molcars having their licenses revoked. The only Molcar who wasn't directly involved with the town's destruction was Shiromo, who walked up to the scene after the damage had been done. He still gets thrown with the other Molcars anyway. His Driving School description even states that he didn't know why he was thrown in either.
• Hates Baths: Episode 7 focuses on Treasure Hunter Molcar who's covered in mud and dirt from pretending to be an Indiana Jones-style explorer, but refuses to go into the Molcar wash because they find it scary. The other Molcars and the Molcar wash operator convince them to go in by making a treasure map that leads to a golden carrot at the end of the wash.
• Hidden Depths: Driving School episode 12 reveals that the Oni instructor was once a movie star alongside Hi/Thumb, with the former rescuing the latter one day and being good friends with each other.
• Homage: Episode 11 is a sendup of Back to the Future, with its own doctor and spunky kid and a Molcar styled like a DeLorean (it lifts its curly hair to let people in and out, mimicking the DeLorean's gullwing doors).
• Homage Shot: Teddy performs a sliding stop that is framed like the bike stop scene from AKIRA after getting blown back by the Giant Flying Shark Robot's lasers in episode 8.
• Hot Pursuit: Like any good bank robbery, Episode 2 features one acted out by Shiromo and the police Molcars.
• Identical Stranger: The one-eyed Molcar Cher looks an awful lot like the Time Machine Molcar, despite none of Cher's backstory hinting towards science fiction being involved. It's confirmed that they are the same Molcar in Driving School episode 12 as Time Machine Molcar snuggles up to Peter despite Peter never meeting them before, which can only happen if the former is familiar with the latter.
• In Medias Res: Episode 6 wastes no time at all in establishing the zombie plot: it opens right in the middle of Teddy and Shiromo getting chased by a group of zombies.
• In Spite of a Nail: In Episode 11, despite the mess the time travellers caused in the past, the only change to the present that occurred is related to the sweater they gave to the giant Guinea Pig: all the Molcars in the present now wear a similar sweater.
• Internal Reveal: 13 episodes after it happened, Shiromo's owner finally learns about the robbery his Molcar went through. He's horrified and rushes to comfort Shiromo as much as he can.
• Itasha: Episode 10 has Abbey getting turned into a glittery pink Itasha with hearts and a Morumi decal. If anything, he would have rather liked to get a Superman Substitute or a Batman Parody makeover. It also shows the implications of doing this to somebody against their will (potential mockery). Either way, he still ends up a hero of some sort by channelling Morumi's power and saving a cat from falling, even if it's not the kind of hero he was expecting.
• Jump Scare: Episode 3 has one where the cat stuck inside Abbey pops up when the other Molcars take a look inside, freaking them out.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • The driver of DJ Molcar in Episode 1 gets trampled over by all the Molcars behind him when he holds up traffic long enough. He's then dogpiled by the police once he's out of his Molcar (which quickly abandoned him after he fell out).
  • Teddy's driver, on a whim, decided to feed her all his discarded trash. When that led to Teddy developing a taste for local trash instead, she gets so full from it that she has to poop it out, along with the driver, who sits in the pile of resulting pellets confused.
• Love Letter: Driving School episode 5 features a young man in love with the female Driving School instructor, seeking to tell her his feelings through a love letter. He loses it while he isn't looking, and a Postal Molcar eats it up. Later when that Molcar is supposed to be showing the Driving School students how to properly release mail, the love letter gets mixed in with the rest of the sample letters and eventually finds its way to the instructor. Luckily, it turns out she's made one of her own for the guy.
• Magical Girl: There's a Show Within a Show called Magica Morumi, which is about a guinea pig-themed magical girl. Abbey's owner turns him into an Itasha with a Morumi decal, which Abbey is very upset about at first since he wanted more of a superhero theme. Later on, Abbey channels Morumi's power to save a cat from falling out of a tree, complete with Transformation Sequence. It's implied that Morumi is actually sentient in her debut episode and in Driving School episode 4 when the Otaku pulls out his portable game's console with Morumi on it after putting Abbey into the VR simulation booth alongside Peter. When the simulation malfunctions thanks to Potato chewing on the big orange cable mistaking it for a carrot, Morumi points to the exact location where the cable was damaged, guiding the Otaku and disappears from the console (later comes back) to help Abbey and Peter both channelling her power and rescuing a virtual cat together.
• Meaningful Name: The 5 main Molcars are named after breeds and nicknames that relate to guinea pigs:
  • Potato is named after a common nickname for most guinea pigs.
  • Shiromo is short for white guinea pig in Japanese
  • Abbey and Teddy are named after the Abyssinian and Teddy breeds respectively.
  • Choco is chocolate-coloured.
• Medium Blending:
  • In Episode 11, the role of the giant guinea pig, ancestor to the Molcars, is played by a live-action guinea pig.
  • Driving School Episode 4 employs CG for the Virtual Reality environment with the Molcars green-screened into the render.
• Mime and Music-Only Cartoon: The series has music, the guinea pig noises the Molcars make, and some sounds from human characters like laughter or screaming, but no actual dialogue.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Pre-series trailers sometimes did this. One notable example had the more mundane scenes from future episodes play first, then abruptly cuts to a fast-paced, explosion-filled scene— and then immediately went back to cutesy antics.
  • The first episode is mostly kind of wacky and cutesy until we get the Wham Shot of the ambulance Molcar showing Potato, the critically unconscious woman, and her grieving male companion inside of it.
  • The second episode takes a stark shift in tone when the bank robbers force Shiromo at gunpoint to be their getaway car, causing him to tear up in fear.
  • Acts as a Mood Killer in Driving School Episode 5—the lovestruck boy and the Driving School instructor have finally confessed to one another, Peter's learned how to properly poop out a letter like a postal Molcar would, and everyone is happy...that is, until Teddy accidentally poops out a bomb. It doesn't go off, but it scares the daylights out of everyone. This is coupled with a Smash Cut to the credits.
• Moon Rabbit: Shiromo, Peter, and Popomu find one while exploring the Moon in Driving School episode 9. They follow it around because it pilfered a moon carrot they wanted to eat, and eventually leads them back to the astronauts they came to the moon with when the trio get lost.
• Motivational Lie: In order to get Treasure Hunter Molcar to face their fears of the Molcar wash, the others (including one of the Molcar wash employees) make them think there's a golden carrot inside of the Molcar wash.
• Nap Inducing Speech: Implied to be DJ Molcar's reaction to the graduation ceremony in Driving School episode 12 and also the reason why they pushed the Oni instructor aside and put up a party.
• Non-Standard Character Design: The moon rover Molcar has no side and rear windows (the rear has a pack), its front windscreen resembles a space shuttle's windscreen and can only be ridden on at the top.
• Not What It Looks Like: Towards the end of episode 2, when the cops show up to arrest the bank robbers, Shiromo (who was forced to be the getaway car) crouches down in fear when the cops approach him, thinking he's in trouble. In reality, due to his role in their arrest (unintentionally pooping a money trail all the way to their hideout), the cops just wanted to give him a medal.
• Once an Episode: You really can't go one episode without making the poor Molcars cry. Even when it's not due to stress or fear, they somehow work tears into the episode.
• One-Steve Limit: Barring the Police Molcars, we only get to see one of each Molcar at a time and all Molcars are unique.
• Otaku: Abbey's owner is a stereotypical anime otaku who's so obsessed with an in-universe Magical Girl show called Magica Morumi that he turns Abbey into a glittery pink Itasha with a Morumi decal. He later parks Abbey outside of a Brand X version of Animate, a Japanese anime store chain.
• Out of Focus: Out of all the main Molcars throughout season 1, Choco is the least focused on. Each Molcar had a spotlight episode to show off their personality and a designated owner, but Choco usually played supporting roles despite having her own unique character description, and the people who take care of her wouldn't be identified in-show until Driving School.
• Parody Episode: Starting with Episode 5, there is a series of episodes of genre parodies. Ep. 5 is The Big Race, Ep. 6 combines the Zombie Apocalypse with a side-helping of Mad Max, Ep. 7 is a Raiders of the Lost Parody, Ep. 8 is a Spy Flick, and Episode 11 is a time travel story.
• Partially Civilized Animal: The series is about giant guinea pigs that primarily act like the small versions of their kind, but are capable of communication (albeit through squeaking), the ability to use tools and weapons, and an understanding of pop culture.
• Power-Up Food: The race in episode 5 had Boost Carrots, carrots with a yellow zig-zag stripe in the middle that grants super-speed. They seem to be literal power-ups, as one floats in the middle of the course like a Racing Game item box. One gets used by the Oni Instructor in the Driving School finale who fed it to Hi/Thumb to relive the days of them both being action movie stars.
• Production Throwback: Among other advertisements in this universe, Misato's previous award-winning short My Little Goat has posters around town.
• Prone to Tears: See Once an Episode above.
• Punny Name: Molcars are in part named after the Japanese word for guinea pigs (morumotto, a corruption of Marmot) and a vehicle pun (the moto in morumotto sounds like "motor", and motors are used in cars).
• Pyrrhic Victory: Defied: Abbey winds up winning The Big Race, but he doesn't care; he's too upset about not getting any of the spilled Boost Carrots to notice... and then it turns out the prize for first place is a giant salad-filled trophy. And while excited about the development, it takes seeing the other Molcars' shocked expressions to convince Abbey to share.
• Raiders of the Lost Parody: Episode 7 is about Treasure Hunter Molcar, who wears a fedora that goes on pretend adventures looking for a golden carrot. The world looks like a big temple in its imagination, and it sees everyday occurrences as exciting obstacles and traps to overcome. The actual premise of the episode, however, is about enticing it to go to the Molcar wash because of all the accumulated mud and crud on itself after all of those adventures and being terrified about it. Driving School episode 5 shows it's not entirely imaginary as it's an actual job meaning some of their adventures are Real After All.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Come on, who doesn't love these giant guinea pigs?
• Series Mascot: If any Molcar is the focus of marketing, it's Potato. He is front and center in the announcement trailer and in the opening animation, but he also gets the most consistent merchandise.
• Shout-Out:
  • Occasionally, you will see posters with Molcars swapped for various vehicles. Among the most prominent are Molformers and MOLKIRA.
  • Abbey's brief fight with Choco over a carrot (and the way Abbey loses the carrot) is a near shot for shot remake of a popular viral video starring guinea pigs doing the same with some greens.
  • Episode 8's title, "MOL MISSION", is a reference to Sky Mission, the Japanese title of Furious 7. The Molcars dropping from the helicopter likewise references the deployment of the cars in the same film.
  • In Episode 10, Abbey hopes to get a superhero-style paint job after his beginner's sign removal, first imagining himself as Superman and then as Batman.
  • The way in which the Molcars are transported to the Driving School in Driving School episode 1 references Full Metal Jacket, and the first shot of the school itself is framed like one of the shots from Escape from Alcatraz.
  • The Driving School Molcars Hi, Fu, and Mii are called Thumb, Shoe, and Knee respectively in the official English versions of their names. Their names are actually a reference to "This Old Man", in which a body part that the Old Man plays knick-knack on is associated with a number. He plays it on his thumb on 1, his shoe on 2, and his knee on 3.
  • The English title of Driving School Episode 2 is The White Molcars Strike Back.
  • Driving School episode 5 has a scene of the Greengrocer Molcar's owner keeping the Driving School Molcars from eating their produce, in a manner similar to the "Prattkeeping" scene (of Owen Grady calming down his velociraptors) in Jurassic World.
  • Driving School Episode 7 references Jaws, with its own Threatening Shark named George.
  • The design of Action Molcar is based on a car from Mad Max.
• Shown Their Work:The series shows that the Molcars are basically giant guinea pigs in different ways:
  • Molcars poop out pellets like real Guinea pigs, the shape of the pellets differing between genders.
  • In Episode 1, The Ambulance Molcar wheeled around to show Potato her rear window. Many guinea pig owners would've thought she would pee in his face.
  • Driving School episode 1 begins with Rose running right up Abbey's butt, with similarly accurate jumpy reactions from the latter.
  • Driving School episode 3 has Shiromo's driver pulling out the Mol-Lettuce with the Molcars behaving like they were in a real-life guinea pig herd.
  • In Driving School Episode 4, Potato chews on the cable connecting to the simulator, mistaking it for a carrot. This is in line with real-life guinea pigs, where if left in an area with cables, they chew on them.
• Show Within a Show: A few in-universe productions get advertisements everywhere, like Molkira or Molformers, but a non-existing IP by the name of Magica Morumi, a Magical Girl anime, gets some spotlight too. Abbey becomes an itasha adorning Morumi on the day of his beginner's sign removal, which upsets him at first since he wanted a superhero theme.
• Signature Sound Effect: "Pui", as written in the title, is how the series transcribes a guinea pig's squeaks (a piece of Japanese onomatopoeia). And since the Molcars are rather noisy creatures, you'll be hearing it a lot.
• Significant Birth Date: Cher was born on December 7th, which happens to be the same day Back to the Future was released in Japan. Given that she and the Time Machine Molcar look very similar, one doesn't have to guess hard to see the connections.
• Skewed Priorities: In Driving School episode 9, Shiromo, Peter, and Popomu wander around the moon and eventually get attracted to a carrot that grew there. They are not only oblivious to the fact that they can't eat the carrot without risking their lives, but actively fight over it and confusedly keep trying to pick at it even when it's clear their breathing apparatuses are getting in the way of their mouths.
• Snow Means Love: Episode 9 centers around a man trying to propose to his girlfriend on a snowy day.
• Spanner in the Works: The robbers' otherwise perfect robbery was unintentionally foiled by their getaway car, Shiromo. His pooping out the money in stress left a trail for the police to follow, leading them to the robbers' hideout and allowing them to get Shiromo out safely while arresting the goons.
• Stuff Blowing Up:
  • Parodied: Episode 3 ends with a swarm of Molcars rushing into a restaurant and ramming into the soda fountains, causing a geyser of soda that turns into a makeshift swimming pool.
  • Episode 8 plays this trope straight with a giant robot shark shooting lasers, blowing up a helicopter, then getting blown up itself after it swallows a bomb that Teddy poops out.
• Sudden Downer Ending: Episode 6 nearly ends with the food truck Molcar getting Shiromo and Teddy to split the burger with the zombies, with the Molcars taking the veggies while the zombies chow down on the meat. This works out well... up until a zombie accidentally nibbles on Shiromo's ear, that is. Teddy and the food truck flee for their lives, the newly-zombified Shiromo chases his former friends while running off with the rest of the patty, and the zombies are now still hungry and in hot pursuit.
• Theme Music Power-Up: Episode 1 has the series theme, "Run, Molcar!" , kick in when Potato helps the ambulance and starts a stampede to clear the traffic jam.
• Toilet Humor: Since the show clearly demonstrates that the Molcars are just large guinea pigs, there are some jokes about them leaving pellets everywhere when they eat.
  • Episode 2 has Shiromo poop out the robbers' stolen money in stress (with the robbers discovering that there's hardly any money left by the time they get to their hideout).
  • Episode 4 has Teddy get so backed up by eating trash that she has to go to the bathroom to eject it all (her driver included, much to his disgust). The climax of Episode 8 even has Teddy defeat a mechanical shark by pooping out a fusion bomb that blows it up from the inside.
  • Driving School episode 5 spends the second half of the episode on the Molcars learning how to properly release letters like a Postal Molcar. "Proper" procedure would be to poop out a single letter, but loose enough that it can regain its original form upon release. The episode also reveals that Teddy still has her butt bombs.
• Too Fast to Stop: When Teddy eats a Boost Carrot during the Molcar race, she goes so fast that she runs straight into a wall.
• Trademark Favourite Food: Wasabi's favourite food is a cucumber as stated in its description. They are only seen chewing on a slice in episode and in Driving School episode 6, a whole one is used in the relay for Wasabi.
• Training Montage: Episode 10 begins with a brief montage of Abbey working out with barbells and a punching bag, hoping that he'll become a superhero once he gets his beginner's sign removed. Unfortunately, his owner turns him into a glittery pink Itasha instead.
• Triumphant Reprise: The theme, "Run, Molcar!", gets one of these titled "Then, and the Future us and You" in Driving School episode 12 when the Oni instructor feeds Hi/Thumb a boost carrot and then gets in, both reliving the days of an action movie they were cast in.
• Two Girls to a Team: the series has Teddy and Choco as the two girls among the five main Molcars. Season 2 upgrades this into a Gender-Equal Ensemble with the addition of the Ascended Extra Rose...or at least appears to, since Rose quickly becomes a background character again while the male Peter is added to the cast.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Molcars, despite their size, are terrified of house cats. Abbey is shocked to learn he has a cat inside of him in Episode 3, but if Episode 10 is any indication, his experience saving Episode 3's cat allowed the Molcar to tolerate them.
• Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: Abbey eventually wasn't even trying to win episode 5's big race. His driver's rockets blew up on him, and when the other Molcars abandon the race in favor of eating stray carrots, Abbey's inability to get food causes him to absentmindedly wander off to the finish line in shame.
• "YEAH!" Shot:
  • Episode 1 ends with Potato jumping at the camera after he caused a Molcar stampede in the hopes of getting an ambulance Molcar to the hospital.
    • Driving School episode 11 also ends like this. See Call-Back above.
  • Episode 6 also has a shot like this, but played much less positively; Teddy, Shiromo, and the burger Molcar jump just as they're being chased by the zombie horde and the newly zombified Shiromo.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Episode 6 focuses on Teddy and Shiromo navigating through one and protecting a Molcar food truck from hungry zombies. Funny enough, you can actually see some zombies in crowd shots prior to episode 6.

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