Although the series is now available on Netflix, people miss Pui Pui Molcar! So much, in fact, that Molcar has been trending on Twitter every week at its normal time as fans have shared their own imaginary episodes of everyone’s favorite stop-motion anime about guinea pig cars.
Every Tuesday, for me, was Molcar Day. I made a point of making sure people I knew also shared in the joys of Molcar Day, by tweeting about every new episode. Evidently, I wasn’t alone in this, as the series would regularly become a number 1 trend on the social media service with every episode being released. Unfortunately, the show ended last month after just 12 episodes, and people clearly missed it in the time it was gone.
Every week since then, while not to the extent it was when the series was still on TV and YouTube, Molcar has continued to trend on Twitter every Tuesday. Except instead of talking about the episode that was airing, fans were making their own.
In what can only be described as a grand social experiment, everyone would claim they had seen the latest numbered episode of Molcar. They’d talk about how great the episode was and describe the plot of what they ‘saw’ in detail, some even sharing drawings or recreations of screens from the ‘episode’.
先々週→モルカー13話トレンド入り
先週→モルカー14話トレンド入り
今週→モルカー15話トレンド入り
みんなどこでモルカー見てるんだ— Maks (@makusu_210) April 12, 2021
Some of these have been rather interesting ideas as well, capturing the cute craziness that defined the series during its brief run, while some have emulated the time-traveling, movie-parodying moments of later episodes.
User @fuwa_mochi, for example, put together a drawing summarizing their episode where Shiromo was trapped in a wall and crying, requiring the help from other Molcar to free them from their unfortunate circumstances.
モルカー13話の感想絵 pic.twitter.com/QyYSyxIQqK
— もちこ (@fuwa_mochi) March 30, 2021
An idea for episode 14 saw Choco lose their flower earrings in the wind, making them sad till they found new earrings. Sometimes these spread to parody, like @NekosouL_kobo’s idea for a Final Fight episode for episode 15.
モルカー14話「おしゃれ大作戦」可愛かった〜☺️耳飾り無くしちゃったチョコちゃんがしょんぼりしてるのは可哀想だったけど、みんなでお花畑行って新しい耳飾り探すの可愛かった〜🌻🌻🌻結局テディが食べてたの草だったけどwww#モルカー #モルカー14話 #モルカーファンアート #PUIPUIモルカー pic.twitter.com/umYlbPAGbQ
— いちこ (@ichikoccss) April 5, 2021
#モルカー15話 『ファイナルプイプイ』
壮絶なアクション回!一瞬たりとも目が離せなかったです!!
特にラストシーンでブレッドが親指を立てながら溶鉱炉に沈んでいくシーンは涙無しには見られなかった……
(`;ω;´)ゞ#FinalFight #ファイナルファイト#PUIPUIモルカー pic.twitter.com/BiWSF2VpJE— [email protected]工房 (@NekosouL_kobo) April 13, 2021
In some cases, fans on Twitter went the extra mile, creating their own Molcar and physical recreations of episodes. Also for episode 15, user @fuwa_mo created new designs for Molcar and had all the Molcar meet for hanami, shared alongside an image of all their own hand-crafted Molcar around sakura petals. And they weren’t alone in sharing hand-crafted Molcar.
#モルカー 15話、春らしいいいお花見会でしたね。
テディちゃんがお弁当みんな食べちゃった時はどうなることかと思ったけれど、その後畜生が沢山の食べ物を持ってきてくれてみんなで楽しくお花見できてよかった…
#モルカー15話#モルカーファンアート pic.twitter.com/nUrNwCoXPf— ゆえゆえ@ハムスターは美味しい (@fuwa_mo) April 12, 2021
モルカー14話に出てくるリボンモルカーちゃんを一足お先につくりました☺️#モルカーファンアート#モルカー14話 pic.twitter.com/PD1acmfPfD
— とりにく (@mol_yakitori) March 31, 2021
Of course, that trend continued this week. @hiyokoblack shared a spooky episode idea on Twitter, for example, featuring ghost Molcar!
モルカー16話。おばけ屋敷の怖い幽霊モルカーにびっくりして毛が超絶逆立ったまま直らなくてずっとジト目だった不機嫌アビー可愛かったですね!そのあともっと凄い逆立ち毛になったままの冒険モルカーが出て来たのは超笑った。所であのシロモ似の幽霊はシロモなのそうじゃないのどっち!生きてて!! https://t.co/LPWiDYatDR pic.twitter.com/4lUEKK1Gws
— 高川ヨ志ノリ 4/11〜幻さんの企画で販売 BOOTH通販中 (@hiyokoblack) April 19, 2021
In the end, it’s representative of the passion shared by people for Molcar during its run, that’s now being expanded on Twitter beyond the scope of the series. We saw this creative spark when the show was airing, and the end of the series isn’t stopping these people.
Whether we’ll ever get more Molcar remains to be seen. It would seem inevitable, but with director Tomoki Misato now running his own stop-motion team at WIT Studio, it may not share the same creative team even if it does happen. At least we have the memories and the togetherness the series has evidently conjured up between people. All because of guinea pig cars.