A young orphaned talking tanuki (or in English a raccoon dog). Utsuho deduces that he is able to talk because foxes and tanuki are more like spirits then animals. Pochi is trusting, naïve and very cute which is a strange traveling companion to one who never trusts easily or tells the truth. He loves to paint, has a large appetite and an over-active imagination. He is very sentimental, even with people he's only known for a short time. When first seen in book 1, Pochi is found caught in a trap and is released and healed by Utsuho. He tried to save his mother from a greedy trapper on many occasions though the man kept lying to him and trapping him. Utsuho said as he saved Pochi the second time in book 1 (a revised quote of the trapper), "Someone who gets tricked is a fool, someone who trusts is an even bigger fool, but if you get tricked and tricked again and still trust, that's cool." He is offered a chance to travel with Utsuho after they bury his mother and he accepts saying, "Some lies may not be sad." Source: Wikipedia