Die Abenteuer des kleinen Panda - Der Zirkus im Regen

This short film sees Mimiko, Papa and Pappy return for another story. As it begins two men turn up at Mimiko's house looking for a tiger cub that has escaped from the circus... they are surprised when they are confronted by Mimiko and the pandas and flee. Mimiko isn't frightened; she assumes they were just burglars! Soon they discover the tiger cub, named Tiny, and Panny has a new friend. Tiny and Panny head to the circus when there is a bit of a scare when Panny ends up in Tiny's mother's cage. Mimiko and the pandas hope to visit the circus the next day but heavy rain leaves the area flooded and they end up having to save a trainload of circus animals from the rising waters.

If you enjoyed 'Panda! Go Panda!' you'll want to watch this as it is the same characters in a new little story. The introduction of Tiny, the tiger cub, was fun and provided a good reason for the story line. The main characters are much the same as before; cute and provided a good number of laughs and very mild scares. The animation is good and the backgrounds, while relatively simple compared to the creators' later Ghibli work, are effective. It is clearly aimed at younger viewers but it contains the sort of humour that can appeal to people of any age and is totally inoffensive. Overall I'd recommend this to all fans of family friendly anime.

These comments are based on watching the film in Japanese with English subtitles. Of note; on the UK-Manga DVD release this is combined with 'Panda! Go Panda!' to make a single film... this story begins at chapter ten.