It was a peaceful night in the tanuki village of Toyoda. The Moon shone gently down on the lazy waters of the river that flowed through the middle of the village. Unfortunately, none of the tanuki were awake to see it... except for Maruko.
Maruko Futobara couldn't sleep. Shi'd recently gone through a difficult breakup, that was putting hir under a lot of stress. One of the worst things about was Maruko had gotten so stressed that it was wreaking havoc on hir appetite and metabolism. To Maruko and hir parents' horror, shi was losing weight like crazy! Hir 5'5" body had shrunk down from a voluptuous 210 pounds to a barely even soft 137 pounds. Worse, seeing hir reflection in the mirror or getting an earful from hir parents just stressed Maruko out more, creating a vicious cycle of stress and weight loss.
Maruko sat naked on the edge of the bridge over the village river. Shi dipped hir furry toes into the water, and shi tossed crumbs from the evening dinner shi hadn't been able to finish to the koi. Maruko stroked hir huge nutsack as shi brooded over 73 pounds shi'd lost. Shi didn't even look like a tanuki anymore; shi was practically skinny! Shi thought of all her pleasingly plump siblings, and shi wept.
Maruko idly shifted into hir human form, but quickly regretted it. Shi found shi hated hir fucked up body even more without the familiar weight of hir cock and balls. Shi swiftly returned to hir anthro raccoon dog shape.
Suddenly, Maruko spotted what looked like a piece of paper nailed to a tree on the riverbank. Curious and in need of a distraction, shi went to investigate. It turned out to be a flyer for Kyodainayokai-beya, Kyūri Sensei's famous sumo school in Kyoto's extensive yokai community. Maruko had heard many tales of the old kappa's pupil's successes in both wrestling and weight gain.
Maruko saw an opportunity to both find a new purpose for hirself and get back hir old figure. Shi'd be beautiful again and have a shot at becoming a star of the yokai sumo world. Oh wouldn't THAT make hir parents proud! And who knows? Shi might even find new love in the sumo ring. Tomorrow, shi'd be off to Kyoto!