Usagi Drop
Bunny Drop

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I just finished this manga recently and probably unlike a lot of the readers here I knew the ending before the series began. It actually deterred me from reading it for a long time, after reading the series I think this series has been treated quite unfairly. This series simply put is a masterpiece if you understand what the author is portraying and who the audience is. Adapting this series into anime set unrealistic ideas of what the author is trying to portray.

Usagi drop is one of the rare josei series to receive anime adaptions. Josei manga targeted towards older women, and usually ... the smallest segment of the manga/light novel market. It is rare that josei works achieve popularity to gain an Anime adaption. Furthermore, it is rare for Josei manga to receive official English releases, so we are less conscious of differences between Josei and works written for other audiences.
What sets josei series apart from other genres is their focus often on the complexities of real world relationships. Characters in josei series can be flawed, grey and interpersonal relationships are complicated. In shoujo or shone slice of life romances often focus on an average/flawed main character entering into a romance with a perfect or idolized partner. The story is told by enumerating the main characters good qualities and introducing the idol partner’s flaws to make them social equals. This makes for good entertainment, but it doesn’t reflect common real world relationships. The head cheerleader rarely hooks up with the nerdiest guy in school. Josei series in contrast might instead deal with why a women chooses to remain with a flawed partner. Why a women remains with an abusive husband. This type of stylistic difference is important understand when reading a josei titles. You are entering stormy waters where ships are not meant to sail. If you sail ships in these waters they will often sink or veer off course. Sometimes ship will evaporate as if they were never there. In the rare event a ship is on course, it may be the only ship that is sailing.
Usagi drop is not a romance. It is a slice of life/drama. The story is about the complexities of familial relationships. The main character Daikichi is a 30 year old man, at his grandfather’s funeral adopts his supposedly illegitimate daughter. The story is told from his point of view and deals with the struggles of suddenly becoming a single parent. The story is told largely from his point of view, and the cast introduced are other young parents. The second half of the story is told ten years later and from the point of view of now almost adult children. It deals with typical struggles of teens transitioning to adults. Love, angst, what do I do with my life and increasingly complex relationships with families.
SPOILERS BEGIN HERE
The author’s storytelling is excellent if not masterful. I think many people will notice that the supporting cast is given the ‘right’ amount of character development. The level of character development a character receives is used to make the reader feel that Daikichi’s and Rin’s household is normal, when it is anything but.


Daikichi is a man who has never married and chooses to adopt his grandfather’s (adopted) daughter. Child rearing is a difficult activity and most single person rarely enters into parenthood voluntarily. Many of Daikichi’s coworkers have families of their own, but represent the typical nuclear household where two parents raise biological children. Their families are mentioned, but rarely introduced as they are far removed from Daikichi’s world. Instead the characters who play central roles in the story are the Nitani familyare typical single parent household born from a failed marriage. The one nuclear families we catch a glimpse of is Reina’s family which is a nuclear family, with a troubled marriage.

I also like that how time skip shifted the point of view of the story. The beginning of the story is told from the point of view of parents and their struggles as young parents. The second half of the story is told by children who are now young adults. Both Kouki’s and Rin’s decisions and outlooks are conscious of their single parent and in contrast their classmate’s desires seem more trivial. Decisions like whether or not they should attend university are influenced by their family relationships. Kouki and Rin both show a greater disposition towards choosing a path that is not necessarily based on desires, what will be best for the people who raised them.
I feel that Kouki’s character is misunderstood as many people express disappointment with how he grew up. His character is portrayed beautifully and represents who he is at the age of 16. A wayward teenager with no father figure. He is in a rebellious phase where he frequently disappoints those who are around him through a lack of discipline and by lashing out. The worst of these streaks are often resolved by Daikichi, illustrating his need for father figure. Despite his flaws, he is honest, kind hearted and cares deeply about his loved ones. He is essentially a lost teenage boy.
Rin at age 16 also seeks a mother figure and forms a bond with her mother, by her own choosing. We are shown from the beginning that Rin’s mother is a flawed character, but not necessarily a ‘bad’ person. As Rin enters adulthood she is aware of the sacrifices Daikichi has made by raising her. Sacrifices that most people would not make. He essentially sacrificed his youth, career and social prospects by adopting her a child he never had societal obligation towards. Rin’s mother illustrates this clearly.

Many people are disappointed in the ending, to the point of they describe the ending as ruining the series. However, this is simply because the ending violates a taboo. Daikichi is not a biological father, but a surrogate father. Given her circumstances Rin’s desires are not hard to understand. Her desire is fundamentally to remain in a single household with the person that sacrificed everything to raise her. The romantic relationship is for the most part one sided, even though Daikichi comes to accept it. In the end this manga is simply a story about the complexity of family relationships and what makes a family. This story begins and ends with as unlikely a family as any.

Warning: Massive ending spoilers ahead. I'm very sorry but that 6 up there can't be properly explained without delving deep into spoiler territory.

I wish Usagi Drop had 2 separate entries, one being the start and one everything after the time-skip, starting in chapter 26. It's for one very simple reason. Usagi Drop is a prime example of how a great concept can still run off the rails badly. It's a masterclass in turning what starts as a warm, cute and fuzzy story into a catastrophic failure of a 'romantic' drama.

The gist of the premise is that Daikichi (a man who couldn't more obviously be unhappy ... and feeling unfulfilled unless he stuck a neon sign on his face) takes a 6 year old girl, Rin, into his house for the sole reason that everyone else either hates her or straight up doesn't care for her. And it's not hard to see where this goes. A man with no experience with children now has to take care of one with the comedic hijinks that ensue. During that time, we see Daikichi and Rin grow as characters as we learn more about them, who they are and their relationship. I'll be honest, the first part of Usagi Drop is one of the best and most enjoyable things I've ever read. It's just sweet enough to tug your heart strings and make you feel great but also sincere enough to show the problems Rin and Daikichi cope with. I was ready to give this a good solid 9, maybe even a 10!

Now, those of you who have seen the anime or the live-action movie might notice there's a considerable amount of material that wasn't adapted. There's a reason for that.

The great part about having one person both writing and illustrating a manga is that you have synergy. Who else can better convey their thoughts, mental images and general ideas to paper than the writer themselves? The problem that comes from it is that there's no second person to openly doubt your decisions and no manga is a better example than this. I'm not sure what Yumi Unita was thinking but I hope she realizes how poorly it worked out.

In chapter 26, we leap forward about 10 years. Rin is in high school and Daikichi is 40, having to deal with the appropriate issues. Already this brings up some headscratchers, such as how both of our protagonists still hang out with the exact same people they did 10 years ago with no new additions. One of two bigger problems is a shift in tone that is about as smooth and fluid as trying to walk while both your legs are asleep. Gone is the happy heartwarming slice of life, in comes an unnecessarily angsty and gloomy 'romantic' drama. Everything is a lot darker for no adequately explained reason other than some cardinal rule that anything involving teenage characters must be existential, dark or depressing.

No, the biggest problem of all is that the second part builds up to an almost gutpunchingly disturbing conclusion.

Part of the second part involves Rin dealing with her relationship with Daikichi getting more....complicated. Her feelings for him get out of the comfy wholesome foster parent/daughter zone and instead the considerably ickier kind. It's just as disturbing and just as well-executed as you'd expect. After an ass-pull 'but they're not really blood-related' card (on the level of SAO episode 14), Rin decides she wants to marry Daikichi and he goes along with it. Oh boy, where do we begin?

Let's start with the fact that at its very core, this is still creepily close to parental incest. For all intents and purposes, these 2 had a father/daughter relationship for the last 10 years and now she's genuinely in love with him. There's also a distinct lack of consequence shown. There's one character who's ever made aware of her attraction and, no joke, she encourages Rin to go along with it. But there's another layer of disturbing that you might not pick up on the first time. Hell, you might not pick up on it until a good while later. Namely, Daikichi just rolls with it. There's no real shock, no real contemplation to speak of, he listens to her and accepts it. On the surface, it's bad writing. Underneath, it's worse. Disregarding for a moment that this is quite clearly an action of impulse, since his feelings for Rin have always been parental and it was never really hinted that it was more. What we have is a man who's more concerned with the age difference than with the fact that he raised her as his daughter. A man who has no qualms doing so. A man who, I swear I wish I was making this up, is okay with her carrying his child and raising it. A man who's just plain given up on a proper relationship.
A man who by all rights shouldn't be in one because he isn't fit for one.

The first part of Usagi Drop is a 9 or a 10 for me without a doubt. It's well-crafted and heartwarming to see these 2 misfits grow on each other. The second part is disgusting in every way. The change of tone, the ending, how it plays out, the implications it carries, it's nothing short of insulting your readers.

If you want to read this, by all means do so. Sounding like a broken record but the first part is excellent. I highly suggest you finish chapter 24 and stop there. Because unless you're into poorly written, poorly executed semi-incest, there's just nothing for you there.

So I got into this anime not knowing what to expect.
It was a very warm and bright story about a not so ordinary family that started when daikitchi decided to adopt an orphan relative and raise her as his like his own child.
It was a beautiful story about the struggles of parenthood and how being a single parent is!

Naturally when the anime ended you'd want to see more of it so I went and read the manga. (I wish I didn't)

(The score is not 1 just Cz the first half was amazing)

It was ok at first even after the timelapse!
But at some point ... it turned gloomy and in consistent.
The characters started acting out of character.
And sensitive aspects of the story werent given the attentionthey deserve.
it really felt like the writer has changed in the middle.

The ending is a whole nother section! It was traumatizing! (Spoilers below)
It ruined everything that the story stood for until then! (Parenthood/father-daughter relationship/ doing good for goodness sake)

It was disgusting not because it was (supposedly incest) or because of the age difference as many would claim that was the reason why some think it's horrible.
But simply the fact that he raised her as a daughter.
He's seen her grow up and become a fine young lady.
It doesn't make sense that he'd look at her as a partner and if he did then he's sick.

One last thing!
How is this a JOSEI manga!?????