TLDR: In every aspect, this anime was really solid. The reason that I will never forget it is because the incredible relationship between Sakuta and Mai, and the emotional impact Kaede's story had on me.
To start, lets talk about the content of the anime. I'm sure this has come up in every other review, but the bunny girl costume is a total bait, and not at all indicative of the content of the anime. It makes a little bit of sense within the story of the anime, but is still pretty weird. Additionally, a lot of the supernatural occurrences are explained with quantum theory, which while was a decent attempt, kind of came across to me as complete nonsense and kind of unnecessary. I could have done without it, but maybe others appreciated it more than I did. Other then that, the story was pretty great, and I REALLY enjoyed it! It was entertaining, the art was decent, no complaints all around.
Now the most important part: how it made me feel. aka. the emotional impact this anime had on me, and the whole reason I felt impelled to come back and write a review for it. Let me start off with a little story. When I was pretty young, I read this series about a dragon rider and his intelligent dragon. The entire series, 3-4 books worth, follower these two and their adventures together. They grew closer and closer as the books went on, and it was a really beautiful relationship. They fought together, visited other countries together, etc. When it got to the last book (I don't mind spoiling it since I have no idea what series this was), through a cavalcade of unfortunate circumstances, the rider and his dragon are separated indefinitely. The story ended. I closed that book and came back to reality. They would never see each other again. Their 3-4 books of relationship were over. This crushed child me. I felt real loss. I had spent maybe ~100 hours with these characters, and I felt every bit of loss they did. It took me a full week to recover from that, and I don't mean recover as in I stopped thinking about it. I mean recover as in to stop being on the verge of tears all day, and boiling over at the thought of the fate of those two characters. It is a level of misery I have rarely felt since. **SPOILERS** That said, after bingeing the last half of this show over the weekend, I encountered this same level of pain through empathy. When Kaede recovered her original memories, but we lost the Kaede that we had spent the whole show with, I felt this same loss. I assumed Sakuta would find a way to save both, or that everything would fundamentally turn out alright in the end, but this show didn't shy away from real consequences. It hurts to watch shows that aren't afraid to have a less than starry-eyed ending, but I will always love and respect them. I think it is so important for stories to sometimes reflect the harsh or even cruel reality of this world. Sometimes we lose people without reason. Oftentimes, things don't end perfectly, and we face hard choices with no right answers, just less wrong ones. La La Land comes to mind when I think of stories that don't have the ending people want, but the ending that people need. This is what draws such a strong resemblance to that book I read. I spent the next two days, Monday and Tuesday, being absolutely crushed. Again, I was on the verge of tears all day, and quite embarrassingly, I cried a fair amount on the bus ride to campus that morning. That's right, a university student crying over fictional characters. I'm not ashamed though. I hope I never lose this level of empathy. This is the main reason I rated this show so highly. For whatever reason, the emotional beats strongly resonated me, and I was emotionally devastated after finishing it. Although these were feelings of grief, they were the strongest feeling I had felt in a long time. All of that said, I don't know how many people will be convinced to watch it just because I had an incredibly emotional experience. I don't even expect most people to have that kind of response to it, but I wouldn't be surprised if some do.
"That sadness is another precious thing that Kaede has given you. It shows exactly how Big Kaede’s existence was"
-Mai
Something else that really stood out to me about this anime was the relationship between Mai and Sakuta. I've consumed a ton of anime and manga since, and I have never encountered a relationship that can even come close. Maybe Bloom Into You, but that is such a different relationship. Why did I love this relationship so much? I can think of one moment in the anime that solidified it me. Mai finds Sakuta and one of the other females hiding under the desk together for a reason that made sense in context. The obvious direction most animes would take this moment is to: play the moment up for laughs, have Mai get super jealous and mad over it, throw lots of superfluous conflict into the relationship. Instead, Mai handles it maturely, she gives Sakuta a chance to explain, and she believes what he says because there is already so much trust in that relationship. That is really the crux of this relationship. They are snarky, and cheeky, and funny. They make jokes, and little innuendos. They are sarcastic. But they are also so clearly in love. They are so fully trusting of each other. Their relationship mature, in the way that it does without cheap high school drama, ridiculous bouts of unjust jealousy, or comical failings of communication, There is strife, and there are struggles. It isn't always perfect sunshine and rainbows, but it is real. Their relationship is one I think about often, and admittedly maybe even strive for. That is why I love this show so much.
Bunny Girl Senpai was an amazing show to me. Writing this review has made me desperately want to re-watch it. It is the kind of show that I won't stop thinking about for a long time, and those kinds of shows are rare. I hope that other people can get the kind of meaning and enjoyment out of it that I did. Highly recommend.
