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Bunny Drop
Manga Review
At no matter what age a person can be, losing a family member is rough and even more so when it is a parent. For six year old Rin, the man known as Gramps is not going to wake up anymore. She is the illegitimate daughter of Gramps and an unknown younger woman. This is a revelation to 30 year old bachelor grandson Daikichi, who ends up taking responsibility of his young "aunt" after no one in his family wants to be responsible.
It soon becomes apparent that the caring of a young child along with juggling work becomes a challenge for Daikichi, and he learns sacrifices are necessary to care for Rin. There are no learning curves, and it is helpful on aspects that Rin is a precocious little girl. Though there are incidents that highlight how young she is, such as a concern over wetting the bed. Bunny Drop follows the growth and development of Rin as she adjusts to living with Daikichi and vice versa.
 This is a slice of life realistic manga that is the only work of Yumi Unita that has been translated into English and available overseas. None of her other works is available languages other than Japanese so far. Unita has been featured as an illustrator for magazines or book covers, but she has published other works that are similar in theme for Bunny Drop in being slice of life and family oriented works: She blogs in Japanese here.
If you have seen the anime for Bunny Drop, then Yen Press is responsible for translating this completed series into English. Other read alike titles to Bunny Drop that can appeal to readers are My Neighbor Totoro, Animal Land or even Chobits.
Reviewed by Linda Yau, June 2012
Bunny Drop
Anime Review
The story of Daikichi, a true everyman the likes of which we rarely see, and Rin, the mysterious six-year-old girl he suddenly adopts, is so different from usual anime fare, it's hard to recommend it; not because it isn't good, but the opposite- it's more a place you visit than an anime. We inhabit the small house the two main characters share, and while very little happens by anime standards, we found we didn't want to leave.
 Mild-mannered men adopting little girls seems to have become something of a sub-genre lately, with the most popular example being Kiyohiko Azuma's Yotsuba!& manga. However, while Yotsuba's story is about the sheer wonder of discovery that is childhood, without ever crossing the line into sappiness, Usagi Drop, based on the manga by Yumi Umita, is more about the harsh realities of childhood for both children, and the adults who must raise them. While the show never completely loses its sense of whimsy- from the highly stylized, children's-book like opening credits sequence to Rin's love of piggyback rides- there's a sense here that we're seeing the truth about children, warts and all.
 Some of those harsh realities come from the unusual nature of Rin's birth; when Daikichi, a gaunt and plain man, if not quite ugly, first sees the quiet young girl at his grandfather's funeral, he has no idea who she is. He soon learns that she's the illegitimate daughter his grandfather sired late in life, making this six-year-old his aunt by blood. It soon becomes clear to Daikichi that with her father gone, Rin is unwanted by his family, who consider the bastard child an embarrassment. Intrigued by the quiet girl, when no one else is willing to take Rin in, Daikichi steps forward- despite the fact that he's a thirty-ish bachelor with no idea how to take care of a child.
It takes a certain amount of nerve to begin a series with a funeral for someone we've never seen, and it's a credit to the pitch-perfect writing of Usagi Drop that the first episode seems neither morbid nor melodramatic. Everything is just so painstakingly (and painfully) real, to the way Rin's family avoids her without showing her any outright malice; the way her little feet linger on the threshold when she knows they're talking about her.
 While the show is about a child so young she's still embarrassed that she wets the bed (don't worry Rin, we won't tell!), this is not a show for children. Black and white morality is avoided; it may seem cold beyond belief that most of Rin's family would consider putting her "in a facility" after her father's death, but who are we to say any of them are up to the challenge of looking past her scandalous birth and giving the child the love she deserves? There are no simple villains here. Furthermore, though we all pumped our fists when Daikichi stepped up to the plate and offered to take the quiet little girl home, is he really prepared to take on the responsibility he's just volunteered for? It seems obvious early in the series that this practical salaryman has bit off more than he can chew when it comes to a certain little girl who has a very real fear of dying- or of having her caretaker die again and being abandoned.
 With all this heavy stuff going on, it would be easy for Usagi Drop to become depressing, yet somehow, the tone always remains just on this side of hopeful. Maybe it's the art style, which has a light, watercolor feel to it that makes the issues on screen seem more palatable, even when they're weighty. Or maybe it's the nuanced writing, which never belabors the point. Somehow, the show remains enjoyable even when it should be at it's most depressing.
Of course, a realistic slice-of-life story of a man learning to let a little girl into his life isn't going to appeal to many action buffs; those who get bored easily with character studies need not apply. However, for those who appreciate writing that's firmly in the camp of "show, don't tell," and anime that transcends cliches, Usagi Drop is one of the most mature, thoughtful series to come out in years. Usagi Drop is available streaming on Crunchyroll.
Reviewed by Karen Gellender, October 2011
Below: Scenes from Bunny Drop.
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