Usagi Drop/Bunny Drop (Episodes 1-4)

This season, me and Mrs. Kitsune are watching a lot of good anime, we've already said as much in the First Impressions post.  Usagi Drop is here to give something totally different, a journey through the life of a young man named Daikichi, who finds himself the only person capable of raising Rin, a little girl who was left on her own after her father, Daikichi's grandfather, died. This is surely an idea that we rarely see animated, and the manga has earned some amazing reviews. So, after 80 minutes of anime entertainment, has Usagi Drop provided us with a result good enough to match our expectations?



The first episode is wholly dedicated to presenting grandpa's funeral. Daikichi is just another member of the family coming to say goodbye to his dear relative. That is where he meets Rin. He sees how their relatives treat the little girl, trying to take the responsibility of raising her off their shoulders. Daikichi decides to deal with the situation by taking Rin under his protection.

Each one of the next three episodes shows us step by step how Daikichi and Rin are getting closer and closer, the need of both of them to find roles they can fulfill in their relationship. We have already seen Rin making friends with other kids, Daikichi leaving his job in order to have the freedom to spend more time with his little girl, and much more.

What I truly adore in this show is that all of these extremely complicated and personal developments are presented in a very natural and believable way. Nothing is forced, but all things have some purpose. Rin acts the way one would expect a little girl to behave, while Daikichi finds it difficult to adjust to the way a parent needs to think, the same way any average Joe would struggle in this situation.

Another plus is the animation and character design. I love Rin-chan's expressions, especially when she feels like complaining -for any given reason- to poor-Daikichi.

I have to say that the introduction and ending themes are lovable and catchy, even though I consider Natsume's opening theme the best one I have heard for this season. I do love the animation for both videos. It is smart, sweet and creative.

I am very curious to see how the plot is going to unravel. For the time being, we have a show worth of our time and patience.

F: As for the manga: the anime is quite faithful to the manga, but skips, cuts and sews here and there scenes. It does make sense, though: the series will have a total of 11 episodes that most probably correspond to the first 5 volumes of the manga, hence to 24 manga chapters...

The anime alters some scenes in a very good way, bringing out more vividly some problems, like when Daikichi speaks through the phone to his sister and Reina screams all over that she wants to talk to Rin. We get to glimpse her mother-in-law watching TV in the same house, something that maybe foretells what is to come... I won't spoiler. This tidbit wasn't in the manga. As well, the little scene we get after the ed song with Rin wanting to buy lipstick! So true and in life! And... we get a more friendly to females Daikichi. In the manga he freaked out when he understood we got in a situation involving a kid (he found kids annoying) and a female kid on top of it (he wasn't good at handling females either, as he says).

In the manga on the other hand there are more detailed scenes e.g. when Daikichi needs to decide for which nursery to go for, in order to be on time at work, too. Or his thoughts about raising a child meaning practically making sacrifice of oneself  (he ponders on what sacrifices his mother made to raise them) is another example. I'm not going to delve deeper, coz I'm pretty exhausted doing this with Ikoku - and when there isn't a straight manga chapter to anime episode correspondence it's tough on my nerves, sorry...

So it's a bit difficult to decide, till now at least, which I prefer the most. Although I must admit I'm a bit fond of the manga, the animation, music and all are so good, that they make me sway...

For everyone interested, you can see some manga-anime comparisons of some scenes in Raharu's blog.
There's a very interesting article about the concept of family based on Usagi Drop by SnippetTee. The comments after the post are as thought-provoking as the post itself.