Usagi Drop

Usagi Drop: heartwarming manga until it gets skeevy

Sometimes it’s a blessing rather than a curse that an anime series is unfaithful to its source material. Usagi Drop is a case in point. The anime version is a charming, heart warming story of the 30 year old Daikichi, who takes in rin, the illegitimate six year old daughter of his just deceased grandfather when nobody else in the family wants to take the responsibility. In only eleven episodes it tells the story of how Daikichi has to grow up quickly to take on the responsibilities of a parent, has his priorities changed and how he and Rin learn to live together. It’s cute, it’s charming and it leaves you feeling warm and cozy, but it only covers the first four volumes of the manga.

And in the fifth volume there’s a time shift, Rin is now a teenager and she and Daikichi fall in love, but it’s alright because it turns out she’s not actually blood related. God knows why the mangaka Yumi Unita thought this was a good idea, but it turned a nice, sweet story into something creepy. The manga therefore is basically unreadable, the second half of the series ruining the first half for me, but luckily the anime series was smart enough no to touch the time skip. It’s basically the “good parts” version of the story.