Upon arriving at his grandfather's funeral, 30-year-old bachelor Daikichi Kawachi finds himself face to face with a 6-year-old girl he'd never seen before. His mother tells him the girl is Rin Kaga, and she's apparently his grandfather's illegitimate child. As the funeral ceremony proceeds, Daikichi notices that Rin is largely ignored by the rest of the family, and when they try to put her into foster care instead of any of them taking on the responsibility of raising her themselves, he loses his temper with all of them and declares that he'll take her in.

While it has become much less rare over the past decade, it still isn't all that often you see the topic of childcare come up in anime as its primary theme. Most of the time, we're introduced into families already established a long time ago. One of the few examples that immediately comes to mind is Wolf Children. Another would be Ghibli movies--My Neighbour Totoro in particular seems to have a pretty clear idea how children behave, as does Ponyo to an extent. In the realm of manga, Yotsuba& introduced me to a delightful little clover-haired girl who faces everything head-on with all the energy she can muster, and we literally see things through her eyes. In that regard, Bunny Drop is a bit different, as it places the viewpoint squarely on Daikichi's shoulders, but the focus of the show is nonetheless Rin, the girl he literally took in on a rage-induced whim.

Part of the charm of Bunny Drop is seeing just how out of his depth Daikichi is. The show makes no secret of the fact that his spontaneous "adoption" of Rin was a rash decision, even if he probably had the whole audience cheering for him when he told his family what for. From their first really awkward breakfast the morning after, Daikichi and Rin set out to build a life together. Another reason why this works is because Daikichi, for all his initial bluster, is an actual adult. He might've made an unplanned decision in taking her in, but he deals with his situation like an adult--he weighs his options and chooses what'll work out the best for both of them. Rin, for her part, is one of the most real-feeling depictions of a child I've ever seen in a TV anime. She enters Daikichi's life with a childish uncertainty and a head full of questions, but once she opens up to him, she's got a clear idea of what she wants and when.

Idealization aside (Rin is a remarkably easy child to care for), what makes this show so much fun to watch is seeing Daikichi's reactions to everything. At his own admission, he's not very good with children. Furthermore, he has a naturally intimidating face that normally tend to keep children at arm's length, but it's ultimately his resemblance to his grandfather that initially draws Rin to him. And so he finds himself panicking over every little thing--finding Rin new clothes, figuring out what she likes, getting her into a good kindergarten, making sure she eats right, watching over her with a sense of dread as she experiences her first serious fever... In many ways, Daikichi's life has turned into a long sequence of discoveries as he races to keep up with the adjustments he has to make to fit Rin into his life. Her unwavering trust in him coupled with his eventual refusal to give her up to anyone else creates a bond as palpable as it is adorable.

For the viewer, the (possible) transition from manga to anime is going to be an easy one. Bunny Drop is made to look like the manga in every respect, and it works quite well. The show has made a rather artistic choice in having the pre-opening scenes look like watercolour paintings, which makes it look both similar and different compared to the main episodes themselves. The opening theme is a catchy little pop number that suits the show to a tee at all times, except for the first episode, where it feels rather out of place due to said episode being about the funeral service through most of its runtime. The animation isn't the most impressive, but it doesn't really need to be, seeing as Bunny Drop is a generally quiet show.

And yes, I know about the goddamn manga ending where Rin ends up marrying Daikichi once she's an adult, but honestly, if readers didn't see that coming, that's their own problem. There were three big hints for me that Bunny Drop would end with the main characters starting a romantic relationship. First there was the fact that Daikichi was a reasonably good-looking, golden-hearted working bachelor, sort of ideal marriage material for a lot of young women in Japan. Second, from early on, Rin refuses to call Daikichi any sort of father-related title and wants to keep calling him by his name, showing that while he served as a father figure, she never saw him as her dad. Third, when Rin runs away from home and goes to her mom's house after Daikichi finds out about the feelings she has for him and gets upset with her over it, her mother is the one who makes the irresponsible choice to encourage her to go for it and persist until Daikichi says yes. Fourth, the manga was published in a josei magazine whose target demographic is women who'd see Daikichi as the type of guy they'd marry on the spot if they could. So while I can see why the manga's ending was controversial and widely negatively received, I also wish people would just take Elsa's advice already. And no, just because you and others highly disliked the ending, doesn't mean that the whole story preceeding it suddenly turns into a "grooming story". That's a completely unreasonable stance to take up, and you can hate and ignore the manga's ending without making such an exaggerated, defamatory and easily disproven claim. It was Rin who started to have romantic feelings towards Daikichi once she hit puberty, and she made the first move, not him, at age 16, ten years after her adoption. Before that, there weren't ANY instances which showed or indicated that Daikichi's behaviour towards Rin had sexual ulterior motives. He was shocked and felt betrayed by her love confession and fought her on it with all his strength, until she took her mom's advice and wore him down enough to make him relent, and even then he only cut a deal with her that if she still felt this way in a couple more years when she turned 18, he'd marry her. So anyone who says that shit can piss off and go be miserable with the people who think Disney's Beauty and the Beast is a story about Stockholm syndrome and Gaston is the real hero because they horribly misremember the events of a movie they clearly haven't watched since the 90s.

The manga readers among you might also be bothered by the omission of much of Daikichi's inner monologue. For those unaware, much of what he states in the manga is less meant for his surrounding enviroment, yet it's a part of what constitutes his character. The oddest change can actually be found in the first episode, where instead of lecturing his relatives about their misconceptions regarding Rin's personality, he just walks up to the table, slams down his mug and immediately turns to Rin (though the relatives' reactions are still as they were). It also leaves itself open for further seasons, but the show can hardly be blamed for that--it merely follows the manga's ending to Rin's childhood to the letter, adding a short sequence past the end credits to at least try and give it some feeling of closure before hopefully moving on to the next stage.

What this all doesn't change, however, is that Bunny Drop is an incredibly charming, fun and cute series, a quiet, undrstated gem that you should definitely prepare some space on your shelf for.