Daikichi’s grandfather passes away, and at the funeral, he discovers that his grandfather had an illegitimate child, Rin. Instead of sending her to the orphanage, Daikichi takes her in, and begins the life of a single parent.
First of all, in a medium where most shows are about teenagers whose parents are conspicuously absent, I have to give Usagi Drop credit. It takes on parenting directly, and its main characters are a thirty year old man and a six year old girl.
With that said, the relationship between Daikichi and Rin is one of the weakest parts of the show. Rin’s main role is to act cute and need Daikichi. In many ways, she’s too “perfect” as a child to be believable— she cooks all the family meals, never throws fits, and she and Daikichi get along perfectly from the get-go. There are occasional conflicts, like Rin wetting the bed, but again, this falls in the cuteness category. In the sense of getting along with Rin, Daikichi’s job is too easy.
Fortunately, the relationships between the other characters are much more interesting. In particular, we have Yukari and Kouki, a single mother and a child of Rin’s age who befriend Daikichi and Rin. Daikichi takes on a fatherly role for Kouki, and there is some chemistry between him and Yukari. We also have Daikichi’s extended family interacting with Rin to good effect, and Daikichi’s meetings with Rin’s biological mother provide some food for thought.
All in all, this was another good noitaminA show, following in the footsteps of Hourou Musuko and Ano Hana.
- Plot / Script – A – Never feels rushed or boring, with thoughtful dialogue.
- Characters – B – Daikichi is a bit simplistic, and Rin is more or less a placeholder, but otherwise strong.
- Production – A – Gorgeous, bright animation, that resembles the drawings of a child.
- Overall – B+
Recommendations – Hourou Musuko, Kurenai, NieA_7
Note: I’m going to be experimenting with giving letter grades instead of the odd 0.25 increments I used before, let’s see how it works. Thanks to Marrow for suggestions.
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And then the creators skillfully take a U-turn and pull our emotions in the opposite direction. When Rin and Daikichi arrive at his grandfather’s grave, they notice that Masako has already placed fresh flowers there. Seeing this, Daikichi becomes angry, as she “didn’t even come to his funeral.” I really loved this scene, because it’s a completely normal (and completely illogical) reaction on Daikichi’s part. It also foreshadows the incoming discoveries about Masako: she really does care about Rin and Rin’s father, but tries not to show it.
Next, Daikichi chases after Masako and tells her she can peek at Rin. I liked how they portrayed Daikichi here: he’s clearly still angry at Masako, and makes a point of telling her that he doesn’t care about her personal circumstances at all and isn’t letting her take Rin. But he also wants to let Masako, as a mother, see her child.
As Masako walks back to the office, she decides she will take the extra job, even though it’s probably more than she can handle. She gave up Rin to work on her manga, but at some level she regrets that decision and feels guilty. So in response, she works even harder on her manga so that she is able to justify that decision to herself. Her claim that she is unable to take care of Rin becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
