Forum - View topicREVIEW: Bunny Drop GN 9
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SquadmemberRitsu
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I find what happened in Bunny Drop spoiler[Daikichi raising a child and screwing her] to be way, way more disturbing. Especially considering how unassuming and sweet it was at the beginning. |
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Happiness for Subaru
 Subscriber Posts: 242 |
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Exactly. I don't get why a lot of anime fans consider high schoolers to be "adults". I start considering someone to be an adult when they're around the age of 20. (Maybe those fans just aren't there yet?) Also, child psychologists see adolescents. Services typically label them as "child and adolescent psychologists". That's a pretty long name, so it's shortened to "child psychologist" for layman's purposes. |
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Fencedude5609
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Legal age of majority in Japan is 20, btw.
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Half Life
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Eh, for what it is worth I think this story ended better than Oreimo by a long shot. That is not to say this is the way I would have ended it myself, but I think (given what the author was trying to do) it worked out about as good as it could.
My take (in answer to some points raised): "Where is the resistance?" spoiler[I think there is plenty of resistance -- it is worth remembering that he is not her father, nor blood related in any way. Furthermore, he did not raise her from a baby -- he came along much later... I would have much more difficulty seeing someone make that transition after raising a child from a baby. In many ways she was always much more a roommate than a child -- she was far more mature(than most kids) and in many ways took charge of the relationship from basically the beginning. Also, it became pretty clear he does not want her to leave -- so I am sure that factored strongly into his thought process. I never got the impression he was lusting after her at all, but he was emotionally attached in a way that wasn't exactly fatherly. Likewise, I felt she was motivated by something other than lust -- I never got any sense of "forbidden love" being the attractor. I think it would be fair to say she has non-"normal" values due to the way her life went. He fulfilled something not quite fatherly for her as well... ] I guess I could best express it by saying here are two people who choose to be with each other and support each other as best they could, even though they had no real reason to. He was not responsible for her, and she had no relation to him (didn't even meet him until later)... so the nature of the relationship was always voluntary on both sides. They simply enjoyed each other, and found comfort in the presence of the other. When the sexual part of romantic love fades, the best relationships have those aspects left as the core of the marriage. So given that part of their relationship already worked so well, it is not a stretch to say they will likely be able to make it work. spoiler[As for family, her family already knows -- not that it matters since she has no real attachments. And he was never particularly close to his anyway... so if they choose not to accept it, it is not much to worry over. Likewise, legally there are no issues -- they are not blood related, and they do not do anything until after she is 18. Psychologically, I can't say he has taken advantage of her in any way -- he gave her 2 full years to change her mind and go in a different direction. She choose not to, even without any encouragement from him. Genetically, there are no issues with them having children since they have no blood relationship. Form a genetic standpoint he is as valid a choice to procreate with as anybody. Furthermore, she says point blank that she wants a child, and she wants that child to have him as a father -- and in this case he would really be the father... the circumstances would be what people normally think of being a parent means.] So the 2 "real" issues left are: The age difference which, while always controversial, is not particularly rare. Just look at your average midlife crisis. The parent/child relationship morphing into something else -- which, as I stated above, was always skewed (from the very beginning) by several highly unusual factors. Namely the fact that they never were really parent/child and they both knew it. Oreimo, goes into true incest -- they are blood related and that is a whole other can of worms. Genetically and sociologically... plus she is still a minor at the end of that series. You can rage on all you like, but it seems to me that many of the people raging never even read the ending story. Which means you really don't know what you are hating -- that is simply a position of ignorance, and thus hardly defensible. Which is not to say you wouldn't likely still hate it after reading it, but at least you can bash it accurately at that point. Last edited by Half Life on Wed Oct 23, 2013 12:09 pm; edited 5 times in total |
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Cecilthedarkknight_234
 Posts: 3820 Location: Louisville, KY |
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It doesn't matter, by law in japan she can get married to whoever she wants as long as gets a parental or a guardians consent at 16. Last edited by Cecilthedarkknight_234 on Wed Oct 23, 2013 2:39 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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insert name here
Posts: 84 |
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I watched the anime, but heard about this ending later. Do they actually embark on a relationship or does he just say that something might happen later which the review seemed to imply, which could just be interpreted as stalling for time.
In any case I don't think that its necessary to immediately pathologize Rin's feelings for Daikichi. If he were to not only turn her down (which he should) but then proceed to treat her like a crazy person, I'm not sure that would really be helpful. It is also important to remember that this is a work of fiction, and like most manga, essentially a fantasy. A much more interesting analysis it seems to me would be to attempt to understand what it means as a fantasy. What kind of impulses or psychological needs might the author have been attempting to fulfill or explore in the work? Comparing this against the "real" world and its moral standards is fairly easy and not particularly illuminating. |
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Half Life
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spoiler[He basically puts her off, until the point at which a child normally leaves home (after high school graduation). At that point she approaches him again and he grudgingly accepts her feelings.
There is a slight time skip after that that shows they do become an official couple.] |
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NottJim
 Posts: 36 Location: Edinburgh, UK |
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This goes to the heart of this issue. If you can accept the idea that Daikichi is not Rin's parent then the rest of what happens becomes possible/acceptable. I don't accept that idea and that's why it doesn't work for me. For me, Bunny Drop was a story about how a guy takes responsibility when no one else will, and raises a girl as his own child, makes lots of personal sacrifices for her, proving that being a parent is not about blood but about a caring relationship. The post time skip story basically throws all of that in the bin, and says that being a parent is about nothing but blood. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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I get the sense that Woody Allen would dig this title.
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Half Life
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Perhaps, and that could be a valid problem -- however the sense I get is that most people object on the basis of Rin somehow being a victim of Daikichi (thinking this is creepy molestation territory). Which, if they read the story, they would see that clearly that is not even remotely the case.
He is at no time an aggressor... nor is he at any time manipulative towards these end results (if anything it is the opposite). Last edited by Half Life on Wed Oct 23, 2013 12:21 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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GVman
 Posts: 729 |
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Is it just me, or do Josei manga tend to be really creepy romances like this? |
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insert name here
Posts: 84 |
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I think the thing the author might be trying to tap into is that phenomenon that most people go through as small children when they say things like "I'm going to marry mommy when I grow up!" Which is a cute and basically innocent impulse, however no one actually attempts to live it out in adulthood, and when they do it looks more like Buster from Arrested Development than anything Usagi Drop might resemble.
The other thing this reminds me of is Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring, about a woman in her older twenties who still lives with her father and would basically be content to continue doing so. spoiler[In that film, the father gets her to marry off, and the irony is that both might have been happier if they hadn't each pretended that this was the outcome that they wanted in order to please the other person and just continued living together.] |
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Half Life
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spoiler[Ironically, the story almost went that way -- but Rin's hidden feelings were "outed", forcing everybody to deal with them head on.] |
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insert name here
Posts: 84 |
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That's what makes me think that this why this story was told in cartoon form. In cinema, I don't think you could have told the story in this way (though some have argued that they didn't in the comic form here either.) In cartoons you can make those kind of fantastic leaps and it can work. In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud refers to the cartoonish simplification of features as "the masking effect" because it represents the face in the way that we imagine our own features, helping to foster a more immediate audience identification with the characters. If the perspective of this is Rin's and not Daikichi's this could possibly be pulled off in a way that was less creepy than it sounds. I guess I have to read it now to see. |
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PingSoni
Subscriber Posts: 195 Location: Lansing MI |
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There are quite a few manga and anime series about complicated or tangled relationships which depict situations that many people might condemn or be uncomfortable with. Just off the top of my head: Crossroad (Shioko Mizuki), The Name of the Flower (Ken Saito), Tramps Like Us (Yayoi Ogawa) and Koi Kaze (Yoshida Motoi).
Personally, I don't turn to manga or novels or anime for stories of the way things are supposed to be. I want stories about what goes wrong, and how characters deal with that. An awful lot goes on in real life that doesn't follow the party line, so to speak. Usually that's the interesting stuff. And why is a gentle story like Bunny Drop so much worse than all the harem stories or a story like Hot Gimmick? |
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