For most series that have both a manga and an anime version, it’s often assumed that the manga is better. However, in the case of Bunny Drop, it’s the complete opposite. According to the majority of fans, Bunny Drop’s manga ending was completely fumbled, so the manga as a whole is almost completely disregarded.
The series that strived to focus on wholesomeness, good values and overcoming obstacles became rather jarring when the manga ending weirdly forced the father and daughter figures together as a couple.
The series follows the main character Daikichi, a thirty-year-old man who becomes the guardian of a 6-year-old girl named Rin, who also happens to be his aunt. Both the manga and the anime follow the two as they navigate life, as well as Daikichi figuring out how to suddenly be a single father. The anime stops after Rin enters school, but the manga does not. Instead, it undergoes a time skip to when Rin is in high school, where she develops a crush on Daikichi. Instead of denying her, Daikichi says that if she does not fall for anyone else by the end of high school, he will consider having a romantic relationship with her.
Of course, Rin does not fall for anyone else, and when it’s revealed that the two are not biologically related after all, Daikichi accepts her feelings, they get married and Rin wants to bear his children. At this point in time, Rin has only just graduated from high school and has turned 18, while Daikichi, her father-figure-turned-love-interest, is around 42 years old.
Thankfully, the anime adaption does quite a few things differently. It sticks to mainly the first four volumes of the manga, which contain only events from before the time skip when Rin is still small. This was done strategically, as stated in an interview from Anime News Network with director Kanta Kamei. Kamei stated that as the manga was still finishing just as the anime was being produced, the team felt that they could only cover around four volumes in the series. The interview also mentions that they knew about the time skip and acknowledged that “[t]he themes and points of view were completely different, so [they] all decided from the beginning that [they] would only go up to volume [4].”
This meant that the anime was able to stick to more pure and wholesome themes, leading the show to receive a warm reception as a very comforting show. In fact, it was seen as such a relaxing and wholesome show that it’s frequently brought up as a classic example of the sub-genre of slice-of-life known as “Iyashikei.” Iyashikei is a genre about comforting and healing the viewers, displaying everyday life as something beautiful. Iyashikei is also a title given to series that have intrinsic value, as they have accomplished the goal of moving the viewer emotionally.
The consensus on the ending of the manga was one of mainly horror and disgust, as is to be expected with the content of such an ending. Thus, fans of Bunny Drop tend to be fans of the show while disowning the manga in its entirety, pretending it does not exist, to the point where it has even become a joke among the fandom that there is no manga.
This isn’t to say that there are no outliers; some people in the fandom either feel neutral about or even enjoy the ending of the manga. The director of the show likewise has his own opinion on the manga ending. In his interview with Anime News Network, Kamei states that he thinks it is good that Rin and Daikichi are happy, but that he still has “some mixed feelings about it…,” which at least implies that he does not necessarily support it.
While the anime version of Bunny Drop was very well-received and full of wholesome parenting fun, the manga was understandably received quite differently. Forcing two family members into a romantic relationship definitely soured the series for a lot of readers. While there is still a good anime series as well as a live-action drama series to look back on fondly, the original ending of the series can be said to be the worst.
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