Usagi Drop

Daikichi Kawachi is a 30-year-old bachelor working a respectable job but otherwise wandering aimlessly through life. When his grandfather suddenly es away, he returns to the family home to pay his respects. Upon arriving at the house, he meets a mysterious young girl named Rin who, to Daikichi’s astonishment, is his grandfather's illegitimate daughter!

The shy and unapproachable girl is deemed an embarrassment to the family, and finds herself ostracized by her father's relatives, all of them refusing to take care of her in the wake of his death. Daikichi, angered by their coldness toward Rin, announces that he will take her in—despite the fact that he is a young, single man with no prior childcare experience.

Usagi Drop is the story of Daikichi's journey through fatherhood as he raises Rin with his gentle and affectionate nature, as well as an exploration of the warmth and interdependence that are at the heart of a happy, close-knit family.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kaga, Rin Main

Matsuura, Ayu Japanese

Kawachi, Daikichi Main

Tsuchida, Hiroshi Japanese

Nitani, Yukari ing

Ohara, Sayaka Japanese

Nitani, Kouki ing

Sakai, Noa Japanese

Yoshii, Masako ing

Sakamoto, Maaya Japanese

Kawachi, Kazumi ing

Uchiyama, Yumi Japanese

Gotou ing

Kano, Yui Japanese

Mi-chan ing

Hirakawa, Daisuke Japanese

Kawachi, Kenji ing

Itou, Masakazu Japanese

Maeda, Haruko ing

Ueda, Kana Japanese

Nakatake, Tetsuya Producer

Matsushita, Keiko Producer

Ozaki, Noriko Producer

Konaka, Daisuke Producer

Reviews

Apr 20, 2025

Sakura131

Recommended

Families have often been more complex than the standard “nuclear family” that’s portrayed in media. This thought-provoking anime depicts what it means to build a family. It’s important to me - and I am sure to others as well - who experienced growing up with a non-conventional family.

In this emotional slice-of-life, a man of flawed character willfully puts himself in the challenging situation of parenthood. He does so by volunteering, and therefore elevating his own character by separating it from those he resents as they declined the challenge of taking care of a young girl.

The anime is an authentic depiction of the way ... people feel as it delves into balancing one’s desires with the needs of others, how relationships evolve over time, and how humans coalesce into a unit. The main character says "It feels weird telling kids not to do everything that I did." It's a slice of what watching this anime is like - steady humor between the man and the girl he is trying to raise mixed with the development of the man into a father.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jan 19, 2025

Longnines

Recommended

A 30-year-old salaryman and bachelor, Daikichi, attends the wake of his grandfather, only to find out (alongside the rest of his relatives) that grandpa had been keeping a little secret from the rest of the family: a 6-year-old daughter, Rin. The family, not readily acceptant of this as being an authentic bloodline connection, is apprehensive about who should raise her. Daikichi, on the other hand, does not understand his family's hesitation and instead takes the initiative to raise this little girl—his aunt by nature of association—on his own.

Usagi Drop is a bona fide slice-of-life story: it is a day-by-day journey of a man making changes ... to his life to shoulder the weight of the responsibilities associated with raising a child on his own. It is also about this girl, Rin, growing up under these circumstances, and with this man who bears a fair resemblance to grandpa. There is humor, there are mirthful moments, there are difficult conversations to be had, new relationships to be made, new ways to fill a schedule, and there is a redefining of goals and what matters most.

The quality of animation throughout the show is good, as is the quality of the writing. The characters resemble real people, with their own schedules, goals, problems, and lives. The anime excels at showing, in simple ways, how complicated being an adult can be and how demanding parenthood actually is.

I strongly recommend Usagi Drop to anyone seeking a good slice-of-life story. It is easy to watch and a satisfying, wholesome experience at-large.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Apr 8, 2022

squish

Mixed Feelings

(minor spoilers ahead)

It has been several days since I completed Usagi Drop, and I'm still thinking about this series.

Despite my relatively low score, I truly think Usagi Drop is a work of art. What makes something art, for me, is not whether it is enjoyable or "good" from an entertainment perspective, but how much it makes me feel and think about my own existence. Usagi Drop did a very good job at the latter two things.

I based my score on my overall enjoyment of the show, however. I do think that it probably deserves its relatively high rating (currently over 8.0 here on MAL), but ... I personally found a lot about the series unenjoyable. I want to say that I'm probably not part of its target audience. I don't have children, nor do I ever aspire to be a parent. I definitely identified more with the child Rin than father-figure Daikichi.

Usagi Drop is as its core a story about the mundanity of life. From brushing your teeth to cooking meals to catching a fever, we go through it all with Daikichi and Rin. Daikichi is an interesting character, because he clearly cares about Rin, and considers himself "somewhat" of a parental figure. The show is basically about how he navigates life as a new "father," and he spends a lot of time comparing himself to other parents in his life, learning from them, and contemplating the life he has signed up for.

For some strange reason, though, at one point Daikichi its that he doesn't see himself as Rin's father. What is he, then? Interestingly, whenever something outside of his scope of parental capabilities crops up, he relies on the women in his life to help him parent Rin. In many scenes, these women are doing most of the work, while he kind of just sits there and acts like Rin's friend. This is part of my issue with the series - although Daikichi has put himself in a parental role, a lot of time he doesn't act like Rin's parent. Knowing about the end of the manga makes this fact even weirder (and, unfortunately, did sour my enjoyment of the anime as a whole).

Rin doesn't fully act like a child, either. She is markedly less childish than all of her peers, and has a level of maturity far beyond a normal 6-year-old. Some of this could be blamed on her trauma, but I think a great opportunity was missed here with regards character development. Much more could have been explored with her character and her pain around having lost her father, but instead we got a pretty one-dimensional Mary-sue.

In the first few episodes, this series seems like it is going to be a heartwarming, comfy story with not much conflict. And it really doesn't have a ton of conflict. Most of the time I was waiting for something interesting to happen. But it doesn't really have many heartwarming scenes, either, in my opinion. Aside from Daikichi, it seems as though every other adult in this show is miserable. One of the themes explored is the sacrifices parents make in order to be parents at all, and whether or not those sacrifices are worth it. I didn't think the way the show answered this question was very satisfying. Realitsic, maybe, but definitely depressing. For the 5% cute moments we get between the children and their parents, the other 95% of the show is, to put it bluntly, pretty boring and hard to watch. If anything, I found it to be a chillingly realistic portrayal of what parenthood is probably like for many.

Despite all this, Usagi Drop is not without its redeeming qualities. Episode 6 brought me to tears. There were plenty of heartwarming moments that, coupled with its deep themes about life and parental sacrifices, make the series worth having watched. But what started out in the first couple episodes as a seemingly comfy slice-of-life turned into something that dragged on, felt a little too realistic, and left me feeling extremely melancholy. As someone who values anime as a source of escapism, I didn't get much enjoyment out of this one. I do understand why many treasure this series, but it's probably not for everyone.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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