うさぎドロップ Anime Episode 01
Usagi Drop – 01

Thirty-year old Daikichi returns to his grandfather’s home to attend his grandfather’s memorial and funeral with family. Upon arriving, he sees a young, blond girl whom he doesn’t know and who runs away upon seeing him.  Entering his grandfather’s home, he stops by the kitchen to see his mother, where he learns that the girl, Rin, is thought to be the daughter of his grandfather and some woman who has apparently abandoned the girl.  Daikichi kids his mom about having such a young sister, then thinks about how someone that young is also his aunt. However, his mother is not in the mood for jokes and snaps at Daikichi since the whole thing embarrasses and shames her.

Rin finishes paying her respects at the shrine to her elderly father and leaves just before Daikichi arrives to pay his respects. She quietly observes Daikichi from around the corner and scrams when she’s spotted. Daikichi and other family members, mostly his great aunts and uncles, gather at the table to discuss things while Daikichi’s younger sister serves tea. Another female relative, with a young daughter Rin’s age named Reina, has to come in and stop Reina, who’s running around and behaving in a spoiled manner. Rin seems interested in Daikichi, though she mostly keeps to herself while Daikichi finds himself watching how Rin behaves compared to the spoiled Reina.

That night, Daikichi sends his elderly relatives to bed and says that he’ll keep the incense going and finds Rin desperately trying to stay awake to keep watch as well. He has her go to sleep, which she does using his hand as a pillow. The following day at the funeral service in the home, the family put flowers into the casket but leave Rin out of it but have Reina put in a flower. Reina instead decides to throw lots of flowers and has to be dragged away.  Daikichi brings Rin over, but she refuses to place one of the flowers in and instead, races outside to pick some of blue Bellflowers, his grandfather’s favorite. The family is not happy, but Daikichi tells Rin that his grandfather would be happiest with those flowers.

After the family returns from burying the old man, Rin tries to reach the wall clock to wind it, but the stool she’s chosen doesn’t give her enough height. Daikichi does it for her, then sits where the family discusses what to do about Rin and whether she’s actually a blood relative. Reina is still being spoiled, so Daikichi gives her a bunch of candy to leave. The conversation his relatives are having angers him since they all want to be rid of this family embarrassment and no one will take her in. Daikichi has heard enough and angrily goes to out where Rin is in the yard and asks if she wants to go home with him.  She does and the family is horrified by this.  However, Daikichi doesn’t care and takes Rin home with him, where they start their new life together, which starts with breakfast and the rule that Rin does not address Daikichi as “ojisan.”

Whew.  This was actually kind of hard to watch, not because it was bad, but because I wanted to jump through my monitor and start punching these people in the face.  Egad.  I know that family honor means a lot in Japan, which is why Daikichi’s decision to take Rin in is so courageous.  That said, the ugliness of the adults was shocking.  Despite Rin almost always being within earshot of the conversations, the family let their disgust for this poor, innocent, well behaved little girl be well expressed.  There’s no way she could not have known that they all couldn’t stand the sight of her.  None of them would even deign to talk to her save Daikichi.  She too has had a great loss and all they can think of was how this made their family look.  Ugh! Simply appalling.

Further to that, it was amazing to me that the family found Rin to be the odd one and worthy of disdain while the spoiled Reina was excused from her terrible behavior and even praised for things Rin actually did.  Good grief, its no wonder that Daikichi had no problem taking Rin in.  After all, Rin was well behaved and despite her very young age, she was very bright.  Rin understood that her elderly father would never wake up again while Reina simply wanted to play and both were the same age.  Rin even understood what the other family members didn’t — the old man’s flower preference, something else that Daikichi recognized.  That being said, it was Rin who was the stupid one and Reina who was the good child.  Ugh.

Fortunately, all was not depressingly angering. After the end credits, there’s nearly another minute of footage showing a humorous moment at breakfast with Rin appreciating her meal and then making onigiri (though not perfectly shaped) for herself and Daikichi to finish off the last of the rice.  Actually, it was touching and humorous at the same time.  The moment also provided a means of showing that Rin appears to not have suffered any permanent damage from her ugly relatives.

I’m looking forward to seeing more since this first episode was quite good, even if I did want to punch some people in the face and take Rin in myself. Instead, I’ll live the moments through Daikichi and the next episodes.