December 24th, 2012 
AstroNerdBoy Usagi Drop/うさぎドロップ Manga Volume 06
Purchase Bunny Drop Volume 6 from one of the following:
–> RightStuf
–> BUY.COM
–> Barnes & Noble
***SPOILERS***
Highlights from this volume start with Rin having Kouki and other friends over for a study session. At school, Rin smells Akari’s perfume on Kouki’s bag and gets angry with him over it, especially since he’s supposed to be interested in Rin. A flashback to their junior high days shows a very rebellious Kouki initially getting involved with the Akari, who’s a senpai. When he doesn’t come home one evening, Daikichi gets him and Akari to drag them home. Kouki attempts to make amends with Rin, but Akari hijacks his e-mail and starts spamming Rin’s phone with hate messages. Rin changes her mail address, but Akari gets the new address and continues the hate. To keep Daikichi from worrying, Rin sets her phone to only allow mail from a very few people, taking Kouki off the list.
In the present, Rin helps preparing for the school festival. Kouki is trying to win Rin over and Daikichi even expresses his approval of Rin dating Kouki. Rin is not sure, but does embrace Kouki when he walks her home and gives her a hug. However, Akari tells Kouki that she’s pregnant with his kid and wants Kouki to pay for an abortion. Kouki consults with Daikichi, who agrees to loan him the money, but when Rin finds out, she figures out Akari is conning Kouki. After kissing Kouki and telling him that she had loved him until their first year of middle school, Rin confronts Akari, who concedes that it was a scam. Though Rin is not dating Kouki, she warns Akari about doing anything to him since he’s still important to her. Sometime later, Rin’s friends come by for an impromptu birthday party for her, followed by Daikichi going out with Nitani-san, where he’s surprised to learn that she’s seriously involved with another guy.
*sigh*
You know, I really miss the sweet, wholesome goodness of Usagi Drop when it was about the elementary school Rin and Kouki. Now, we have the teenage angst stuff, which I think would have worked better IF Unita-sensei had carried the manga forward chronologically rather than skipping to Rin and Kouki in high school. As such, just to make sense of things, we have to get a lengthy flashback to see where all the problems currently being discussed started. The manga would have been much more interesting had we gone through that naturally, and now things were culminating into a conclusion.
Making matters worse is that this volume depressed the heck out of me. On one hand, we have Rin give Kouki a kiss and a negative response to his constant desire to become a couple with her. I can understand on a personal level how Rin really couldn’t trust Kouki with her heart since he was always going back to Akari no matter what. So, they are just going to be friends and nothing more. I had really hoped that Rin and Kouki would get together.
Then if that weren’t bad enough, Daikichi discovers that Kouki’s mom is not available. So, both of the romances that Unita-sensei had set up as possibilities are now flushed down the toilet. Thanks for nothing. Sure, both events are very much in the “this is what probably would happen” category, but manga is supposed to be escapism to a degree. Back when Rin was young and Daikichi took on responsibility for her, that was escapism by showing how an unwanted orphan girl could be loved by someone. As I said, I really miss the early days of this manga.
On the Yen Press side of things, I’m always glad to see Japanese honorifics retained. There’s a color page at the beginning, and some translator notes at the end, which I’m always in favor of.
Well, I do plan to continue the series. Volume 7 is sitting on my shelf with my other, new, “to be read” manga volumes. Frankly, I don’t see the purpose in the manga’s story any more since all that’s left is for Rin to graduate from high school and set out on her own. I just don’t see much interest in that tale at the moment.
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To put this bluntly, stop reading whilst you can.
Having read a tiny bit of this continuation I can firmly say your going to regret spending every penny you’ve put towards this series. Its going to make you want to bin every volume.
I think this series was created JUST to break down everything that was set up initially, in some sort of sick fan loathing troll-fest.
The only consolation is that the anime gives fans a chance to create their own future for the characters.
seriously, no self respecting manga author would do such a thing unless they were purposely looking for controversy in their work.
Ever since I started blogging the series, people have warned of the bad ending. While I’ve no doubt you are right, my general notion is to push forward and read it for myself simply so that I can finally understand how bad it is and then participate in a discussion of the subject.
I can understand Lan’s reluctance to recommend continuing with this title. I too have read beyond the currently published volumes, to the end, and was greatly disappointed. But what you ultimately think of this series is for you to decide.
The two ‘ships that were sunk here were done in for rather reasonable reasons:
1. Rin and Kouki: Rin never staked a claim on Kouki. As a matter of fact, on several occasions she actively denied having more than a sisterly affection for him. So, when Kouki went through his rebellious period, he hooked up with a bad girl, fairly well the opposite of Rin, possibly to rub it in Rin’s face. Said bad girl then harassed Rin to make sure she wouldn’t interfere with whatever games she was playing with Kouki. That tactic worked and Rin folded like a fan.
The result of that was Rin crossed Kouki off of her list of potential boyfriends, and never reconsidered.
2. Daikichi and Nitani: that possibility ended at the end of volume 5, which I think was right after Daikichi tracked down Kouki and dragged his sorry ass home. The reason was a perfectly reasonable one: she did not want to have Rin and Kouki living in the same house at the time. With Kouki being as unstable as he was acting at the time, she did not want to chance putting Rin, someone she loved like her own daughter, in danger. As much as she loved Daikichi, and make no mistake about it, she did; she was not about to put a girl she cared about in a potentially violent situation just to satisfy her own desires.
The result is that all of the characters are living with the choices they made, right or wrong, just like real life. I think this story is trying to be a little closer to real life than other manga out there, so a ‘they all lived happily ever after’ ending is not guaranteed.
Unless you’re really sick of the whole story, continue on with it and draw your own conclusions. While I didn’t like the way it ultimately ended, I did like what happened up to the last, particularly the events of volume 7.
I do plan to continue on, though I figure that based on all the outcries, I’ll end up agreeing with the naysayers.
Lan’s right. Spare yourself while you still can.
*lol* I’m a glutton for punishment. ^_~
I think Lan vastly overstates the case for dropping the series… But given the reasons you’ve specified for disliking the present developments, and given some of the opinions you’ve expressed in the past, I think the odds are less than one in four that you’ll care for the remainder of it.
I figure that will be the case, but I’d like to experience the pain for myself. ^_^;;;
I can’t blame you, as I read all the way through myself despite similar warnings. Not to mention that personally, I didn’t hate the ending – and I’ll be interested to see what insights you bring to it.
It just didn’t seem fair not to warn you… though looking at it again, the piling-on probably wasn’t really necessary or helpful. (^_^);
Heh. Well, I do appreciate the warnings. That way, I can steel myself against problems. ^_^;
Yeah, there was a reason they stopped the anime where they did. It gets better after this stupid teen angst arc is done though.
It gets better? Everyone says the ending is terrible. ^_^;;;
not terrible in the sense of ‘badly written’ – the author went to some pains to make the conclusion seem as believable as possible under the circumstances; the thing that everybody (me included) seems to be rejecting is one of the final choices of one of the main characters (I’m not saying more than that, ok?;) as something that – while it may not be out of character completely, as the author clearly wants to suggest, still feels very wrong to most of us, apparently. And I believe most peoples reaction there is very much in line with your observations regarding the validity of escapism.
Well, better than teen angst at least.
Well, despite the warnings, I am pressing ahead. ^_^;;;
I read this manga and was disappointed very much. I’d read so many times this was one of the best josei mangas out there and…. well I just didn’t find the hype to line up.
The first part was pretty good (first four volumes that is), but yeah, after that, it has been pretty rough going.