Usagi Drop / うさぎドロップ / Bunny Drop

Adapting the bland, but popular manga, Usagi Drop, the insubstantial, but usually visually stylish director, SABU has created a particularly bland movie. Usagi Drop chronicles the 30-year old Daikichi (Kenichi Matsuyama) who becomes the surrogate single father for his deceased grandfather’s illegitimate 6 year-old daughter, Rin (Mana Ashida). Dwelling on the quotidian hassles of a busy salaryman stuck with an impossibly cute little girl and the comedic and/or semi-tragic situations that arise, SABU dispatches them summarily and formulaically. For SABU lovers, there’s a subplot dropping our hero working into a factory production line, buddying up to a bunch of working class male fetish objects. There’s also a single mother love interest subplot for the romance set. Machan gets a few scene-chewing moments, but little chance of character development. Mana Ashida is darling. With Bunny Drop one gets the impression that movies may be beginning to catch up with what society has pretty much put behind many years ago. Tales of child rearing and growing up are timeless, but Usagi Drop adds little to the genre.

Originally published in EL Magazine, August 2011.