I can accept English speaking students clearly attending Japanese school, English speaking fighters blatantly displaying kanji on their gi, and… hell, even English speaking aliens. But I’m pretty sure Bunny Drop’s one of those series that just has way too many cultural things to make any kind of sense if it were dubbed in English.
I remember reading Pokemon reviews online back in the day and coming across an episode that took place on Children’s Day, thinking how weird it was that outside the US there are other holidays out there—different days marked on their own calendars, different potential days off, different everything. Then the whole Porygon scandal came about and my slight jealousy became that much more uh… slight.
Unlike Children’s Day, though, I can completely see something like an O-Bon Festival working in America. I mean, I’m sure all other countries can agree that American children rank pretty high up there on the list of self-entitled little assholes. But a day to honor the deceased that isn’t overshadowed by (again) asshole kids asking for candy from complete strangers? Sure, I can dig that. Still, reality shows that such just doesn’t cut it outside of Japan and Japan Town, which is a drag.
… not that you could tell from the episode. Major negative points to the source material for not having Daikichi and Rin hit up a festival. Slight redemption to the anime for at least showing them taking off to one, though. And, of course, no redemption for Masako. Ever. She can do all the nice crap she wants, but at the end of the episode, she still comes off as an immature teen mom that just wants her chance at manga-ka stardom when she should be tending to her kid. For shame. Maybe even five shame.
Kudos to noitaminA for going the extra mile in each of the kids’ drawings, the following episode. You never really got a sense of just how well Rin drew in the manga, so it was good to be able to see bits and pieces of other kids’ drawings and then finally moving on to Rin’s. There’d without a doubt be some kind of drawing-on-refrigerator scene if the series took place in America.
“Aren’t you afraid of what the Great Urameshi will do to you?”
Kouki and Rin have a sort of Yusuke and Keiko type of dynamic… except I don’t want it to go any further than “Oh, isn’t that sweet of her.” Daikichi/Yukari 4ever, guys.
Totally random to have Puffy AmiYumi appear outside of the opening theme, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I can’t help but imagine their Cartoon Network selves ditching rtouring and growing up to become daycare workers.
When reading the manga, my stance on Kouki would have been pretty neutral if it weren’t for the crappy latter half of the series. Thankfully, there’s finally some kind of more solid proof that the anime doesn’t seem to mind meandering away from their source material for the sake of better character interactions.
I don’t remember every detail of the manga, but I do remember that there weren’t any (obvious) signs of a typhoon leading to Kouki chilling at Daikichi’s place until his hot young mom comes to pick him up.
It didn’t happen often, but I could relate to being the last kid picked up due to my parents’ jobs making for difficult scheduling times all around. It further sucked since I didn’t have a GameBoy until well into the Pokemon craze, so any lone wolf action wasn’t possible, either. Kouki not only has someone to play Keiko to his Yusuke, but he’s also got someone to geek out with Nintendo DS stuff with in Daikichi—not too shabby.
Still, it’s become obvious this episode that romance is more apparent in Daikichi’s future than Rin’s. Does it come off as predictable? Maybe, but the relationship between the two has been set up so perfectly that I don’t mind. Hurry up and make it happen, Dai-san!
Daemoncorps 