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I wanted to watch this title since I watched Usagi Drop in 2017 because it was recommended as something similar in any database you go to but I didn’t because I was watching a lot more things. Anyways I finally watched it last year and read the manga two weeks ago and I’m very pleased with what I found in them. This review will cover both versions.
The first thing that needs to be clarify about Aishiteruze Baby is that, despite being compared with Usagi Drop, it doesn’t have a father-daughter relationship and instead features a high school playboy that all of a sudden has to take care of his five years old cousin, which is more interesting because it can lead to much more character development.
And it does, throughout the show, Kippei gradually turns from a playboy that does nothing but fooling around with different girls and is a complete disaster at school to a caring man taking care of Yuzu the best he can, learning things about her and parenting along the way. His change is so drastic it even surprises the rest of the cast. It will perhaps feel sudden for some people but I didn’t have any issues with it.
As for Yuzu, what can I say? She’s a five years old girl that was basically abandoned and still tries to stay positive while she learns lot of things in her everyday life. Unlike Rin in Usagi Drop, Yuzu is not mature for her age in the least, she views everything with a simplistic mindset and often misunderstands what happens and people’s intentions. At the same time, she’s an emotional mess since she was abandoned and is thus very emotionally dependent of others, which is something she more or less learns to handle along the way.
The show also spends some time in building an emotional connection with some of her belongings that were left behind by her mother and how she eventually grows out of them while also showing how she slowly starts to forget her mother as a consequence of being apart from her.
At the same time, she has some comical quirks as expected from a girl her age, such as imitating the way bunnies jump from time to time. In other words, her characterization is very solid, she’s both adorable and somewhat tragic, grows along the way and really feels like a five years old kid, except for the annoying moments that every kid has at that age, if something can be criticized about her characterization, that would be it, but I don’t think anyone watching the anime or reading the manga would complain about that.
The show does not stop at the wholesome semi big brother-young sister relationship between these two and features a bunch of secondary characters to deal with the subject matter even further. On one hand, this means a lot of secondary characters are also fleshed out, which is a plus but on the other hand it also means that almost every single person but the main family in the show has family issues. It is necessary for theme exploration but man does it feel kinda convenient that lots of characters go through similar problems at the same time. I still give it a pass because is basically the series telling you that in reality there’s no perfect parenting, but it can become a little repetitive for some.
I can at least appreciate the different takes of the subject through them. There’s of course Kippei who has good intentions but messes up most of the time because of his inexperience, there’s Yuzu’s mother who, despite being an adult, is completely unprepared for such role, there’s Kota and his abusive mother, who thankfully is portrayed as a conflicted person and not a one dimensional evil mother as it was the case with a certain once famous show about time travel that deals with a similar theme in a way that feels ridiculous and impossible to take seriously.
And then there’s Miki, by far the lowest point in this series. Her introduction is very sudden, her interactions with the other characters is not bad but her backstory is completely ridiculous and edgy. It may have made a little bit of sense almost twenty years ago when the manga was being published and the anime aired but even then, it was very over the top and by now is the type of stuff that makes you drop a show and label it as ridiculous. I would put it almost at the same level as the stupid backtory of a character that I’ll just name as chocolate girl from that certain other show. Thankfully she disappears after a few episodes.
Then there’s Kokoro’s case, by far the most similar to Yuzu’s and the one that strikes the most as kinda convenient (for having two people knowing each other and both of them with similar cases) but that is what makes them undestand each other in the end and thus it works well in terms of interactions between them. The best thing about her is that, despite having her father with her, he’s absent, thus showing that even when a parent is there, it doesn’t necessarily means that they are doing a good job.
With all that said, I have to admit that the series explores the theme on a basic level and the resolutions are always simplistic, not bad nor superficial but definitely not in a way that feels mindblowing, or revealing/eye opening, is a wholesome slice of life series first and a human drama after. There are some things that come off as a bit melodramatic and are hard to take seriously (what happens with Yuzu’s crayons at the beginning of the show) and you have to suspend your disbelief a little with this show, but outside of Miki’s backstory, it never reaches a point where it breaks your immersion.
Kokoro also brings the romantic element of the show as she’s the one that, along with Yuzu, turns Kippei from the mess he begins as to the young family man he is at the end. The relationship between them develops along the series and although, yes, is highschool teenage drama, is never exaggerated nor melodramatic. I kinda did a spoiler there, didn’t I? Well, in my defense, the show spoils it in both the opening and the ending so it doesn’t make much difference, and the outcome is kinda obvious anyway.
Then there are some more secondary characters and they also have a bit of their own storylines but are not related to the main theme, they are there to flesh out the secondary cast and flavor the series but not much would be lost if all of that wasn’t shown.
In terms of presentation, the manga has a very typical and simplistic shojoish art style that improves a little by the end and the anime makes a good job in translating it faithfully to its medium but its quality is very by the numbers, even for 2004 standards it was very average leaning a little to a below average level for its time and by now it looks like shit. The character designs are generic, quality drops are ever-present, the backgrounds are not finished at times (quite often, I must say), motions are as simplistic as they can and there are rarely any effects that stand out.
When it comes to the sound, the music works well for the type of show and helps to make some scenes a bit memorable but is not really amazing and the sound effects are…there. As for the voice acting, is to the most part just plain awful. Whether they were newbies or veterans, none of them did a convincing job. Yuzu’s voice actress can be forgiven because she was literally a kid but not excused, a decade later Rin from Usagi Drop, Naru from Barakamon and Tsumugi from Amaama to Inazuma were all performed by girls in her tens as well and they all did a much much better job.
And even leaving Yuzu aside, the rest have no excuse, especially Kokoro’s voice actress who sounds bored and emotionally absent all the time, making her emotional scenes lacking a little bit every time.
And now for a short comparison between the two versions:
-Since the chapters of the manga are about 30 pages long each, the conflicts in the beginning are resolved in one of two chapters at first, so the anime stretched them out a little to last between two or three episodes, aside from obviously making the scenes to last longer than one or two panels. It makes them feel more important without slowing the pace much. Miki’s backstory was more tolerable in the manga though.
-It gives some secondary characters a little more spotlight, it was unneeded but welcomed. At the same time however, the manga has some other secondary stories that were mostly or completely absent in the adaptation (mainly the sister’s) but even then, the manga doesn’t focus on them that much, sadly.
-It makes Yuzu’s mother less unlikable by skipping something but at the same time it never shows the resolution of her “character arc” (which happens mostly out of screen anyways).
-It changes a whole arc from the manga by skipping it almost entirely, on one hand, the arc was a bit melodramatic so keeping it out of the picture was perhaps for the best, but it was also a major point in the development of Kippei and Kokoro’s relationship that even has a big impact in the next arc and the ending, and it doesn’t happen in the anime.
-Both versions have different endings and neither of them are completely satisfactory, but not bad either. The anime ends by adapting a litte from a certain volume and mixing it with the final volume but is to the most part an open and ambiguous finale that feels like a “and they were happy” one. The manga has a more complete resolution but it came out almost out of nowhere, making it seems like the manga was doing poorly before rushing the resolution as quickly as it could before making a time skip that doesn’t show most of the characters.
Unexpectedly, three kinda similar show came out last year and none of them are on par with this one or Usagi Drop. Somali to Mori no Kamisama has a feel of adventure and tragedy but its theme of racism is very superficial and is incomplete, Kakushigoto fools around for most of its duration before trolling you with a non tragedy ending and Taisou Zamurai didn’t have that much father-daughter relationship and was filled with random stuff. Compared to Amaama to Inazuma, this series does not reduce parenting to just feeding a child and that’s it. Heck, Aishiteruze Baby is even better than Usagi Drop in my eyes for doing a lot more with its theme, fleshing out more characters and for not going the same disgusting path during its second half in the manga. And I have watched Kurenai recently and the less I talk about that mess of concepts and themes the better.
Thus, despite looking and sounding like shit and not being anywhere close to amazing, it manages to be the most meaningful and best show of its kind that I watched up until now (I still have some similar shows to watch, such as Akachan to Boku) despite being the oldest, for being longer and more focused, and for fleshing out its characters far more than the rest.
6/10
