Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka? is an anime that aired in the spring season, it didn’t cause much noise when it aired, but in my opinion is one of the best series that season, I think the level of development it had, compared to other anime of the same type, is remarkable. And that’s the reason why I’m writing this article.
Warning:
This article contains heavy spoilers from the anime and manga Gochuumon wa
Usagi Desu ka? I recommend you to watch it first before reading this.
Firstly,
what do I mean with development? There were two important things that happened in Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka?
- Some characters actually had character development
- The author of the manga actually solved the conflicts and issues that were introduced in the series.
Let’s start
with those issues, those little plot points that were appearing over the course
of the show:
Tippy
Since the
start of the show we knew Tippy was Chino’s grandfather, but at the time we
didn’t know why or how he ended in the body of an Angora rabbit, I was really
surprised when Koi, the author of the manga, actually gave an explanation to
it, normally in this type of shows this type of creatures remain unexplained
until the end. The fact that Cocoa is directly involved on this makes it more
mysterious. I’m not sure if Koi plans on explaining Cocoa’s powers (or whatever
she has) further, but what they explained so far (It’s not clear if Koi is male
or female) it’s already a great improvement compared with other Slice of Life
shows.
 |
| What surprise me more is that Tippy is still alive 10 years after this |
Aoyama Blue Mountain visiting Rabbit House
The initial
gag of Aoyama was: every time she tried to visit Rabbit House, she wouldn’t be
able to do it for some reason. I thought this would be a running gag like in
every comedy SoL that would last until the end of the show, but nope, this is Gochuumon
wa Usagi Desu ka?, here every problem gets solved, and so, Aoyama visited the
Rabbit House, and not just that, she also managed to work there for a while and
talk with her “Master” again. This is seriously not something you see everyday.
 |
| Talking to her probably wasn't the best idea though |
Sharo not being a rich girl
Like the
other “gags”, this was established with Sharo’s introduction: everybody assumed
she was a rich girl because of her knowledge and the fact that she goes to Rize’s
school. So she and Chiya had to hide from everyone where she actually lives
while pretending she really has a lot of money. It was really surprising when
not only they decided to reveal this to everyone, but also they changed
completely Sharo character from that point of the show, making her worry about
her money problems with everyone else in the group. It’s not easy to completely
change the interactions that a character has with the rest of the cast after a
single chapter, only Koi would be able to do something like this.
 |
| Look on the bright side. At least your house is a lot better than the manga version. |
There’s
also another issue that got solved with a certain “delinquent” rabbit in the
manga, but this isn’t translated yet, so you probably don’t know this unless
you know Japanese. I’ll leave this one out to avoid spoilers, but I’m just
gonna tell you: Koi can solve more than one issue that a character has.
Talking
about spoilers, I’m gonna start with the character development part, and from
this part there will be comparisons with another manga/anime: Kiniro Mosaic.
Why? Because I can’t talk about how good this manga is compared to others of
the same type, without actually comparing it to others of the same type, and
Kiniro Mosaic is the best option for that because both are extremely similar,
with similar art style and elements. It’s even speculated that they’re so
similar because both authors, Koi and Yui Hara, are high school friends, and even though
there’s no way to prove this, it kind of makes sense.
 | ||
| Above, Non Non Biyori by Yui Hara, below Non Non Biyori by Koi. If they're not high school friends they must be at least twins. |
So well, be
careful because there will be Kiniro Mosaic spoilers too.
Character Development
Every
character got a little development in the anime, and some of them already got a
bit more in the manga, but there’s 2 certain characters that got a lot more of
development so far compared to the rest of the cast, and they are Sharo and
Chino.
At the
start of the show, Chino couldn’t stand Cocoa, she was a really shy girl and at
the time didn’t know how to deal with her, the sudden hugs and skinship wasn’t
something she was used to. At episode 4 she started accepting her, and at
episode 6 she started thinking that Cocoa’s influence might be good for her,
from this episode onwards she changed her attitude towards Cocoa for a more
tsundere type, she even got a bit jealous when her friends “stole” Cocoa from
her, even though only Chiya noticed. Her most important development were in
episode 10, 11 and 12, in episode 10 she really missed Cocoa the whole time she
was visiting Sharo, to the point she couldn’t stop thinking about her and even
started acting like her. Episode 11 her tsundere levels reached the top when
she negated that she perfectly harmonized with her. And in episode 12 she
completely dropped her tsun to finally be honest with herself: she admitted to
herself that she likes Cocoa smell, she admitted that Cocoa smell makes her
feel at ease, she finally called Cocoa “Onee-chan”, something that she denied
through the whole show, she finally did it. If you compare the Chino from the
first and the last episode they’re almost completely different characters, this
is something unseen in these type of series, you can also compare both Chino
and Cocoa relationship with Alice and Shino from Kiniro Mosaic, they’re similar
in a superficial sense: the size difference between 2 girls, the small one can
get jealous if the big one gets attention from someone else and miss her if she
isn’t with her, meanwhile the big one has a strange fetish (liking blonde
girls, liking little sisters) and it’s a bit of an airhead and an oblivious
girl. But in a psychological sense they’re completely different, Alice and Shino
just needed an episode (which take place 10 years before the series starts and only
lasts a week) to get extremely close, meanwhile Chino and Cocoa needed a full
season (almost a full year in the series) to get to this point, why? Because
Chino really needed a lot of development compared to her initial character in
the series for actually be able to be close to Cocoa, meanwhile Alice just
clicked with Shino and everything went well from there. I’m not saying Alice
didn’t have character development: she developed with Shino, she certainly got gayer (right now in the manga she has a Shino’s daki), but alone as a
character herself Alice is not that different from the one in the first
episode, something that can’t be said from Chino, Chino developed with Cocoa and alone as a character, this is why Koi deserves extra merit, Chino
is one of the most developed characters in a Slice of Life series.
Now, if we
start with the manga, there was a recent arc with Cocoa’s big sister, Mocha.
She certainly changed the interactions between the cast and there was some relevant
stuff that happened while she was visiting Cocoa:
 |
| I can almost feel the development in the air |
 |
| Mocha. She's gay like everyone else so don't even think about it. |
Her
interactions with Rize, Rize was scared of her, she couldn’t stand being hugged
and being called cute (which I find pretty adorable, it gives you a view of how
Rize sees herself, I mean, there’s a reason she’s almost not feminine at all),
well, it reminds you of something? Of course, this is similar of how Chino
acted towards Cocoa in the first episodes. Rize and Mocha are like a grown up
versions of Chino and Cocoa at the start, a bit different because of Rize’s
personality, but the idea is the same. The last time Rize was scared of
something was from bugs, and Sharo saved her, so I find this pretty refreshing,
especially because Rize was so scared this time that she tried to make Sharo
save her again.
 |
| Your resistance only makes me hug you harder |
Chiya
wanted to be Mocha imouto, she wanted her love and affection. I know Mocha
practically made every character her imouto, there was a scene dedicated to
make each of Cocoa’s imoutos and friends, Mocha’s imoutos, but they were just
that, a single scene, the next scene they already had forgotten they were
converted into Mocha’s imoutos. But with Chiya was different, she purposely
sought for Mocha’s affection and this remained a constant in the consequent
scenes. This can be compared to Megu and Cocoa, Chiya and Mocha are like a grown
up versions of Megu and Cocoa, Megu respects Cocoa and she’s more than happy to
be her imouto.
 |
| I guess this is the only way for Chiya to have a happy ending |
But the
most important Mocha’s action, and the main reason I’m talking about the manga
in the first place, was that: she made Chino reconsider herself as Cocoa’s
sister. Chino already accepted herself as Cocoa’s imouto, Cocoa is her
Onee-chan, now what? Of course, Koi has more development saved for Chino:
The first
time Mocha appeared she went to sleep with Cocoa and at that moment Chino asked
herself “so this is what real sisters are like…?” This is her next point in
development, she doesn’t consider herself a “real” sister to Cocoa, after that
she constantly took notes about how “real” sisters act together during all the
time Mocha was visiting. This hasn’t been resolved yet, but knowing Koi, there
will be a point in which either Chino will get over this, or she will purposely
try to act more like a “real” sister towards Cocoa.
Who knows what’s gonna happen, but I guess it’s time to start talking about another character, right?
 |
| Don't worry Chino-chan, Cocoa will always love you no matter what you're for her |
Who knows what’s gonna happen, but I guess it’s time to start talking about another character, right?
Let’s talk
about Sharo, at the start she was scared of rabbits, but this was already
solved in an untranslated manga chapter (that I won’t talk about because
spoilers), she also was hiding the fact that she wasn’t a rich girl, something
already talked about, solved. But there’s also something else pretty relevant
for her character: Her relationship with Rize.
Sharo
started pretty ahead in her introduction episode, she and Rize got mugs united
by the “red string of fate”, she saw Rize in a middle school uniform, she left
pretty clear she loved Rize in the story time scene and at the end she got to
snuggle into Rize’s awesome breasts. But after this, not much happened, there
were certainly some scenes between them in episodes 4, 5, 6 and 7 (one of them
was almost a parody of another scene in Kiniro Mosaic between Aya and Yoko),
and during all these episodes Rize left something clear, she’s really childish
inside, even though she mostly acts mature and try to be the tsukkomi of the
group, at the end the thing she loves the most is to have fun (this is even
more obvious in some manga chapters) and this is something that Sharo took to
her advantage in episode 8, when she teaches Rize how to swim. Compared to
previous episodes, she really bonded with Rize this time, and even though Sharo
is pretty good in hiding her love for Rize (which is also relevant for Rize
character, Rize is not dense, it’s just that Sharo is pretty good in hiding
herself, unlike Aya and Yoko from Kiniro Mosaic which is the complete opposite
and at the same time pretty similar to these two), Sharo proved that she can
bond with Rize without having to make her gayness obvious, she proved that she
can have serious scenes with Rize.
 |
| Not everything in Sharo's life is suffering |
In the next
episodes not much happened, the only relevant thing I can think of is that she
realized how much Chiya cares about her. But as you may have already noticed,
Sharo relationship with Rize is not solved yet. This is of course what I mean above
with everything. Going by how Koi has
solved everything so far, I firmly believe that Sharo love for Rize will be
addressed at some point in the future, maybe at the half of a random volume,
maybe in the last chapter of the last volume, but I firmly believe it’s gonna
happen, everything that has happened so far is more than enough of a reason to
believe in Koi.
Which
brings the other half of this coin: CocoaxChino. There’s still a lot of
development left for Chino in this ride, with everything I wrote above you can
see she’s only like at half of it, and there’s a very simple thing that
guarantees this is going to continue: the fans want it. Let’s take a look at
Kiniro Mosaic again:
The 2 main
couples are:
- AlicexShino
- AyaxYoko
And between
both of them the couple most liked by the fans was AyaxYoko, you can see in the
fanart, videos and the like who is the favorite couple for the fanbase.
Meanwhile,
it was the complete opposite for Gochiusa, the 2 main couples are:
- CocoaxChino
- SharoxRize
And while
people was expecting for SharoxRize to be the most loved couple since they are
the equivalent of AyaxYoko (it can be said because most of the posters and official art with Sharo are about SharoxRize), the complete opposite happened
and CocoaxChino became the favorite. Right now at this point on pixiv there’s
190 pictures of Cocoa and Chino together, and only 52 of Sharo and Rize, the
number isn’t even comparable, there’s almost 4 times more art of Cocoa and
Chino.
 |
| Not that I'm complaining |
And not
only this, talking about videos, specifically in nicodouga, there’s at least 20
fanmade versions of CocoaxChino Daydream Café, the opening of the series, each
volume of the BDs has an individual version of the opening for each character and just a day
after the Chino version was out in the 2nd BD, nicovideo was full of
CocoaxChino daydream cafés with multiple versions Stereo, Mono, 128kbps, 320kbps,
512kbps. The search page was nothing but this, I even saved the link of some of
them:
And these
are not even half of them. Something as big as this didn’t happen with any of
the other versions of daydream café released, there were some Rabbit House
versions (Cocoa, Chino, and Rize) and like 4 CocoaxChiya versions, but nothing
as big as this.
And this is
not only limited to songs, in the topic of MADs there’s plenty of CocoaxChino
ones, even reuploaded to YouTube:
These are
just some of them, most of the other ones are edits of the scene when she
called Cocoa Onee-chan in the last episode, or edits of the scene when she
almost kissed her taking her temperature from the same episode.
Meanwhile,
SharoxRize has 0 MADs dedicated to them, there’s only one MAD, not even
reuploaded to YouTube, which has a SharoxRize scene:
And it doesn’t even last more than 2 seconds,
here I made a webm about it:
It even has a CocoaxChino scene just after, that is a lot more elaborated compared to the SharoxRize one:
This MAD
serves like a perfect analogy about how the fanbase likes these couples.
But don’t get me wrong, I like both couples and I’m perfectly sure that both of them are gonna get solved by Koi. I mean, you can just see the SharoxRize character song:
But don’t get me wrong, I like both couples and I’m perfectly sure that both of them are gonna get solved by Koi. I mean, you can just see the SharoxRize character song:
Here are the lyrics:
 | |
| Together they have L.O.V. and they're searching for the E. |
But from a
popularity standpoint, CocoaxChino is a lot more likely than SharoxRize:
 |
| These are average posts in the 2chan Gochiusa threads And I know what I'm talking about, I'm all day in these threads screencaping these posts |
THANKS FOR READING
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario
Nota: solo los miembros de este blog pueden publicar comentarios.