Yotsuba to!, Usagi Drop Recommendations
Both are stories about a single dad raising an adorable little girl. Both have elements of innocence and wonder, and both are sweet and funny. I think Yotsuba&! is more funny than Usagi Drop, but Usagi Drop is better at portraying the realities of daily life with a young child.
Both have a simple vibe and a story about a father taking care of his daughter
Before Chapter 25, there are quite a few similarities between Usagi Drop and Yotsuba&! - namely, the fact that both of these mangas feature a grown man raising a child on their own. Even then, their approaches do have some important differences, namely the fact that Yotsuba&! is primarily told from the perspective of the child whilst Usagi Drop is told from the perspective of the parent.
I like to think of Yotsuba&! as a shining example of a "feel-good" read in that this is the kind of manga you'll want to pick up if you're feeling down and you need a mood booster. There's something
rather reinvigorating to be found whilst reading the exploits of a toddler and the adults around her as she takes such delight with the mundane. It's impossible to read this manga without grinning or laughing at least once... you know, unless you're the kind of person who hates anything remotely light-hearted.
Usagi Drop on the other hand shows a man without any experience with children trying to raise a young girl that nobody else wants to raise because she's a bastard child. Don't let this fool you though, because Usagi Drop is quite an endearing and light-hearted read. It shows Daikichi learning about what it takes to be a good parent and we get some rather nice characters along the way like Yukari and Kouki.
Now this is where we discuss how your mileage will definitely vary between the two. Yotsuba&! has been publishing irregularly for 10+ years and Kiyohiko Azuma did state that he has no intentions of ending Yotsuba&! any time soon. The overall approach to the manga is incredibly SOL-oriented to the point where each chapter is more or less a self-contained story. Is there continuity in Yotsuba&!? Of course! Events from past chapters are referenced every now and then, but that still doesn't change the fact that the manga has a sort of episodic structure to it. Character development isn't one of Yotsuba&!'s strong suits either as in the 10+ years that this manga's been publishing, virtually every character is more or less identical to when they started out. There have been minor changes over time, don't get me wrong but there hasn't been anything substantial in terms of development that's worth talking about. Yeah... Yotsuba&! isn't the kind of manga you'd want to read if you're after an intricate plot with multi-faceted individuals.
The same can't exactly be said about Usagi Drop. Whilst the first ~24 chapters are certainly very similar to how Yotsuba&!'s always been, the remaining chapters are more or less an entirely different beast altogether. A time skip occurs where Rin ends up a teenager and Daikichi's well into his late 40s/early 50s and by this point, Usagi Drop gets bizarre as it covers Rin's growing [i]romantic[/i] feelings for Daikichi. Yeah... to this day, I question what the fuck Yumi Unita was on when she thought this up. I would say that you could only focus on the first ~24 or so chapters but the problem is that Usagi Drop is 62 chapters long so all this Rin/Daikichi romance crap goes on for ~60% of the manga's run. It's kinda hard to NOT look past this bullshit when it takes up the majority of the manga's runtime.
Utlimately, I prefer Yotsuba&! but Usagi Drop isn't without merit. Just do yourself a favour and don't read past Chapter 24 of Usagi Drop and you should be good. Anyway, that's all for now! Peace :)
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Both are laid-back manga with relatively young male characters trying to raise little girls. While Yotsubato! is told more from the child's (Yotsuba's) point of view, Usagi Drop is told more from the dad's (Daikichi's) point of view.
Usagi Drop probably has a more calm feel than Yotsubato!, and is a touch more dramatic. But it's still very cute with a nice art style.
(Warning: If you read Usagi Drop, stop after volume 7. Yes, that's not very long, but trust me, the plot starts to go downhill in volume 8.)
