Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai is an anime based on the light novel series. It adapts the first five volumes into 13 episodes. It is set in high school and follows Azusagawa Sakuta who one day sees a bunny girl in the library. Other people can’t seem to see her except for him. The girl introduces herself as Sakurajima Mai, a famous celebrity who is currently on hiatus in order to focus on school. She warns him to forget about this and to not bring it up again.
Naturally, Sakuta keeps thinking of her and while Mai is resistant at first, we slowly get to understand what is causing this phenomenon. Sakuta deduces that Mai has the adolescence Syndrome, an urban legend that causes people to have special powers or is hurt in mysterious ways. In Mai’s case, it causes her to lose presence to an ever increasing number of people, effectively becoming invisible, which is starting to become inconvenient. The plot doesn’t pause and quickly dives into Mai’s history, why she wanted to quit the show business, as well as having doubts on whether to return. Sakuta on the other hand puts his best foot forward to try and find out what is causing Mai’s disappearance.
The development of the relationship between Sakuta and Mai happens fast. They first see each other, then suddenly they’re on a date, and then they’re sharing a room. The resolution of the problem happens quickly too and that’s probably why the relationship had to progress so fast. The dynamic between the main pair actually works well even though they’re like a regular couple. The way that Sakuta has to explain what is currently happening to him to Mai due to misunderstandings keeps the anime interesting. The embarrassing, yet sweet, resolution was good and it had an interesting mechanic behind it.
Despite the English title focusing on Sakuta first seeing Mai in a bunny costume, this arc only takes up a small portion of the anime. Odd things keep happening with a few foreshadowing moments thrown in. The way each situation rears its head, as well as being resolved is quite nice. Nothing about it is particularly clever or clever but it feels right each time. The story takes scientific theories and concepts to apply them to the events in the form of the Adolescence Syndrome. Each story arc is only around two to three episodes long. Yet it never feels like the pacing is too fast and enough time is given for things to properly work out and progress naturally.
Sakuta, despite not even trying, seems to attract the affections of a lot of other girls. The ones experiencing the phenomenons always seem to gravitate around him. He usually is one of the only ones to sense that something is wrong and thus he is the only one that can help them. All the characters introduced are likable since they’re usually introduced a little bit before their arc so you can get to know them better.No explanation is ever given for why the syndrome only seems to happen around Sakuta. We only get educated conjectures from the characters on why these specific events are happening.
The “rascal” part of the title naturally refers to Sakuta. He has some choice comments befitting of his description. Despite the suggesting title of the anime, the fan service is really subdued; it mostly just has a few double entendre from time to time. Sakuta never crosses the line to becoming slimy with his dialogue and all this makes the series have a sardonic type of humor. The wistful melancholy ending theme suits the series very well. It comes and hits you hard in the ending as it finally addresses one of the longer running “problem” that Sakuta was experiencing. It is a sad tale with a tear-inducing resolution. However, by the end of the thirteenth episode, it feels that the anime wasn’t ready to end but it had to, leaving a few things still as mysterious as when they were first introduced.
Overall, Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai gets better as the episodes progress. It’s a neat twist on your typical high school slice-of-life with intriguing scenarios. The humor is subdued but works well because of this, the characters are wonderfully likable and most importantly, it makes you eager to see what is next.
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