Usagi Drop  

I honestly expected Daikitchi to die when he ran after Rin, either to a heart attack or by being hit by a car and him dieing in her arms telling her he never regretted raising her.  Then have the series end on his funeral much like it started on Grandpa's.  Of course that might be a bit too dark but it was what I immediatly thought of when I saw her run away.

This is not the first time I've read a story like this and no I'm not talking about other manga or some such.  There was a series of books by Anne McCaffrey (an excellent author overall) called the Rowan series and in one of those books, Damia, this kind of thing happened.  It wasn't exactly the same, as Afra (Daikitchi character), the older man who married Damia (Rin character), wasn't her legal guardian nor was she an abandoned child but he was still her main parental figure in a way, the person she turned to when she really needed help as a child (and who often changed her diapers and all that jazz) and in the end the person she fell in love with.

I honestly don't find fault in the ending for being what it is.  Daikitchi doesn't accept it initially (even going so far as to tell her that her loving him is the most painful thing she could do to him) and even after the two year skip he still isn't entirely on board.  So to me this isn't impossibly out of character for him.  Nor was the ending that much of an "ass pull" on the part of the author, you could see it coming for most of the second half of the series (nor was the reveal that Rin wasn't related shocking in the slightest).  I can see how the subject might be taboo to some but at the same time given that we know the thoughts of both parties and know that she wasn't brought up with the expectation of her falling in love with him I can't say I find it wrong.

I do find the comments that Rin needed to be sent to a shrink a bit much though.  Just because she doesn't think of things as others might doesn't mean she has a mental issue.  After all our world is full of people who think differently from how each of us think, be it politics, religion, sexual orientation, and so forth, that doesn't have to mean they are wrong or in need of mental help for doing so.

This is probably what the author intended in the first place, since Daikichi isn't really the father-figure type and probably had some form of attraction towards the "mysterious" girl rin (perhaps just unconsciously) when they first met. That attraction isn't sexual (at least at first) and he tried to cover it up with whatever fatherly instincts he could muster (he's a single dad without even any girlfriend), yet at the same time he isn't exactly/completely depraved and perverse either.

From a cynical POV, this story is like a "How to be a moralistic pedo and not go to jail handbook". So I get why some folks (mostly the josei-type crowd) are panic-pressing their 'taboo' hate button. But even in the first half of the anime where rin's mom is usually being shown with another dude, there's already plenty of foreshadowing going on, so the only way it would come as a surprise is if you're not paying attention.  

Now, going on to the flipside of things and end with a troll-type question: What about a rule 34 (or 35) on a Daikichi + Rin + Kouki's mom hentai doujin? Will the moral-mob go on rage mode?