"Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out" can be considered an OVA epilogue to the last three episodes of Season 1 of Bunny Girl Senpai, instead of a standalone movie. Aside from its pacing and format, which don’t fit a conventional feature-length film, it acts as a mini-sequel to Sakuta’s sister Kaede’s arc after recovering from her dissociative amnesia where, triggered by the trauma of her being bullied, she lost all her prior episodic memory and turned into a ‘blank slate’—referred to as “kaede” (due to a lack of a nuanced English equivalent to kanji and hiragana Japanese texts, they will respectively be referred to as such from here onwards).

In contrast to the focus on kaede’s remarkable two-year recovery from being a shut-in truant at the end of Season 1, the OVA shows us Kaede suddenly dealing with the fact that a lot of things have happened to her and her loved ones during her absence. Among other things, she now has to adjust to the fact that her brother now has a girlfriend; their mother became mentally unstable while she was having her dissociative period, and they now live apart from their parents all because of that. Furthermore, she is now expected to be able to head outside and attend school, which must all feel so overwhelming to Kaede. It’s like waking from a fugue state and finding yourself piloting an airplane.

Many of the themes explored in the OVA revolve around Kaede gaining back her identity and autonomy while feeling the immense pressure of having to meet the expectations established by kaede. All of these seem like things that have been imposed on her without her consent and active participation. While not entirely all bad and unwelcome, even her progress and achievements feel alienating because she wasn’t there to experience them firsthand, and they were kaede’s efforts not hers. She then feels guilty and extremely indebted to kaede, the crux of which was when she reads kaede’s diary and finds out about her dreams checklist. She saw that Kaede had one unfulfilled dream—to go to the same high school as her brother, in Minegahara.

As Kaede sets out to fulfill her other self’s dream, she has to face the fact that she cannot just simply apply to any public high school because she blew off almost two years of middle school, and her grades weren’t all that great. But she was determined to get in even at the expense of her health. While she was eventually able to take the entrance exams, her health turned so bad that she wasn’t able to finish it. During Kaede’s struggles and frustrations, Sakuta was always there to support her. It’s very heartwarming to see how much he’s grown over the series, especially in how he’s accepted and loved both kaede and Kaede. It’s also satisfying how Sakuta has finally had the chance to make up for all the guilt he has felt for being unable to help out Kaede before. Of course, he wouldn’t be able to do this much for Kaede without the help of the rest of the lovely cast. Eventually Kaede realized that she did not need to fulfill kaede's dream and that she should follow her own dreams and live her own life.

Finally, while Mai and Sakuta aren’t the main focus of this OVA, it’s still nice to see how much this adaptation included all their moments together and how much they’ve matured to handle being apart. Part of this, especially the opening and post-credit scenes, is a clever setup towards the sequel "Knapsack Kid," which I’m looking forward to watching next!

While this doesn’t reach the level of greatness that is "Dreaming Girl," I would still rate this OVA quite high because of how well it portrays my favorite character, Kaede. I think "Sister Venturing Out" is a great example of an anti-coming-of-age coming-of-age story, and if you’re into that kind of thing, then I highly suggest watching this.