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You'd think a lesbian who got back into anime as an adult would've reviewed an actual, textual lesbian work sooner than review #12, huh?

If I recall correctly, I stumbled into Bunnie's Quest while scrolling through Mangadex's (embarrassingly small) list of suggestive and adult lesbian manga. I went in with basically zero expectations - beyond the knowledge that the author has also done BL and some pretty out-there looking 18+ age regression doujin - and I was pleasantly surprised.

Bunnie's Quest isn't a masterpiece by any means, but it has a very nice vibe to it. The characters are cute, the scenarios simple but fun, and overall it was a nice little romp,

The cast of Bunnie's Quest is as simple as they come. An optimistic, sociable young bunny who's just landed on Earth. A cool and calculating bunny who hides her loneliness and is occasionally very physically affectionate. And (what feels like an author self-ship) an isolated young human woman who's happy to have made some friends. Based on these three descriptions alone, I'm sure you can imagine most of the scenarios in this manga.

That's not necessarily a bad thing though.

I quite like Uko and Hane as our romantic leads. While "aliens observing humans" isn't a unique concept, it lends itself well to a lot of fun little scenarios. Getting groceries becomes a mission to examine how humans obtain food. Making a human friend becomes a tactical information gathering maneuver. It's a charming form of rationalization that doesn't get obnoxious, as you can clearly tell that Uko and Hane are still very much human. They're not actually unfeeling aliens, in fact they're hardly that different from humans at all. And while almost everything has a thin pretense of being academic or research-focused in nature, you feel that Uko, Hane, and Norimi all like each other.

Like most lesbian anime and manga I've seen, I'm left wishing that Bunnie's Quest went further than it did.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of genuine lesbian stuff here to love. Especially if you're not really familiar with the genre. Uko and Hane have a lot of cute scenes together, and their relationship does feel earned and real. Hane's chin wiping habit is adorable, and despite how short it was, the somber return to the moon plot beat felt like it had some real stakes behind separating the two. I will say that the "AI companion's generated manga is really good" plot beat hits a little poorly in 2024, but truly I don't think Bunnie's Quest does anything bad.

Rather - and unfortunately like most lesbian media - it doesn't escalate very far and just kinda stops out of nowhere.

At only 16 chapters, the pacing is breakneck. Everyone's intros are taken care of in the first ten pages - save for Norimi, who shows up later on - and the main conflict is introduced in two pages, and wrapped up in a single chapter. While some may not be bothered by this, I was. These were characters that I genuinely wanted to spend more time with! I know this is pretty common in the world of 1-3 volume manga, but it's always heartbreaking to experience.

And this kind of just shuts down their relationship. With (generously) twenty pages total of overt lesbian relationship stuff happening, it doesn't really escalate anywhere. I'm not going to clown on lesbian fluff for being lesbian fluff - I understand there's a market for that and unlike some lesbians, I don't believe that the volume of lesbian fluff is inherently negative - but it's always frustrating reading a lesbian manga that caps out at hugging. Have them kiss! Have them directly say they love each other! Have them be in a textual relationship instead of just a textual situationship! The author clearly isn't afraid of writing 18+ material - and taboo 18+ at that - so why stop here?

I get that this is a pet peeve, and there's nothing inherently wrong with non-sexual lesbian manga. But so much GL/Yuri/Lesbian manga is sexless that it's hard not to feel bitter about yet another manga with promise staying in the realm of "soft lesbian" stuff.

Bunnie's Quest is fine. It's cozy, it's warm, and at the very least the idea of "rubbing your face on your wife to scent her" is something that's probably gonna stick in my brain for an unreasonably long time. But while it's good, it's not exceptional. It's good enough that I'm sad it ended, but not great enough for me to not be bitter about its brevity and simplicity.

If you want to read this, I highly encourage you to do so. You can power through it in under and hour, and it's cute enough that I can't help but like it. But it's hardly a must-read, and it's likely nothing any lesbian hasn't already seen or read ten times already.