The Problem with Depictions of Parent-Child Relationships in Anime

I have always thought that that the depiction of parent-child relationships is a major weakness in anime. Seldom do you find parents who are not of the following 'convenient' categories:

• Working overseas
• Dead
• Salaryman who never leaves the office and housewife who never leaves the kitchen

The point is, parents ususally appear as flat characters, far from the tangent of the teenage protagonist's life-drama.

One pattern I spotted is that the intellectual and personal growth of a female character is typically supported by an understanding father in the absence of a mother. Examples include:

• Oscar in The Rose of Versailles
• Haruhi in Ouran High School Host Club
• Shuurei in Saiunkoku Monogatari
• Hilda in Legend of Galactic Heroes

Whereas strong father-daughter relationship can be found here and there, mother-daughter relationship seems to be a rare topic for anime to touch upon. The only example I can think of is Yukari and her mother in Paradise Kiss, and even then her mother is rather a flat character.

I have always said that anime characters are mythological archetypes. When I look at female characters like Oscar, Haruhi, Shuurei and Hilda, I cannot help but be reminded of the Greek goddess Athena, who was born full grown from the head of her father Zeus. 'Being born full grown' is just another way of saying that Athena has never had a childhood. And sure enough, Oscar, Haruhi, Shuurei and Hilda were probably never 'children' psychologically. 

The intellectual and personal growth of a male character, on the other hand, tends to be pitted against his father, or at least a father figure, or the concept of 'father' in the abstract. Examples include:

• Yagami Light in Death Note
• Edward in Fullmental Alchemist
• Shinji in Neon Genesis Evangelion
• Yuusuke in Yu Yu Hakusho
• Arslan in The Heroic Legend of Arslan

Again, when I look at these male characters, I cannot help but be reminded of the Greek myths of Zeus killing his father own Cronus and Cronus killing his own father Uranus. Each time, the son overthrows the father in order to establish his own world order, and the pattern repeats in every generation.

Mother-and-son relationship does not seem to be a strong point in anime either. Mothers tend to fall into either ends of the spectrum - they are either impossibly ideal or they are just downright mean and cruel.

I think Gankutsuou is an exception where the parents actually have their own lives to live out. Honey and Clover also features some minor appearances of parents which are nevertheless realistic and to the point.

What do you all think about parent-children relationships in anime? Has there been an anime which chiefly features a successful and touching depiction of parental affection and/or filial piety, or realistic portrayal of chilly relationships between parents and children?   

Comments

[psgels]

I can see what you're trying to say, and parents often are just plot-devices, included because the protagonist needs a parent.

I have seen a few anime where parents play a big role, though. In Bokura no (the anime at least), for example, the parents of the different characters are developed well, considering the limited screentime dedicated to each child.

The anime Night Head Genesis also spends a lot of time on the development of the parents of the two main characters. In the two Popolocrois-series, the parents of the main character are also major side-characters, who support their children from the side-lines.

Yoshinaga-chi no Gargoyle also may have had its flaws, but actually develops the entire family of the main character a bit. For a more realistic relationship, I think Sato's parents in NHK ni Youkoso qualify, though unfortunately they play just a very small part in the anime. Kamisama Kazoku is perhaps a better example, if you ignore that the main character's father is actually god himself. An interesting movie-example is Eternal Family, in which random people get brainwashed into thinking they're a family.

I may have been rambling on a bit too much (sorry about that), but my point is that you're generally right, but there are enough exceptions.

[bi]

That is very true. I've always thought I didn't see much parents in anime and manga because they were teenager-oriented, and to make a teenager dream you have to get rid of those bothersome parents figures :)
I don't know about anime oriented towards a public of adults, though in that case the protagonists would be older and most likely to live far from their parents.

An example of a little exception could be Ookiku Furikabutte. The mothers of the baseball players are there cheering for them, and it's showed how they very relistically care for their children. They have a relatively long screentime, too, compared to the average in anime.

[Mechamorph]

To answer your query about parental affection, yes I can. Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou (Kare Kano; His and Her Circumstances) does feature very healthy relationships between families as well as dysfunctional ones. Spoilers abound for anime and manga versions; MAJOR spoilers!

The Miyazawa household is an example of the former. Sure their father, Hiroyuki, is a goofy comedic device but its obvious that both parents truly and deeply care for their children and that this is reciprocated. An episode is devoted to the courtship of the parents and how Hiroyuki was raised by his grandfather after his parents' untimely demise. It would seem that the love and affection his grandfather showered upon him made Miyazawa Hiroyuki the man he is today. He details his own philosophy of raising a child before Yukino's teachers and it all boils down to letting the love win and having faith in your children.

Miyazawa Miyako is also shown to be in a good relationship with her own father although as many father-in-laws are wont to do, he's rather upset with Hiroyuki for "stealing" his daughter.

In the manga, which continues on past the ending of the anime, Yukino follows in parents' footsteps as a caring mother for her children.

The Arima family is a stark contrast to the warm, familial feel of the Miyazawa family. Soichirou's parents are both highly neurotic individuals incapable of caring for a child. Thus he is raised with his biological uncle and aunt as a foster child. They love Soichirou dearly but there is a certain formality in their relationship as the past rears its ugly head. As the issues surrounding the Arima family are resolved in the latter parts of the manga, their relationship smoothens and Soichirou's love for his foster parents strengthen when he sees them for their faults.

Of course there are negative examples as well. Tonami Takefumi's parents never appear on screen but it is indicated that they spoiled their child rotten with plenty of material goods and a cloying type of love that never allowed him to bloom as a person.

Asaba Hideki is also shown to be in an adverserial relationship with his father. Here its more of a matter of clashing personalities. Asaba Sr is a strait-laced kind of fellow who does not appreciate Hideki's laid-back attitude. In one scene Hideki comments that he likes Soichirou company as it helps him reconcile with the image of his father. Soichirou's serious nature reminds him of his father and Hideki's logic is that if he could like Soichirou as a person, he could come to terms with his father's personality.

It is notable that Hideki is one of the few main characters who is not attached by the end of the manga. Indeed his soulmate is outright stated to be Miyazawa Sakura who has been nurtured by the warm affection of two of his closest friends. In the end the girl right for him is one who has had the close family that Hideki himself lacked.

[Karwa]

I agree with psgels that Ookiku Furikabutte display realistic parent relationships and play a prominent role in their children lives. Another show would be Terra e which focuses on the parent-children relationships rather heavily. Yes, some of them are rather stereotypical family behavior, but it does successfully show the agony of a parent's loss of a child and explore what it means to be a family.

[Wabisabi]

psgels:

I dropped Bokurano after 3 episodes, but I will take your word for it since the range of personalities in the children just scream a diverse range of parents.

But when you say parents play a big role, I suppose you don't mean that parents are the movers and shakers in the show?

The only anime I am think of in which a parent is a mover and shaker is Gendo Ikari in Eva.

I don't think I remember much of Sato's parents except for his mom's voice over the phone... but then I only watched up to episode 20 or so. Does she actually appear?

bi:

'Toward the Terra' has fans from the 1970s who have become parents since then. And parents are portrayed in a more flattering light in the new anime than in the original 70s manga. Talk about pleasing a certain demographic...

I have heard good things said of 'Ookiku Furikabutte'. Maybe it's about time I check it out.

Mechamorph:

I was only shown a few volumes of 'Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou' by a friend before. I think family is portrayed at either extremes of the spectrum - it's really good when it is good and it's really bad when it is bad.

Karwa:

I think it is bi who mentioned Ookiku Furikabutte. ^-^

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To sum up, I think what I want to see are more complicated scenarios, like the sort of *emotional blackmails* (not just the easier-to-depict stuff like physical violence and lovey-dovey-ness) that typically go on in a family...

For example - Self-made children are making their rise in the world and leaving behind lower class parents who react negatively to their children's success. Both nevertheless try to maintain the appearance that they are a happy family.

Lots of possibilities of meaty emotional blackmails there.

[w]

I dunno, it's just sheer gut feeling but to me I've kind of felt that the phenomena you're talking about - kids leaving behind lower class parents - isn't as widely observed in Japan more recently (particularly the target audience for most anime, I think) You'd probably have to ask Yuya-dono or something. But from what I see I get the impression that a lot of such cases occur when the family goes and lives in another country and/or the child is exposed to a completely different type of mindset and there frequently is some kind of language barrier, too.

Most Japanese I think are known for liking to stick in their own country... and yuo don't quite see any anime realistically portraying the problems of Japanese children who grow up overseas and are disconnected from their parents.

For another thing - I hope I don't sound like some disgusting Japanese nationalist here, but - I feel that Japan advanced much faster than surrounding regions such that while this change had its effect on families in other countries in more recent times, this is a thing of the past in Japan. Perhaps there is more friction between current parents and *their* parents? This is entirely a guess on my part though, not like I actually know anything...

Having said that, about 2 weeks back I jsut happened to watch the first episode of this not-quite-well-known old anime series directed by Isao Takahata called Jarinko Chie. I had been curious about it because I heard it being mentioned by Ben (and well, it's Takahata). Despite being like a kid's show and clearly from a different generation altogether, I actually found myself surprisingly and thoroughly pleased by it, I don't know why. Even if you know it's outdated there's something about the way the characters act that I liked, even if I may have seen it before. One would definitely have to be Chie's relationship with her father: her father's a good-for-nothing (ex-?) yakuza (I think?) who lies to his own parents saying that Chie is sick so he can have more money to gamble (of course, he only lies to his dad because he's such a pushover and his mother can see right through him), but even Chie knows better and just ends up running a food stall all by herself so they can live on their own (despite that she keeps half the money for her dad anyway).

I don't know, there was something about the interaction between the generations, no matter how simple it may seem, that kinda intrigued me.

[Snoop']

I haven't watched many anime, but some of them I can come up with are :

- Jungle wa itsumo Hare nochi Guu : surprisingly enough, mother/son/father relationship is at the heart of this comedy show on crack cocaine. Weda, who behaves like a merry alcoholic girl most of the time, can become grave when it comes to her son or when thngs involve her family or her "husband". If you read the manga (HareGuu), there is also an interesting scheme around Weda's father and siblings.

- Boogiepop Phantom : there was an episode about a mother reading the diary of her daughter, who commited suicide. Because she couldn't bear to see her mother dating a man only a few months after her father's death...

- Twin Spica : the father/daughter relationship in the first episodes brings tears to the eyes (of a receptive viewer like me).

- The Snow Queen : same as above, for Kayle and his father.

- Seirei no Moribito : now that's a bit different, since it's about the relationship between between a child (Chagumu)and his adoptive mother (Balsa). There would be a lot to talk about concerning Jiguro/Balsa/Chagumu/(Water Fiend), and the chain of "protection" and "belief" that is passed on. See ep.21&22 for further details.

BTW congrats for the many insightful posts on this main blog page !

[Wabisabi]

w:

Great comment.

Anyway, it was just one example that occurred to me. I will think about the issue of social mobility as reflected anime further.

'Jarinko Chie' reminds me of that old anime 'Oshin' which I have always been meaning to see.

Snoop':

I think if anything, it is the people who write *essays* in the comment section of this anime blog who would be thanked for their insights. ^-^

I dropped Boogiepop Phantom halfway, but your description of the story interests me. May as well keep up where I left off.

[w]

And I do think part of the whole reason why in many situations parents just don't factor in is the fact that in real life, there are cases where they honestly don't care very much at all. Among my classmates even, as long as they don't cause trouble in school and do well in tests, they nearly never talk to their parents and have absolutely no interest in them. When they graduate they graduate and go their own ways and maybe do what's obliged but nothing much goes on by the time they're teenagers... of cousre, those are well-behaved children, but in Japan we have parents who let their children become such severe hikikomoris that they don't go out of their house for years. I remember how in Zettai Shounen we don't see or hear a thing about Kisa (a sorta-hikikomori)'s parents and they just come home and watch the TV and that's about it...

Who knows, perhaps to some sucessful people, if they wanted to translate their story into a script they'd reduce their parents to flat characters because from their perception they honestly seemed to serve no other purpose than to support their own lives. My own eldest brother was apparently a bit like that until he had a family of his own and suddenly started visiting his parents a lot more often.

Speaking of the comments, isn't there some feed available for the comments? They're really very interesting but sometimes if I miss out on a few days' worth of them I end up completely missing some when they have been pushed off the "Latest Comments" column, and I wouldn't know where to look because sometimes it could be a fascinating addition to an old post... I know WordPress has this option, but it seems like TypePad doesn't.

[chanpon]

I think the reason why parents are such a non-factor is because the target audience of so many shows are teenagers, who happen to be at that stage in life where they're looking to get away from parents. In fulfilling the fantasy-like nature of most anime, you don't see their influence at all, or they become one of the obstacles for the protagonist to overcome.

One of the best child-parent relationships I've seen was in Akachan to Boku (little seen outside of Japan unfortunately). While Dad sometimes suffers from the "work endless hours" syndrome, he is a tremendous influence in his sons' lives. Maybe an unfair example considering the story itself is centered on losing a mother, and how the young boy and his baby brother adjust and grow up normally under the circumstance.

As crazy as Ranma 1/2 is, the father of the Tendo family (Soun) is actually quite loving to his daughters (especially compared to Ranma's father).

In Fruits Basket, Tohru's Mom, Kyoko, also has a significant presence in the story even though she's dead. Her character is a constant inspiration to Tohru and her friends to persevere and be positive.

[Ori]

I agree, anime is really bad at portraying wholesome parents/children relationship. Often times the grandparents play a much bigger part in the child's life. There are a few exceptions I think but it's really few.

I think in Bleach, they did a decent job in portraying the father/son relationship between Ichigo and his father. Although for the longest time we thought his father is an idiot, it turns out he is actually saving his ass behind his back all the time. You can tell the family loves each other and although the mother is dead, they are still really together.

In Law of Ueki, there's this interesting matter or blood and adoptive parent. I think that part was pretty well done and pretty touching (even if otherwise the fathers were pretty flat as characters). The final conclusion they came to was that to Ueki, the 'fake' father has long become his real father.

That's all I can think of though on top of my head. If I try really hard perhaps I can remember more?

[Wabi Sabi]

w:

Typepad comes with comment feed too, but I will have to tinker with the code.

I also need to tinker with the Archive column too because Typepad only shows by default the achive links to the last 10 months. So the months before that are not shown. -__- I know there is a way to hack around this but I have not looked into it.

May I ask if there are any IT gurus out there who care to volunteer? I mean, surely you want me to use my free time to write more insightful posts than tinkering with codes, right? ^-^

chapon:

You know, I sometimes think that dead parents are a convenient plot device to inject motivation into a character. I mean, you create a character out of thin air and you want that character to act out these adventures. To make it believable, you have to give that character motives in doing so. Dead parents kill two birds with one stone -providing motivation and clearing the stage for the character carry out those adventures.

Ori:

Anime is bad at portraying other things too, which I plan to write about in time.

Good point that you mentioned grandparents. In 'Toward the Terra', Tony literally worships Jomy whom he calls 'Grandpa' even though they are not related by blood.

[w]

I have next-to-nothing IT skills but I might be able to figure something out, except it isn't all that easy considering the fact that Typepad is a paid service...

This is how you can do it though, and they list out all the instructions so surely it doesn't take that much tinkering: http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=901

Why must it be so complicated, I wonder... I'm glad at least Yuya-dono uses Wordpress.

[Wabisabi]

That I know. It's the part with hacking the archive links that will be difficult, you see.

[Songster]

Earth Girl Arjuna features parent-child relationships. Arjuna dies once (not her parents!), but her parents are divorced. Her relationship with them is one of the side-plots. It's been awhile since I watched it, so I'll have to rewatch for names and details, but the rocky relationship between Arjuna's boyfriend (Tokio) and his father is explored as well. The psychic girl also mentions her mother, a prostitute who may have abandoned her. The enigmatic Chris's parents are featured briefly as an "ad" for natural childbirth (that's how I interpreted it) in water (which somehow magically seems to take away the chidbirth pains--maybe a reference to a Christian model for his character because there is a story that the Virgin Mary did not suffer from labor pains???).

Enjoying the talk here!

Songster (who nees to catch up on Terra E)

[Eirik]

The talk about Ookiku Furikabutte made me think of another sports anime where parents play a prominent role: Captain Tsubasa. At least during the time when they are kids (which is the part I remember more of), Tsubasa's parents were always there to cheer for him. Same with the parents of other players.

Maybe it makes sense that, in a sports setting, parents can be there and not feel like an obstacle for the characters.

[Wabisabi]

Songster:

Good point that you mention miraculous or at least unnatural births. Anime seems to be full of them. I wonder if it were some sort of wish fantasy that one is not both by humans.

Eirik:

I think it may be true not just for sports competition anime, but for cooking competition anime like 'Yakitate' as well. Parents are just not the focal point and it is the easy way out to just portray them as side characters who give the protagonist unreserved support.