Parental Abandonment/Anime and Manga: Difference between revisions

Seriously, what's up with the [[Anime|Japanese]] and their fetish for [[Parental Abandonment]]?

 

 

* A huge portion of the cast of ''[[Narutaru]]'' are missing one or more parents. Of course, this being ''[[Narutaru]]'', Shiina's mother is the only cast member who truly abandoned her child. [[Kids Are Cruel|The other cases of missing parents are much more... disturbing.]]

* In ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh (anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh]]'', we have the Kaiba brothers (biological parents died when they were little, adopted father raised Kaiba under a [[Training from Hell|borderline abusive schooling regimen]], then committed suicide after Seto took over his company), Jounouchi/Joey (estranged from his mother since his parents' divorce, and his drunken father is only mentioned once in the first anime series), Anzu/Tea, Honda/Tristan, and Ryuji/Duke with no visible or suggested parents, and Yugi himself, whose mother appears twice, making him for all intents and purposes appear to live with his grandfather, a major supporting character.

*** Also, Seto Kaiba and his brother Mokuba were orphans "because I had fired our parents."

** In the manga, we ARE shown Ryuji's father, but he's not star parenting material by any stretch and only appears for a few chapters.

* The lack of parents in the spin-off ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX (anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh GX]]'' is even worse. Even if the series does take place at a boarding school, some situations definitely call for parental involvement. Fubuki disappears for a year, and is in a coma for a few days/weeks after resurfacing; his sister Asuka, another student, falls apart over him, but where are their parents? (To be fair, one episode suggests that their mother died when they were very young.) Jun Manjyome runs away for three months; no parents looking for him or threatening the school with a lawsuit. (Indeed, his two older brothers seem for all intents and purposes to be his guardians, but why, after they become estranged, he still has access to an unlimited amount of his family's money, is a mystery.) Ryo and Sho Marufuji's living mother is briefly mentioned in the dub (when Sho talks to Rei in her first apparition, he says their mother said Sho is growing up more alike to Ryo, which suggests they're in good terms and maybe in regular contact), but she's never shown. The show is big on sibling relationships, but aside from an appearance by Hayato Maeda's father in an early episode, not at all with parents and children.

* Likewise Wataru in ''[[Sister Princess]]''. While no genealogy is provided for his (half-?)sisters, the most likely solution to their parentage implies that they are all also missing at least the father whom they must share with Wataru. In the [[Visual Novel]], all the legal ones have alternate endings where they turn out to be [[Not Blood Siblings|adopted]].

** Rei lives with her maternal grandfather in both the anime and manga, but it is only explained in the manga why she does. Rei's mother died of an illness when Rei was little and her father spent all his time at work instead of being with his dying wife, which Rei never forgave him for. Rei was left with her grandfather after her mother's death because her father was too wrapped up in his work to care for Rei; Rei only sees him once a year on her birthday. Her father is a major part of the reason Rei distrusts men so much, though her distrust is shown only in the manga because anime Rei is boy crazy (maybe seeking for a [[Replacement Goldfish]]?).

** Makoto's parents died in a plane crash when she was little, which caused her fear of airplanes. Makoto lives alone and is supported by an unknown relative.

** Subverted with Gloria. After the group finds a [[Door Step Baby]], she talks them out of turning it in to the police by talking about how horrible orphanages are. Then {{spoiler|it turns out it's her sister's baby, and Gloria left him there to get out of babysitting.}}

* So is Sagara Sousuke from ''[[Full Metal Panic!]]''. Similarly, Kaname apparently has her own apartment and little connection to her family in the anime, though they were referenced more directly in the novels.

** {{spoiler|Well, maybe not. It was recently revealed that [[Cardcaptor Sakura|his parents]] are still alive somewhere. Just not in his universe. He doesn't remember them due to a [[Deal with the Devil]] or three, and so just assumes them to be dead. His "[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle|brother]]" does remember them, but ran away from home at the age of seven, and we'll stop there because that’s where the parental ''abandonment'' ends, and something [[Oedipus Rex|else]] begins.}}

* In ''[[Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun]]'', three six-year-olds were living alone under the same roof, with occasional older sibling support. One can only hope that they had financial support, at the very least. Also interesting is the fact that the protagonist's parents were alive and well, just very distant.

* In ''[[Noir (anime)|Noir]],'' Mireille's parents were murdered when she was a small child. And when Kirika awoke in Tokyo for the first time, she was alone in her apartment, with neither parents nor Soldats agents pretending to be parents.

** While Ryu's the only one with a normal family, a lot of fans assume his unseen mother to be dead or divorced from the family. (In ''[[Battle of the Planets]]'', oddly enough, Ryu's counterpart Tiny was an orphan like the rest of the team)

* This is the central premise of ''[[Aishiteruze Baby]]'', when Yuzuyu's mother gets stressed out and abandons her to her relatives and Yuzuyu's cousin Kippei is forced to take care of her.

* The protagonist of ''[[Code Geass]]'' has this as part of his [[Start of Darkness]].

* The manga ''[[Bunny Drop]]'' focuses on a young man named Daikichi having to raise a six-year-old girl with this. He wound up with little Rin after her father (Daikichi's ''grandfather'') passed away, there was no mother in sight, and nobody else was willing or able to take her. Daikichi manages to track down Rin's mother, Masako, and decides that the (much younger) woman, while indeed caring about Rin, is in no way mature enough for the job.

** Feiling, Kaoru, Specs ("Megane") and Big Boss all have no visible parents. Reiko appears to live alone except for a governess. Yukino's parents died some eight centuries ago, in the Heian Era.

** However, there is an aversion in Ruriko, whose family is intact and frequently visible.

* ''[[RahXephon]]'' has this happen repeatedly to the protagonist. But then, given that his family tree is more of a [[wikipedia:Klein bottle|Klein Bottle]] it can be hard to tell that this happened, other than one obvious example.

* A suprising number of characters from ''[[Baccano!]]!'' are a victim of this:

* In ''[[Daily Lives of High School Boys]]'', Motoharu and his sister's parents were never home.