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Anime Parent Paradox: Tragic if Biological / Wholesome if Adoptive
Why is modern anime OBSESSED with adoptive parents and found families — but almost never shows happy, intact biological families with kids? Simone and Malcolm Collins dive deep into this bizarre trend dominating recent anime.
From mega-hits like Spy x Family to hidden gems like Buddy Daddies, The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting, and I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years, we explore why adoptive/found-family parenting tropes are everywhere... while biological families are rare, tragic, or melancholic (think Wolf Children or Clannad: After Story).
We break down:
* Dozens of examples of the adoptive parent trope
* The stark tonal differences (heartwarming comedy vs. bittersweet sacrifice)
* Theories: Youth audience rebellion? Japanese cultural duty vs. choice? Fertility crisis propaganda gone wrong? Teenage fantasy of “chosen family”?
Pronatalists, otaku, and culture war watchers: This one’s for you.
Episode Transcript:
Simone Collins: Hello Simone. Today we are gonna be talking about an interesting phenomenon. In which parenting has been increasingly put as and pedestal by anime as this great thing to do is your life and is a very fun thing to watch people do is their lives. But what is very interesting I. Is the way it’s being shown which is that the vast, vast majority of modern animes that include parent roles, the parent is in the adoptive role.
It is not their biological child. And when it is their biological child, the tone is typically very, very different. So we are gonna talk about the animes that fit this trope. We are trying to talk about the enemies that don’t fit this trope. We are gonna talk about the tonal differences, and we are going to make hypotheses as to why this might be
the case.
I’m so curious. The case, I’m so curious because it is something, it’s, it’s so weird that it feels like there’s all this prenatal, this propaganda like you know, pro kids were all about it, but then. [00:01:00] None of it is along the normal lines. I feel like none of it’s modeling to people how this stuff actually happens.
So I don’t know what to think anymore.
But I have to start with the Basecamp Anime intro.
Speaker: Culture away in the trees of yesterday.
Dear branches, the and
turn over.
The crowd base camp. Welcome to the Everlasting fight of Culture, bloom and the [00:02:00] sky fight.
We can’t ignore. Strike them down with
game theory[00:03:00]
base camp night and take their flight.
Simone Collins: Well, and,
Malcolm Collins: and we can start by talking about spy Ex Spy Family. This is one that we’ve watched in the family. Very, very popular anime. So incredibly popular anime to understand how popular it is. You know, even within the US when we go to Walmart and we look at like the mango section, because Walmart is the mango section now I remember I was looking not long ago.
And literally half the books in the section were spy, ex spy family. Mm-hmm. This is like, this isn’t like a popular, this is like Sailor Moon or Naruto Popular for this generation.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: And the plot of it is Lloyd and Anya, who one is a undercover detector and the other is an assassin. And they don’t know each other.
Hold these roles. Adopt a, a daughter named Anya who can read minds. And then they get a dog who can see the future.
Simone Collins: They don’t know. She can breed mines and no one knows. The dog can see the, like, no one knows the secret identity of anyone else in the family, which is really [00:04:00] cute. But yeah, this, this child was, I mean, it, it, it, so the, the spy, the spy father has to have a like sham wife and a sham child to be.
Seen as, as, as believable in his position, which is why he, he ends up in this family and everyone else has reasons. You know, like, I, I wanna be adopted, I don’t wanna have a fa
Published on 1 week, 1 day ago