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Unwritten Anime Rule #10: Missing Parents Make the Main Character
Why This Rule
Protagonists are always tough, find a way out of incredibly tough spots, have a leadership style that’s charismatic to bring people to their side, and usually have dead or missing parents. Yup. In fact, from memory alone I can’t think of any shounen protagonists with both sets of parents. Most have at least one parent but it doesn’t mean they’re present either. One thing is for sure: Missing parents play a huge part in making the protagonist, especially in the case of teenagers and kids. Why? Parents are the responsible figure. They take care to ask the questions, make sure kids are safe, and don’t take risks. A shounen protagonist, with those restrictions, can’t do the impossible to be the very best like no one was before. You like the Pokémon reference? By the way...where’s Ash’s dad?
Examples and Exceptions
Examples of this rule include Yu Yu Hakusho, the Dragonball series, YugiOh!, Bleach, Naruto, Your Lie in April, Ruroni Kenshin, Highschool of the Dead, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Deadman Wonderland, Kill la Kill, Shokugeki no Soma and The Boy and the Beast, Gintama, Hunter x Hunter, Hajime no Ippo, Full Metal Alchemist and the list goes on and on. I think you get the drift. Shounens and quite a few drama and slice of life series are famous for this.
Exceptions include Death Note, Mob Psycho 100, and I’m sure there are more that I haven’t seen. Sometimes a parental figure is an obstacle to be overcome, rather than a help. And other times, they’re downright evil - like Medusa from Soul Eater.
Origins
In other rules, I’ve mentioned how straight and narrow most of Japanese society is, so it’s perfectly reasonable to think that it carries over to parenthood. In fact, Japan has a culture that has many full-time parents overworking - some working 16 to more than 24 hours in order to do their jobs and some are dying due to overwork, although legislation is slowly changing (1). In one example overworking can be the death of a parent in anime - such as Kaneki Ken’s mother in Tokyo Ghoul. Digging a little more, some may think that Japan’s seemingly high suicide rate would have to do with single parents or no parents at all...but it’s actually not as directly related as the amount of hospitals in the surrounding area (2). What does that mean? Hospitals create single parents! Just kidding. To be honest, it means that nailing down one cause to missing/single parents in the real world is complicated.
The overarching theme is that in the anime world, parents are more of a nuisance than a help. Writing in parents means that the cast of characters will be influenced by a strong power, and not necessarily their own sense of purpose and duty. It’s a lethal blow to any story, no matter the nationality or origin. Just to drive the point home even more: Did Mowgli from the Jungle Book or Tarzan have parents that were in the picture?
Overall Judgement
Surely overwork, culture, and societal rules play into the absence of parents in anime, BUT not one single factor can be related to it. The only thing that is for sure, is that a parent can get in the way and any epic tale wouldn’t be the same with a concerned/protective parent heavily involved. Motivations can be that the character wants to be like their parents but doing it in their presence doesn’t have the same “finding their way” feel to it, even when it hits hard in the feels department.
Likelihood that the main character has at least 1 dead or inattentive parent:
75%
Herships, Sally. "How Japan's overwork culture affects parents." The Week. 22 Sep 2018. Web. 05 Nov 2018. <https://theweek.com/articles/794831/how-japans-overwork-culture-affects-parents>.
"Rate of Single-Parent Households." Statistics Japan. 27 Feb 2018. Web. 05 Nov 2018. <https://stats-japan.com/t/kiji/11954>.
Full Metal Alchemist Picture source: http://s3.media.squarespace.com/production/355312/18504767/2011/12/eclipse-fullmetal-alchemist-brotherhood-02-1280x720-h264-8452c4bf-mkv_snapshot_03-55_2011-12-08_13-20-52.jpg
Naruto Picture source: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3a/d7/f1/3ad7f1bef6cbbbaedc8a1f72ee008ce0.jpg