why does anime feature so many dead or abusive parents, and so few supportive ones?
They're not important
>>282455043If good parents were present and involved with their kids lives, there wouldn't be a plot.That's often the case.Would MC in a fighting shonen be involved in the typical fights to death against evil all the time if he had a living happy family telling him not to do it?Or would romcoms/harem MC have sexy moments with one or many girls if they weren't in a place with no parents involved?That's why, unless the living parents have a purpose you either write them dead or neglectful.
>>282455043As a wise man once said. A mother is the enemy of adventure.
>>282455043Because kids with supportive parents in their life would turn to their parents for support in times of crises, which undercuts the agency of teenage protagonists. It's one thing in something like, say, Madoka where Madoka has great parents but they simply cannot possibly understand or help her with the shit she is going through so she reasonably keeps them out of the loop. But a lot of anime plots would fall apart if these kids had parents even remotely invested in their lives.Take, as a recent example, Dan da Dan. Where are Okarun's parents? Imagine that he lived at home with a loving mom and dad. Parents who would, presumably, notice and freak out over the fact that on multiple occasions their son just fucking *disappears* for several days in a row and doesn't come home even to sleep. Getting possessed, sleeping over at Momo's house to deal with Evil Eye, etc. Okarun spends a LOT of time not going home and without even a nod to the him having to cover his ass by pretend to be at a sleepover or something. I can only conclude that he lives alone, because otherwise his situation is more unrealistic than the fact that he was possessed by a ghost to made his testicles fall out. Its sort of the same reason why, in a slasher movie, calling the cops is either never an option or never makes anything better. Because if you called the police and the buys in blue shot your slasher villain in a spooky mast six times in the chest, the movie would be over.
>>282455043>All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own waySupportive parents are just not that interesting. Everyone already knows what they're supposed to do and say. And from a production standpoint there's no point in designing a character, animating them, and paying a person to voice them just to have a Dad that says "ganbatte"a few times.
>>282455479>Where are Okarun's parents?No news on the mom, but there's like a bonus chapter where he's seen eating breakfast with his dad or some sort of male relative.Otherwise yeah, the rest of your post stands.
Counterpoint
>>282455043From what I watch there are a lot of great or at least seemingly nice and/or competent parents. Family structure is respected and valued, at least on the surface.This is probably just a genre issue. Or confirmation bias due to not registering or noticing all the normal parents.Perhaps some combination of both.
>>282455043Oda said something along the lines of>Parents are the enemy of adventure.and he was right.No normal person with a loving family is going to go off on an adventure.
>>282455043She was a great mother
>>282455043You would understand if you had an asian parent
>>282455479Madoka does go to her mother and ask for advice on what she can (the sayaka/hitomi love triangle thing), and her mother's reasonable and cool answer ends up not working at all, arguably due to magical girl shenanigans changing the math, which in itself is a great moment in the show.I think what this means is, Madoka can have supportive parents not because the plot allows for it, but because the show is good and the writers were able to handle the extra challenge.
>>282455043It's a modern writing trend and an easy hack to develop a character and create many story conveniences. Also, statistically, most GenX and Millennial children around the globe have a grudge against their parents, so self-inserting could have contributed to making this trend popular as well.
>>282455043watch more anime
>>282455043A social criticism against the showa boomers being the cause late heisei and reiwa kids became so weak.
Lmao
>>282455043because most anime is made for kids/teens and you can't have your mums hanging out, giving you romantic advice or helping you save the world cause that's laaaame. of course you can avoid this by watching anime/reading manga for "grown ups" but these of course have their own set of pretenses and problems. as always, when it comes to pop culture, even jap pop culture, you're stuck between a rock and a hard place
>>282455043>>282455173I would rather have loving and supportive parents over an adventure!>>282455173
>>282455043Japanese kids are much more independent and start walking to the grocery store to buy shit as early as 4-5 years old and then they start walking or taking public transport to school or wherever they want to go. It's not like America where you're attached to your parent at the hip for 16 years because you need them to drive you everywhere.Obviously parents are still an incredibly important part of the kids life, but it's easier for them to exist in the background of the story because the kids social life doesn't depend on them. So you end up with every story that involves parents being an abusive parent story, because otherwise the parent doesn't have a real reason to exist in the narrative as a full-fledged character.
