Obnoxious In-Laws in Anime and Manga.
- Boys over Flowers:
- Tsukushi's parents would push her to the first rich boy to show interest and even enrolled her into a high-class High School (despite hardly having money for anything else) just to increase the chances. When one of those boys showed up for a visit, her parents considered him a punk until they learned who he was.
- They're still nothing compared with the Evil Matriarch of a mother that Tsukasa has. She not only treats poor Tsukushi LIKE SHIT but she also psychologically abuses the Hell out of Tsukasa and his sister Tsubaki. In at least one continuity, she drove a guy to suicide in front of Tsukasa, and emotionally blackmailed him with it.
- In The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan, Ryoko Asakura is often jokingly referred to as an "evil mother-in-law" by some characters, such as Haruhi, due to often acting motherly and protective of Yuki, especially where Kyon is concerned.
- Fate/Zero: Kiritsugu initially has a perfectly cordial relationship with his father-in-law, Jubstacheit Von Einzbern, because it was a business relation to win the Fourth Holy Grail War. At the war's conclusion, Jubstacheit forbids him from returning to the Einzbern household for "losing" the war, which means he never saw his daughter again.
- "Hidden in the Pottery," a short story by Rumiko Takahashi, provided a tragic example of this that acted as a sort of deconstruction on the ways this trope is used for comedy. A woman begins to suspect her recently widowed apartment neighbor murdered her mother-in-law, due to a combination of rumors about the neighbor's abusive behavior and the discovery of a piece of human bone inside a potted plant. The neighbor, Mrs. Tonegawa, was subjected to horrible emotional abuse by her mother-in-law that went well beyond animosity for marrying her son. The older woman would tell everyone her daughter-in-law was a lazy, shiftless do-nothing who would never lift a finger around the house. When Mrs. Tonegawa finally called her mother-in-law out on this, the older woman threw herself out of the apartment and started loudly begging forgiveness as a way to mock her. Mrs. Tonegawa suspected even if they'd met under different circumstances the older woman would've still hated her. The bone fragment belonged to Mr. Tonegawa, who died in the same accident that eventually killed his mom. His wife had a breakdown after her husband's last words were towards his mom, and in a moment of weakness put the bones from his urn into their potted plants (she couldn't stand her husband being buried next to his mother). She changed her mind later on and put the pieces back in the urn, but obviously missed one. All in all, the story shows the toll this type of relationship can have on a person in real life.
- Inverted in Horimiya. Hori's entire family considers Miyamura an honorary member of their family, with her mother and little brother having felt that way even before they started dating (and the only reason her father didn't is that he didn't meet Miyamura until right before their Relationship Upgrade). There have even been times where Hori has to remind her family that she's the one dating Miyamura, not them.
- Inverted in I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying. Kyouko dotes on her daughter-in-law Kaoru, but she goes Demon Head on her son Hajime since he hasn't made her a grandmother and he doesn't have a job (at the time of the scolding).
- In I Married My Best Friend to Shut My Parents Up, the parents of the main character, Machi Morimoto are this trope, which is not surprising given their personalities. Since they'd pressured Machi to get good grades as a child and want her to marry a successful man as an adult, Machi rebels and decides to "marry" her kohai Hana, resulting in Machi's parents throwing them both out of the house. Mrs. Morimoto later pays Machi a visit, proving rude and dismissive of Hana despite Hana's efforts to be polite to her mother-in-law, and expressing disgust for same-sex relationships. Machi implies that her mother would also be hard on any son-in-law she might have.
- Averted in If I Could Reach You. Uta and Reiichi's estranged mother has a poor relationship with her children, guilt-tripping Uta for staying with her older brother Reiichi and his wife Kaoru and taking advantage of their kindness, belittling her as someone who can't do anything for herself, and telling Reiichi to shut up when he tries to intercede on Uta's behalf. On the other hand, she gets along well with her daughter-in-law Kaoru, who's her best friend's daughter, and even offers performs an examination on Kaoru's recent leg injury, despite having lost her medical license in Japan (the cause of her estrangement from her children).
- Suzu's sister-in-law Keiko in In This Corner of the World, the only member of the Houjou family who isn't very welcoming towards Suzu after she marries Shuusaku. She's constantly criticizing Suzu for her clumsiness and absent-minded nature. It's also stated that Keiko doesn't get along well with her parents-in-law either, due to her temperament. She later warms up to Suzu over time and admits that she was harsh because she was a bit jealous of Suzu for having a lot more personal freedom and yet choosing to stay with the Houjou family.
- Little House with an Orange Roof, where the in-laws of Natchi's ex-husband (who oppose her divorcing him and living with Shoutaro), are completely barbaric in how they treat her when she visits. Somehow they think this will result in Natchi wanting to come back and be part of their family...
- Zigzagged in Mission: Yozakura Family. Taiyo finds himself with six siblings-in-law after marrying Mutsumi for their mutual safety. They all drive him up a wall by being quirky Bunny Ears Lawyers when he's the Only Sane Man, but they also love him as one of their own (except for Kyoichiro).
- Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury has a rather dark example in Lady Prospera Mercury. At first, she seems supportive of her daughter Suletta's engagement to corporate heiress Miorine Rembran, if not a little intimidating to the latter. As the series goes on however she quite gleefully exploits Miorine's feelings for Suletta to first force them apart, before going on to use Miorine as a scapegoat in her schemes just to mentally torture her as an extension of her desire for revenge against Miorine's father.
- Played for Laughs in the series' epilogue by Ericht Samaya, Prospera's elder daughter, who accompanies Miorine on business trips in the form of a sentient keychain, and enjoys teasing her sister-in-law with largely unwanted "advice".
- One story told during the Gossipy Hens episode of Paranoia Agent concerns a woman whose life is hell due to her overbearing mother-in-law. When the mother-in-law uses the woman's birthday to demand rice balls, she snaps and tries to kill her — at which point Shonen Bat intervenes and kills the mother-in-law.
- Mrs. Tanaka from Servant × Service doesn't complain about her daughter-in-law in front of them, but persistently rambles it in front of Saya, a staff of the local welfare office.
- A Silent Voice has Shouko's mother's in-laws, who force her husband to divorce her...because they don't like having a disabled (in this case, deaf) child as part of the family. Made even worse because the entire reason she's deaf is because of a disease their son gave her, but they blamed Shouko's mother entirely.
- In The Nighthawk Drifts About, Yukako's mother-in-law doesn't necessarily dislike her, but puts pressure on Yukako to have children, thereby contributing to Yukako feeling unhappy about her relationship with Arata.
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann:
- Simon winds up with Lordgenome as his father-in-law. Needless to say, their first proper meeting consists of them trying to kill each other (with Simon succeeding, temporarily at least). Later interactions go a tad better; not because they don't still hate one another (they do), but simply because the circumstances leave little room for hashing things out. It's only at the very end, as Lordgenome sacrifices his life for the universe that he shows any sort of genuine approval of Simon... or Nia herself for that matter.
- Dayakka gets off luckier than Simon, but makes up it in quantity, as he has to contend with three in-laws who don't hate him, but are varying levels of obnoxious; his brother-in-law is an arrogant, overprotective Boisterous Bruiser (and Dayakka's Vitriolic Best Bud), his younger sister-in-law is an annoyingly upbeat Genki Girl who's always around, and his older sister-in-law is a harsh, self-serious taskmaster who throws in with the similarly stoic Rossiu, even as he starts misguidedly Shooting The Dog by turning on Team Dai-Gurren and trying to have Simon executed.
