Parents As People / Anime & Manga

• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You:
  • Shizuka's mother falls mainly on the abusive side of the scales, berating her practically mute daughter and confescating her phone upon discovering she had been using a text-to-speech app to communicate rather than her own voice. Only when Shizuka and Rentarou confront Shizuka's mother is it shown that she acts to prevent the suffering Shizuka might endure in the future when she's out in the world, ignoring the suffering Shizuka has experienced in the present when she's right there. Afterwards, Shizuka's mother returns her phone and a volume extra shows them bonding over cooking together.
  • Kishika's parents are largely absent due to work and, when they are present, don't have a great deal of time to give the eldest of their six children. This, along with taking up the role of additional caretaker, makes Kishika crave parental attention to the point of experiencing Emotional Regression when she gets it. Ironically, we see Kishika's mother has just as strong a desire to give Kishika that affection, but holds back out of the belief Kishika is too mature for that and would reject it.
  • Rin's father learned of his daughter's love for violence when Rin was still a baby. He would go on to raise her as sheltered as possible from anything that she might regard as violent; no mean feat since even matryoshka dolls and toys with zippers in the head trigger Rin's interest. When he looks upon an older, sweet Rin, he thinks to himself that his doing his best to nip her Nightmare Fetishism in the bud wasn't from any personal distaste of his own, but rather fear for how the wider world might react to her and the heartbreak she would endure as a result. He instead hopes that she would one day meet people who would love and accept her without reservation, which she has with the Rentarou Family.
  • Tama's mother is shown trying to push Tama into maintaining a job and be self-sufficient, even though Tama hates working, would rather be a Lazy Bum, and seriously contemplated suicide in order to be reincarnated as a cat. In volume 17's extras, we see that Tama's been like this since she was a little girl, writing her dream was to be a cat in a first grade report. Her mother is elated to hear Tama found herself a new job on her own and even has a group of friends now, unaware those friends are the Rentarou Family and, even as she's thinking that Tama is able to face reality Tama is being pampered like a cat by Rentarou.
• Menma's mother Irene in Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day had neglected her remaining child, Satoshi, in her grief over her daughter's death to the point she refused to leave the house and see others. Thankfully, she got better by the end of the series.
• Attack on Titan has Grisha Yeager's father, who does his best to keep his children, Grisha and Faye, safe in a society in which his entire family is a persecuted minority, and any suspicion of treason could be disastrous to the entire family. Unfortunately, his point doesn't get across very well to Grisha, who (perhaps justifiably) sees his father as almost completely indifferent to Faye's death, and is angered when his father condemns their Eldian ancestors' atrocities while calling their Marleyan oppressors "merciful" for not wiping out the Eldians. As such, Grisha does not understand his father's advice until he's much older.
  • Grisha Yeager had his own share of issues when it came to his own two children, Zeke and Eren, though the biggest issues was with his eldest. Given that his own father was willing to turn a blind eye to the injustice towards Eldians, Grisha joined La Résistance and even saw his first-born as a symbol and potential tool to fight against the Marleyan oppressors and bring hope to the Eldians. When his own child then rats him out to the government and Grisha gets banished to Paradis, he initially considers him a traitor, but comes to realize that his stance was narrow-minded and how wrong it was to treat his child as a tool, rather than a person. It isn't until Grisha meets Zeke during a time-travel flashback in The Paths that Grisha can tell them how sorry they are for it and beg for forgiveness.
    • When it comes to his relationship with Eren, he certainly loves him, but he appears distant for most of his screentime and preferring to not really take a side when Eren and his mother argue about his desire to see the world outside of the walls. Things become more complicated when flashbacks show that he injected Eren with the titan serum and is the reason why he is a Titan Shifter, and like he had a master plan around this. During the same flashback as above, it becomes clear that Grisha was merely following a routine and pre-determined path by Eren because of the Attack Titan owners having the past and future memories of all holders, with an adult Eren being the mastermind behind Grisha making his second son into a Titan Shifter, knowing what terrifying things Eren would do. He learned from his experience with his first child, letting Eren be his own person and leaving him in the dark about some things, like his father's past, because he didn't want to put the burden of knowing that his entire nation is wanted dead by everyone in the outside world.
• Bleach has Ichigo's father Isshin and Uryuu's father Ryuuken. On one hand Isshin seems to be a ditzy doctor that constantly embarrasses his three kids while also keeping many, many secrets from them (like him being a powerful Shinigami), whereas Ryuuken's relationship with Uryuu became strained after the death of Ryuuken's father Souken and especially the demise of Uryuu's mother Kanae). Both are aware of their parental failures and not exactly happy about it.
• In Bokurano the parents often have as many issues as their kids.
  • Sen'ichi Honda is a decent man and an Honest Corporate Executive who, unfortunately, is highly out of touch with his significantly more cynical daughter Chizuru "Chizu" Honda. As such he's blindsided by Chizu getting into a relationship with one of his teachers, being gang-raped, and then using Zearth to kill the perpetrators, along with many innocent bystanders, leaving him to wonder where he went wrong.
  • Tomoe Komoda is seemingly cold and distant from his daughter Takami "Komo" Komoda, who at times wonders if he wishes she'd been born a boy. This does not mean he doesn't care for her, as shown by how he rushes over to his daughter after her death. Anko (see below) ultimately concludes that Komo's father cares for his daughter, even if he isn't good at showing it.
  • Akira Tokosumi spends most of his time at work, and never talked with his daughter Aiko "Anko" Tokosumi much until he learned that she was involved with Zearth. All the same, he regrets not being there for her more, is horrified at the idea that running the story about Zearth might have led to her being killed, and his seemingly callous decision to keep the camera running on Aiko's battles after Aiko loses her legs saving Machi is actually because he knows Aiko will die and is forcing himself to stay focused. He and Tomoe help Sen'ichi with the latter's philanthropic endeavor, with the three men knowing that they "caused (their) daughter's suffering."
  • Kana's father and Jun's adoptive father did his best to raise his adoptive son well, but admitted that he was afraid of ruining their relationship if he got too close to Jun, only to be rejected, so Mr. Ushiro stayed relatively distant from Jun, who said he was treated like one of his father's students. Mr. Ushiro's unconscious favoritism of Kana over Jun is driven home when he's devastated upon learning that Kana will be the next to die, and realizes that it hit him harder than Jun's death would have (since it's revealed that Jun isn't actually in the contract). In his last conversation with Jun, Jun apologizes for being a bad son, and Mr. Ushiro replies that isn't true — he's a bad father.
• Captain Harlock: Harlock is a Parental Substitute to his best friend's daughter, Mayu. His association with her leads to Mayu being ostracized (Harlock is Famed In-Story as a bastard criminal) from her fellow Earthlings, and in episode 7 Harlock mourns how much pain he's caused her just by being in her life.
• Captain Tsubasa: Taro Misaki's parents, Ichiro and Yumiko, divorced when Ichiro developed a drinking problem and Yumiko was unable to keep up with Ichiro's errant life due to his job as a painter. Yumiko left Taro with Ichiro in hopes that he would straighten up his act for their son, which seemed to work a little too well as Taro decided to stay with his father and had trouble reconnecting with his mother after she remarried. For what's worth, they still love him and support him in his career.
• Case Closed:
  • Kogoro Mouri is an irresponsible gambler who spends much of his time drinking, while his teenage daughter Ran takes care of most of the housework. Plus he also has a tendency to yell at Ran and Conan and, in the latter's case, sometimes give smacks to the head for getting in the way. However, when either of them is in real danger, he risks his life and limb for them, and is strongly implied to actually be very depressed and self-deprecating under his borderline Manchild facade. Plus he stops smacking Conan around as time passes, and starts treating him more like an actual son than as just a kid who happens to be under his watch.
  • His ex-wife Eri Kisaki is also not responsible either. While she clearly loves Ran very much, it's implied that her pride and hurt at seeing her marriage falling apart has kept her from building a close relationship and spending time with Ran until very recently. There's also the fact that Ran chose to live with her father and not her, implied to be out of respect for her career, has also clearly hurt Eri and has led to Eri constantly badmouthing Kogoro in front of her daughter.
  • While both of Shinichi's parents love their son, they've been rather irresponsible regarding him. They have no qualms about leaving their teenage boy to look after himself for years on end while they jet-set around the world — something they've apparently done since the end of his preteen years. Shinichi himself loves his parents and is clearly inspired by his father's detective skills, but is well aware that they're far too irresponsible to be proper parents and thus feels no guilt about doing things like telling his dad's editor where he's hiding while skipping deadlines, or using their credit cards to pay for expensive dinners. The fact that Kogoro is shown in flashbacks to not be happy with the Kudos' Free-Range Children tendencies says a lot.
    • On the other hand, directly witnessing Conan's situation seems to have been at least a mild Reality Check for them. It's implied they have their neighbor and family friend Agasa regularly reporting to them regarding Shinichi's wellbeing, Yukiko turns up fairly frequently to help in various schemes with her disguise skills (and Conan doesn't seem to have any doubt that she'll come when he calls for aid), and in at least one mini-arc Yusaku was lurking as back-up the whole time. They also came up with a convoluted scheme (which was kind of stupid and deserved to fail) in the early stages of the manga, to try and convince Conan that he's in over his head and to come with them to the US so that the three of them could try and unravel things together. On the other other hand, said "convoluted scene" involved posing as crime syndicate members, kidnapping their own son, and tricking him into believing that they had executed everyone he knew and loved, all to emphasize the danger of the situation to him as well as test his competency in such a scenario. After genuinely terrorizing their son for two entire days, they treat this cruel and ruthless tactic as a hilarious prank. This did not help the fanbase's opinion of them.
• Claudine: Claude's father, Auguste, is an Open-Minded Parent, letting Claude dress and act as he likes instead of trying to force him to be someone he's not. That said, Auguste has his own personal issues that he's not dealing with, mainly that being his affairs with Louis and Louis's sister, Cécilia.
• Mariko Shinobu's parents in Dear Brother are not not bad persons per se, but they have very serious issues, which really don't contribute to Mariko's convoluted emotional state.
• Daltanious: When Kento Tate was four years old, his father, who was driven crazy by various Hallucinations, left the family to pursue his dream of becoming a sailor and finding out the source of them. One Alien Invasion later, Earth is left ravaged and destitute, and Kento's father comes back, having found the source of them, only to be angrily screamed at by Kento for abandoning his entire family. His father apologizes and admits that he was a horrible dad, but tells him the truth - while at sea, he was discovered by some aliens who identified him as the long-lost Prince of Helios, Prince Harlin. His "Hallucinations" were actually memories of his youth on the Helios Kingdom, before it was destroyed by the same Galactic Conquerors that ruined Earth, and he arrived to Earth at three years old as a refugee. He wanted to return to Earth as soon as he could, but he was Made a Slave on Planet Marios. When Ramos also assures Kento that Harlin always thought of the Tate family while he was away, Kento realizes his father was doing his best and forgives him.
• In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, this trope applies to Rui's parents. He was a sickly boy, and they tried their best to raise him well, only for him to come into contact with Muzan Kibutsuji, be turned into a demon and eat a human. In response, Rui's parents tried to kill him, which would ordinarily come off as a terrible thing to do, but they were planning on killing themselves as well in order to atone for their son's crime(not unlike what Tanjiro was told to do if his sister Nezuko ended up attacking a human) and join him in death. Rui later realizes that his anger over what his parents had done had caused him to misjudge them, and that he'd severed the genuine bond he'd had with them with his own hands.
• Digimon loves this trope:
  • Yamato Ishida's dad Hiroaki is the "one foot in the Competence Zone" variety — he's probably the fourth most plot-involved parent in the franchise (losing to guys who significantly influenced the back stories of their canons) and basically treats his son like a House Wife sometimes. His ex-wife Natsuko fares somewhat better in regards to Takeru, but she's still unable to drive him to school on his first day there.
    • Sora's parents, Toshiko and Haruhiko. Toshiko was a traditional Yamato Nadeshiko who tended to be bossy and disapprove of Sora's more hotheaded nature (she scolds young Sora for talking to her when not properly seated once, and barring her from going to a soccer match when she was injured), whereas Haruhiko was too absorbed in his work outside of Tokyo. They do much better in the second season.
    • Koushirou's parents, Masami and Yoshie. They're technically Good Parents, genuinely loving and even doting a little on him… but didn't tell Koushirou that he's actually the son of his father's cousin, and they adopted him as a baby after his biological parents died in a car crash. Which also coincided with the death of their own biological child. Koushirou accidentally overheard them disussing this "little secret" some years prior, which caused him lots of angst and led him him to bury himself in his computer. They finally get around to openly discussing
  • Ken Ichijouji's parents ignored him in favor of his genius older brother, Osamu. When Osamu was hit by a car and died, they were too grieved to pay any attention to him and missed a lot of things that could have prevented his Start of Darkness, such as the creepy e-mails he was getting from one of Mr. Ichijouji's coworkers. They did not seem to give their younger child the time of day until he started showing signs of genius tendencies and it was like Osamu reborn. They were understandably repentant when Ken, to all appearances, ran away from home and came back with Easy Amnesia, culminating in him acknowledging them as his parents again, and ever since then their relationship is more normal.
  • Juri Katou's father was simply not prepared to deal with his wife's early death and was a serious believer in tough love, and so he inadvertently warped his little girl into a Stepford Smiler who believed it's her destiny to be unhappy. When he realized his mistake, it was almost too late.
    • Ruki's mother Rumiko cares for her kid but due to having her when she was 17, takes quite a while to really assume her motherly role.
  • Lee's father Janyu has a good heart and deeply loves his children, and is one of the kids' biggest allies once he's brought into the loop, given that he's deeply involved in the show's backstory. However, he tends to keep things close to the chest, which leads to a bit of mistrust from the kids. Most notably, during the Final Battle he deliberately withholds the key detail that the plan for defeating the D-Reaper would cause the Digimon to be forcibly returned to the Digital World afterward, with no guaranteed way for the kids to reunite with their partners. Janyu hated doing so, and tearfully admits later that Lee has every right to hate him for this, but they were facing The End of the World as We Know It, and he didn't want the chance of the kids refusing to carry out the plan if they knew about that detail. In a way, it's also part of a deconstruction of what it would mean for the parents to have to rely on their children to fight.
  • Touma Norstein's father Franz, who couldn't stand up to his mother when she told his half-Japanese son that he wasn't good enough to be a Norstein, days after his mother's funeral and being transplanted to Austria, and nearly sold out the planet to a Mad Scientist because he promised to cure his sick daughter by fusing her with a Digimon. Touma, logically, was PISSED at that.
  • Try Kouji and Kouichi's parents in Digimon Frontier. Both boys were raised on the story that their Disappeared Dad (Kouichi)/Missing Mom (Kouji) was dead and until the death of their maternal grandmother, neither knew the other existed. On the other hand, Kouichi's mother is technically a good mother, if a bit sickly, from the two flashbacks we see of her and Kouji's father at least seems to be a decent enough dad.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Son Goku and Chi-Chi love Gohan very much, but both have their own issues when it comes to raising him. Goku tends to go off and train for long periods of time, usually far away from Earth. He also tends to project onto Gohan, believing his son to take as much joy in fighting as he does, when Gohan is really a Martial Pacifist who lacks the fight-loving instinct that Saiyans are known for (and according to the Japanese fanbase, Goku spoils him a little too much as well). While Chi-Chi's push for Gohan to be more of a scholar arguably fits better with the latter's own interests, she has a habit of taking her Education Mama tendencies to extremes and can be more than a little overbearing. That said, Goku still spends as much time as he can with Gohan while trying to teach him important things for a warrior to know, and eventually realizes how much he's misunderstood him later on. Chi-Chi wants a bright future for him and worries about his safety while fighting, but eventually lightens up and even trains him later on. Both parents want what they see as best for Gohan, even though it takes a while for them to realize what that is.
  • The Ox King loves his daughter Chi-Chi, but he also has his flaws as a parent. He raised his young daughter in seclusion and she never got any type of education growing up. While he can be overprotective, he also never really seemed to pay attention to his daughter's whereabouts when she was a pre-teen. He also spoiled her and doted on her too much. This may have also prompted Chi-Chi to be much more protective of her own son Gohan and to get him the education she herself never had growing up.
  • Both Bulma's parents can come off as this. They didn't seem to have been too strict towards Bulma and seemed too doting, causing her to act very spoiled, manipulative, and entitled when she was a teenager. Bulma's father can even come off as a pushover, as there was a scene in which Bulma was rude to him and he never really stood up for himself against her.
  • Bulma herself falls into this despite her being a good mother throughout the series. She tends to be too doting to her children Trunks and Bra, causing them to be spoiled when they were children.
• From Eroica with Love briefly examined the repercussions of this—an unusually serious take for a comedy manga. Dorian's dad was a gay aristocrat, who was presumably pressured into marrying. After three daughters (who he doesn't seem to have concerned himself with), he is delighted with his son, who he sees as "an ally in a house full of women." He no longer bothers pretending to be respectable, and fills the house with his assorted friends, including thieves and criminals of various types, introducing his son into this social sphere. Dorian takes to thievery like a duck to water, and his father encourages this. That's the last straw for Dorian's mother, who packs up her daughters and leaves the family home, which eventually has to be sold to pay for the divorce settlement.
• Fruits Basket:
  • If the Sohma parents don't abuse their cursed children, they're likely to end up as this. Ritsu's mom Meshou is a Shrinking Violet who Apologises a Lot, and Kisa's mother almost gives up raising her because she's too stressed and sad upon not being able to help Kisa with her school troubles.
  • Kyo's mother is a particularly notable example; while she did try to make Kyo feel loved and supported, she failed to do it in a healthy way and ended up smothering him instead. Though she often told Kyo she loved him, Kyo suspects that this was her overcompensating to hide how deeply afraid and paranoid she was about his monstrous true form. He remembers how she would constantly check to make sure he was wearing his beads (which he wears as a Power Limiter), and she prevented him from leaving the house by claiming he was so adorable that she needed to keep him all to herself. Eventually, the stress of raising the Cat and the emotional abuse of her husband were too much for her, resulting in her taking her own life.
  • Akito's father Akira truly loved Akito and did his best to raise his child right, but his inability to really protect Akito from Ren's abuse and the fact that he promised Akito impossible things (that as the "God" of the Zodiac, Akito was destined for eternal love and happiness and no one would ever leave Akito alone) set the groundwork for a lot of Akito's mental issues.
• Ed and Al's dad in Fullmetal Alchemist is a Disappeared Dad for most of their lives, but when he lived with them while their mother was alive, he's implied to have been this trope — spending most of his time holed up in his study working on his alchemy researches. He was mainly researching a way to cure his near-immortality so he wouldn't outlive his wife and children, but discovered the sinister plot his former friend had with the entire country.
• Izumi's mother from Full Moon is eventually depicted as this, though she was originally more portrayed as an abusive woman. Her husband's apparently sudden and early death had her stricken with grief, to the point that she wasn't capable of giving comfort to her son, Izumi/Leo, and caring well for him, needing comfort herself. She got her comfort by continuously dating and sleeping with men, but their rejection because she had a child was too much for her, and she wrongly blamed him for it. When Izumi/Leo runs off and commits suicide in front of her, she realizes the mistakes she has made and that she was not and could not be a good mother to him, even crying when she sees that her son prefers death than living with her any longer…
• In Gakuen Babysitters, the parents are Good Parents who are very loving and caring to their children but are often away from them due to work. Yayoi doesn't like leaving Kirin for her drama club commitments and likewise, Kousuke is frustrated that his acting schedule forces him to spend long periods of time away from home.
• Hana's mother, Yuri, in Girls und Panzer. While she orders Hana out of the house after learning that she's doing tankery, it's implied that she's otherwise warm and caring for Hana, and her initial reaction to hearing that Hana is doing tankery is to worry that something is bothering her, and to respond to her belief that flower arrangement is no longer enough for her by saying that she's done well so far. She also eventually reconciles with her daughter.
• Hamtaro mostly has Good Parents, but Mimi's family falls squarely into this. It's understandable if we consider that the Iwata family is very large by Japanese standards (four children, including their newborn baby), and they do try to aid her, but one can't help feeling bad for poor Mimi when she spends a lot of her time alone at home.
• Hello Sandybelle: Sandybelle never knew her biological mother and spends the series Searching for the Lost Relative. When she finally finds her, it turns out that her mother suffered a horrible boating accident and was left amnesiac as a result, hence her forgetting she ever had a daughter.
• Hidamari Sketch:
  • Nazuna's parents. When they first appear to help Nazuna move in, the other Hidamari residents instantly like them since they're friendly and apparently doting. However, a few comics later it's clear that they have basically abandoned their child, as Nazuna's dad was transferred and her mother decided that her teenage daughter was better suited to living alone than her husband, a grown man. So she decided to go with him and left Nazuna to fend for herself. Good thing the Hidamari residents are so close-knit.
  • To a lesser extent, Yuno's parents. They can be a little oddball and embarrassing but did at least worry about their daughter's decision to live alone. Her dad is also overprotective, so they haven't completely abandoned their parental roles, even if they do like to recapture their youth by visiting amusement parks.
• I Think Our Son Is Gay: Akiyoshi spends most of his time away from his family on business and doesn't know very much about his own children, which causes him to make some Innocently Insensitive comments around his closeted son Hiroki. Nonetheless, he cares deeply about being a Good Parent and bonds well with them when he's home.
• Katri, Girl of the Meadows: When Katri was a little girl, World War I broke out. Her mother, who didn't want her family to starve, left Finland to find work in Germany, hoping to bring them wealth. Katri dearly misses her mother but puts up a front and pretends to be strong. When they finally reunite, Katri is elated.
• Kaze no Shōjo Emily: Alan Burnley is a well-meaning father, but his refusal to talk about his wife was alienating to Ilse. Ilse eventually is angered by his refusal to tell her of her mother and runs away from home to find her. Alan manages to stop her and apologizes for being aloof, later explaining that her death changed him into a Broken Bird and that's why he couldn't find it in himself to talk of her.
• The Hirasawa parents in K-On! are usually away on romantic hijinks, leaving younger sister Ui to serve as a surrogate parent for Cloudcuckoolander Yui. In the manga, the rest of the main cast finally meet them on the day of Yui's entrance exam to college, and only because they came over because they were worried she might sleep too late.
• Kimba/Leo of Kimba the White Lion is a kind-hearted and beloved jungle ruler who's always ready to defend his subjects, lend a helping paw to those who need it, bridge the gap between mankind and animal, and is forgiving towards those who wronged him and are seeking redemption. He's far less impressive as a father concerning his son Rune as he constantly berates him for his failings and often pushes him too much, at one point trying to toughen him up by abandoning him in the cliffs far from home and forcing him to make it back himself. This can be pinned on Kimba's less-than-stellar upbringing in which he lost his parents at a very early age, never even meeting his own father. While Kimba became stronger and more moral through enduring those ordeals, he grew up with no role model for what a father should be, so his idea of parenting a future king is throwing the hardships he went through at Rune, hoping that he will come out stronger like he did.
• Kore wa Koi no Hanashi:
  • Haruka's parents. Her mother has become mentally unstable after her son's death. Incapable of accepting reality, and his death, she flees into a sort of fantasy world, where Kazuma is simply 'not at home' and becomes worried when he's late. This kept going until she started to see her daughter as her deceased son, calling her Kazuma and is implied to have simply forgotten that she had a daughter. And talking back to her, reminding her of her son's death, causes Haruka's mother to lash out violently. As horrible of a person she is, one cannot help but feel sorry for her.
    • Haruka's father fares a bit better. He's often overseas on business and never took a great deal of influence in the house, before or after his son's death, since he figured his wife had everything under control. After he has to cart his wife off to a hospital and continue to work himself, he gets a housekeeper to drop in a few times a week, to cook for Haruka and take care of the household. He just overall lacks the contact he initially needed with Haruka and has difficulty creating some now.
  • Shinichi's parents, if one looks at them from a certain angle. Both were hardworking people, trying to keep their family afloat, but the father was an alcoholic, who also was verbally and physically abusive to his wife. And his wife took the beatings, with Shinichi realizing years later that she might have stayed with him, simply to give Shinichi two parents to grow up with. Ultimately results in his mother burning down their apartment to create a family suicide, started to choke her son, but he was the only one out of the three to survive the suicide. At the age of eight.
• Lady!!: Lynn's father isn't around because of his work and as a result, there aren't many people in her corner when her fellow family members (who are white British) subject her to awful racism for being half-Japanese, on top of her Wicked Stepmother and her two terrible kids. Later, he laments his lack of presence in her life and promises to do better.
• La Seine No Hoshi: Francis I the Emperor. He secretly desired to raise Simone, but his royal duties got in the way. He wanted her to have a happy childhood nonetheless, so she was entrusted to the de Forges, who then entrusted her to the Rollands.
• Lucy-May of the Southern Rainbow: Arthur Popple may be an alcoholic who drinks to cope with how terrible his life is, but he'll be damned if he won't go through hell and high water for his daughter. His reaction to Lucy-May going missing is downright heartbreaking.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • This is an important part of Fate's characterization from StrikerS onward. Despite her desire to be the best mother possible for her adopted children, her position as an enforcer means that she's often away on missions for long stretches of time (which is part of the reason why Erio and Caro never lived with her). Vivio even teases her about it in ViVid.
  • The movie adaptation of the first season shows that Precia was also like this prior to her descent into insanity.
• Prof. Yumi from Mazinger Z sincerely loved and cared for his daughter Sayaka, but he was too Married to the Job and busy trying to save the world to take care of her properly, and often Sayaka missed her father.
• Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: Kobayashi's parents were like this while she was growing up, and she ends up as one when she becomes Kanna's Parental Substitute.
  Kobayashi: Parents day... my parents never came. They were busy with work. It was to support the family, and I understood that.
• In Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Relena is shown to be somewhat resentful of her father's job keeping him away from his family; in fact, one of her first lines of dialog has her admonishing him to take some more time for himself. This isn't helped by the fact that he brings her along on business trips so they can spend time together but keeps getting called away. However, there's no question that her father loves her, and that she loves him and understands that he's a very important man (being the Vice Foreign Minister to the entire planet). Later in the series, she admits that she was selfish for not seeing just how important his work was. Even the revelation that she's adopted does nothing to change how she feels, and in The Movie she takes up the Darlian surname once more.
• My Hero Academia:
  • Inko is essentially a single mother^note Her husband is alive, but works overseas to provide for the family and hasn't appeared in person in the entire series to date who clearly loves her son, Izuku, and does her best to take care of him, but she doesn't magically know the best course of action to take and is generally hampered by being Locked Out of the Loop. When young Izuku was told that he would never develop superpowers, crushing his dream of becoming a hero, she did her best to comfort him without realizing that what he really needed at the time was to be told "Don't give up hope". When he spontaneously develops powers and gets into the #1 Superhero School in Japan, Inko is naturally surprised but does what she can to support him. However, the fact that he repeatedly gets badly injured because of those powers (including shattering his bones multiple times) horrifies her, and she initially refuses the school's request to move the students into a dorm, citing the fact that the students were attacked by supervillains on three separate occasions and even telling the #1 hero All Might (Izuku's mentor and the person who gave him his powers) that she can't trust him to keep her son safe. Rather than trying to shut him down outright, Inko proposes that Izuku transfer to a lower-profile hero school so she won't have to constantly worry about him getting killed by villains.
  • Rei was forced into a marriage with Endeavor because he wanted a child who would become a more powerful hero than All Might. She did her best to be a good mother to all her children and tried to raise Shoto right while protecting him from Endeavor's abuse, but one person could only do so much. The strain of all the abuse wore on her until she had a Freak Out that resulted in her scarring her son with boiling water, at which point Endeavor had her put into protective custody at a hospital. Shoto never blamed her for what happened, viewing it as his father's fault for his horrendous attitude, and when he visits her in the hospital to try and patch up their relationship she's clearly very happy to see him.
  • Endeavor/Enji Todoroki himself, after character development. His obsession with beating All Might prevented him from properly parenting his kids, but even though he's finally given that up and wants to be a proper father, most of his now grown-up kids don't want to forgive him or have him in their lives.
  • Nana Shimura loved her son deeply and after her husband's death at the hands of All For One, she left her son in foster care as a means to protect him from the dangers of her hero work, even leaving him a letter explaining her reasons and that she would always love him. Her well-meaning intentions and subsequent death left her son very bitter and resentful towards her and all heroes. This would lead to her grown-up son to horribly abuse his own son Tenko/Shigaraki, and allowing All For One to easily come and exploit her grandson into becoming one of the most dangerous villains.
  • Nao Shimura did love her children but she was too weak-willed to stand up to her hero-hating husband who was abusing their children. By the time she did confront her husband after he had hit Tenko and threatened to divorce him and take the children away, it was too late as Tenko developed his Quirk and he accidentally ended up decaying his entire family.
• Naruto:
  • Gaara had every right to hate his father, the Fourth Kazekage. The man all but killed his mother to make him the Jinchuriki for Shukaku, and then drove him to his insanity by making him believe that he was never loved and that no one would ever love him. Then the man had to gall to try and assassinate him, several times. Ultimately, however, he came to understand that his cruelty was in the name of the village they both held dear, through his own burdens as the Fifth Kazekage. When the Fourth, resurrected by the Edo Tensei, is finally sealed, he has already made his peace with his son and leaves the village in his hands.
  • The epilogue and eventually Boruto shows Naruto as Hokage, which strains his time with his family. When his and Hinata's son Boruto starts acting out in order to get his attention (very much how Naruto was at the start of the series), Naruto tells him that his job means he can't be his dad all the time, so he must learn to endure it, because he's a ninja as well. He is also shown to try and balance his time better after this, though it is clear that this is a hard balance to make. Recently he's also outright stated that he is willing to outright kill his son if he were to succumb to The Virus, but he clearly doesn't want to and seem to consider it a Mercy Kill for the worst case scenario.
  • Fugaku and Mikoto Uchiha were Good Parents, but they were still people who plotted a coup against their home village in retaliation for perceived isolation after the Kyuubi attack. Every single tragedy that their sons had to endure, including the brothers' own broken relationship because Itachi refused to tell Sasuke the truth about the Massacre, can be traced back to their parents' actions. For what it's worth, both understood the consequences of their actions for not only the clan but also their children, which is partially why they refused to fight back when Itachi came to kill them.
  • Hiashi Hyuga, if still dangerously veering close to Abusive Parents territory. He put a lot of pressure on Hinata and when he deemed her a failure, essentially dumped her in Kurenai's care so as to focus on training Hanabi instead, which only further damaged her already fragile self-esteem. But considering the man has a lot of pressure himself as the Hyuga Clan's head, not to mention that his brother's sacrifice still weighs heavily on his mind even years after, it's clear that the circumstances didn't give him any chances to act soft, as that would have been perceived as weakness. He eventually gets better and by Boruto has become a Doting Grandparent to Boruto and Himawari in order to make up for lost time.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: If one were to count parental guardians, Misato definitely counts. She tries as hard as she can to be nurturing and protective to Shinji and Asuka, but she has trouble getting close to them due to her own pressing emotional baggage, including her own Daddy Issues about her neglectful father who nonetheless sacrificed himself to save her life.
• Mr. Jigokumeguri in Ojojojo does want to be a good parent to his daughters and respects their decisions if they clash with his own, but the choices he makes end up having disastrous consequences, whether it be setting Haru up for an Arranged Marriage, set her up as heiress when she's only a child, or letting Aki compete for the position.
• In One Piece, Bellemere is this to her adopted daughters Nojiko and Nami. She tries to care for them, but does not make much money from her tangerines, and occasionally acts immaturely (for example, Nami claiming that Nojiko's not her sister because they're not related is a Berserk Button for her). However, she cares for them more than anything and when Arlong attacks the island, she pays their fee instead of her own, dying for them.
• In Ouran High School Host Club, Haruhi's father loves her dearly but tends to overwork himself a lot for her sake and Haruhi herself would rather have her dad stay home and rest than go see her at school events.
• Satoshi and Eriko Oginome from Penguindrum do love their daughter Ringo, but the death of their eldest daughter Momoka in a strange incident completely trashed the family dynamics, since Satoshi insisted that they should move on and Eriko couldn't let go. Now they're divorced and the teenaged Ringo lives with Eriko, while Satoshi takes her out on periodic outings. But Satoshi neglects to tell Ringo that he is dating again… which unintentionally makes Ringo despair and speed up her "Project M", causing the infamous Attempted Rape incident of episode 8 and all that came up next.
• Pokémon:
  • Lusamine is portrayed in a considerably more sympathetic light in Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon than in Pokémon Sun and Moon proper and, to a lesser extent, their companion releases. Here she's a Doting Parent who never means any harm to Lillie and Gladion, but would easily go from embarrassing her daughter in front of her friends one second to ignoring her to take a business call the next, which makes her kids question how much she actually cares about them. That's not even getting into her obsessive fascination with the inter-dimensional Ultra Beasts, which is hinted to be about as unhealthy as it is in the games. When Gladion finally calls her out for never even noticing the terribly traumatic experience her daughter went through that caused her crippling fear of Pokémon — caused by one of the very UBs she dedicated her life to meeting, no less — Lusamine is downright horrified at how out of touch she's been and pulls a Heroic Sacrifice against that same UB when it threatened her children again.
  • In Pokémon Adventures, Grace and her daughter Y don't see eye to eye as Y dropped Rhyhorn racing in favor of Sky Training. That said, it's clear that Grace isn't a cruel person and Y does worry when Grace goes missing.
• Prétear:
  • Natsue, especially in the anime. Though she does care for her family, she simply doesn't seem to be cut out for motherhood, and at times she and Kaoru are just too wrapped up in each other to notice the problems between Himeno, Mayune, and Mawata. Specially in the case of Mawata.
  • Kaoru, too. It's clear he loves Himeno, but he himself is a very irresponsible Manchild until almost the end of the story.
• Tsuna's parents in Reborn! (2004). Although they do care for him, his mother constantly belittles him and cares very little for his future. His father, a Disappeared Dad most of Tsuna's life, who without even talking to Tsuna about it, decided to force him to become a Mafia crime lord that made him a target for countless assassins.
• In Robotech, Max and Miria Sterling love their children, but have messed up big time with their oldest daughter Dana: when they joined the Robotech Expeditionary Force they did so to keep her safe from the Robotech Masters by fighting them away from Earth, so they left her behind with her never seen younger brother and had another daughter, Maia, during the voyage... And never bothered to tell her. On top of that the Masters bypassed the REF and attacked Earth anyway, and by the time they reunite Dana has fought against their invasion only to see Earth fall to the Invid due Earth's defenders and the Masters decimating each other and has been forced to flee. As a result, the comic "Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles" shows that Dana and Maia have a horrible relationship made out of the hatred Dana can't help feel for her sister and mutual sadness at the situation.
• Raideen: Princess Lemuria/Reiko Hibiki. She's an unloving, stoic mother to her son, but deep down, she fears that if she shows any form of maternal affection to him he'll become soft and lack the spirit of a warrior needed to defeat the Demon Empire. When Lemuria was young, she watched them invade her homeland and the death of all her people, and is the Last of Her Kind. Her son is her last hope against them, and near the Grand Finale, she asks if Mari believes she's a horrible mother.
• King Viktor in The Royal Tutor genuinely loves his children, but his duties as king often cause him to spend far less time with them than he would like. There are also times when he has to act harsh and stern to the younger princes as their king instead of their father because they are potential king candidates that he knows are not ready yet to be king.
• Sailor Moon:
  • While Kenji and Ikuko Tsukino are Good Parents and Minako's dad and mom are also hinted to be that way, Ami's mother Saeko falls into this squarely. She has good intentions, yes, but is simply too absorbed by her job as a doctor to spend time with Ami, and for worse she's also a single mom since her ex-husband is an artist who lives and works abroad. In the manga, Saeko is even seen apologizing to Ami for not being able to be with her.
  • Chibiusa's relationship with her mother is this. She is very much a Daddy's Girl and appears to have a good relationship with him and while she does love her mother dearly, Chibiusa half-idolizes her mother to the point of an inferiority complex. Even after discovering Usagi is her future mother, she bickers constantly with Usagi, having trouble reconciling that Usagi is still a young teenager whereas her future self Neo Queen Serenity is Older and Wiser.
• In Sakende Yaruze!, meeting for the first time at the ages of 17 and 33 respectively, Nakaya and Shino both have trouble sorting out their father-son relationship precisely because at this point in their lives they are inclined to see each other as people first and don't know where to draw lines or how they should act once Nakaya comes to live with Shino. Ultimately, Shino does fail as an ideal parent and chooses not centre his life around Nakaya, but Nakaya also chooses not to ask him to.
• In Saki Shinohayu -dawn of age-, Kousuke, Shino's uncle, is this after he takes her in following the disappearance of her mother, who is his sister. He does his best to care for her, but is also busy with his job and searching for his sister. As a result, he makes the mistake of thinking that mahjong does nothing but remind Shino of her Missing Mom, and tries to sell it, much to Shino's displeasure. Thankfully, he was unable to sell it due to missing a tile, and after he sees her having fun at a tournament (partly in hopes of getting her mother to find her), he apologizes and returns the set.
• A Silent Voice:
  • Shouko's mother was well-meaning but harsh to her daughters to toughen them up, resulting in friction between her and her daughters, especially the youngest one.
  • Shouya's mother is too busy at work and oblivious that her son wanted to commit suicide and when Shouya fell into a coma, she was so overwhelmed by the situation that she doesn't know what to do.
• Skip Beat!:
  • Lory Takarada is a grandparent variant of this. His granddaughter Maria was left him with from a very early age onward, as both parents were busy with their jobs overseas. When her fifth birthday approached, she gave in to her selfish desire and asked her mom to come home for it and celebrate with her. The mother got onto a plane to be with her daughter, only for the plane to crash and kill her. Maria has become convinced that her mother's death was her fault and that her father hates her for this. Lory wants for her to realize that it isn't the case, but nothing he says works. She's heard all of the arguments before, so she sees them as nothing but empty words... until Kyoko uses a play's words to 'switch roles' with Maria, and makes Maria use those 'empty words' as her own argument to prove that her father does love her.
  • Her father has his own share of problems. He did blame Maria for his wife's death at the funeral, but he was too stricken with his own grief at the time to care about how harsh his words were. However, he nonetheless has tried to keep in contact with her by sending her daily e-mails and asking her about how her life is going. The e-mails always have the same lines, but Maria realizes that he never sent her anything new because she never dared to answer his e-mails. Both have the problem of not knowing much about the other because they never communicated. And when Lory manages to get Maria's father to appear for her Gratitude/Christmas party, despite Maria having been too terrified that being 'selfish' again will cause more harm and didn't dare to invite him, the two hug for the first time in years.
  • Saena Mogami turns out be one herself. She was emotionally abusive towards Kyoko and reprimanded her for getting bad grades, leading to Kyoko having some severe trust issues and an urge to prove herself. Saena eventually left Kyoko at Sho's parents' house for good. It turns out that Saena used to be in a relationship with a man, but he turned out to be a company spy and only got close to her to get his hands on vital information for a big case going on. When he gained the data, he disappeared into the night, and Saena was left to deal with the mess her mistake had made. She eventually realized she was pregnant by this man, but circumstances prevented her from getting an abortion and she had no choice left but to give birth. Since Kyoko feels like a physical reminder of her biggest mistake she made in her life, Saena has been incapable of seeing her as a separate being from it and decided that leaving her with Sho's parents was the kindest thing she could do. When she and Kyoko clear the air, Saena admits to a colleague that she did have times where she considered Kyoko 'cute' as a child. But she felt that she wasn't allowed to admit that, given her attitude.
• Spirit Alburn in Soul Eater tries to be a loving father but is a terrible husband, as evident by his wife divorcing him due to his womanizing, which in turn, causes tension between his daughter who loses her respect for him.
• Kotetsu from Tiger & Bunny is a single father who struggles with the fact that his dream job as a superhero means that he can't really spend much time with his daughter, Kaede, who lives with her grandmother and uncle.
• Ichigo's parents in Tokyo Mew Mew are completely wrapped up in each other. Her mother is quick to squeal over whichever boy she's seen her daughter with, and her father is overprotective and goes off on a Rage Breaking Point. However, they're shuffled off to Parental Abandonment-land when she has to save the world, only to come back and punish her for being late to get home. They're seen as good people, just unaware that their daughter is a Cat Girl superheroine.
• It happens a lot in Voltes V, since Parental Abandonment is one of the core themes of the show:
  • Kentaro and Mitsuyo Go. Kentaro is actually an Alien Prince from Planet Boazania, and came to Earth as a refugee after being disgraced for starting a slave rebellion. He wanted nothing more than to live a normal life with Mitsuyo and their three sons, but he knew Boazania would one day set it's sights on Earth and defected from Earth to work with the remaining rebels to prevent that. Mitsuyo, after assuming he was dead as he never came back, spent the rest of her life training their sons to pilot the titular Super Robot until she died protecting them. When Kentaro finally reunites with his sons, there's a lot of Broken Tears on both ends.
  • Ippei believed his mother left him and his sick father to die when he was a child, because they were poor and homeless. In actuality, she committed suicide with gunpowder to save them from a pack of Savage Wolves. Sadly, his father died shortly afterwards so Ippei was never able to learn this.
  • Heinel's mother died in childbirth and his father was imprisoned and UnPersoned. Heinel never knew hi crime and followed Boazan society's view into believing he was a traitor. When he finds out his father was part of a Slave Race and was merely trying to free his fellow slaves, he became ashamed for ever hating him.
• Yusuke's mom in YuYu Hakusho. She genuinely loves him but gave birth to him when she was 15 and has a lot of associated problems with being a Hard-Drinking Party Girl.
  • Turns out his father is also somewhat like this, though not much is known due to being a Last Episode, New Character, but what is known is that he actually tried to instill discipline into Yusuke, i.e. spanked him, but his constant fights with Atsuko resulted in their divorce and him not being there to parent Yusuke. Both are also Amicable Exes who tend to have one night stands on occasion but realize it's too late to get back together.

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