Think Your Family Is Bad? 14 Dysfunctional Anime Families

Think Your Family Is Bad? 14 Dysfunctional Anime Families

No matter what holidays you celebrate, November and December are the months for family. You go home, you eat food, you argue about your obsession with Japanese “cartoons”, and then retreat to different corners of the house to get separately drunk. Good times, right?

Well, if you think your family is pretty representative of dysfunction junction, there are some notable examples in anime that might put things in perspective.

Think Your Family Is Bad? 14 Dysfunctional Anime Families
Think Your Family Is Bad? 14 Dysfunctional Anime Families

While an abusive father or dead mother might be cheaply used in many anime series to create plot drama or even character development, many series often go far beyond that. So, get ready because there is physical, sexual, and emotional abuse a-plenty in these 14 dysfunctional anime families.

*Note: Spoilers. There are spoilers ahead.

1. The Izumi’s – Lucky Star

Think Your Family Is Bad? 14 Dysfunctional Anime Families
Think Your Family Is Bad? 14 Dysfunctional Anime Families

The Izumi family is the least dysfunctional family on our list, but they are still pretty odd. With a dead mother, a bachelor father is left to raise his otaku and increasingly odd daughter on his own.

Think Your Family Is Bad? 14 Dysfunctional Anime Families
Think Your Family Is Bad? 14 Dysfunctional Anime Families

However, while that is fairly standard, if not commendable that he actually stuck with her, he does have a nasty hobby as a lecher and seems particularly fond of his daughter’s school friends.

2. The Yagami’s – Death Note

Think Your Family Is Bad? 14 Dysfunctional Anime Families
Think Your Family Is Bad? 14 Dysfunctional Anime Families

If you count obliviousness as functional, than the mother and sister in the Yagami family are perfectly normal. However, it is the boys that really rend this family asunder.

One major dynamic in Death Note is that Light’s father is the one hunting down Kira while Light is actually the killer. His father’s faith in his son blinds him to the evidence and eventually gets him killed.

Think Your Family Is Bad? 14 Dysfunctional Anime Families
Think Your Family Is Bad? 14 Dysfunctional Anime Families

However, the biggest dysfunction in the Yagami family must come after the series ends. With Soichiro dead, Light gunned down by the cops, and Light’s sister near comatose with trauma, I’d imagine it would have wrecked the mother in every way.

3. The Aisaka’s and Takasu’s – Toradora

Think Your Family Is Bad? 14 Dysfunctional Anime Families
Think Your Family Is Bad? 14 Dysfunctional Anime Families

Part of what made Toradora such an excellent romance is that you have two young people, Taiga and Ryuuji, whose dysfunction was very much shaped by their odd families.

Taiga bonded heavily with her father who turned out to be a flakey scumbag while at the same time pushing away her mother and her new family. While they eventually reconciled, this event leaves Taiga angry, alone, and living in squalor due to not being able to take care of herself.

Think Your Family Is Bad? 14 Dysfunctional Anime Families
Think Your Family Is Bad? 14 Dysfunctional Anime Families

Ryuuji’s family is a whole different ball game. He grew up believing his father, a thug, got stabbed to death via stories his mother told. He found out later that his father actually left when his mother was pregnant.

While his mother, who had ran away from her parents, admirably raised him as best she could, she was still very much a child herself and has since remained in that mentality. This fostered a very caring nature in Ryuuji, but his thug face suggested otherwise to those who judged him by physical appearance alone.



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