The Absense of Parents in Anime

Anime has a lot of patterns and tendencies that its known for.  May that be the magical shounen formula that can make anything and everything interesting or the fact that every single classroom in Japan apparently has a designated desk for protagonists in the back corner by the window.  There is one tendency, however, that usually flies underneath peoples' radars and that is the noticeable lack of prominent parents in shows.  For many individuals parents were some of the, if not the most influential figures in their adolescent lives.  So when 90% of anime focus around said adolescents, the notable absence of parental figures in somewhat startling.  Most anime feature protagonists that live away from home, or who live with a single parent while the other is away or deceased.  These situations usually allow creators to focus purely on their unique story idea, in the case of the former, or give an easy avenue for later character growth, in the case of the latter.  The few times both parents are around are usually in series where they are used for simple one off comedy scenes.  The number of anime that do not follow this trend can be counted in one sitting.  When you remove magical girl shows from the mix, that number can probably be counted on both hands.

So when I recently watched episode 6 of Demi-chan wa Kataritai (Interviews with Monster Girls) I found myself, honestly, rather mesmerized.  For those of you unfamiliar with the show, Demi-chan takes place in an alternate version of our world where demi-humans, such as vampires, dullahans, and succubi, are born by extremely rare genetic defects and are well known to society as a whole.  The story revolves around high school biology teacher Takahashi-sensei and the three demi-human students in his class.  It's a fun, lighthearted show that is just a joy to watch.

In episode 6 Takahashi makes a house-call to his vampire student's, Hikari, home to meet her parents, a rather common thing for Japanese teachers to do.  It stands to mention that Hikari's parents are not vampires and are just normal human beings.  There we learned of all the considerations Hikari's parents have gone through for their vampiric daughter such as the father dyeing his own hair blonde so that Hikari didn't feel like her own platinum blonde hair made her stand out in her own family.  We also learned of Hikari's own considerations to her family such as her own mini fridge in her room that she stores her government issued blood packs in so she doesn't have to store them in the family fridge with all their food.  And of course there were all the stories of the parents' worries and anxieties over raising such a unique child properly as well.

It's a fantastical situation that could never exist in real life and yet I felt that that segment alone demonstrated more meaningful parental influence than the vast majority of other anime out there that claim to have serious plots of adolescent life.  By the end of the episode I felt it's only natural Hikari be the hyper active goofball she is if she has the kind of parents we just met, and that's something I wish more anime would do.  There's nothing wrong with using the absence of one or both parents to create an easy pocket for drama and character development , but I think taking a more mundane situation and still being able to show a character have compelling growth is all the more impressive.