Anime is a cherished treasure of culture in Japan that has now overflooded the world and embarked on a lively colonization with the rival industry. Anime carry a lot more with it than just a simple and beautifully vibrant image. Out of the thousands of masterpieces of different genres, we can single out some that are about family and the relationships that form it.

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Bunny Drop – Usagi Drop

Great Teacher Onizuka – Gurēto Tīchā Onizuka

Crimson – Kure-Nai

Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father! – Papa no Iukoto wo Kikinasai!

Aishiteruze baby

Alice & Zoroku – Alice to Zouroku

Witchblade – Witchibureido

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Japanese pop culture, anime being a huge influence, has quickly conquered the world, and it has been more than two decades of pioneering in the field of animation. Ninjas, AI’s, hybrids, ghosts, demons, violence and everyday life struggles took the lead in anime. Other countries were confronted with the erroneous notion that what seems like an animated film, a fairy tale, is not necessarily a work for an afternoon cartoon watch for the children.

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However, the pressure from otaku to create more family centered anime paid off, as the number of the loving bond between a family increased within the frameworks.

Bunny Drop – Usagi Drop

Photo by andri so on Flickr (www.flickr.com)

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At the funeral of his grandfather, Daikichi, a man in his thirties, meets an unknown relative. Rin is six years old and, as it turns out, is none other than his grandfather’s illegitimate daughter. Daikichi is rather apathetic about her, still he takes Rin home with him. Daikichi has lived a bachelor life so far, but his life turns upside down as he learns to compromise both at his workplace and in his private life because he wants to raise Rin responsibly.

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The protagonist becomes sympathetic with his responsible behaviour towards the little girl. The anime consists of 11 episodes.

Great Teacher Onizuka – Gurēto Tīchā Onizuka

Photo by Kevin on Flickr (www.flickr.com)

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Onizuka Eikichi is a once famously-infamous troublemaker but more recently a teacher. He sets a goal for himself: he wants to be the best teacher there is in Japan. The 43 part series is rich in amazing conflicts. There are times he has so many impossible and serious problems at once that the viewer will seriously believe that there will never be peace in this story again.

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Onizuka, following his own experience, solves the problems the students have in his own way, using all means. In GTO, students struggle with serious problems like family ties that break down due to parents buried into work, fatherlessness, student exclusion in school – these are all inspired by real life struggles.

Crimson – Kure-Nai

Kurenai Shinkurou is a 16 year old teenager and an experienced professional mediator. After asking his boss for a more challenging assignment, he gets the task of protecting young Murasaki Kuhoin. Murasaki is a seven year old girl, who by being kidnapped, escaped an unspeakable fate that awaited her. Shinkurou is supposed to protect her from her own influential family. But as Kurenai lives in a run-down, small apartment with no bathroom, he’s reluctant to take her in. The girl has been isolated from society all her life, making it even more difficult for a highschooler to care for a little child.

Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father! – Papa no Iukoto wo Kikinasai!

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Photo by Rose Kurosaki on Flickr (www.flickr.com)

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Yuuta Segawa is a 19 year old boy who has just started his first year at university. One day, his sister, Yuri, who raised him after the death of their parents, asks him to take care of her daughters, Hina, Sora and Miu, while on a business trip with her husband overseas. Yuuta grimly accepts, the plane disappears and all passengers are considered dead. In order to prevent the girls being put into foster care, he takes them in and raises them on his own. Yuuta has to learn to balance his new responsibilities while the girls come to terms with the loss of their parents.

Aishiteruze baby

Photo by Anime Sub on Flickr (www.flickr.com)

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Katakura Kippei lives her daily teenage days being average, lazy and a troublemaker. One day when he returns home from school, a cute little girl stands in front of him in the hallway. Kippei isn’t bothered by the fact that from now on the girl is living with them, thinking he has little to do with it. However, the responsibility falls to him. As it turns out, Kippei is a very responsible young man under the careless exterior – he takes his job seriously and would do anything for Yuzuyu, even if he often has a hard time thinking like a preschool girl. He becomes the little girl’s surrogate mother instead of his own mother. Yuzuyu is a real kid who needs someone who loves her. She doesn’t leave Kippei’s side for a minute. Her reactions and her attachment is as realistic as can be.

Alice & Zoroku – Alice to Zouroku

Alice’s Dream is a special ability that allows empowered young girls to make their thoughts a reality. That’s why governments keep them locked up and experiment on them. A girl, named Sana, manages to escape, after which she meets a stubborn old man called Zouroku. Zouroku is a florist and he can’t stand it if anyone disrupts his peaceful everyday life. That being said, he takes the girl in and raises her as his granddaughter and teaches her to be a normal girl.

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This anime is about relationships that span a couple of generations. The mutual respect they have for each other is envious even though their paths cross accidentally.

Witchblade – Witchibureido

Amaha Masane is a young woman with a baby girl on her side. They are forced to flee because of the government child welfare agency. Although Masane lost her memory a while back, thus has a childish approach towards the world, her daughter being in trouble shakes her and she takes on the motherly role she was supposed to since Rihoko’s birth.

The anime shows the unbreakable love of a mother as well as the love of the daughter toward the mother that goes through a mill of development.

Rihoko on the other hand is the opposite of her mother. The reversed roles actually make sense, as the mother lost her memories years prior to the story.

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The anime’s choice of theme is responsible adult and parental behaviour. Regardless of age, these anime can be recommended to anyone, as they present the serious task of parenthood in a lovable and playful form.

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