Why is modern anime OBSESSED with adoptive parents and found families — but almost never shows happy, intact biological families with kids? Simone and Malcolm Collins dive deep into this bizarre trend dominating recent anime.

From mega-hits like Spy x Family to hidden gems like Buddy Daddies, The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting, and I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years, we explore why adoptive/found-family parenting tropes are everywhere... while biological families are rare, tragic, or melancholic (think Wolf Children or Clannad: After Story).

We break down:

* Dozens of examples of the adoptive parent trope

* The stark tonal differences (heartwarming comedy vs. bittersweet sacrifice)

* Theories: Youth audience rebellion? Japanese cultural duty vs. choice? Fertility crisis propaganda gone wrong? Teenage fantasy of “chosen family”?

Pronatalists, otaku, and culture war watchers: This one’s for you.

Episode Transcript:

Simone Collins: Hello Simone. Today we are gonna be talking about an interesting phenomenon. In which parenting has been increasingly put as and pedestal by anime as this great thing to do is your life and is a very fun thing to watch people do is their lives. But what is very interesting I. Is the way it’s being shown which is that the vast, vast majority of modern animes that include parent roles, the parent is in the adoptive role.

It is not their biological child. And when it is their biological child, the tone is typically very, very different. So we are gonna talk about the animes that fit this trope. We are trying to talk about the enemies that don’t fit this trope. We are gonna talk about the tonal differences, and we are going to make hypotheses as to why this might be

the case.

I’m so curious. The case, I’m so curious because it is something, it’s, it’s so weird that it feels like there’s all this prenatal, this propaganda like you know, pro kids were all about it, but then. [00:01:00 ] None of it is along the normal lines. I feel like none of it’s modeling to people how this stuff actually happens.

So I don’t know what to think anymore.

But I have to start with the Basecamp Anime intro.

Speaker: Culture away in the trees of yesterday.

Dear branches, the and

turn over.

The crowd base camp. Welcome to the Everlasting fight of Culture, bloom and the [00:02:00 ] sky fight.

We can’t ignore. Strike them down with

game theory[00:03:00 ]

base camp night and take their flight.

Simone Collins: Well, and,

Malcolm Collins: and we can start by talking about spy Ex Spy Family. This is one that we’ve watched in the family. Very, very popular anime. So incredibly popular anime to understand how popular it is. You know, even within the US when we go to Walmart and we look at like the mango section, because Walmart is the mango section now I remember I was looking not long ago.

And literally half the books in the section were spy, ex spy family. Mm-hmm. This is like, this isn’t like a popular, this is like Sailor Moon or Naruto Popular for this generation.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And the plot of it is Lloyd and Anya, who one is a undercover detector and the other is an assassin. And they don’t know each other.

Hold these roles. Adopt a, a daughter named Anya who can read minds. And then they get a dog who can see the future.

Simone Collins: They don’t know. She can breed mines and no one knows. The dog can see the, like, no one knows the secret identity of anyone else in the family, which is really [00:04:00 ] cute. But yeah, this, this child was, I mean, it, it, it, so the, the spy, the spy father has to have a like sham wife and a sham child to be.

Seen as, as, as believable in his position, which is why he, he ends up in this family and everyone else has reasons. You know, like, I, I wanna be adopted, I don’t wanna have a family or like, you know, I. Why does, why does the, the wife character need to be in a family? I can’t remember

Malcolm Collins: because she’s afraid that she will be seen as a spy being a woman of her age and unmarried.

Right. And she’s desperately looking for a husband to go to a work event with her, or not a husband, but like at least a boyfriend or something. Mm-hmm. So she doesn’t look suspicious.

Simone Collins: Hmm. And then it’s just so convenient that there’s this man who suddenly. It is like perfect on paper and like is is interested in,

Malcolm Collins: yeah.

Well, and before we go further, I actually think Spy X spy family discounts one of the first things that people will say about this. Okay. Because, you know, I ask AI and I’m like, okay, why is this the case? Why is this so much [00:05:00 ] popular, more popular than the other type? Yeah. And AI immediately is like, well, it’s, you know.

More flexible for narrative structures. Right. You know, because you can just slot people in anywhere, right? And I was like, actually it’s not. So if you look at a spy, ex spy family, I think that this is sort of the. Case that that disproves the rule. Mm-hmm. It used spy Ex Spy Family as an example of narrative flexibility.

It was like, look like you can have a family like this. And I then pointed out, I was like, actually Spy Ex Spy family could be seen as drawn from multiple Western properties, all of which did not need to make. This, this aversion the two big ones that I would think of are true lies and the Smiths.

Mm-hmm. Which had a reboot as well. It was so popular. Totally. So the Smiths don’t have a kid, but they are a real long-term married couple who are both assassins or spies, depending on which one you’re watching. And you

Simone Collins: don’t know. The other one is, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And so you don’t need, it showed that they could have had a kid.

Like that’s completely incidental to the plot, right? Like, yeah. Yeah. Now if you go to True Lies, which I think is [00:06:00 ] one of the better movies ever made and is a very good example of this plot. They have a kid that is not just their biological kid, but is absolutely crucial to the plot and central to the third act and adds a lot of stakes to the plot.

Do you remember the daughter from True Lies, like on the missile and everything and, and the Big Crane?

Simone Collins: I’ve was this one of those that I, that we watched Drunk Together? That I was drunk?

Malcolm Collins: Maybe Remember when we did

Simone Collins: Drunk Date Nights? I love those. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a protagonist.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah.

We watched a lot of those ones. Yeah. So I, I, I, for all the drunken date nights, I have no memory of the movies we watch, which is great ‘cause I get to rewatch them as a first timer again. But yeah, don’t remember. Sorry,

Malcolm Collins: but yeah. But I, I just focus on that one. But then you also get a lot that are like, if you’re watching it, you may not even recognize that adoptive parents are a major role in it.

A good example here is Miss Kosh, she’s Dragon made. [00:07:00 ] In, in the very second episode they dropped the Dragon Kana, who is clearly a child dragon who they adopt into their family and treat as their child. This is like. Episode number two or others that attempt to subvert this trope from old country bumpkin to master swordsman.

If you Yeah. Well, he doesn’t,

Simone Collins: he doesn’t, this is about a master swordsman almost like being, like being revisited by all of his former students who are now successful. But then

Malcolm Collins: remember at the end of it, this is the last arc of it, like the last third of it. Mm-hmm. He basically adopts a kid.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Well, and he had like previously taken orphans in and trained them, so he sort of adopted that, but he

Malcolm Collins: never raised an orphan as a dad. Yeah. And this is a very important plot point, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. This is more Yeah, but that’s, and that’s just crazy. That’s crazy.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, okay. Hold on. We, we gotta do more here. No, it’s for my daughter, I’d even defeat a demon Lord. In this one, he finds a demon child. By the way, every single one I’ve mentioned so far, I’ve watched from beginning to end. Just so people know what an anime, a nerd I am. I will let you know [00:08:00 ] when I get to an anime I have not watched from beginning to end.

You’re doing the work. Yeah. I should probably note the good ones. From old country bumpkin is pretty good. I I do not like Dragon made that much. I think it’s not that great

Simone Collins: old country bump, kind of a little boring. Nothing really seems to happen.

Spy family’s great. Highly recommend Spy Family.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, spy family’s really good. And yeah, you know what’s crazy?

Simone Collins: You know, one of our very, very favorite animes of all time food wars. What Shoko, GKI knows something. Yeah. Even in this anime where there are some strong parental bonds kind of modeled it’s often just one parent, like the other parent is dead or absent.

Yeah, the two, two leading characters have very strong father figures, but then there are no mothers. This is so weird. There aren’t no, there’s like, no. Hold on. Complete family.

Malcolm Collins: We gotta go through our list here. Okay.

Simone Collins: Yes. This mystery is just getting deeper and deeper. Go gi, gimme [00:09:00 ] more. Okay,

Malcolm Collins: next one. I’ve been killing Slimes for 300 years.

I just watched this one for the second time Recently Are slimes

Simone Collins: monsters. What? What?

Malcolm Collins: So in this one she kills Sons of Slimes and she begins to build this found family.