Okay, folks. I think
we’re going to continue on the subject of manga with adult characters and adult
themes (not naughty themes, just grown-up ones). Why?
Because I’ve been reading a lot of manga lately. It’s as good a reason as any other.
So, once again I’ll raise the colors.
The same rules apply as the last time I raised the pirate
flag. I’m not going to tell you where to
find the series in question. I urge you
to support any official releases these manga may get. Also, I will give you one completely legal
recommendation.
So, our theme for today’s post is: Parenting. Yeah, I know it may feel like a throwback to
my “superhero moms” and “superhero dads” posts.
However, as I’ve gotten older and seen my peers take on the role of
parent, I’ve developed a new respect for the moms and dads out there trying to
do their best to raise their kids up right.
There are some good and some unique
depictions of parenting in manga.
There are also some questionable ones.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Here are my favorite manga featurimng parents at this time:
I’m a Middle-Aged Man Who Got My Adventurer’s License Revoked , but I’m
Enjoying a Carefree Lifestyle Because I Have an Adorable Daughter Now by
Fumi Tadaura and Manimani Ononata.
Yes, that is the full title.
There seems to be a trend of manga, anime and light novels with very
long, descriptive titles these days.
This is a series set in a video game-esque fantasy world. The main character is a magic-user named Douglas. Once an adventurer, now in his late 30s his
powers and health seem to have declined and his adventurer’s license is
revoked. He resigns himself to a life of
aimless travel and odd jobs until he comes upon a cursed little girl named
Ravi. He soon finds that his own illness
and Ravi’s curse may not be so random and they both seem to point in the same
direction. That’s just one thing
occupying his mind though, as Douglas is also preoccupied with work, travel and
taking care of the little girl who has fallen into his life.
While I enjoy this one so far, I’m including this one a bit
tentatively. That’s because there’s a
bit of a trend in adoptive parent stories in manga, anime and light novels like
this one that I am desperately hoping this series does not stray into. I’ll discuss that more later.
Musuko ga Kawaikute Shikataganai Mazoku no Hahaoya by Zyugoya.
In English, the title translates to “My Son is so Cute, I
Just Can’t Help Myself!”. Think of this
series as a sort of spiritual companion to the “Demon Bride” series I talked
about in the last post. The series is
largely about a demon named Lorem and her baby son Gospel as they go about
their daily lives. Other characters that
pop up include Lorem’s sister Meri and her human friend Sera. For the most part it’s a very light series
with much cuteness in it.
Bambi to Dhole by Okaue Ai.
Teen parenthood is a tough topic to tackle anywhere. And it’s easy to think that with its
sometimes strict approach to family and education, it wouldn’t happen in
Japan. But the truth is that it happens
pretty much everywhere. This manga
(among others) takes on this thorny topic to some extent. Yukimi (called Bambi because the characters
of her name can also be read that way) is a seemingly strict student council
president who has a less law-abiding side herself. She runs afoul of a lone wolf named Tetsu
Nagasawa who seems to flout her authority.
She later discovers that there’s more to Nagasawa than she thought,
including that he’s father to a two-year old boy named Raichi. This one is a shoujo manga (aimed at teenage
girls), but it does aim for some tougher material. In addition to teen parenting, chronic
illness also figures in as well as Yukimi’s past as an abandoned child.
I Became the Mother of the Strongest Demon Lord’s 10 Children in
Another World by Ema Toyama.
Speaking of teenage parents, and by extension teen pregnancy. I’m including this one too even though it’s a
bit of a guilty pleasure. High school
girl Akari lives with her single mother until tragedy strikes and Akari’s
mother dies saving her from an oncoming truck.
After that day, coping with the loss, it becomes Akari’s dream to be as
good a mother as her own was. That dream
doesn’t keep Akari from being lonely.
Then suddenly she’s summoned to the world of a fantasy video game that
her mother bought her for her last birthday.
There, she is told that she is the “Great Priestess” and it is her duty
to bear the children of the Demon Lord Gran so that they may defeat the human
kingdom. This is admittedly a bit of a
strange one. So far, Akari’s had two
children and they were both born through magical means with no sex
involved. The first chapter even
suggests that they’ll all be born while Akari’s still a virgin. Despite its strangeness, it can also be kind
of a sweet manga about finding a home and building a family in an unexpected
place with unexpected people and through unexpected means. It also has its funny moments. A similar manga for those who like this one
would be From Maid to Mother.
Now, onto my un-pirated recommendation. But before I get to that, I’d like to express
how difficult it can be to find the kind of manga I’m looking for. Because of cultural differences and sometimes
because of manga’s general tendency toward wish fulfillment, sometimes they
include elements that don’t really gel with American sensibilities. One recent series that has raised a few
eyebrows in three different forms (light novel, manga and anime) is Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit
Multi-Target Attacks. The series is
about a 15-year old boy and his mother who get transported to another
world. The problem is that the series
finds humor in placing the two characters in awkwardly sexual situations with
each other (though, I give the series credit for including an attractive woman
over 30 in the form of the mother. So
often, the good-looking characters in manga and anime are teenagers or barely
out of their teens). Probably the most
infamous series of the like is Usagi Drop,
which starts out looking like a story of an unprepared man learning to care for
his adopted daughter ends up being a story about a man who raises the woman who
eventually becomes his wife from childhood.
It’s definitely a strange idea from an American perspective. I don’t think it’s common in Japan today but
it does have historical precedence and even shows up in probably the most
influential work of fiction in all of Japan The
Tale of Genji. That’s what I’m
afraid is going to happen with that Middle-Aged Adventurer manga I listed
above. So, for this I’m going to pick Sweetness
and Lightning by Gido Amagakure.
Sweetness and
Lightning is the story of a widowed schoolteacher named Kohei who’s
struggling to raise his daughter Tsumugi by himself. This is particularly the case in terms of
cooking healthy meals. Things change
though when he makes friends with his lonely student Kotori whose culinary
expert mother is always working.
Together, with the aid of Kotori’s mother’s recipes, the three of them
tackle the job of learning to cook and bond over the food they make. It’s sweet, heartwarming stuff. I will warn you that I think Kohei and Kotori
might end up as a couple toward the end, but that’s a taboo to discuss on another
day.
So, there are my choices for manga on the grown-up subject
of parenting. As always, keep an eye out
for official releases and happy reading.
