Summary
Someanime dadsare great, taking the time to raise their children and teaching them about life as they do it. Others use their kids as tools, abandon their children when they don’t want them anymore, or in rare cases, would rather be dead than raise their kids. Some anime fathers arethe last thing children would want as parents in real life.
Luckily, most of the children of these dads have found ways to thrive in their worlds. Some of them are smart enough to do it on their own, others havehelpful mentors who guide themwhere their dads should have. No matter what paternal figure these characters find, they’re always better than their biological dad.
10Goku - Dragon Ball
He’d Rather Die Than Raise His Kids
Goku isn’t malicious or evil like the other fathers on this list. Instead,he’s wildly irresponsibleand wants no part in actually raising his kids. If he is raising his kids, he’s training them to fight the strongest beings in the galaxy.His first son fought Frieza when he was five years old. He didn’t even meet his second son, Goten, until Goten was seven, because Goku was actively choosing to remain dead to train in the otherworld.
Goku’s impeccable logic was that his immense strength was both acting as an invitation for bad guys to come fight him and as a deterrent for his friends to get stronger. He’d ratherbe dead than meet or raise his own kids. While Goku’s poor fatherly skills don’t come from any active malice, his obliviousness toward his kids is still something thatDragon Ballfans love to discuss today.
9Atsuomi Ayanokoji - Classroom of the Elite
The Leader of the White Room Is a Demanding Father
Classroom of the Eliteis a psychological thriller featuring one of the coldest, most emotionless, and deceptively manipulative characters in anime in Kiyotaka Ayanokoji. We had no idea how Kiyotaka could be so cold until the second season, when his father, Atsuomi Ayanokoji, came to the Advanced Nurturing High School to retrieve his son. Professor Ayanokoji runs the White Room,a cold and brutal learning environmentthat produces the most advanced students in Japan.
When the Professor sees his son again,he sees nothing but his most valuable asset. He first tries to guilt Kiyotaka into returning to the White Room. When that doesn’t work, he tries forcing him back. Luckily, Kiyotaka is under the protection of higher-ups at his school, saving him from returning to the cruelty of the White Room for a little while longer.
8Dr. Tenma - Pluto
You Can’t Create Life Just To Throw It Away
Dr. Tenma inPlutois a tragic character. He lost his biological son, Tobio Tenma, to a car accident. He then tried to bring his son back to life by building him as a robot. Unfortunately, Dr. Tenma learned that that’s not how life works. He then decommissioned the advanced robot, throwing away the life he had just created. If it wasn’t for Dr. Ochanomizu, Atom would’ve remained a decommissioned mess. Dr. Tenmacreated a perfectly suitable robot only to discard itwhen he realized it didn’t live up to his expectations.
Later in the series, when Atom dies again, Dr. Tenma saves him by introducing unbalanced emotions to the robot. This may have been the only way to bring the boy back, but it put Atom through a lot of trauma.Dr. Tenma could have avoided all of thisif he had just told Tobio he loved him when his son was alive.
7Toji Fushiguro - Jujutsu Kaisen
Bounty Hunters Aren’t Around Much
Toji Fushiguro is the coolest character inJujutsu Kaisen,Gojo Satoru included. While Gojo was blessed with two of the most broken techniques in anime, Toji has nothing. He’s no sorcerer; instead, his Heavenly Restriction makes him one of the most dangerous bounty hunters on the planet. It makes himultra-competent on the battlefield, but it doesn’t make him a good dad. He’s too busy hunting people to raise his son Megumi.
Jujutsu Kaisen Hanami Cosplay Proves Just How Well The Series Could Work In Live Action
This uniquely detailed cosplay of the Special Grade Cursed Spirit Hanami shows just how terrifying the villain would be in the real world.
He abandons Megumi to pursue his goals in life. After being defeated by Gojo, he does the right thing and lets him knowMegumi will be sold to the Zenin clanin a few years, giving Gojo an opportunity to save him. When Toji is resurrected in season two, he brutalizes Megumi in a fight until he realizes he’s fighting his own son. He thenkills himself to end his reincarnation, the nicest thing he’s ever done for Megumi.
6Naruto - Boruto
He Didn’t Learn a Lot From Being an Orphan
WhileNarutoends with the titular character, now grown-up, teaching a valuable life lesson to his unruly kid, the sequelBorutoshows that the one who needed learning was, in fact, Naruto himself. At the start of the series,Naruto is a workaholic father who ignores his kidsand even uses shadow clone replacements to attend family events. It’s no wonder that Boruto grows to hate his dad, an interesting plot point that was later unfortunately dropped.
As the story progresses, Naruto does even worse, and he picks up the first kid in trouble he finds, Kawaki, welcoming him into his house like an adoptive son, a short time after telling his own son that the responsibilities of an Hokage come before family. Naruto shows toward Kawaki unexpected affection - which surprisingly doesn’t cause any tension with Boruto, another plot point that the series could have explored. However,Kawaki ends up betraying Konohaand imprisoning Boruto and Hinata in another dimension, proving that the Hokage’s father instincts were even more misplaced.
5Ging - Hunter x Hunter
Leorio Was Right To Punch Him
Gon is the sweetest, most genuine, and sometimes most psychopathic character inHunter x Hunter.He spends the entirety of the series with one goal in mind: finding his father. His father is a man named Ging, one of the top five strongest Nen users in the world. He’s also perfectly capable of finding his son and actively avoids it.Ging plays Gon like a game, setting up events for him to partake in if he wants to meet him.
It’s understanding wanting your son to be strong like you, but to make it a standard to meet you is ridiculous. Gon meets his absent father and thankfully accomplishes his goal with no help from Ging himself. When he meets his father, Ging only talks about how much he enjoys being a Hunter and doesn’t care about Gon at all.Thank goodness Leorio punched him earlier in the series.
4Gendo Ikari - Neon Genesis Evangelion
One of the Coldest People, And Fathers, Around
Gendo Ikari fromNeon Genesis Evangelionis not just a terrible dad, he’s a terrible person, period. He’s cold, calculated, and ruthless.He shows no affection towards his son and uses everyone around him as tools. As soon as Gendo lost his wife Yui, he sent Shinji away. He only calls for Shinji when he wants him to pilot the ultra-dangerous Evangelion unit, which, by the way, is also a vessel for his mother’s soul.
In the final moments ofEnd of Evangelion,it’s revealed that Gendo really did love Shinji and was afraid of hurting him. Unfortunately, Shinji never knew this andonly got to experience the worst parts of his dad.
3Yujiro Hanma - Baki
The World’s Strongest Didn’t Get That Way by Being Nice
Yujiro Hanma is the most dangerous character in a world full of dangerous characters. If there was a competition forBaki’s strongest fighter, he’d come in first. If there was a competition for the world’s worst dad, he’d also rank highly.Yujiro only had Baki so that one day he might have someone strong to fight against.He then killed Baki’s mom for defending Baki and uses his lover’s death to further motivate his son.
Yujiro only pops up in Baki’s life to tell him to get stronger. He doesn’t care for his son if his son isn’t equally strong as him and only does what Baki wants to if Baki can beat him in a fight. Instead of telling his son he loves him like a good dad would,he uses Baki like a pair of nunchucksand beats him in front of a crowd of people.
2Grisha Yeager - Attack on Titan
Grisha Uses Both of His Kids As Tools
Grisha Yeager had two kids on two different continents andlearned nothing from raising either. His first son, Zeke, was a tool he used to get back at the oppressive government they lived under. His second son, Eren, was a tool he used to get back at the titans that took everything from him. It wasn’t until the end of the series that Grisha realized what he did, which is pretty surprising given how obviously brutal it was.
Attack On Titan Female Titan Cosplay Shows The Powerful Fighter Could Work In Live Action
This remarkably detailed cosplay of Annie Leonhart from Attack on Titan reveals her shocking secret identity: she is the Female Titan.
Grisha is such a bad father that he raises his son Eren to be a genocidal maniac. Eren also convinces his dad to commit atrocities,creating a weird cycle that Grisha technically started. If Grisha saw his children as people and not a means to an end, Eren might not have killed 80% of the world’s population.
He’s Responsible for Dr. Goro and Ai’s Deaths
Oshi no Kohas one of the craziest first episodes of any anime. It features two heart-breaking murders that are later revealed to be orchestrated by the same person. Dr. Goro and Ai Hoshino were both murdered by crazy fanatics who only knew where to go because of Ai’s ex-boyfriend, the eventual father of Aqua and Ruby. Ai even wanted the father of her twins to meet them. Unfortunately, this meantshe revealed her address to her ex, who used it to take her life.
Not only did Aqua’s dad kill him in his previous life, but he also killed Aqua’s mom in his current life. He’s a scummy person who used Ai Hoshino’s trust against her, leaving her (and his) children without their mother. It’s pretty understandable that Aqua would then dedicate the rest of his second life to finding his dad and getting his revenge.
