While there are plenty of absolutely wonderful dads in anime, from Maes Hughes in Fullmetal Alchemist to Loid Forger in Spy x Family, there are also, unfortunately, plenty of fathers who are… less than adequate, shall we say. Ranging from simply being absent to committing horrendous atrocities, these men may have fathered or adopted children of their own, but don’t exactly live up to any typically expected fatherly duties. Heck, even Ryouji “Ranka” Fujioka from Ouran High School Host Club choosing to take on a more motherly role still way surpasses any of the fathers on this list in terms of actually taking parenting seriously.
While some of these dads like Goku could be given some slack, others could even be regarded as the scum of the earth when it comes to parenting. Though not all dads in anime may be the greatest, just as can unfortunately be the case in real life sometimes, a good portion of these fathers should really have no right to call themselves dads. Whether it’s using their own children as just a means to an end or actively participating in making their lives a living hell, there’s plenty of reason they’re on this list of the worst anime dads.
1) Goku from Dragon Ball Z
After Kakarot is sent from Planet Vegeta of the nearly-extinct Saiyan race to Earth, he becomes adopted by Grandpa Gohan and renamed to Goku. As Goku grows up, instead of destroying Earth as originally intended, he instead travels and defends the world from other powerful enemies who search for the legendary wish-granting Dragon Balls. Endeavoring to become as strong as possible to fend off increasingly powerful foes, the only thing that truly rises to match the strength of Goku’s powers is his heart. Just because Goku eventually even creates a family for himself doesn’t mean he settles down. In fact, having sons of his own only means more allies to power up.
Goku may have a pure heart and be a worthy fighter, but as a father… Well, he’s pretty absent for most of his sons’ childhoods, much to the disapproval of his wife Chi-Chi who takes the brunt of raising Gohan and Goten herself. After all, raising a Saiyan family can’t be easy. And when Goku is around to parent, Chi-Chi doesn’t seem too happy that he keeps trying to pull their sons away from their academic studies to learn martial arts and how to fight.
Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z can be streamed on Crunchyroll.
2) Gendo Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion
As Earth is attacked by strange celestial alien beings known as Angels, it’s up to the mysterious scientific organization NERV headed by Gendo Ikari to defend humanity through the use of Evangelion, giant piloted humanoid “mecha” with their own secrets. When Gendo calls upon his abandoned son Shinji to become one of these pilots, Shinji, alongside fellow pilots Asuka Langley Soryu and Rei Ayanami, faces a lot more at stake than defending humanity from giant monsters as the secrets behind NERV and Gendo’s ambitions are revealed.
Gendo goes several steps further than the typical fatherly crime of being absent. Abandoning his son, Shinji, at a young age, only to call upon him years later to be used as a pawn in his overarching scheme doesn’t exactly scream “Father of the Year” among anime dads. In fact, Gendo wouldn’t think twice about sacrificing his only child in order to trade Shinji’s life for his late wife Yui’s. It gets pretty strange how deep the rabbit hole goes for how obsessed Gendo is with his wife, but he shows no interest in giving an ounce of such attention and love towards his own son. In fact, Gendo actively tries to keep Shinji at a distance, usually only ever speaking to him when it’s a blunt and often perilous or traumatizing order.
Neon Genesis Evangelion can be streamed on Netflix.
3) Yūjirō Hanma from Baki the Grappler
Baki Hanma’s sole purpose in life is to fight. Even from conception, his mother, Emi Akezawa, has sought to raise her son to eventually become the strongest fighter. Strengthening his body, learning various martial arts and techniques, and seeking out more and more powerful opponents, Baki trains for his life’s purpose of fighting and surpassing the infamously feared “Ogre”. But the Ogre isn’t just the strongest being in the world — he’s Baki’s father, Yūjirō Hanma.
Yūjirō Hanma. A monster of a man both in stature and voracity, who can stand up to any opponent, whether it be the strongest challengers in history, entire armed government militaries, or even his own son, Baki. Arrogant, sadistic, and merciless, even to his own kin. Having ruthlessly killed the mother to his own son, he had only really had a child to begin with in order to fulfill his desire for a formidable opponent, believing such could only come from his own bloodline. Yūjirō isn’t just truly one of the most intimidating, remorseless fathers out there, but perhaps even one of the most brutal and ruthless human beings to even exist.
4) Shou Tucker from Fullmetal Alchemist
The Elric brothers, in their endeavor to bring their mother back from the dead, ignored the ban on human transmutation and ended up paying a hefty price. While trespassing the taboo cost Edward an arm and a leg, Alphonse lost his entire body. With their bio-mechanical engineer neighbor and friend Winry able to fit Edward with advanced automail prosthetic limbs, Alphonse had his soul bound to an entire suit of armor in Edward’s attempt to save him. Determined to restore their bodies, they set out to find the Philosopher’s Stone, an item said to allow an alchemist to defy the traditional laws of Equivalent Exchange, and become caught in the middle of a conspiracy along the way.
While the bond between a child and the family pet can be described as inseparable, Shou Tucker takes this concept way too literally, becoming a permanent fixture among the worst anime dads ever. While at first the man seems to be pushed to his absolute limits by having his career and livelihood on the line, it becomes clear that his motives are driven by more willful, sadistic intentions rather than out of fear and duress. The “Sewing-Life” bio-alchemist aimed to push the alchemical boundaries of nature to create a chimera capable of human speech and, even willing to use his own daughter as the test subject, Tucker ended up creating an unspeakable abomination unto nature.
While the original Fullmetal Alchemist series isn’t widely available, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood can be streamed on Netflix, Crunchyroll, or Hulu where available.
5) Bondrewd from Made in Abyss
On a remote island live the citizens of Orth, a city on the edge of a colossal pit known as the Abyss. With otherworldly creatures, ecosystems, and treasures adding to the mystery of this strange vertical landscape, both travelers and locals have spent millennia trying to uncover its secrets. When Riko, a rookie-ranked Red Whistle Delver, happens upon a mysterious robot boy, Reg, she becomes inspired to venture to the bottom of the pit in search of her elite White Whistle missing mother. She and her new friends must have the courage to face the dangers of the chasm threatening to swallow them.
Bondrewd “The Novel”, aka “The Sovereign of Dawn”, is a high-ranking White Whistle Delver. He’s a man who endeavors to discover the mysteries of the Abyss through his own perverse version of scientific methods. In his morally questionable endeavors, he’d managed to unravel a method used to create “blessed” Narehate, creatures who were once human but had managed to overcome the curse of the Abyss’s 6th layer. In doing so, he stooped to methods like those of Shou Tucker. Not only was Bondrewd willing to experiment on his own adopted daughter in his relentless scientific pursuit, but he was also willing to experiment on myriads of children by manipulating their love for him as a father figure, all in the name of progress.
Made in Abyss can be streamed on Netflix, Prime, or HiDive where available.
6) Shouichi Makise from Steins;Gate
Alongside his supportive childhood friend Mayuri Shiina and otaku hacker roommate Itaru Hashida, mad scientist Rintarou Okabe of the Future Gadget Laboratory endeavors to create scientific and technological innovations. Despite his overwhelming enthusiasm, Okabe and his team have only managed to create a microwave that seemingly only has the odd ability to transform bananas into green goo. At first, when he discovers that the microwave can be used for time travel itself, it seems like a groundbreaking scientific innovation. Unfortunately, as things spiral out of control and the discovery garners unwanted attention, Okabe soon learns that time travel isn’t just a toy, but leads to dire, traumatizing consequences for both his loved ones and his own sanity. Realizing all too late the damage that’s been done, Okabe is determined to move time itself to set things right.
Though Shouichi Makise, publicly known as scientist Dr. Nakabachi, strives to further research in the field of time travel, he has become bitter and resentful at not just the scientific community for rejecting and mocking him and his work, but at his own daughter, Kurisu. Although Kurisu describes him as once being a very considerate and kind father, his resentment towards her grew as she constantly disproved his theories, their relationship becoming strained to the point of the two not having spoken in seven years. But when he invites her to his conference at Radio Kaikan to show off his new theory, things quickly spiral out of control Kurisu’s fate at the hands of her greedy, indignant father inadvertently leads Okabe to his own time travel discoveries.
Steins;Gate can be streamed on Crunchyroll.
7) Grisha Yeager from Attack on Titan
When mankind had been on the brink of extinction centuries ago, they took to hiding behind massive stone walls from the man-eating humanoid monsters known as Titans. One hundred peaceful years came to pass without the threat of Titans. That is, until one Titan managed to break through the wall, forcing the humans to return to fighting for their lives and living in fear. Eren Yeager, one such citizen who bore witness to his own mother perish at the hands of a Titan, vows vengeance upon the entire race by enlisting in the Survey Corps, a specialized military unit that fights back against the Titans outside the city walls. Along with his adopted sister Mikasa Ackerman and childhood friend Armin Arlert, the secrets of the Titans become something even more horrifying as each mystery is uncovered.
Grisha Jaeger/Yeager may have had two sons, but apparently hadn’t learned from either on how to be a proper father and not use his children as a means to an end. With his first son, Zeke, Grisha had groomed him to become a spy in the military in order to retaliate at the oppressive government. When he’d started a new family on an entirely different continent, he then used his second son, Eren, to fight the Titans and become an overall killing machine.
Attack on Titan can be streamed on Crunchyroll.
8) Gambino from Berserk
As a lone traveling mercenary, Guts easily decimates anything he comes up against with the colossal great sword he wields. But upon encountering the mercenary group the Band of the Hawk, he meets his match when the group’s leader, a beautiful, commanding man named Griffith, duels him into submitting to join their ranks. Eventually, as one of the band’s commanders, Guts becomes attached to his newfound friend group, especially to his fellow commander Casca, and Griffith himself. But when Griffith shows he’ll go to whatever lengths necessary to overcome obstacles and rise to power, Guts begins to understand how the attachments he’s created and nurtured are at stake, even with the man he’s come to admire.
But for Guts when he grew up, his adoptive father, Gambino, wasn’t the worst at first, as far as terrible anime fathers go. As an experienced leader of a mercenary band, he took Guts in after the death of his adoptive mother Shisu, taught him how to live as a mercenary, how to fight with a sword, and practical lessons in combat. But after the death of Shisu and ending his career by getting his leg blown off, Gambino took his resentment out on Guts. While the anime leaves out the more horrific abuse that’s included in the manga, Gambino attempted to kill Guts, and is the reason behind the trademark scar on his nose.
9) Hikaru Kamiki from Oshi no Ko
In the world of entertainment, idols hide behind masks of lies and fans buy into the illusions. Although Ai Hoshino is one such sixteen-year-old idol of pop idol group B Komachi selling said lies, she still hopes that the faux love she gives to and receives from her fans could someday become true. But just as she has the world enamored, Ai announces going on hiatus due to a vague health concern, which makes fans concerned. Meanwhile at a countryside hospital, Dr. Gorou Amemiya cares for the terminally ill Sarina Tendouji who are both fans of Ai and would be a dream come true if they could someday meet her. When Ai shows up to the hospital pregnant with twins, although Dr. Amemiya is mysteriously killed, he wakes to find he’s been reincarnated along with the late Sarina as Ai’s newborn twins, Aqua and Ruby Hoshino.
Hikaru Kamiki is the mysterious main antagonist of the series. As he orchestrated the years’ long string of murders, he was the one who leaked Ai’s address to the deranged fan that ultimately led to Ai’s demise and Aqua’s lifelong devotion to tracking him down and getting revenge This places Hikaru Kamiki not only among the worst anime dads, obviously; it places him among the most despicable villains in recent popular anime, as well. With a tragic past of his own in the mendacious entertainment industry that’s warped his ethos, not only is Hikaru the absent father to Aqua and Ruby Hoshino, but he’d also become a sadistic serial murderer.
Oshi No Ko can be streamed on Netflix, Hulu, or HiDive where available.
10) Paul Greyrat from Mushoku Tensei
After a troubled 34-year-old shut-in NEET reincarnates, he awakens to find he’s been reborn with his perverted adult mind intact into a new, fantastical world. Now, going by Rudeus Greyrat, he gains a high aptitude for magical abilities. With training from the mage Roxy Migurdia in magic and learning swordplay from his father Paul, Rudeus begins the life he could’ve only grossly fantasized about in his previous one.
Will starting a new life in a magical world give him the second chance he questionably deserves, allowing him to grow into an existing member of society? …Anyway, throughout Rudeus’s adventures in this fantastical land, like any opportunity at fleeting redemption for his irredeemable tendencies, Rudeus manages to conquer and squash the myriad of mysteries and monsters along his magical journey.
Despite its popularity, the anime’s fandom tends to conveniently forget many acts of wrongdoing, chalks up the rest to being the characters just “doing their best” and falsely maturing despite constantly making the same mistakes. The Mushoku Tensei fandom fiercely defends any façade of minor acts of redemption, but let’s be real, there would otherwise be way harsher consequences for the myriad of detestable transgressions committed in this series. Paul, for instance, is one such character who tends to also be chucked onto the excuse pile among bad anime dads. Many would defend him as a good father, ignoring much of his teachings being straight up hypocritical and unable to practice what he preaches, along with all the other atrocities he has already committed. Aside from being an objectively horrible, lecherous spouse, he hadn’t exactly taught Rudeus to grow up a second time to be any better in that respect.
What dad in anime do you think deserves to be on this list? Let us know in the comments if you’d defend any of them!
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