There are plenty of anime about cute young children and the adults that fall under their spell. However, that does not necessarily become a series about parenting.
Sometimes you have a Barakamon situation where he is just mercilessly pestered and occasionally mentored by children. Or perhaps a Kotaro Lives Alone situation where he is just raising himself.
When it comes to parenting in anime, typically you only get the single parent experience. A loving and complete family does not make a compelling anime experience, I guess. Even having strangers take care of a child is more popular than a complete family experience in anime.
Regardless, if you need more anime where a child is cared for and grows under the watch of their guardian, we got anime recommendations for that.
Best Anime About Parenting
Usagi Drop
Easily the most famous of all parenting anime, Usagi Drop follows a rather aimless bachelor who, at his grandfather’s funeral, discovered his grandfather sired a very young daughter that he hid away. Not wanting a bastard, his family shuns her so he steps up and takes her home.
The anime if often about the young bachelor adjusting to his new role as a parent and often highlights the emotional rewards that come from being one. However, it never fully forgets that he is taking care of a grieving child either, which has it own difficulties.
Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father
In this series, a young man just started university when his sister, who raised him, asks him to watch her three daughters while she and her husband go overseas.
Unfortunately, their plane goes down and a temporary situation becomes a permanent one.
While the series touches upon three grieving girls, it seems to abandon that quickly. It also becomes one of those parenting shows that is real creepy if you watch the OVAs because it becomes a romance.
Sweetness and Lightning
The best you can expect from parenting anime is usually one about a single parent. That is Sweetness and Lightning where a father is somewhat struggling to raise his daughter after his wife’s death.
While he does a passable job in most every aspect, he struggles with cooking good meals for her. So this parenting anime is also a food anime about them learning to cook together.
In all honesty, Sweetness and Lightning is one of the best parenting anime because it not only shows those nice fluffy moments between a parent and their child, but it also displays the unhappy moments too.
Sometimes you have to scold a child for their own good, and of course that child will get upset. Too many parenting anime gloss right over that, but not this one.
Poko’s Udon World
Burnt out from Tokyo and visiting his hometown, a guy happens across a tiny boy who turns out to be a tanuki. While he may be a small, ageless shapeshifter, Poko still acts plenty like a child.
As he is caring for the tanuki, you watch the main character muse on his own childhood and relationship with his parents.
Learning from the way you were parented is pretty crucial, and I love to see it displayed here.
I Love You, Baby
Oh, you know the old tale – a playboy suddenly ends up with a young child.
Of course, it is his cousin that was unceremoniously dropped at his home rather than the product of his poor decision-making.
Joking aside, this anime is all about a young guy learning parental responsibility while also healing the heart of a young child that was simply abandoned with him.
It’s got that old school flair for fluctuating wildly between comedy and drama, but full of excellent lessons. It also has the most character growth of any new parent on this list.
Somali and the Forest Guardian
In an interesting twist for parenting anime, Somali and the Forest Guardian takes place in a world where humanity has all been stomped out by fantasy creatures.
The story follows a golem near the end of its lifespan who finds a human child. He struggles to find other humans to give her to before he stops moving.
The entire series is fairly melancholic as you watch a cute girl get attached to a being who will not be around for much longer while he also learns what a child needs to be healthy and happy.
Kakushigoto
This comedic series follows the tale of a hentai manga artist who had a daughter and vowed to keep his profession a secret from her.
While the show has its wholesome parenting moments, the vast majority of it is just comedy anime shenanigans about him bending over backwards to hide what he really does for a living.
If It’s for My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord
In a similar vein to Somali and the Forest Spirit, this anime instead features a human man finding a small demon girl and taking her home.
He has to hide her more demonic aspects and keep her origins a secret, but otherwise raises her like you’d raise any child.
While the show does attempt to explore her origins in its plot, mostly this show is cute little kid fluff. As he also lives at an inn, some of his parenting burden is often lifted by others as well.
Clannad
This one comes with a caveat.
The first season of Clannad is a high school romance following a troubled main character solving the various dramatic problems of several girls. The second season, Clannad After Story, places a larger emphasis on being a parent as he marries one of those aforementioned girls and has a child.
The second season, while painfully tragic, focuses on his struggles as a parent as well as his own problematic relationship with his father.
Kure-nai
This parenting anime has a touch of an action spin to it. It follows a scrappy student who gets a job as a bodyguard to protect a wealthy girl.
She lives in secret as a commoner, and while some of the show is about the threat on her life, the lion’s share of it is about her adjusting to this less pampered lifestyle.
As the two share having rather difficult starts to life, they bond over time.
Moribito
Moribito follows a young prince marked for sacrifice by his father. His mother hires a female mercenary to spirit him away instead.
While Balsa the mercenary isn’t his mother, she does provide much in the way of parental mentorship to her young ward.
Through her less-than-tender lessons and wisdom, the young prince learns much about the world he will someday rule and will, eventually, make him a fine king.
Spy X Family
Maybe anime fans are actually just really hungry for a wholesome parenting anime about a complete family, but more likely Spy X Family is beloved for the mix of things it offers.
The series follows a master spy who forms a fake family for his mission. He adopts a young orphan who, unbeknownst to him, can read minds and gets a wife who, unbeknownst to him, is an assassin using him as a cover for normalcy.
However, while it is part-comedy and part-spy thriller, Spy X Family is also endlessly wholesome in its family moments. As a spy, he may think he is faking, but he is being a great husband and father.
Mama Loves Poyopoyo-saurus
Before Spy X Family, the ancient parenting anime gem that is Mama Loves Poyopoyo-saurus was pretty much the only anime fully centered about a full, happy family. Even now, it is the only series about parents raising their actual children.
There isn’t much of a plot to it. It is mostly just a comedy anime about the difficulties of being a stay-at-home mother trying to wrangle two young children.
Alice and Zoroku
Like so many parenting anime, Alice and Zoroku follows a young sheltered girl being taking in by another. The hook of this series is that she is taken in by a gruff old man.
As she escaped from a facility, Alice has never really experienced life, and this is quite the contrast to elderly Zoroku who experienced quite a bit of it. She has a lot to learn about the world, and a good teacher by her side to do it.
Do you have more good parenting anime recommendations? Let fans know in the comments section below.
