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Big Screwed Up Family / Anime & Manga

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Big Screwed Up Families in anime and manga.

  • +Anima: Husky's family. His father, the King of Sailand, is the reason for Sailand's oppression and enslavement of +Anima. On top of that, the king has many wives who constantly gossip and compete amongst themselves to win his favor so that their own childern could rise higher in status. It's implied that Husky grew up to be misogynistic because he witnessed said wives mistreating and abusing his mother. When Husky's father picks him as his favorite, (mainly because his mother Marien is implied to be the king's favorite wife), Husky's siblings start bullying him out of jealousy, making fun of his feminine appearance and gravelly voice. The competition and backstabbing escalates to the point that Husky's stepmother tries to drown him in a pond so her own son could become Crown Prince, which turns him into a +Anima and forces him to leave Sailand. The only members of his family Husky can really say he has a good relationship with is his mother who loves him dearly and his Cool Aunt Lady Crystala, who taught him how to fight and is running a caravan to free as many +Anima slaves from her brother's rule as she can.
  • Bleach: The entire Quincy Clan is ultimately descended from Yhwach, their progenitor-king. While the Ishidas and Kurosakis come from a White Sheep non-genocidal faction, they're still mired in conflict with the evil majority and their immediate family relationships are still a hot mess. Since his grandfather Souken was murdered, Uryuu has been so deeply estranged from his father Ryuuken that he refers him by his first name, refuses to live under his roof, and honestly believed at one point that Ryuuken was attempting to kill him instead of fulfilling a bargain they had struck (although Ryuuken actually was keeping his word). Ryuuken works hard to give his son the impression that he regards him as a disappointment although he seems to be deeply concerned for the boy's well-being underneath it all. Ryuuken was in turn badly enough estranged from Souken (for reasons that are still somewhat hazy but probably have to do with the murder of Uryuu's mother Kanae Katagiri) that he forbade Uryuu to visit him. Which Uryuu still did until Souken's murder. The dysfunction is revealed to go back even further in the "Everything but the Rain" flashback arc: Souken's frequent absences caused tension with his unnamed wife, who took out her frustrations on Ryuuken and especially on Ryuuken's Arranged Marriage fiancee (and first cousin), Masaki Kurosaki. Oh and did we mention that the engagement was somewhat coercive, since poor Masaki had no other family to turn to?
  • Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo: The titular character's family revolves around an incredibly violent war between him and his older siblings. The oldest and second oldest (the latter being the last Big Bad of the original manga) are trying to rule the world, the middle daughter is a Cloudcuckoolander and the second youngest was brainwashed by another Big Bad, before his defeat at Bo-bobo's hands. And the parents? Dad's a hair follicle and mom's absent. Sweet lord.
  • Cheat Magician Life That Started From Being Judged Useless features the first antagonist Evil Princess Camilla Rosenberg. She kicks off the plot by summoning 207 Japanese people to her world, most of them been teens of 15 or younger, and orders them to Join or Die, and tricks those that accept "join" into wearing magical slave bracelets, and they get to experience all the horrors that come with it, protagonist Kento Kokubu isn't even given that option, but instead sent into a dangerous forest at sword point to die. It soon becomes apparent that she had damn good reason. Her father, the king, is a Too Important to Walk Adipose Rex hedonist who not only has three official wives, but rotates through a bunch of concubines and mistresses, and pointedly doesn't care if his country is swallowed up by monsters, a desert, or an invading army, as long as he gets to eat, sleep, fuck, and be otherwise entertained 24/7. The eldest prince and heir is an anorexic Nervous Wreck who just does whatever his advisors tell him as long as he's promised that he gets to keep wearing the crown. The middle two brothers actively conspired with hostile elements, foreign and domestic, to squash all of Camilla's requests for aid regarding the desertification and coming monster stampede, openly celebrating the fact that both were happening, because it made their efforts to launch a coup easier, and they planned to use both events as cover to slaughter all the refugeees, capture and rape Camilla, and are introduced engaging in a drug-fueled orgy. Her mother and step-mothers, the three official queens, are all horrible, horrible women, who conspire against everyone else, including each other, with poison and all other forms of skull-duggery, her own mother even conspiring with a depraved noble who wants to capture and rape her, and all of whom are suspected of poisoning the youngest prince Diethelm, for years, just so he'd be too sickly to be an active contender for the throne.
  • Case Closed:
    • The Hatamoto, Yabuchi and Nagato families. In each case, a member of the family (two, in the case of the Hatamotos) is very messily murdered... by another. (Though the Yabuchis also subvert the last part: the killer was impersonating a family member had already died years ago, and as much he was a family friend due to his long-standing friendship with the dead family member.)
    • The Takedas don't fare much better. The eldest son was infertile and this broke his wife's heart so badly that she secretly begged her then-unmarried younger brother-in-law to impregnate her, which he did out of a misguided desire to help. The eldest son found out years later and became psychologically abusive to his "daughter/niece" and his wife. The girl ultimately killed herself for this and several other reasons, her mother soon followed, the second son (who was now more-or-less Happily Married) was completely heartbroken, and the family's matriarch, who knows the truth behind everything, has all but totally freaked out. And this is not counting what the girl's boyfriend did for her sake...
  • The Britannian royal family in Code Geass are certainly the embodiment of this trope. To wit, Lelouch is basically the poster child for a Magnificent Bastard, Cornelia is a racist warmonger who criticizes her younger sister for treating the "Elevens" as equals, and Schneizel is a Manipulative Bastard with delusions of godhood. Pretty much the only members of the royal family who are in any way sane are Euphemia, which ends up costing her her life and Nunnally who still ends up in charge of a unleashing nuclear weapons on enemies at her own request..
  • Count Cain: The Cain Saga/Godchild. There's incest of all types, child abuse, pedophilia thrown in there (and thrown in remarkably casually), poisons, angst (Jesus there's a lot of angst), Incest Subtext, cannibalism, and some fucking gorgeous art. Also, many many Tear Jerker scenes. Plus a ton of death in general.
  • The entire Roland/Butler family in A Cruel God Reigns is this, mainly thanks to Greg, who sexually and physically abuses his stepson, Jeremy, emotionally abuses his second son, Matt, and blackmails his sister-in-law Natasha into ignoring said abuse of Jeremy by threatening to abuse Ian and Matt if she says anything about it. Jeremy's mother and Greg's second wife, Sandra, is an emotionally fragile person who has tried to kill herself many times and basically used her son as a Living Emotional Crutch for years. She is also implied to have found out about the abuse and chose to ignore it. Greg's elder son, Ian, once ran off as a teenager and had an affair with an older woman that almost got him killed and at first refuses to believe Jeremy is being abused, though he realizes his mistake quickly enough. Jeremy, after suffering abuse for so long, sabotages Greg's car to kill him but accidentally kills Sandra as well, driving him to emotional wreck and the abuse he suffered at Greg's hands warps his sexuality and spends months as a prostitute in Boston. Greg's younger son, Matt is a Bratty Half-Pint who is emotionally stunted by his father's abuse, only recovering after his father died.
    • Adding deceased members of the family, there is also Lilya, Greg's first wife and the mother of his sons, who may or may not have cheated on Greg and Stella, Sandra's mother, who left Sandra with her mother as a baby to pursue her dreams of being an actress and eventually died of a drug overdose.
  • The Sohma clan in Fruits Basket has many instances of Domestic Abuse, some perpetrated by the head of the family, Akito Sohma, and some by various Abusive Parents (With Akito as one of the victims, which is his... er, her Freudian Excuse). It has a deep dark secret — 13 of its members are cursed to turn into animals if hugged by members of the opposite sex, which has been protected by memory manipulation. Family tradition states that the one cursed as 'the cat' must be imprisoned in an isolated room for life. Also, plenty of Kissing Cousins here, although in Japan, this is not considered incestuous. It's also left unclear exactly how closely related the Sohmas are to each other, since they are a massive clan of some 150 members, with the implication being that many of them are only distantly related or not at all.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist is... complicated. Father is a clone of Hohenheim and the homunculi are clones of Father. The relationship between Father and Hohenheim can be liked to a combination of sibling and father-son, while the relationship Ed and Al have with the seven Homunculi can be likened to that of siblings, cousins, and mutual nephews/nieces.
  • Hetalia: Axis Powers tends to get this trope Played for Laughs:
  • The Arima family from His and Her Circumstances suffered from a continuing cycle of abuse and heartache. Reiichirou, Souichiro's grandfather and Eiko/Soji/Reiji's father, was horribly physically abused by his own father because his father couldn't stand how beautiful he was. Reiichirou, as a result, was disconnected emotionally and abused his own children emotionally: Eiko became a bitter and angry person who couldn't get over her broken dreams, but Soji managed to rise above it and ultimately become a better man. Reiichirou later connected with another woman, where Reiji was conceived, but harassment from the Arima family caused the woman to attempt murder-suicide with Reiji, destroying the boy emotionally. Finally, Reiji's son Souichiro was emotionally stunted because of physical and emotional abuse he suffered from his biological mother Ryoko, and from the isolation he felt from the Arima family, who hated him because of Reiji and openly wondered if he'd become a bad person because of him.
  • The Zoldyck family from Hunter × Hunter fits this perfectly. The family profession is assassination, and from birth until death, you assassinate people or train to assassinate people. Instead of timeout, you get whips to the face. Older brothers Illumi and Milluki plus the youngest, Kalluto, are the good sons, faithfully obeying orders (until Kalluto gets tired of this and Illumi really goes off the deep end), Killua is the Black Sheep, running away from home, etc. And, poor Alluka is the almost gothic, obligatory Madwoman in the Attic. Yup, just a generally screwed up family with some very twisted forms of love and caring underneath it all.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The Joestars would subvert this tropes due to Jotaro (Kujo) and Josuke (Higashikata)...until you count Dio into the family. Dio cranks up this trope by placing his decapitated head onto a Joestar -- Jonathan Joestar. Downplayed with Josuke, who was fathered by Joseph Joestar. This makes Jotaro his nephew (Jotaro being about twice Josuke's age) and Jotaro's mother Holly his older sister. This once again gets even weirder when you factor in the fact that Dio, was fathering children in the 1980's as a century-old vampire fused to Jonathan's body. For example, Giorno is technically Joseph's uncle, even though Joseph is older by 65 years. The family gets along well for the most part, though.
    • Played straight in JoJolion, however, with the Higashikata family. Because of their own greed, the family is cursed to have their first-born sons turned to stone unless they're disguised as females for the first 12 years of their life. Even without that in mind, besides the adopted Josuke, every member of the Higashikata family seems to be morally bankrupt in their own right. Special mention goes to the social darwinist Jobin, the egotistical Joshu, and the psychopathic Kaato.
  • The Sanson family in Manga/Innocent are...Interesting. The first volumes of Innocent show us: an Evil Matriarch who both very misogynistic and most importantly a Manipulative Bitch, a father who tortures his own son to force him to become his heir, said son has a meriad of issues of his own, a vile intriguant of an uncle, oh and the baby sister is a Creepy Child. They only get worst from that.
  • The Shinomiya family from Kaguya-sama: Love Is War raise their children to be self-centered manipulators from a young age, and exiled all the sensible ones several decades back (who went on to form the Shijo family). It says a lot that Kaguya was the White Sheep even before she fully defrosted.
  • Kaze no Shōjo Emily: The Murrays adhere to traditions that prioritize their social image, and as a result they shun things such as individuality, self-expression and personal interests. Aunt Elizabeth is livid when she sees Emily continue to write and play despite her warnings, and harshly punishes her any way she can. Her and Ruth are frequently emotionally and verbally abusive to Emily, and it's implied they think it's normal because they grew up with it. At one point Emily is punished by being locked in a dark room in the second floor of the Murray house, but escapes through a window.
  • Kichikujima- The family from the titular freak island of cannibal mutant magic cultists here are the members
    • Kaoru a large man wearing a mask using a chainsaw and a knife
    • Yoshikazu the father and head of the family using the magic for his own ends
    • Mariko Glaccias the mother
    • The oldest Daughter Mari
    • The Grandmother Otoki
    • The younger twin daughters Anna and Kanna
    • The Youngest Son Satoru
    • Ami Murata who came from an abusive upbring ends up devloping stcoholm syndrome after marrying Kaoru
    • Takahisa who was the protagonist of part 1 ends up having complicated relationship with Mari who later became his wife.
  • Kill la Kill has the Kiryuuin family. Every single member of the family has tried to kill at least one other member of the family, the mother Ragyo is an abusive incestuous molester, the father Souichiro started a nudism-based terrorist organization to fight said mother, for which she killed him, the elder daughter Satsuki is a totalitarian dictator student council president with an extremely understandable Elektra complex, and the younger daughter Ryuko was dropped down a garbage chute as an infant, lived, was found by her runaway dad who raised her under secret identities, and grew up to be a juvenile delinquent. It gets even worse if you count the Artificial Human created by the mother as her "daughter", since said...creature...is more or less a psychopathic, murderous Looney Toon, known as Nui Harime. Similarly one could also count Senketsu among the family, being the second human Life Fiber hybrid created by Soichirou. Ryuko's "brother" is her armor. The cast never quite draws this conclusion though as, unlike Ryuko and Nui, Senketsu's form is that of clothing.
  • The Kuhoin family in Kure-nai is seriously messed up, as they lock away their daughters to give birth to the children of their brothers.
  • Loveless:
    • The Kaidou family, which Kio comes from. He has a daughter, who appears to be around ten (Kio himself is only 21) and doesn't have cat ears, and who was apparently born "without his knowledge" (which given the closeness in age, suggests that Kio's backstory contains either sexual abuse or a Stalker with a Test Tube). Said daughter is also the head of the family. Oh, and his twin sister has connections to Septimal Moon and works for Seimei and Nisei.
    • The Aoyagi famiy isn't much better, between the mentally unstable Misaki who abuses her youngest son and is all but stated to already being messed up from WAY before, and the psychopath older brother who faked his own death and has some creepy Incest Subtext with the main character, as well as treating his already crazy mother like crap.
  • The Hückebein of Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force also become this one. On the one hand, they seem to care about each other, even share dinner together at one table. But on the other hand, they seem to not care about anyone but themselves.
  • Magi: Labyrinth of Magic: The Kou Royal Family is such a soap opera, a deranged soap opera. There are some exceptions, such as Hakuei, her brother Hakuryuu and their cousin Kougyouku post development... Sadly it doesn't mean that they are free of the consequences of where they live.
  • Mars (1996): The amount of screwy in Rei Kashino's family borderlines melodramatic parody. His mother Shoko was in a long-term affair with Akihiko, the younger brother of her husband Takayuki. Rei and his twin brother Sei are actually the children from that relationship, making Rei and Sei's father actually their biological uncle. After Akihiko tragically dies in a motorbike accident, Shoko's already tenuous hold on her sanity snaps and she slowly morphs into a Yandere version of My Beloved Smother. She tries to kill both Sei and Rei in a misguided attempt of protecting them from the outside world and is institutionalized for a while when she fails. Upon release, she hangs herself and her body is found by the twins. Years later, Sei realizes he too has some Yandere tendencies and is likely The Sociopath and manipulates Rei into becoming a Knight Templar Big Brother for him. Once he feels betrayed by Rei, he kills himself in front of Rei as punishment, with the hope that Rei would be driven into such despair he'd kill himself too. All of this makes Rei grow up into a mood swinging, sadistic, Death Seeker with sociopathic tendencies who is estranged from his only living relative, Takayuki.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam has the Zabis. Patriarch Degwin is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who sought to bring his political philosophy to Earth, but has since been cut off from all power by his eldest son's scheming. Youngest son Garma is a "Well Done, Son" Guy who proved too optimistic for the Universal Century; third son Dozle has his head screwed on for the most part (and clearly loves his wife and baby daughter and treats his subordinates decently), but becomes an Ax-Crazy berserker and One-Man Army whenever he's turned loose on the enemy. Kycilia, his only daughter, loves her father, but is otherwise a cold-blooded, Manipulative Bitch and Lady of War who firmly believes that We Have Reserves. Then there's the elder son and "biggest prize", Gihren: he's a manipulative, ruthless, scheming bastard who isolates his father so he can usurp his position, feels no sorrow when his brother dies and eventually commits patricide when the old man is about to ask for an armistice. He and Kycilia hate each other, and she ends up shooting him dead after the patricide incident. The fact that the least maligned scion of the family, Degwin's second oldest son, Sasro, who was assassinated early in the story by someone of his siblings,note  was "just" a Sleazy Politician is quite telling.
    • According to Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin the Deikun family, whom the Zabis deposed, were in some ways even worse. Former leader Zeon Zum Deikun, far from the sage New-Age Retro Hippie intent on helping humanity realize its "true potential" that Char and other supporters nostalgically remember him as, was a twisted, angry neurotic who wanted a war with Earth at least as badly as the Zabi family and whose death probably saved the colonies from getting completely crushed in a battle they were not at all prepared for at that point; his wife, Roselucia apparently supported his extreme political beliefs and also resented his mistress, Astraia, because she got to bear his children instead of her and imprisoned her in a tower after Zeon was dead; then of course there's Char, (who's even more of a violent sociopath in Origin than he was in the anime) he of the suspicious relationships with underage girls and ill-conceived attempt to blow up the Earth in a fit of oedipal angst. The only one who came out relatively well adjusted is Sayla. Relatively being the operative word.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn adds the Vist family, who are apparently as dysfunctional as the Zabis: there's their Suzerain Syam who apparently found Laplace's Box during his time as a right-wing terrorist, hid the same, and is now regretting the actions he committed back then; his grandson and fellow atoner Cardeas, who shares his desire to rewrite the Universal Century back to how it should have been before the Laplace Station incident, even if it meant breaking the family's ties with the Earth Federation; his granddaughter Martha, who still resents her grandfather for killing her father, and is willing to take Laplace's Box for her own interests by any means necessary; and his great-grandson Alberto, who is willing to follow her Aunt Martha's orders, even committing patricide on Cardeas (although later episodes show that even he's not at all supportive of some of his aunt's methods). The odd one out on this family is Cardeas's illegitimate son, Banagher Links.
  • My Hero Academia:
  • Starzinger has the Galactic Space Monster monachy. Despite being a Royal Family, they only view each other through the lens of power and political goals - Gyamu's death is treated more as a blow to their familial honour rather than a loss of a loved one, and Gaima is expected to be a loyal soldier and put his life on the line for their goal. None of them seem to genuinely like each other and only remain a unit out of necessity - and when Lacets decides that Gyuma is too weak, she kills him.
  • Naruto:
    • The Hyuugas, where the main family rules the branch family through a cursed forehead seal that causes agonizing pain. Amazingly, they look downright well-adjusted next to...
    • The Uchihas, whose very brains are wired to go crazy and make them more powerful when they lose someone... which many times led to some of them purposefully killing some others to get that power. They met their end by complete slaughter carried by two members of the clan itself, one of which had gone crazy enough to think that it was the only way to prevent war. The other had already gone crazy long ago and was probably doing it for fun, and then went on to trigger the war the other one wanted to prevent, anyway. The only survivor tried to take over the world after dealing with every other Uchiha (or Uchiha ancestor) villain.
    • The Sand Siblings family was like this, with their father trying to assassinate the youngest sibling, mother dying giving birth to and cursing the birth of the youngest sibling, and an uncle dying after trying to kill the youngest sibling. Oh yeah, and the sand demon possessed the youngest sibling. After an encounter with the titular character, the siblings themselves get better, moving safely into plain old Dysfunctional Family territory. It's eventually revealed that the mother did not curse Gaara, but the father had ordered the uncle to tell him she did in order to test him. But in fact both the mother and uncle had loved Gaara. And Gaara himself magnificently called his dad out on his bullshit. And the old man realized how he had fucked up and took the call out.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion has the Ikari family, with Shinji Ikari, Yui Ikari, Rei Ayanami and Gendo Ikari, The Soryu Family, The Katsuragis, The Akagis... and all that is just the tip of a far more messed-up iceberg. Which has mass added to as the series goes by. One simply does not know where to start.
  • One Piece has two examples (introduced in the same arc, no less). Where to begin with them...?
    • Charlotte Linlin, AKA "Big Mom" is one of the Four Emperors (the four most powerful pirates in the whole world) and one hell of an Evil Matriarch. She has literally dozens of children, ranging from adults to little kids, with several of them serving as members of her powerful crew and others in arranged marriages to Big Mom's allies. And she sees nothing wrong with treating her children like shit if they defy her (Lola), mess up/remind her of a mess-up (Lola's twin sister Chiffon), try to stop her in one of her psychotic hunger fits (Moscato), etc. As a result, many of her kids live in absolute fear of her. Not even her favorite child, Pudding, is immune: not only is she one hell of a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, but she's aware that Big Mom's spoiling of her comes solely from her Third Eye, supposed to unlock a completely game-breaking skill she has.
    • The Vinsmoke clan, supposed to be allies to Big Mom, aren't much better. Their patriarch, Judge, is the leader of the Germa Kingdom and its military. He's also an Emperor Scientist who creates lots of soulless mooks for his army and experiments on his own children when still in their mom's womb so they can become inhumane super soldiers. As a consequence, his sons Ichiji, Niji, and Yonji are genetically good fighters but act like royal brats, his White Sheep son Sanji was incredibly damaged and ran away, and his Action Girl daughter Reiju feels powerless and trapped in her role. (For the record, the kindly matriarch Sora pretty much killed herself in a desperate gambit to reverse the modifications on the unborn boys, but only managed to save Sanji.)
  • In PandoraHearts, we have two major ones:
    • The Nightray dukedom, which was the most glaring example at the beginning of the manga and only became more prominent as more was revealed. Duke Nightray is an Abusive Father who uses his children to obtain whatever he wants, Duchess Nightray participated in Parental Neglect, eventually abandoning her family once her Sanity Slippage made her join an Abyss-worshiping cult, and their blood children are at least one of the following: sadistic, depressed, sociopathic, or cruelly manipulative. Even their adoptive children are screwed up, as Gilbert is depressed, angry, and cynical, while Vincent cuts up dolls and furniture and ends up murdering several members of his adoptive family simply because they were a potential threat to Gilbert, the only person he cares about.
    • The Vessalius dukedom, as we eventually learned. It all started with an ancestor Vessalius, who got a prostitute pregnant with his child, promised he would come back for her because she was in love with him, and proceeded to abandon her forever. This caused the prostitute to lose her mind, abusing her son Jack more and more as he got older because she realized his father was never coming back and he began to remind her of his father. Jack is...well, he's a genius and a sociopath who is the reason for practically everything that went wrong in the entire manga. In the present time, Xai is an absolutely brutal emotionally abusive father who made his adopted son Oz into a suicidal Stepford Smiler who believes he isn't worthy of love. Xai's younger brother Oscar had a stillborn son and constantly begrudgingly wonders why Oz lived rather than his own son, even though he simultaneously loves Oz like he is his son.
  • The Kunōs from Ranma ½. They make the Saotome/Tendō household look positively normal.
  • The Vongola family in Reborn! (2004) is the biggest Mafia family in the story and has its share of Cain and Abel killings and freakish traditions. This is initially played for laughs but following the manga's Genre Shift, it means that the Unexpected Successor Tsuna receives daily death threats to the point that he claims he'll destroy the family if he has to carry on its bloody legacy.
  • Pretty much the entire Shuzen family in Rosario + Vampire, sans Akasha, has some issues. To make things clearer, among the four children of the family, Moka is the most stable among them, followed by Kokoa.
  • Saint Seiya: The Kido Family. Saori Kido turns out to be the Goddess Athena and used to be a massive Spoiled Brat who only wised up after her grandfather's death, and yet she's also a borderline Martyr Without a Cause who places herself regularly in next-to-no-win situations to save the world. As for said grandfather, Mitsumasa Kido... he's not an evil person, but he takes seriously screwed-up decisions while trying to help keep the world safe: in the manga has 100 kids and then sends them to go become Saints, which is so bad that the anime softens it up by making them orphans taken into the Kido clan (sometimes forcibly, like in Seiya's case) and then sent off to train. Also Hyoga and his obsession with his dead mother.
  • The Itoshiki family of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei is apparently a zaibatsu, and are quite wealthy, and the paterfamilias is a member of parliament, but they are really messed up. They essentially control the entire area on which their estate is, and one of their traditions is to have a ceremony where they force people to marry whoever they first make eye contact with. All of the members of the family seen in the show are nice enough, but they are either eccentric (Rin and Matoko) or downright crazy (Nozomu, the protagonist, is the most neurotic person imaginable, and his brother Kei is an insane artist married to a stain on the wall). Majiru is a fairly normal young boy, but he was abandoned by his apparently disinherited father Enishi and gets Nozomu of all people as his caretaker. Finally, all of the Itoshikis have embarrassing names formed by reading their names horizontally, and "Itoshiki family" itself can be read as "dying family".
    • Even their butler and true heir Tokita fits the bill: turns out the Itoshikis we see are descendants of impostors the Itoshiki family hired to pose as them while they went into hiding, and eventually became the mask, and Tokita is the descendant of the real Itoshiki family. When this is revealed, he promptly orders everyone to go back to the status quo cause he'd rather be the butler. And before you ask, yes, the unfortunate naming applies to him, too.
  • Slayers:
    • Nothing is ever seen in the series proper, but Word of God stated that Gourry Gabriev the swordsman has one. Owning a Forgotten Superweapon from another world, the Sword of Light, that can kill nearly anything mundane and even inflict damage to the equivalent of Satan in the show/novel's universe has more or less caused the entire family to go bonkers over who would own it, hence, a multitude of family civil wars occurred through the Gabriev family's generations. The author of the novels stated that Gourry's only family left are a grandmother and a dead older brother. Gourry himself finally decided to steal the Sword of Light and leave the family once and for all.
    • Princess Amelia Saillune's uncles and cousin tried to kill her father many times via questionable methods, her mother was murdered, and her older sister was so traumatised after witnessing their mom's murder (and how she killed the assassin) that she ran off to become a manic sorceress. Said sorceress, Naga the Serpent, journeyed with Lina for some time. Since Saillune is a rather prosperous kingdom, constant murder scares are not uncommon.
  • In Tenchi Muyo!: Ryo-Oh-Ki we only see the Jurai clan through the sanest and well-adjusted Masaki and Kamiki branches of the family, and even they are quite eccentric and not always in a nice sort of way:
  • The Washuu Clan from Tokyo Ghoul, in spite of their honorable facade. While everyone is aware of the tension between Chief Yoshitoki and his son, Matsuri.....it's only the tip of the iceberg. The Clan has been involved with a Breeding Cult for generations, engaging in slavery and incest to produce both Breeding Slaves and Child Soldiers to serve them. Clan patriarch Tsuneyoshi has numerous bastard children, including not only Big Bad Nimura Furuta, but Kishou Arima and Rize Kamishiro. Both of his illegitimate sons were plotting against him, while it's revealed that Rize was being raised for the purpose of bearing children to Tsuneyoshi and his legitimate heirs.
  • The royal family of Pheliosta in Vampire Game. Incest is the law of the land, power struggles abound, people everyone thinks are related aren't, surprise relatives show up at the drop of a hat; half the family's evil and the other half's just plain nuts.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!:
    • The Ishtar family, judging by what we see in flashbacks. Most of this can be blamed on their father, whose abuse gave Marik a Superpowered Evil Side whose first act was to become a Self-Made Orphan.
    • The Kaibas. Each member is an egomaniac and megalomaniac except for Mokuba, who was neglected by the father and ironically this is why he is the only normal one in the family aside from a sadistic streak in the manga.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: The Akabas, who continue this tradition, are this mixed with Tangled Family Tree. We start with a basic family of Reiji, Himika, Leo and Reira. With Reiji and Himika being a bit extreme in their desire to protect their home, Leo obsessed with fixing his mistakes and Reira having a mess of a life. And this isn't even mentioning Ray.
  • The Nanjous from Zetsuai and Bronze. Between the old man, his wives/mistresses, the three brothers (Hirose, Akihito, and Kouji) and the sister (Nadeshiko)... hard to see who is the most fucked up.

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