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"To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."
A stunningly large number of heroes and their coteries are lacking in the parent department, either through death or in that they just aren't talked about. Even if both parents are alive, they may well be emotionally or physically distant. Everyone is, for the sake of the plot, Conveniently An Orphan, whether they actually are or not.
This is a very convenient way for characters to be able to run off in the middle of the night to fight Evil, get sucked into another world, etc. without having anyone responsible for them making a fuss. In fact, one of the first things a creator of stories about children or teens having adventures needs to do is explain a lack of parental involvement.
It also allows for the Ordinary High School Student to be revealed as a super-powered demon fighter, or intergalactic being without the need for a messy Ret Con answering the question an alert viewer would ask about why the parents didn't know about this. It's simply a case of the child following in their parent's Secret Legacy.
Of course, if you go back far enough you'll reach a time when most young adults in Real Life actually were orphaned or abandoned. Parents (especially mothers) died younger than than they do now, and those with chronic illnesses like schizophrenia or tuberculosis were often sent away from the family to recover or die. Also, without modern communications or even a police force it was simple for an adult to abandon his or her family. This didn't always mean that the abandonment was used for pathos or character development; it's quite common for a character from the 19th century or earlier to mention being orphaned with no more emotional reaction than a shrug, since it was so normal. A good example is Jane Austen's Emma, where the title character's mother died years earlier but is barely even mentioned.
Note that the parents in question don't actually have to die for this Trope to be in effect. Note also that in a few cases listed below, parents are hardly even mentioned — which makes things incredibly awkward.
If only one parent is missing or dead, then it's a case of Missing Mom or Disappeared Dad. When several siblings lack their original parents, the first born will receive a Promotion To Parent. Parental Abandonment is also a leading cause of Dark Magical Girls. One standard method for achieving it is to make your characters Blitz Evacuees.
In families with servants, this can lead to the Old Retainer acting as a Parental Substitute. For families who travel abroad when both die, results in Raised By Natives.
When the parents had to separate from the child in order to protect it, this results in Moses In The Bullrushes.
In animation, cases of parentis abscentia can be caused by budgeting; it's cheaper to animate one character (usually Dad) than to have two characters basically doing the same thing.
Parental Abandonment is a common feature of a Dark And Troubled Past (though children lucky enough to find a Parental Substitute generally avoid such a fate). It is a common feature of a Tear Jerker.
May entail Tell Me About My Father. Or rarely, mother. For reasons of economy, the child is seldom interested in both parents. See also Hands Off Parenting.
Examples
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- A huge portion of the cast of Narutaru are missing one or more parents. Of course, this being Narutaru, Shiina's mother is the only cast member who truly abandoned her child. The other cases of missing parents are much more... disturbing.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh, we have the Kaiba brothers (biological parents died when they were little, adopted father raised Kaiba under a borderline abusive schooling regimen, then committed suicide after Seto took over his company), Jounouchi/Joey (estranged from his mother since his parents' divorce, and his drunken father is only mentioned once in the first anime series), Anzu/Téa, Honda/Tristan, and Ryuji/Duke with no visible or suggested parents, and Yugi himself, whose mother appears twice, making him for all intents and purposes appear to live with his grandfather, a major supporting character.
- In the manga, we ARE shown Ryuji's father, but he's not exactly star parenting material and only appears for a few chapters.
- The lack of parents in the spin-off Yu-Gi-Oh GX is even worse. Even if the series does take place at a boarding school, some situations definitely call for parental involvement. Fubuki disappears for a year, and is in a coma for a few days/weeks after resurfacing; his sister Asuka, another student, falls apart over him, but where are their parents? (To be fair, one episode suggests that their mother died when they were very young.) Jun Manjyome runs away for three months; no parents looking for him or threatening the school with a lawsuit. (Indeed, his two older brothers seem for all intents and purposes to be his guardians, but why, after they become estranged, he still has access to an unlimited amount of his family's money, is a mystery.) Ryo and Sho Marufuji's living mother is briefly mentioned in the dub (when Sho talks to Rei in her first apparition, he says their mother said Sho is growing up more alike to Ryo, which suggests they're in good terms and maybe in regular contact), but she's never shown. The show is big on sibling relationships, but aside from an appearance by Hayato Maeda's father in an early episode, not at all with parents and children.
- Likewise Wataru in Sister Princess. While no genealogy is provided for his (half-?)sisters, the most likely solution to their parentage implies that they are all also missing at least the father whom they must share with Wataru. In the Visual Novel, all the legal ones turn out to be adopted.
- In Tenchi Muyo, Tenchi Masaki's mother (named Achika in the In Love movie, and Kiyone in other continuities) died when her son was quite young, in some continuities from the side effects of saving his life. In the original OVA continuity, Ryoko was deprived of her creator/mother Washuu for almost 5,000 years, after Kagato kidnapped Washuu and kept her in suspended animation in his ship.
- In Sailor Moon, Rei lives with her maternal grandfather because her mother is dead and she is estranged from her politician father. Both of Makoto's parents are dead. Ami lives alone with her well-intentioned but absentee workaholic mother, who is divorced from her artist father. In later seasons, Hotaru's mother is dead and her father is possessed by a demon, and neither Haruka nor Michiru have any visible parents. Of all the school-aged characters, only Usagi, Chibiusa (who's obliged to have one as the Kid From The Future) and Minako seem to have intact families.
- In one episode, Ami is going to go to school overseas and the Senshi meet her at the airport, and she eventually decides to stay. Would she really not be seen off by her mother?
- In the live-action version, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Usagi still has both parents, but her father is a reporter who is only ever seen on the family TV set, effectively giving her a one-parent family. Minako appears to be an orphan, with only an agent acting in loco parentis for her.
- Maia in Daphne In The Brilliant Blue is an orphan — and the circumstances surrounding how she became orphaned are key to the series' plot.
- So is Sagara Sousuke from Full Metal Panic. Similarly, Kaname apparently has her own apartment and little connection to her family in the anime, though they were referenced more directly in the novels.
- Watanuki from xxxHOLiC: Orphaned at a young but unspecified age and has been living alone ever since.
- Well, maybe not. It was recently revealed that his parents are still alive somewhere. Just not in his universe. He doesn't remember them due to a Deal With The Devil or three, and so just assumes them to be dead. His "brother" does remember them, but ran away from home at the age of seven, and we'll stop there because that’s where the parental abandonment ends, and something else begins.
- In Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, xxxHolic's sister series, nobody has a present set of parents. Nobody. Perhaps the most egregious case would be Sakura, who had both a mother and father way before the beginning of the series, but had them erased from existence when Syaoran's desperate wish to save her life screwed over the space-time continuum.
- In Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun, three six-year-olds were living alone under the same roof, with occasional older sibling support. One can only hope that they had financial support, at the very least. Also interesting is the fact that the protagonist's parents were alive and well, just very distant.
- In Noir, Mireille's parents were murdered when she was a small child. And when Kirika awoke in Tokyo for the first time, she was alone in her apartment, with neither parents nor Soldats agents pretending to be parents.
- Kazuki Yotsuga in Parallel Trouble Adventure Dual is effectively orphaned when he ends up in a parallel universe where he was never born. In the Back Story, the mother of Mitsuki Sanada divorced her father, leaving him a bit of an emotional wreck and Mitsuki angry and hateful toward her.
- In the ending, due to a burst of A God Am I, an ideal universe is created where the "best" elements of both dimensions are fused... and yet almost all the parents have been sent away on permanent vacation.
- Parental Abandonment — specifically, the psychological effect of it — is one of the overarching themes of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Shinji Ikari witnessed the apparent death of his mother Yui, and is — to put it delicately — emotionally estranged from his father Gendo after spending ten years apart from him (actually, the fact of Yui's disappearance does help explain what's wrong with both Shinji and Gendo). Asuka Langley Soryuu is estranged from her father as well (depending on the version of Evangelion you're following, Asuka's father was a sperm donor selected from a bank of Nobel prize winners and scientists). Furthermore, when she was a young child, Asuka's mother tried to commit a murder-suicide with Asuka, though she only succeeded in killing herself. Rei Ayanami has, as far as most people know, no family whatsoever; when her true origins are revealed, they are ghastly and nightmarish, to put it mildly. Several other major and minor characters have lost one or both parents: Misato, Ritsuko, Toji, Hikari, and Kensuke all come to mind. (However, this is probably not uncommon after Second Impact, which killed half the population of Earth, and during the destructive Angel siege of Tokyo-3.)
- The fact that A: it is mentioned that Shinji's class are all pilot candidates, and B: none of them ever mentions a mother, except Kensuke, whose mother is explicitly dead, puts the pile of discarded EVA parts seen late in the series in a very creepy light.
- Renton in Eureka Seven had no mother, his father died in the 'Summer of Love' incident, and his sister left home when Renton was young. This left him with his paternal grandfather, until he joins the Gekko State in the beginning of the series.
- Ranma 1/2 is rife with parental abandonment. Ranma himself does not even realize he has a mother until the last two episodes of the series, having been separated from her when he was a toddler. Shampoo's father is only seen twice in the manga, her mother is never even mentioned, and in any event she cannot return to her village until she either kills or marries Ranma. Ukyou was actually abandoned twice: Once when her father sent her with the Saotomes, and again when Genma left her on the side of the road. (The notion that Ukyo's father forced her to take vengeance on the Saotomes is pure Fanon, both the manga and the anime imply that it's her own idea). Ryoga's parents are always lost. The Kuno siblings were abandoned by their father three years ago and their mother is never mentioned. The Tendo sisters' mother died when they were very young and Soun, their well-intentioned but ditzy father, is... well, himself. Every other major teenaged character is known or appears to be missing at least one parent, mostly their mothers.
- In a very notable occasion, Ryuu Kumon's father died right before his eyes — and the audience's eyes, too, making it the one and only confirmed, on-screen death of a character in the Ranma 1/2 universe. Mind that Ryuu was six at the time, had already lost his mother, and was left homeless upon his father's death.
- Ataru in Urusei Yatsura still has both his parents, but his father ignores him and his mother frequently wishes he had never been born.
- Lain's entire family disappears on her about halfway through Serial Experiments Lain. In the last few episodes, her own father reveals that Lain is an Artificial Human, created by Tachibana Labs and put in a family so she could have a "normal" life. Since they don't need to be her parents anymore, they just abandon her.
- Prince Van Fanyel in Vision Of Escaflowne has no living family other than his older brother... who is a servant/general of the invading Evil Overlord, until he pulls a Heel Face Turn. Still, Van has (understandable) difficulty accepting him back in his life for a while. Hitomi seems to still have her mother and her kid brother Mamoru at Earth, and her dad is at least mentioned when she calls out "Otousan" during a lonely moment on Gaia. Allen Schezar's mother died of grief and illness when he was young, and he hates his Disappeared Dad Leon because he abandoned her until he learns that Leon actually was Dead All Along, murdered many years ago by the Evil Overlord's troops.
- Utena Tenjou from Revolutionary Girl Utena is an orphan, and her parents' death and funeral were significant events in her life. Anthy and Akio have no visible family. The parents of Miki and Kozue Kaoru are emotionally divorced from their twin children, and Kozue especially harbors a great deal of ill-will toward them.
- Astro Boy was actually sold by his father/creator to what amounted to slavers.
- Naruto sure loves this trope. It has plenty characters with parental abandonment. In fact, the only character in which both parents are alive and shown is Shikamaru.
- Naruto never knew who his parents were as his father sacrificed himself sealing the nine-tailed fox and his mother has been absent from Naruto's whole life for some as of yet unexplained reason. However since he the main character, he has been much luckier by having four father figures in his life: 3rd Hokage, Iruka, Kakashi and Jiraiya.
- Sasuke's parents were killed by his brother when he was young.
- Garaa's (and his siblings') mother died in childbirth, and then his father tried to kill him ... and was killed by the Big Bad.
- Neji's father was killed to appease the Cloud village after Hiashi killed their leader when he tried to kidnap Hinata. Mother is never shown.
- Iruka parents died fighting the Kyuubi.
- Shikamaru lives with both parents, and his luck seems to have probably spread to his teammates. Both Chouji's and Ino's fathers are alive and shown. No sign of mothers, though.
- In the anime, Choji's mother is briefly shown in Episode 82 of Shippuden. Ino is shown talking to her off-screen mother in Episode 53 of Part 1.
- Let's not even talk about Asuma's unborn child.
- It looks like Shikamaru is going to be the child's father-figure, though.
- According to Kiba, his father supposedly left because of how scary his mother was (whether or not he was kidding about that being the reason or even if it happened at all is debatable).
- Hinata's mother is never seen, and fans often speculate that she is dead.
- Even the bad guys are not spared. Sasori's first two puppets were made in the image of his parents, who died when he was very young. This extends to the series's original Big Bad, Orochimaru, whose parents died when he was fairly young, Pain, whose parents were killed in front of him by Konoha ninja, and Kimimaro, who's father kept him in a cage for most of his life before letting him out for his clan's attack on the Mist Village which killed all of the rest of him.
- Kakashi's father committed suicide after ruining his reputation by failing a mission because he prioritized saving his friends. His mother was mentioned to have died before this.
- Haku's father killed his mother, and then went after Haku who killed him in self-defense.
- Karin apparently abandoned her parents along with the rest of her village at some point when her power alerted her to people who were about to burn it to the ground (it's not specified whether she just didn't tell them or if they just didn't listen), and Orochimaru decided to take her in after finding out.
- Full Metal Alchemist. Ed and Al lose their mother, and try to bring her back with human transmutation. The rest is, as they say, history. Ed and Al don't even see their estranged father until the end of the anime series! There's also Winry, whose parents get killed during the war in Ishbal, however, their murder changes between the anime (Mustang) and manga (Scar).
- Also, it is revealed in the manga that Hawkeye's mother died when she was young, later followed by her jerkass father, and Roy was raised by a foster mother.
- Ed and Al actually see Hohenheim earlier on in the manga series, with Ed meeting him first and Al meeting him later, and the three fight against Pride and Gluttony together.
- In Mahou Sensei Negima, Negi Springfield's only apparent extant family is his older cousin, and he is in search of his father, Nagi Springfield, whom most believe to be dead. His roommate/student/partner Asuna is also an orphan, which is an important plot point in the series' idiosyncratic climax — and, apparently, in the manga as well (though not the same plot point).
- In Nadia The Secret Of Blue Water, all three central (child) characters — Nadia, Jean and Marie — are (or believe they are) orphans.
- Almost every major character in Inuyasha is either orphaned or seems to only have one parent (specifically, Kagome, who appears to be fatherless, though she has a very good, open and trusting relationship with the rest of her family, who actually aid her in her dangerous quest as much as they can, since they see it as a part of her destiny). It's mentioned in the novel Shousetsu Inuyasha that Kagome's father died in an accident several years prior to the story, this being the cause why Mama Higurashi, Kagome and Sota moved into the shrine with the grandpa. And this happened few after Kagome's grandma died, too.
- The death of Rino Randou's mother in Gokujou Seitokai is the catalyst that begins the series. Nothing is mentioned as to what happened to her father, at least at first.
- In Yu Yu Hakusho, Yusuke lives with his drunken, cynical, goodhearted but irresponsible single mother Atsuko, who IIRC was kicked out of her house when she got pregnant at age 14. His actual father is never mentioned in the anime, but Atsuko is seen visiting with a man implied to be his father late in the manga. (Note that Raizen is not actually his father, but an ancestor several generations back.)]
- Hiei is cast out by his people, and his and Yukina's mother, Hina, apparently died, so it is unclear who raised Yukina.
- Ichigo, the main character in Bleach, lost his mother very tragically at a young age. He even has the Bumbling Dad — who fails to notice a Shinigami living in the closet and doesn't seem all that concerned when his son leaves the mortal realm for a journey. (This is later explained when you discover Ichigo's dad is actually a captain level Shinigami in exile, who is fully aware of his son's abilities and plays the bumbling dad role so he can go about his duties.)
- Similarly, Orihime in the same series lives alone after the death of her brother, though despite her noted ditziness, she somehow manages to live just fine. It's not really revealed how she lives by, but she's apparently supported by other relatives since their parents were abusive and that's the main reason she and her brother left. Chad's family isn't mentioned besides his Abuelo, who has apparently died prior to the series. And Ishida is estranged from his dad, and his grandfather and mentor died in the past as well. Even Rukia fits in with the trope, though her story is a bit more convoluted.
- In the anime, Sora says that he and Orihime were "abandoned." Both of Izuru's parents are dead (he was a lesser noble born in Soul Society, unlike many people in the Rukon district like Renji and Rukia who are searching for their parents and other family).
- Subversion: In the Sakura Taisen TV series, Sumire Kanzaki is estranged from her industrialist father and grandfather, who have been absorbed in work for seven years and apparently ignoring her completely, much to Sumire's chagrin; she has become convinced that they don't care about her. In the next-to-last episode, though, we learn it's been because they've dedicated themselves to building a superweapon for Sumire and the Teikokukagekidan all that time, and the father is actually a warm, friendly and loving person. He asks Sumire to forgive him before the last battle, and she does.
- Exception: In The Twelve Kingdoms, the parents of Youko Nakajima, who is Trapped In Another World, are repeatedly shown in the real world worrying about her, before eventually accepting that she is gone for good.
- Borderline case: The main characters' parents in Marmalade Boy are impulsive and flighty, but clearly try to be supportive of their children when they are around at all. When both pairs divorce and remarry each other's former spouses, the whole group moves in together to form a single household so that the children don't need to be separated from their parents. However, they leave the two teens alone as they go off on vacations, they repeatedly dismiss Miki's concerns as "taking life too seriously," and never try to determine the cause of Yuu's emotional detachment. The four parents are so in sync with each other that some fans refer to them as "the hive mind."
- Meanwhile, Satoshi is the only other character who has a parent appear, and he's a rich playboy who allowed his dead wife to think he was having an affair to cover the fact that he was having an affair with someone else (although is otherwise a nice guy, from what we've seen); Meiko can't stand her home, as her parents are incredibly hateful towards each other, both having affairs and emotionally distant (not to mention the mother is apparently an alcoholic); Kei is mildly estranged from his family due to the enormous pressure put on him as a musical prodigy, although he's implied to have patched things up in the end; Cousins Ginta Suou and Tsutomu Rokutanda are rivals because their family constantly compared them to each other growing up (and this throwaway line is the only mention they ever get!); Arimi and Suzu's families are never mentioned at all, beyond the fact that Suzu is Satoshi's cousin and, in the anime, her father is the one who gets Yuu his scholarship for an American school. In the anime we have Anju Kitahara, who apparently has a rather normal family life with parents who overprotect her a bit since she has a serious illness.
- In Pokemon, Ash's father seems to be alive but not around, for some vague, non-traumatic reason. As well, it seems that not only is it socially acceptable, but a cultural expectation that if a child wishes to be a Pokemon trainer, he/she has to leave their house at the age of 10 and travel the world looking for Pokemon completely alone (unless they find unrelated travelling partners). This is mitigated somewhat by the general helpfulness of the Pokemon world's residents, and the fact that a Pokemon trainer is The Kid With The Remote Control of what is potentially an incredibly powerful weapon.
- Subverted, however, with May, the daughter of Caroline and Norman. This is probably intentional since it's the only normal family in the series, and since this is also true of the main character in the Ruby and Sapphire games, on which May is based. If you want emotional issues, Brock seems to be repressing his annoyance at the fact that both his parents ditched him at some point, leaving him to look after the Gym and his nine siblings until Ash turned up.
- In the tenth episode, Brock's father comes back, having left home to become a trainer, failed at it, and been too ashamed to show his face around his children anymore, instead opting to disguise himself with a beard and adopt an alias.
- Alternatively in Pokemon Special, Red's parents or even actual relatives were never seen or even mentioned. Which leaves the question as to who is managing his house when he's away or who is even supporting him.
- Exception: Lan from the Mega Man Battle Network games and anime interacts with both of his parents. His father is a scientist who becomes vital to the series' plotlines, and his mother is a type of moral support when Lan finds that he and Mega Man need to save the world.
- Subversion: In Jubei-chan, main character Jiyu's mother is dead true to form, but this has made her extremely close to her father, who is aware she's a (very strange variant of the) Magical Girl. Their relationship is more important to the series than the plots of the various villains, except where the relationship and the plots intersect.
- In Samurai Champloo, Fuu's mother died when she was still a little girl. As for her father, he's the "samurai who smells of sunflowers" Fuu is chasing for most of the series, having run out on her and her mother early in Fuu's life. In his defense, he was fleeing death for being a Christian in the then-still isolated Japan; had he not left, the whole family would've been slaughtered.
- In Mai-HiME, the parents of the three main characters (Tokiha Mai, Kuga Natsuki and Minagi Mikoto) are dead; in addition, Yuuki Nao's mother is in hospital (with the rest of her family killed).
- Natsuki's dad is actually still alive, but he's implied to have hooked up with another women while Natsuki was in hospital recovering from the accident that killed her mother (supplementary materials suggest her parents weren't on good terms). Combine that with First District's links to her mother's death, and is it any wonder that Natsuki has issues trusting other people?
- In Love Hina, most of the Hinata Apartments residents are either estranged from, or just don't seem to have, parents. Motoko and Kaolla are orphans. Sarah is living with Seta, despite apparently having parents overseas (in the anime, where it is inexplicably implied they are abusive; in the manga, though, her parents are deceased college friends of Seta and Haruka). Shinobu lives at Hinata-sou as a result of her parents divorcing and moving away. (Her parents have several appearances, and became part of the plot for some episodes.) Naru lives away from home because she feels she doesn't fit in after her mother remarries. Keitaro has parents, who are mentioned but never seen, although their voices are heard in the first episode and he talks to them by phone occasionally. (In the manga version, though, Keitaro's parents are alive and well; they run a bakery, and Keitaro frequently fights with them over his decision to attend college instead of taking the family business.) Parents aren't mentioned for Kitsune (who is Naru's contemporary) or Haruka (who is Seta's contemporary, and thus more than old enough to be independent).
- Soukou No Strain has an explanation too: the elite are chosen to be Reasoners before birth, and only one character has been shown to have a family member that wasn't a Reasoner, so they all must be either dead or fighting in the war. Sara's parents did, in fact, die when she was a small child.
- All the Kanon main characters, save Nayuki (who has a Hot Shounen Mom) and Mai (whose mother is important to her plot, but only appears a few times). Shiori and Yuuichi are said to have parents, but they're never on screen and Yuuichi doesn't live with his. Ayu's mother is dead, and she can't reach her father and stepmother; even in the end, we don't see them. Makoto has Laser Guided Amnesia and can't find her parents, but it's theorized that we do see one of them as one of Makoto's Mysterious Watchers. If you watched the show, you'll know what I mean.
- In the anime Ichigo Mashimaro, the girls' parents appear rarely, if at all. Indeed, it is several episodes in before Nobue and Chika's are even mentioned, the first proof they even exist. Only Ana's are mentioned regularly, and her mother is the only parent whose face is ever seen.
- Nobue and Chika's mother appears briefly in the manga during a flashback in which she takes her daughters out on a trip.
- The anime and especially the manga version of Kare Kano both subverts and uses this trope. Of the two main characters of the Official Couple, Yukino is shown to have a much healthier family life than her beau Soichiro. In both cases the parents are present, but Soichiro's "parents" are actually his foster parents who are biologically his uncle and aunt. Soichiro's reunion with his biological parents set the stage for the emotional climax of the manga. Tsubasa and Kazuma both have only one surviving parent who marry each other just as Tsubasa and Kazuma themselves get hitched. Other characters have very little mention of family except for Rika's brother. One of them is actually on highly antagonistic terms with his father. And finally, Yukino's Hot Shoujo Dad is an orphan, himself, and that caused some friction with his wife's family before they got married.
- In One Piece, Usopp is the only Straw Hat who was actually raised by his biological parents, and even then his father had left his family. When it comes to other main characters, their parents abandoned them, are dead or the world's most wanted criminals or, puzzlingly, never mentioned. Here's the rundown for the curious:
- Luffy: Father's a revolutionary and apparently left Luffy in his grandfather Garp's care who trained him and his brother Ace before leaving them in the care of their hometown's mayor. Mother never seen as of yet.
- Zoro: No mention of parents at all. Closest father figure he had is his dojo master with Kuina acting like a Cool Big Sis (before her accident anyway).
- Sanji: The first time we see him he's working on a boat, and no mention of other relatives other than his father figure Zeff.
- Ussop: (Example above)
- Nami: Orphaned, twice over. First time her original village being destroyed by a pirate attack where she was adopted by Bellemere (along with her adoptive older sister, Nojiko, who actually rescued baby Nami from the ruins). Second when Arlong invades Cocoyashi and kills Bellmere in front of Nami's eyes. Genzo, the town's sheriff, sorta act like a father figure though.
- Chopper: The most literal of the trope as he was ostracized, then kicked out, by his herd. His second father figure does this too but only out of concern for him before he later blows himself up.
- Robin: Father died and never shown, mother left her with her brother who had a very uncaring and abusive wife. Her mother returns to meet her only to be killed in the Buster Call raid.
- Franky: Thrown overboard by his parents and somewhat adopted by Tom who gets hauled away thanks to Spandam's actions.
- Brooke: Like Zoro, his parents aren't mentioned as he well into adulthood when his past is shown. And anyway, since Brook is over 80 years old, it can be safely assumed that his parents are dead.
- Omamori Himari: There is only one parent actually seen in the manga yet (Rinko's mother), and Kuesu was seen talking to her mother on the phone. Yuuto and Shizuku have dead parents, Himari only once talks about her ancestors in general.
- Subverted in Gundam SEED. In the first episode, we see nothing of the main younger cast's parents, and when they're taken aboard the Archangel, they seem to slip into the usual unusually independent kids role. However, upon arriving at Orb, Captain Ramius informs them that their parents, who were apparently evacuated from Heliopolis separately, are waiting for them, allowing them to visit for a short time. Similarly, the equally young ZAFT pilots all seem to have visible parents when they return to PLANT on leave.
- However, the trope is also played straight with Flay (mother died before the series begins, father horribly killed in an enemy fleet action which caused Flay to go insane and manipulate Kira, as revenge for not saving her dad when he needed it), Athrun (mother died in the Bloody Valentine Incident, father killed in the last episode of the series and emotionally disconnected long before then), and Cagalli (never knew her and Kira's real parents, her adoptive mother has died before the series began, and her father's killed in a Heroic Sacrifice midway through the series to get his daughter into space where she'll be safe).
- And then there's Mu La Flaga, whose father Al Da Flaga was so dissatisfied with his son that he effectively disowned Mu, locked him away in a Big Fancy House and had himself cloned instead. Then, he and his wife died in a fire several years later while Mu was still a young boy. The ultimate result of Al Da Flaga's lousy parenting was that Mu became an overachieving heroic Ace Pilot and the clone, Rau Le Creuset, became an Omnicidal Maniac Nietzsche Wannabe. Way to go, Dad!
- The sequel series, Gundam SEED Destiny plays this straight. Shinn's parents are messily killed at the beginning of the series, Lunamaria and Meyrin's parents aren't accounted for, and Rey is a clone, and therefore does not have natural parents.
- Demashita Powerpuff Girls Z appears to use this trope at first, as the only parents (other than Utonium, who is not the girls' father, contrary to the original American continuity) that show up for quite some time are Princess' and the Gangreen Gang's. Eventually, some of the girls' parents show up in the final episode of season 1 (the Christmas episode).
- Nearly everyone in Sola, though at least important characters tend to have an excuse. Like being immortal, or The Hunter, or the Tomato In The Mirror.
- Most of the characters from the anime Elfen Lied have suffered extreme parental abandonment (or at least the psychological effects of it) similar to those of Neon Genesis Evangelion. The results, needless to say, aren't pretty.
- Yuka never seems to have a father, nor is he even mentioned. Her mother shows up near series end in the manga, and really only seems there to question the wisdom of keeping Nana. Kouta's mother is also never brought up, and the loss of his other family members drives the series. Nana never knows her true parents, and is heartsick when she learns Kurarama is not her real father. He is Mariko's. Mayu loses her father early on, and it is indicated they may have been close. Her mother was always distant, and turned outright hostile when she learned that her new husband was sexually abusing Mayu. In an act of coldness that has to place her in the bottom 30 animanga abusive parents, she is jealous of her daughter—who is being raped—for the attention she is getting. Later, she signs away custody to Kouta and Yuka without blinking. Lucy, it turns out *end-series warning* was not abandoned by her mother, who was also a diclonius, who was used and murdered in the racial eugenics schemes of Kakuzawa. He left Lucy homeless so that she would grow away from Humans. Sadly, it worked.
- In Ai Yori Aoshi, Kaoru's parents both died when he was young, leaving him stuck with his abusive grandfather. He moves out as early as he can; that breaks off his arranged marriage to Aoi, his childhood friend, setting the events of the show in motion.
- All three of Fate/stay night's key human characters have parent issues. Shirou is an orphan, and the man who adopted him is also dead. Rin is living alone, her father having died in the previous Grail War; the man who's been her guardian since then is in fact the Big Bad, and her father's killer. Worst off by far is Sakura: her parents gave her to a foster family years ago, and she's been suffering horrific abuse at their hands ever since.
- Inverted in the prequel, Fate/Zero — Kiritsugu (Shirou's adoptive father, and protagonist) left Illya, his daughter, knowing that he can't be reunited with her, which is the reason for her strange relationship with Shirou in Fate/stay night.
- It's also applicable to Tsukihime. Shiki's biological parents are dead. His foster father died before the start of the story and is the plot catalyst. Only passing mention of the mother, it's assumed she died. Arihiko has no family left except his sister. Ciel's parents are dead because she killed them. Hisui and Kohaku don't even know their surnames let alone their parents. Most of the rest of the cast aren't people who actually would have families of any sort. An exception is made for Satsuki, who apparently has a healthy home life. Maybe that's why her route was removed?
- Death Note: Misa, Near, and Mello are all orphans, and it's implied that L is too. The reason why Misa is so devoted to Light is because he killed the murderers of her parents. The psychotic mass murderer gets a normal family, though, helping to emphasize how far he eventually falls.
- Dragon Ball begins shortly after Goku accidentally kills his adoptive grandfather, the only family he's ever known. Much later, he finds out just how orphaned he is: not only are his parents dead (mother was never mentioned, father attempted a Heroic Sacrifice to save his planet and was killed), he's an alien from a planet which has been destroyed. Only a few of his race are left, and they're all utter bastards — he has to kill most of them himself.
- On the upside, Goku has a very loving and respectful relationship with his own sons and granddaughter, despite missing something like nineteen years of Gohan's life, seventeen of Goten's, and ten of Pan's, due to training or being dead. Gohan himself doesn't seem too disturbed by his daughter going off into space, either, although he and his wife Videl are seen worrying about her when she's getting into fights.
- As for everybody else, Bulma is the only character from the original Dragonball with both parents, and they're kind of 'out there,' although her father sneaked into the Competence Zone once. For those introduced in DBZ: Vegeta is an orphan, his mother never mentioned and his father killed when Planet Vegeta was destroyed; the artificial humans killed their creator as they woke up; and there's some distance between Videl and Mr. Satan, but they obviously love each other and Mr. Satan dotes on Pan. Trunks originally seemed like he would end up following the trope (raised by his mother after Vegeta's death at the hand of the androids, and is somewhat emotionally distanced from Vegeta himself once they met), but thanks to some time-traveling, he's nearly thirty and still living at home.
- This troper noted a piece of artwork from Budokai Tenkaichi seems to depict Goku and Vegeta's mothers.
 Which is which is up for debate.
- Yes! Precure 5 has a couple of these. Urara's mother died when she was very young. This is fairly significant in one episode, which had Urara acting mysterious while carrying around and reading a book that belonged to her mother. Karen has two living parents, but they're a pair of musical performers, consistently making it home for Christmas but otherwise perpetually on tour. (She does have a butler who takes care of her, which is good because this has been the situation since she was little.) This led to some emotional problems down the road. We've never seen Rin's father or either of Komachi's parents. Rin's father, at least, is mentioned in dialog as being around, just never seen. Komachi's parents are busy running the stores that her family owns.
- Honoka in the original Futari Wa Pretty Cure lived with her grandmother and her parents were art dealers who came home for her birthday. Honoka doesn't seem to have suffered much as a result of this... actually, it looks like a little of Honoka's parents goes a long way.
- The otherwise-lighthearted Potemayo uses this trope with Sunao. His father is constantly abroad on research, and his mother died prior to the beginning of the series.
- Shuffle! has its share of parentis absentis: Rin's parents (dead), Kaede's mom (dead) and dad (out on business), Asa's dad (unknown, presumed dead), Sia's mom (back in the God world) and Nerine's mom (back in the Demon world).
- Just about every major character in Saiyuki. In sum: Sanzo's and Hazel's foster fathers are dead; Goku couldn't remember his even if he wasn't (but he is); Hakkai grew up in an orphanage; Gojyo's stepmother (Dokugakuji's birth mother) was killed by Dokugakuji to keep her from killing Gojyo himself; Kougaiji reveres his trapped, frozen mother, but refers to his and Lirin's father by his name; Lirin is well aware that her mother has no use for her beyond resurrecting her father, and wonders if Kougaiji's mother will love her instead; Kami-sama was raised by Ukoku Sanzo, otherwise known as Nii Jenyi and is well aware he was nothing to him but a toy; and Homura was abandoned due to the manner of his birth and grew up in a prison cell. Whew!
- Very consciously averted in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. While a good number of the characters had lost their natural parents or never had parents in the first place, practically all of them are adopted into families that care for them deeply and raise them in a loving environment. Not surprising considering how the series stresses the importance of family.
- There is a straight example in Teana though, who lost both parents, and later, her older brother at a relatively young age. One of the strengths she saw in her partner Subaru was that she had a loving family to support her.
- And then there's Hayate, who's... a special case. She lost her parents at a very young age, but she has the Wolkenritter, her beloved adopted family... of which she's been the mother figure ever since she was nine. Kids sure mature fast these days.
- But how about before the Wolkenritters? There's no mentioning, and given Hayate was then a wheelchair-using Ill Girl, it is expected some body to look after her...?
- Outlaw Star has a lot of flashbacks of when Gene's father was killed, but makes no mention of his mother. Jim's parents are never mentioned (except for an intro that said his father was a hacker) so it is assumed that he is an orphan who some how came to live with Gene.
- Robin from Witch Hunter Robin.
- Pita Ten: Kotarou lost his mother in an accident, and his father often works until late hours.
- Ef A Tale Of Memories: Miyako's case fits the trope in a distressing manner, as she truly was abandoned by her parents. But there are more examples: Hiro is living on his own despite still being in high school, because of a row he had with his father due to his choice to become a mangaka. Kei and Chihiro's parents are never seen and the one character who has a mother figure, Renji, seems to be lacking a father that is never mentioned.
- Both Lavi and Claus in Last Exile are orphans, forcing them to spend most of their childhood learning how to fly their fathers' vanship.
- Night Head Genesis is an instance in which the trope is strictly followed up to a certain point, Naoto and Naoya are literally abandoned by their parents because they fear the siblings' destructive powers. As a result the brothers spend 15 years in a research facility, eventually escaping only to find out that their parents have blanked out certain memories and are convinced that the two have perished as children while trying to same a little girl from drowning.
- In Tantei Gakuen Q, Kyuu lost his father at an early age and lives only with his mother. His father, Satoru, was a detective and had to live his life practically undercover until his death. Megu's parents are in good terms with her, but they both work abroad and she lives with her older sister Akane. Kazuma lives with his parents in a huge mansion, but they're never seen onscreen. Kinta's father is a high-ranked police officer with whom he has a rather strained relationship until the end of the anime. Ryu is an orphan who lives with his tutor, Yurie, and calls her "mother" in front of others per orders of his evil grandfather, the villainous King Hades from the Pluto organization
- Fushigi Yuugi is very, VERY infatuated with this trope.
- Miaka's parents had a REALLY nasty divorce when she was little and she lives with her over-exigent mother and her college-aged brother Keisuke. In the manga, her mother re-marries later.
- Yui's parents are only shown once; in their only appearance, they seemingly are rather normal people. In the anime, her father is never even shown.
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Several Most of the Seishi are orphans or abandoned. Here are some plot-driving examples:
- Tamahome's mother is dead and his father is crippled by an illness, killed halfway through the series by Suboshi.
- Hotohori's mother was an iron-fisted gold-digger in the court and died a few years after he was appointed as the heir to the throne.
- Soi's parents sold her to a brothel since they couldn't keep her.
- Amiboshi and Suboshi's parents died in the war.
- Nakago's mother was raped and murdered in front of him when he was a child. In his character novel, he kills the former general of the Kutou army, who is his Disappeared Dad... of course, this happened after a Luke I Am Your Father moment.
- The two sisters in Binbou Shimai Monogatari have a deceased mother and a father who ran off to hide from a big gambling bet.
- It is surprising that no one has seen fit to mention Integra Hellsing here. Her mother was out of the picture in early childhood, her father died when she was twelve, she shot her own uncle dead shortly after (mainly because he was trying to kill her), and the rest of her formative years were spent under the... idiosyncratic... guidance of the family Battle Butler and the vampiric (un)living weapon she inherited.
- Seras Victoria was orphaned at an early age. She witnessed her father being killed by the gang he infiltrated (the father was a policeman), and her mother died trying to confront them, as well as witnessing the gang members raping the corpse of her mother. Seras herself attacked them with a fork, only to be shot and left for dead.
- Of course, they are not alone. Walter is already a field agent for the Hellsing organization at the age of fourteen (per the prequel series The Dawn), with no mention of parents. Maxwell was abruptly abandoned when he was young for being the illegitimate son of a man's mistress. Pip is implied to have lived with his grandfather, who instilled the mercenary mindset in him. Alucard, as the semi-immortal Vlad III, has the historically nasty death of his father by the Turkish variation of scalping. And these are just the characters for which we know about their parents.
- Used several times in Fruits Basket, though not as often as might be expected. Many juunishi still have both parents (Hatsuharu, Hiro, Kagura, and Ritsu) or are independent adults whose parents are only briefly, if at all, mentioned (Shigure, Kureno, and Hatori). Kisa's father is simply never mentioned. Outside this group, Saki has a full family, who actually show up in-panel. In the more extreme cases...
- Tohru's father Kazuya died of illness when she was young, and her mother Kyoko in a car accident some months before the series begins.
- Yuki is estranged from his parents, who essentially sold him as Akito's playmate (or plaything). Ayame is implied to be similarly estranged for quite a while, only *starting* to patch things up when Ayame appears.
- Kyo's mentally unstable mother committed suicide when he was young, and his father was so badly traumatized that he still blames Kyo for it. Partially mitigated, as Kyo's uncle Kazuma has become, in essentially all respects, his adoptive father.
- After years of pretending to care for her, Rin's parents beat up and rejected her; she lives with Kagura's family and later with Kazuma as a result. Similarly, Momiji was rejected by his mother after birth (he turned into a rabbit right after being born, and she asked to have her memories of him erased since she couldn't bear that) and lives alone; his father still supports him economically, though, and seems to start accepting Momiji some more later when his sister Momo is born.
- Arisa's mother left her father for another man, and her father became an alcoholic (with her supporting him instead).
- Akito's loving and doting father Akira died of illness when she was a little child, and her mother Ren despises her (a mutual feeling). In fact, Ren's particularly cruel psychological abuse of young Akito is one of the main causes why she is so fucked up.
- The parents of Kotomi in Clannad don't seem to be very present in her life despite being famous scholars. We later find out why when it's revealed that they died in a plane crash. And they loved her. A lot. Until the very end. There is also Tomoya, who is estranged from his father; given the fact that said father was responsible for injuring his arm in a drunken fit and thus preventing Tomoya from ever fulfilling his dream of becoming a basketball player, it is not surprising that it should be so. At one point Tomoya even leaves home to live with Nagisa and her family because of issues with his father, however, it is hinted that they are on their way to healthier relationship in the last episode of the anime. The trope is heavily subverted with Nagisa's parents, who shower her and each other with affection, but then again, they did not pay much attention to her when she was a child and because of that Nagisa nearly died; one could say that it is a rare case of the trope evolving into a normal family situation.
- In Kaze No Stigma, Kazuma gets literally abandoned by his parents after losing a match with his cousin. At least he gets a gold card from his mom, but he bends it to prevent himself from relying on them. With a dad like Kazuma's, this troper is still pretty surprised that Kazuma didn't outright kill the old bastard first chance he got.
- Actually Kazuma's father abandoned Kazuma so that he could find his own power and was proud of Kazuma when he was defeated by him , they are also so similar that Ayano says that "They are undeniably father and son".
- The Prince Of Tennis is a rather curious case. With the exception of Ryoma's relatives (parents, cute female cousin, pet cat), Ryuzaki-sensei's relationship with her granddaughter Sakuno (whose parents aren't even *mentioned*), Akutsu and his single mother (what happened to the father, nobody knows), Kawamura and his father the genki sushi chef, and/or the siblings who are into tennis as well (Yuuta and Shusuke Fuji, Kippei and An Tachibana, Senri and Miyuki Chitose, Narumi and Kurumi Ijyuin), the players' families are usually ignored, or only their voices are heard in the background. If they do show up, it's generally in small manga chapters (Tezuka's parents and grandfather, Fuji's mother) or tennis-related cameos (Yumiko Fuji, Kaidoh's parents and younger brother). And in the case of the Americans, they're not exactly the best role models either (Kevin's father is an alcoholic who raised him as a tennis Tykebomb, the Griffy twins' aunt and caretaker was abusive and sold them out to their mentor)
- In Kimagure Orange Road, Kyosuke and his sisters have a Missing Mom who died few after the girls were born, though she's still revered by the whole family. Hikaru lives with her parents, but they're never shown onscreen. Madoka is the biggest example: she gets along well with her parents, yet they're very famous musicians who practically live on tour so she lives with her older sister, and when said sister gets married and moves abroads with her husband, Madoka prefers to live alone at home.
- In Detective Conan, Shinichi's parents (a famous writer and a brilliant actress) do care for him, but they are always on tour and, since Shinichi doesn't want to go with them, he lives alone (though in more-or-less active contact) until he physically reverts into a child via Odd Poison and goes to live with his girlfriend Ran. Ran herself lives only with her Bumbling Dad since her parents are separated on bad terms (she's still in more or less contact with mom as well).
- Gundam Wing: Out of the dozen-odd main characters, only Relena has both parents alive and well, though a few episodes into the series her father is killed, at which point she learns that she's adopted and her real parents are dead too. Her adoptive mother Mrs. Darlian, on the other hand, never appears after the scene in which they comfort one another over Mr. Darlian's death.
- On the other hand, the characters who lose family have it as a source of motivation or Character Development, including Relena as well as Quatre, Wufei, Zechs (Relena's brother), and Dorothy. Everyone else either got over their parents' deaths, or were too young to remember them.
- Most of the recurring characters in Get Backers are over the age of eighteen, but there are several teenagers with varying levels of parental absences. Most of the overage characters had dead or missing parents as well, but there are some semi-healthy adoptive relationships. Also some inversion, since Juubei and Sakura abandoned their family in order to follow Kazuki, and Toshiki is implied to have run away from home after defeating his half-brother.
- There are flashback scenes that show that Ban specifically was abandoned for his abilities and handed off to his grandmother.
- Train from Black Cat had his parents murdered, and then he was temporarily taken care of by their murderer, albeit not by choice. After he dies, he's picked up by Carl, a Chronos member.
- Several other characters show this, but they're mostly Apostles of the Stars.
- In Fairy Tail, everyone has their own story. Natsu was raised by a dragon after being abandoned/separated from his parents in a forest, while his rival Grey had his entire village destroyed by a demon. Said demon was then sealed by his mentor some time later. Lucy ran away from home because of her uncaring father and her mother has passed on sometime before the series, although this is not established until later. Erza was apparently raised as a slave to build a device to use Black Magic, and the only thing close to a parent is an old man who acts as a grandfather figure to all the children there.
- D Gray Man: Allen was abandoned by his biological parents due to his left hand, and then raised by Mana Walker, who died sometime before the series' beginning. He's then taken under General Cross' wing, but it's hard to say if there is anything resembling a father figure in him. Lenalee and Komui's parents are killed by Akuma when Lenalee is young, leading to the discovery of her being compatable with the Dark Boots, and Komui has to join the Order to stau with her.
- Gungrave: Brandon (the protagonist) spent his childhood in an orphanage along with his friend, Harry and it's never said how they lost their parents. When Mika Asagi comes into the picture after the timeskip, not only was her father murdered by Harry before she was even born, she witnessed agents of Millenion murder her mother (Maria) before her very eyes (although their main target was Mika herself) as the family butler (who also dies along the way) was ordered to help bring Mika to the one person who can protect her—Brandon. Mika gets thrown for quite a loop, however, when she discovers that Brandon isn't really "himself" anymore—he's the lonely, undead killer called "Beyond the Grave".
- Tokyo Mew Mew has lots of this. Out of the five main girls, only Ichigo (and in the anime, also Retasu) is shown to have a normal family. Minto's parents are too busy to look after her, so she is watched over by her grandmother. Bu-ling has to take care of her five younger siblings because her mother is dead and her father is away — and she's only nine at the end of the series. Zakuro has no known relatives and apparently lives alone; she's fifteen at the end. Finally, there's Teen Genius Ryou, whose parents were killed in the backstory, and whose only family appears to be his partner Keiichiro.
- In the Pretty Sammy series, Misao's father hasn't been home in years while her mother is always working and frequently leaves her home alone, only putting forth enough effort to have a meal provided.
- Blood Plus has a lot of this:
- Saya and Diva’s biological mother died long before they were born (they hatched out of cocoons found in her mummified corpse) and no information is given on their father, though it’s probably safe to assume either Nathan is their father or he’s dead. They were adopted by the first Joel who locked Diva in a tower and experimented on her while treating Saya like a princess. Of course when Diva got out she killed him. Finally, Saya was adopted by George Miyagusuku in 2004, only to be forced to kill him as he was turning into a chiropteran.
- Kai and Riku were both orphaned and adopted by George, but then lost him for above reason.
- James and Karl both saw Diva as their mother, but she never gave Karl the love and attention he craved and she rejected James after he had Schiff parts put on him.
- Haji’s parents sold him to Joel and Amshel for a loaf of bread when he was twelve.
- Mao’s father is the leader of a Yakuza crime family, so presumably doesn’t have much time for her. He does send his goons after her when she tries to leave with Okamura, but that’s likely because she stole money from him. Once they get out of Japan he doesn’t seem to make any attempt to find her despite the fact that she’s traveling the world with a man about twice her age.
- About Rurouni Kenshin...
- Kenshin's parents died of cholera along with his entire village. Later he was sold out as a slave, but the caravan was slaughtered by bandits with him as the only survivor. The closest to a father figure he has is his mentor, Seijuuro Hiko.
- Kaoru's parents have passed away by the time the series starts, leaving her as Heir To The Dojo. Her neighbor, Dr. Genzai, is a sort-of father figure for her in the anime. In the manga, she's picked up another stray, an old man named Kihei, who cooks and cleans for her, but is actually out to steal her dojo.
- Sanosuke and his friend Katsu were the Tagalong Kids for the rebellious Sekihoutai, but except for these two, they were all slaughtered. In the manga, we learn that Sano actually ran away from home after his mother's death, but his dad (who's just like his son), sister and brother are alive and well.
- Yahiko's dad died in the war when he was a baby, his mother was an Ill Girl who had to support herself and Yahiko until she passed away and he was adopted by gangsters who used him as a pickpocketer.
- Also in the war, a teenaged Megumi was separated from her family in Aizu and she doesn't even know if they're alive or not. It's hinted that they're all dead, though.
- Aoshi and Misao are orphans raised into the Oniwabanshuu by Okina.
- In the anime, Yuutarou is an orphan too, only his parents were rich so he lives in a Big Fancy House. Raijuuta used his need of a father figure to lure the kid into his evil plans. In the manga, his father is alive, well, and very rich.
- In the anime, Shougo and Magdaria's parents were slaughtered in front of them (the father was stabbed to death, the mother was shot) for being Christians. They escape thanks to their maternal uncle.
- In both OAV and manga, Tomoe and Enishi's mother died when he was born so she became his surrogate mom. In the manga, their father is alive and well, and later he plays a key role in the Jinchuu arc.
- Kaikan Phrase plays around with how messy this actually is:
- Sakuya's father abandons his mother prior to his birth, and his mother subsequently drinks herself to death. Sakuya shows the effects of this and has to deal with meeting his remaining family as an adult.
- Yuki is disinherited for choosing the band above his family duty, but the family still obviously love each other and turn to each other in times of difficulty.
- Atsuro is kicked out of the house for similarly choosing the band over more sensible options, but after some loud arguments and intervention by his sister Yuuka (totally sister. In conclusion, sister) he returns home.
- Towa is mysteriously estranged, but he reacts strongly to the others not trying to maintain relationships with their parents.
- Aine's parents are preoccupied with their own relationship difficulties to the point of being criminally negligent, but they do occasionally feel the need to provide appropriate parental censure.
- Santa's situation is the only one that plays the trope perfectly straight — his parents never appear, and are never mentioned.
- About Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann...
- Kamina's mom died and dad left when he was a child (and he finds his skeleton a couple episodes in).
- Simon's parents died in an earthquake.
- Rossiu's mother is dead, and he can't even refer to his father as such due to his position as the religious leader of his village.
- Yoko's parents are dead.
- Gimmy and Darry's parents are... you guessed it.
- ... You know what... I'm pretty sure that, pre-time skip, everyone's parents are dead.
- Features pretty heavily in Princess Tutu in the backstory of two characters:
- Fakir's parents died when he was a young child because of an accident involving his powers, and his foster father is caring, but became distant from Fakir as he grew older. Once his backstory is fully revealed, it explains a lot about his overprotective nature.
- Rue's mother is never mentioned and her father the Raven is emotionally abusive. Although it turns out the Raven simply kidnapped her as a child, and her parents had been distraught when she was taken away from the crows.
- Chrono Crusade has examples of this for pretty much every main character.
- Rosette and Joshua's parents died when a ship they were on sunk. The two were sent to live in an orphanage, but Joshua went insane when Aion gave him Chrono's horns, and Joshua froze their caretaker and the other orphans in time.
- Satella's parents were killed by a demon missing his horns, and was raised by her butler afterwards. In the anime her butler is then killed by the same demon.
- Azmaria's parents are implied to have died because of her powers. She was adopted into a troupe of traveling musicians, but a villain seeking to use her powers adopted her from them... and later killed them to cover his tracks. Then the villain was killed by the demon he had a contract with.
- Demons have a society set up something like bees, in the sense that they have a queen from which they're all born from — so technically, none of them have parents (or even completely understand the concept). However, it still plays into the backstory of Chrono and Aion — their mother was a human woman, pregnant with twins, when she was captured by the demons and turned into their Queen. When Aion discovers this, it causes the Freak Out that turns him into the Big Bad.
- In Suzumiya Haruhi, Haruhi and Kyon seem to have parents (who are never seen on-screen) but Kyon is quite perplexed when he meets up with Yuki at her apartment and she's living there alone. Later on, after Ryōko disappears, Haruhi suspects something is up when she discovers that Ryōko's apartment manager never saw her parents — because she also lived alone, in the same building as Yuki.
- Justified in the case of the interfaces and Mikuru. Kyon's mother is at least mentioned, albeit never shown. The weirdest case, however, is definitely Haruhi, but she seems to live alone.
- Haruhi's father was alive three years ago; she saw the baseball game that led her to recreate the world with "her family", and asked her father how many people were at the game. No specifics are given beyond her dad, and they're never mentioned in the present tense. Nor, for that matter, is any real indication given of her living arrangements - This Troper can't recall any evidence for her living alone beyond her parents not caring what she does with her weekends.
- Ayase from Okane Ga Nai is an orphan whose parents have died when he was still a child and he is living alone when the action begins. This does not last long, though, as he quickly spirited away by Kanou with whom he is forced to live and have sex in order to pay an exorbitant debt. In the manga version, Ayase is shown to treasure every memento that reminds him of his parents, even going to the extent of disobeying über manipulative and forceful Kanou to rescue pictures of them from his former apartment that is about to be sold.
- Mobile Suit Gundam has a great example of non-dead parental abandonment. Amuro Rei's father is very much alive during the majority of the series (and might technically still be alive afterward), but he is a man obsessed with his work, and cares little about either his wife or son. By the time Amuro sees him again later in the series, he has gone quite mad after an accident. As for Amuro's mom, Kamaria, she lives on Earth, and is also likely still alive after series end for at least a while, but the two of them are especially estranged due to her extremely strict pacifistic principles (she called her own son a monster for killing a Zeon soldier in self-defense). The Gundam novelization also implies that the real reason she didn't leave Earth with her husband was because she was having an affair.
- There's a few examples of this trope in Gundam 00.
- Setsuna F. Seiei killed his own parents and sister after being brainwashed by Mad Bomber Ali al Saacheez.
- Lockon Stratos' parents and little sister were killed in a terrorist suicide bombing, perpetrated by the terrorist group that Setsuna is a part of.
- Feldt Grace's parents were killed before the start of the series. They were members of Celestial Being and died when one of the Gundam prototypes went horribly wrong.
- Saji Crossroad lives with his sister, Intrepid Reporter Kinue Crossroad, because their parents are dead. Then Kinue is killed by Ali al Saacheez for getting too close to the truth.
- Louise Halevy is studying abroads and we only see her mother All of her family perishes later when Nena Trinity fires at the wedding they were attending in Spain. Poor Louise is the only survivor of the incident.
- Saotome Alto from Macross Frontier seems to suffer from this, as his mother died of an illness when he was still a kid and he was thrown out of the family by his father after refusing to continue the family tradition of kabuki performance and instead pursuing his dreams of becoming a pilot.
- Ranka Lee is one of the few survivors of the 117th Research Fleet. Her parents weren't so lucky.
- Michael Blanc's parents were killed when he was young and he was raised by his older sister until she killed herself after being court-martialled for accidentally shooting her commanding officer/former lover in battle.
- Sheryl Nome was a homeless girl in the slums of the Galaxy fleet before she was found by Mad Scientist Grace O'Connor and turned into a galaxy-wide pop-idol.
- In Saint Seiya all the saints are orphans. In the manga, Mitsumasa Kido is actually the Bronze Saints' father, making the fact that he sent out his numerous sons to get abused and killed while trying to obtain their Cloths all the more horrible. The anime softens this by making them orphan kids picked up from orphanages and/or the streets randomly and then sent out for their Training From Hell.
- In School Rumble, Tenma and Yakumo Tsukamoto live without their parents. As far as this troper knows, no explanation is given and the father is the only parent seen (and then only in flashbacks). Harima Kenji is living with his cousin and we never see his parents (though he does have a younger brother who I would assume lives with them), Oji Karasuma's parents live in America, and we actually get to see Eri Sawachika's parents but they are still away most of the time, leaving her in the care of the family servants.
- Lucky Star: Konata's mother died when she was very young, Yutaka lives with her uncle and cousin, and Miyuki's father is never mentioned.
- However, the series seems to avert the trope overall. None of the instances cause damage or discomfort to characters or viewers, beyond engendering mild empathy for Konata. Her single-parent relationship with her father is very loving and supportive in both directions (the loli/otaku stuff is played for comedy). The Hiiragi twins, Miyuki and Minami all have delineated, idyllic family lives. Screen time is just too expensive to spend on multiple parental units, because the show isn't about them. Yet Lucky Star focuses far more often on family life than comparable shows like Azumanga Daioh, High School Girls, Hyakko and (despite the age differences), Ichigo Mashimaro, and presents it quite positively.
- Deadman Wonderland features Ganta (orphaned in an earthquake); Yo and Minatsuki Takami (mom abandoned Minatsuki during the earthquake; Minatsuki killed her and much later set her dad up to be killed by her brother, probably out of sadistic boredom); and Shiro (no family to speak of other then being childhood friends with Ganta and his mom, and possibly The Director who implants Deadman organs in her and wants her to kill him. She obliges).
- Jojos Bizarre Adventure has this running the entire length of the series. In Part One, Jonathan Joestar lost his mother when he was an infant in a carriage accident; Dio Brando, meanwhile, also lost his mother as a child, but personally killed his father for being an abusive alcoholic. Part Two has Joseph Joestar, who was raised by his grandmother (his father having been killed by a vampire and his mother, Lisa Lisa, giving him up to keep him from what now looked like the family destiny, requesting Erina tell Joseph both his parents were dead). Jotaro in Part Three actually has both parents, but his father is a famous musician perpetually on tour.
- In Berserk, Casca was thrown out of her house at a very young age because they couldn't support her. Guts, meanwhile, was born from a pregnant woman's hanged corpse and taken in by a prostitute who had just had a stillbirth; she later died of the plague. His adoptive father... deserved everything Guts eventually did to him.
- In Penguin Revolution, Yukari's mother left her and her father when Yukari was young. Early in the first chapter of the series, Yukari's father sends her an email to tell her that his latest business venture has gone bust, he has to "lay low for a while," the lease on their apartment is up that day, and he's canceling both of their cell phone contracts so she won't be able to reach him even if she tries. Yukari is thus left to fend for herself at the age of sixteen.
- In Violinist of Hameln, the theme of parental abandonment runs RAMPANT.
- Sizer, the red-winged angel/Demon King spends most of the time before and part of canon believing that her mother abandoned her when she was little.
- Hamel, her brother, has rather a terrible experience when the presence of Pandora is removed from the equation. Let us say that the people of Anthem really should have thought that out better.
- The death of Raiel's parents in the massacre at Anthem (really should have thought that out better...) is one of the driving forces for him to increase his skill in magical music and defeat demons. It's worse in the anime, though.
- Flute has issues over the fact that her mother,Queen Horn, chose to send her off to some village instead of raising her herself.
- Nana Osaki, Shin and Black Stones' fangirl Misato of NANA} all have absentee parents to varying degrees.
- Science Ninja Team Gatchaman is fond of this one:
- Ken: His father abandoned him and his mother when he was four, and his mother died several years later. His father Kentaro is alive, but as the leader of Red Impulse he left his family behind to protect them. When Ken finally learns the leader of RI and his father are one and the same, it's too late.
- Joe's parents were killed by Galactor agents when he was eight. It's later revealed that they were Galactor agents themselves and trying to defect with the help of Dr. Nambu.
- Jun and Jinpei are orphans, not much is known about their situations beforehand. Jun took the infant Jinpei under her wing when she was still a child herself. There is an episode where Jinpei tries to learn about his origins, but the only person who knows for sure lies to protect him and ends up dead.
- While Ryu's the only one with a normal family, a lot of fans assume his unseen mother to be dead or divorced from the family. (In Battle Of The Planets, oddly enough, Ryu's counterpart Tiny was an orphan like the rest of the team)
- This is the central premise of Aishiteruze Baby, when Yuzuyu's mother gets stressed out and abandons her to her relatives and Yuzuyu's cousin Kippei is forced to take care of her.
- Yotsuba Koiwai is adopted. All we have about her family before Koiwai adopted her is that she was an "abandoned child", as Jumbo puts it, and that at some point she lived on an island, as far as she remembers herself. Koiwai himself is quiet about how, exactly, he adopted her, saying only that he found her in another country.
- The protagonist of Code Geass has this as part of his Start Of Darkness.
- The manga Bunny Drop focuses on a young man named Daikichi having to raise a six-year-old girl with this. He wound up with little Rin after her father (Daikichi's grandfather) passed away, there was no mother in sight, and nobody else was willing or able to take her. Daikichi manages to track down Rin's mother, and decides that the (much younger) woman, while indeed caring about Rin, is in no way mature enough for the job.
- Shun Ukiya of Gate Keepers harbors more than a little resentment with his father for dying some years before the start of the series, and in turn his daughter Ayane similarly resents Shun for his heroic sacrifice several years before the opening of the sequel series Gate Keepers 21.
- Feiling, Kaoru, Specs ("Megane") and Big Boss all have no visible parents. Reiko appears to live alone except for a governess. Yukino's parents died some eight centuries ago, in the Heian Era.
- However, there is an aversion in Ruriko, whose family is intact and frequently visible.
- Appears to be subverted by Megumi, whose parents, though never seen, are still around and active in her life — and whom she seems to wish would disappear.
- Rah Xephon has this happen repeatedly to the protagonist. But then, given that his family tree is more of a Klein Bottle it can be hard to tell that this happened, other than one obvious example.
- A suprising number of characters from Baccano! are a victim of this:
- Firo Prochainezo's mother succumbed to Tuberculosis when he was ten years, and his father died of lung cancer before he was even born. He has effectively been raised by the Camorra since then.
- The Gandor brothers' mother is never mentioned. Their father died when Luck was in his early teens, promoting his eldest brother Keith to the role parent, and forcing him into the family business at a very early age.
- Claire was orphaned and subsequently adopted by the Luck's father, making him the Redheaded Stepchild of the Gandor family. After the death of his adoptive father, he ran away to join the circus
- Tick Jefferson was sold to the Mafia by his stepfather to pay off loans. His father had passed away years earlier, and his mother also died not too long after marrying his stepfather. His younger brother, Tack, ran away from home shortly after, at which point he had the misfortune to be picked up by Huey Laforet.
- Chane's father (the aformentioned Huey) is currently doing time for terrorism.
- Elmer was born and raised as a human sacrifice for a religious cult before Huey came across him. This is the sole example of an encounter with Huey being a step up from the previous life predicament.
- Czeslaw was orphaned sometime before 1711, and his legal guardian thereafter was... well, not one of the best. Czeslaw finally snaps and kills him after two hundred years of daily torture
- Ennis was "born" into servitude of Szilard Quates before Firo did the world a favor and killed him for good, and literally has no mother.
- Eve Genoard's father and eldest brother were murdered by the Runorata mafia family when she was sixteen. Her mother died early on in her life, and her other brother is missing. He's in a cement-filled oil barrel at the bottom of the Hudson River, and still alive. She's being raised by her butler and maid since.
- A lot of boxers in Hajime No Ippo have missing parents. Ippo's fisherman dad drowned at sea while rescuing others. Miyata's mom abandoned him when he was a child. Sendo's parents are both dead, and he lives with his paternal grandmother. Takamura is from a wealthy family, but his parents disowned him when he was in high school, due to his violent nature.
- Rave Master is no stranger to this trope. Haru and his sister were both left with a friend when their parents left their island Their mother later revealed to have been killed by Gale Ravegroove no sooner after finding their father. Who then puts himself into exile when infused with a dark bring that'll destroy the world if he gets emotionally distressed. Haru's father returns near the climax of the first part of the series only to end dying saving Haru from a cave in. Musica's family was killed when a evil swordsman tested his newly created sword on them made from Musica's grandfather whose as it turns out is alive and well if not a drunkard. He gets better after the swordsman defeated. Elle's parents apparently died before the storyline. Ruby's father was slain by Doryu. And Jegan destroyed most of Jet and Julia's hometown. Even on the villain end this has happened, Lucia is the son of Gale Ravegroove whose mother was killed in a raid on Demon Card headquarters. His father thought he was killed too so he never knew he survived the attack. Reina's father was accursed of a crime he didn't commit and died in prison and Deep Snow who never really had a parent as he was artificially created considered Gale Ravegroove as his father.
- Cowboy Bebop: Ed appears to have raised herself until it's revealed that her nutty-to-the-point-of-horribly-neglectful father just dumped her at an orphanage one day and completely forgot about her. When they do reunite, it takes Ed's father a moment to remember who she even is, and he forgets all about her again seconds later.
- Hayate The Combat Butler practically lives on this trope. We have:
- Hayate Ayasaki, whose parents sold him to the
yakuza very nice people and ran away
- Nagi Sanzen'in, whose parents are dead
- Maria, who is a Doorstop Baby
- Sakuya Aizawa, whose father had an affair
- Wataru Tachibana has living parents, but runs the family business and lives alone with his maid.
- Hinagiku and sister, whose parents ran off. In contrast to the above, they were adopted by some kind foster parents.
- In ARIA there is no mention of Alice's parents, even though she is only 14 years old at the start of the series. Likewise, Akari never mentions her parents, despite being only 16 years old when she moves to Aqua. The only one from Manhome who she has any contact with is Ai—at least in the Anime.
- In Tegami Bachi, Gauche and Sylvette Suede's mother died giving birth to Sylvette, and their father is absent. Lag's mother, already a single parent, was abducted by mysterious men from the capital, leaving him to be raised by his aunt in Cambel Litmus after Gauche takes him there.
- Code Breaker: Ogami's parents were murdered; Toki's father is a heartless Jerk Ass (and also Prime Minister of Japan and a leader of the Code: Breaker's EDEN organization) with no mention of a mom; Sakura appears to be an aversion but she's actually adopted and has no memory before the age of 5. Yuuhi has no parents and might not actually be human.
- In spite of being the super-powered, formerly very delinquent representatives of BABEL, Shiho, Aoi, and Kaoru have parents. Kaoru's dad left, but her mom (a famous actress) tries to be supportive. Less a case of Parental Abandonment than Parental Not-knowing-how-to-handle-a-super-powered-child. While BABEL (and especially Minamoto) do their utmost to give them a good environment, the girls still have a few issues about it.
- In Meru Puri, Airi's parents are working abroad. She supposedly lives with her grandparents, though they are never seen.
- In Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Itoshiki Majiru, the nephew of the titular Zetsubou-sensei, was abandoned by his parents. The fact that his father who may have been disinherited looked exactly like his three younger brothers causes some confusion for him and for the class of Itoshiki Nozomu when he sees Nozomu walking on the street and mistakes him for his father. Hi-jinks ensue, resulting in Majiru living with his Uncle indefinitely apparently along with at least one female member of Zetsubou-sensei's class at any given time.
- Subverted by Kiri Komori, who abandoned her parents to live at school and eventually alternated between living there and in her teacher's closet at home when school was out of session. Shortly after leaving home it was destroyed in a fire - her parents may or may not be alive but have never come in contact again with her since.
- Abiru Kobushi's mother abandoned her and her father within weeks of the start of Zetsubou-sensei's tenure as teacher.
- All of the above is played for laughs - and it actually *is* funny.
- In Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden Takiko's mother dies of Tuberculosis in the FIRST Chapter, and her father is never around because he was researching the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho to find a way to save his wife, not to mention the fact that he never wanted a daughter to begin with.
- An odd case in Real Drive, where both Minamo's parents are alive and well (and even still married), but she was still mostly raised by her grandmother, due to their jobs' requirements. At the time of the series she's mostly cared by her older brother, who calls himself her guardian. Their father works on the same island and at least in theory lives in the same house, but is so often absent that his first appearance doesn't happen before episode 9. Still, Minamo never questions the extreme workaholism of her parents in true Japanese style.
- In Eyeshield 21, the parents of the members of the protagonist’s high school football team take little to no interest whatsoever in the activities of their children (with the exception of Komisubi's folks.) But this trope really comes into play during the Death March storyline, when the team is given to the option to spend their entire summer vacation in America, enduring a hellish and potentially life-threatening training from hell. All of them accept the offer without consulting, informing or even thinking about their parents, and none of them are ever shown contacting their folks to let them know that they'll be on another continent for the next several weeks.
- Which is a shame, because this troper really would have loved to see that phone call. "Hi, mom? I won't be home for dinner. I'm going to be pushing a truck from Houston to Las Vegas. I should be back in about six weeks, assuming I don't die of heat exhaustion. Tell sis she can have the Hot Pocket I left in the freezer. Bye!"
- In Tona Gura, the usually fractious Kagura siblings are united in their dislike of their father's near-eternal absence and the moves he makes that permit them to never keep friends. It is implied in the manga that part of Marie's hostility towards her brother's 'perverted' nature stems not merely from her father's orders, but a desire to see Yuuji revert to his pre-puberty self, when he paid attention to her, the way their father does not. Yuuji's desperate, clumsy efforts to win girls, especially Kazuki, can be seen in the light of his father's absence on many levels. Worse, both have to assume responsibilities their father can't be bothered with—Marie in keeping Yuuji under control, and Yuuji in working with Kagura Senior's bipolar junior business partner, Tojo Haya. Their mother is never mentioned.
- Maron from Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne was turned into a Broken Bird because her parents often left her at home alone when she was little because of their jobs, which was apparently fairly traumatizing to the poor kid when she was left alone at night. Even when they were home, the anime at least implies that they fought a lot. Later, before Maron was even in grade school, they both left to work in other countries, and haven't contacted her since when the series begins. She now seems to have a deep-seated fear of being alone, especially at night, and cannot comprehend "love" because her parents weren't around to tell her about it. The only reasons Maron is in any way mentally stable when the series begins are Miyako's family, who live right across the hall and took care of her when she was little, and Finn, whose presence keeps Maron from being alone in the apartment.
- Little Orphan Annie. Of course, she soon had a very strong father figure in Daddy Warbucks, but the earliest stories had her literally on her own in the world, and she never really has a mother figure.
- Arguably the oldest manifestation of this in the more familiar form comes from a Western source: Charles Schulz's Peanuts. Although we knew the kids had parents, and they might get referred to in the third person, the strips never, ever showed any adult in panel (or on-screen in the television specials). If an adult was actually required for some reason, their voice was rendered as hash-marks in the comic (similar to Woodstock's), not shown at all (the characters would simply respond, with breaks indicated for where an adult was presumably speaking), or in the animated specials, was replaced with the infamous "Wa-wa-wah-wa-wa-wawa-waaaa" muted-trumpet sound.
- There are rare instances in the earliest Peanuts strips where an adult really speaks. For example, Mrs. Van Pelt is heard from off panel, asking Lucy and her friends to play more quietly.
- There was also a series of Sunday strips in May 1954, in which adults were actually depicted in person (albeit only from a distance, or from the torso down). See here, here, and here.
- Later, we also sorta "see" Mrs. Van Pelt riding her bicycle with her younger child Rerun in the passenger seat (the most we see of her is her back, as Rerun is in the spotlight).
- The title character in the newspaper strip Dondi was an Italian WW 2 orphan adopted by an American GI, although this was de-emphasized after the strip's first few years.
- Wellington in the British newspaper strip The Perishers is an orphan who lives with his dog Boot, originally in a large concrete pipe and later in a small abandoned railway station.
- Runaways — Look at the title! Of course, their parents aren't curiously absent so much as a group of supervillains out to help evil supernatural beings destroy the world. How's that for family issues?
- In fairness, the Runaways only became so after finding out their still-living mothers and fathers were about to sell out the planet. They did this out of love, with the idea of their children being all powerful. Warped, yes, but they were definitely not absent or neglectful. So more they abandoned the parents than vice versa.
- Spider Man lives with his aunt and uncle because his parents are always killed before he gets his powers.
- One doesn't necessarily think of Batman as having Parental Abandonment issues, mostly because he's not a teen hero and, unlike Spiderman, never was, but it is worth noting that he his parents were killed right in front of him when he was a child, and thus he was able to spend most of his teen years taking about 20 levels in badass.
- One doesn't think of it?! HIS PARENTS ARE DEEAAAAAAAD!
- Tim Drake (Robin III), who previously only had a case of missing mom, becomes a full-fledged orphan in the Identity Crisis mini. Made all the more poignant in that he and Batman hear the whole thing over the phone while in the Batmobile, interspersed with the son of his father's murderer, Boomerang listening to, in effect, a suicide message from Boomerang. The whole sequence ends with a very heart-wrenching two-page splash of Batman cradling Robin in his arms over his father's body.
- Whereas Dick Grayson (Robin I) and Jason Todd (Pre-Crisis) were both orphans from their origin stories onwards.
- Other examples in Batman are Jason Todd (Post-Crisis; Robin II), whose long-lost mother betrayed him to the Joker and was killed in the same explosion that killed him, Cassandra Cain (Batgirl II), whose abandonment by her mother was part of the bargain between her parents to turn Cassandra into the perfect killing machine, and arguably Stephanie Brown (Spoiler), whose villain father was in jail for most of her childhood and who threatened to kill her should she act against his plans.
- In the X-Men titles, the teenaged mutants of Xavier's School are a mix of orphans, those with families hundreds or thousands of miles away, kids actively rejected by their parents, those on the run from parents who wish them harm, and other similar abandonment issues. (For example, Kitty Pryde's parents went into the witness protection program. And Rogue's mother, it turns out, Ascended To A Higher Plane Of Existence.)
- Applies to the adult members, too. Classic examples include: school founder Professor Xavier (father, mother, and stepfather all died before he was out of his teens), Cyclops (parents threw him and his little brother out of a burning plane with the only parachute as young children), and Storm (grew up a Street Urchin after a plane crashed atop her family home, killing her parents and burying her alive).
- Hopefully not the same plane crash... though that'd be hilarious.
- Considering the first crash involved aliens, probably not.
- And the fact that (iirc) one took place in Alaska, the other in Cairo. (Feel free to correct my geography.)
- DC's Teen Titans are prone to this as well — at one point in the '80s, they had exactly one member with biological parents who weren't dead, evil, or on another planet/dimension. (Possibly in an effort to keep up, in the first couple years of his own book his father turned out to be evil and then committed a Heroic Sacrifice, although it was reversed a few years later.) Heck, Changeling went through four different parental figures (not counting the ones who were evil) and eventually wound up with a stepfather who spent a significant amount of time going missing and/or insane. And he was still one of the most attentive parents in the book.
- Skywise in Elf Quest. In a backstory episode it is revealed that two teenage humans who only wanted to prove their manhood by playing a prank on the "demon" elves accidentally started a chain of tragic events that led to his parents' deaths, but not before his mother had set the newborn Skywise adrift on a river. He was found on the riverbank by the other elves and raised by the entire tribe.
- Cutter of Elf Quest loses his parents as a young teenager. His mother is killed (along with several other elves) by the monster Madcoil, and his father dies trying to take revenge. Cutter then organizes the rest of the tribe to avenge all of the deaths by killing the monster.
- Superman has had it both ways. His origin has always involved the destruction of his homeworld, and his birth parents along with it. As for his foster parents....
- In the Golden Age and Silver Age, both Ma and Pa Kent died before he moved to Metropolis — Bronze Age canon expressly stated that the death of his foster parents was the trigger that caused Superboy to adopt the name Superman instead.
- Silver Age Superboy stories made much of the tragedy of Krypton, to the point where Superboy always referred to the Kents as his "foster parents".
- A major element of the Post Crisis Ret Con was that Ma and Pa Kent were still alive and well (and remain so in current continuity).
- In the movies and in Smallville, Pa Kent dies early on, but Ma Kent is still alive — though later seasons of the series have Ma off playing State Senator.
- A major inspiration for the Smallville series was an avid Superman fan describing to the producers that Superman is unique to comics because his parents being there for him when he was a young child growing up with the powers of a god made him the man he is today. Early seasons of Smallville averted this trope many times and has been argued to be more about Jonathan and Martha raising the world's greatest hero rather than about Clark. The they left the show and it leaped tall sharks in a single bound.
- Tintin is especially impressive, because with the exception of the Thom(p)son brothers (who are only pretending to be twins, being unrelated lookalikes), and one fleeting reference to Captain Haddock's mother, it would appear that no one in the series has any relatives whatsoever. Whenever Tintin runs into kids, they are orphans. And no one, but no one, falls in love or gets married or is portrayed as being married. Pure Nakama.
- Thomson and Thompson are not pretending to be twins, they're merely thought to be.
- And Jolyon Wagg does have a pretty extensive family (a wife, a mother-in-law and seven children).
- Completely averted with Blue Beetle. Jaime Reyes's parents are both not only alive, but are very involved with his life as both a teenager and superhero. Plus, they're made of 100% pure awesome.
- Played straight with his friend Brenda, whose mother died of an illness and whose father was murdered by her aunt after he beat Brenda badly enough to put her in a coma.
- Though they're adults in the series, it's interesting to note that most of John Byrne's team Alpha Flight have parental abandonment issues. In particular, the twins Northstar and Aurora are orphans, and didn't even know each other until adulthood.
- Dr. Jack Hack of Hack/Slash left his wife and child due to a combination of gambling debt and being on the run from government agents because He Knows Too Much. His wife, Delilah, turned out be a cannibalistic Serial Killer who killed herself upon being discovered by the police, rose from the dead, and had to be re-killed by her own daughter. All this happened before said daughter, Cassandra, turned 16. No wonder Cassie is so screwed up.
- Where to begin with Disney?
- Snow White was raised by a wicked stepmother. (This was not Disney's invention, however.)
- In the first edition of the Grimm fairytales version, this was actually her birth mother, and was toned down for subsequent editions.
- Cinderella was, too. (Nor was this.)
- Bambi's mother dies and his father is ridiculously distant and mysterious up until that scene. (This somewhat matches the life-cycle of real deer and was part of the original book.)
- Peter Pan is a subversion, as he's technically a runaway, but he still tried to make Wendy fill the void of a Missing Mom. And other stuff.
- Mowgli's birth-parents are dead, and the wolves that raised him appear very little. They were quite major in The Jungle Book book, according to which his biological parents were killed by the tiger Shere Khan.
- Actually it's ambiguous as to whether the tiger actually kills his real parents or just scares them off. The village couple who later adopt him probably aren't his biological parents, although the woman thinks she is.
- In the first The Rescuers movie, Penny (the child in distress) was explicitly an orphan; in the second, Cody's dad was "gone", and his mother's voice was heard twice, from offscreen. (As a matter of fact, a few fans have theorized that Cody is adopted by Marahute, the golden eagle he saves, as she's a far more interesting mother figure in the boy's life.)
- Played with in The Fox And The Hound. Slade kills Tod's mother at the very beggining making Widow Tweed adopt the fox cub. However it's not for long because she has to abandon Tod on a wildlife reserve to save his life in one of the most gut-wrenching scenes of Disney canon.
- Oliver And Company was the Disneyfication of one of the most famous orphans of all time. This time he was an orphaned talking kitten. Also, the parents of the girl who adopts him are always out on business.
- The Little Mermaid has no visible mother. (Nor was this.)
- Beauty And The Beast: Belle's mother died when she was young (in the musicals it's shown she still remembers Mom fondly) and her father is a lovable Mad Scientist too obsessed with his inventions to spend much time with her.
- Aladdin is an orphan and homeless, and Princess Jasmine's mother is implied to be dead. We see Al's parents in one comic, and meet his dad in "King of Thieves".
- Simba's father is killed by his uncle Scar, who then tricks Simba into believing that he, Simba, was responsible. In turn we meet Scar's family, mainly adopted son Kovu, whose aim is to make Simba's own daughter Kiara an orphan. Again, not really Disney's idea, since The Lion King, after all, is Hamlet WITH ANIMALS IN AFRICA! Oh, and a happy ending.
- Hercules, on the other hand, is a rare double inversion. He has not one but two sets of living parents who love him and are very much there for him when needed.
- Not true in the myth, where Hera is anything but loving — in fact, possibly the biggest threat to him — and nearly everyone Hercules gets involved with is killed.
- Then again, Hera wasn't his mother in the myth, either — Zeus cheated on her with a mortal woman (as he was wont to do), hence her animosity toward the kid.
- Tarzan was an orphan; his parents were killed by a leopard.
- Of course in order for Wild Children to be raised by animals, or gods or spirits or whatever, their parents have to be missing or deceased. This also happens to Nävis (in the French Comic Book Sillage, aka Wake) — the only survivor of a spaceship crash, raised by a robot and a tiger; and also to the eponymous Pyrénée from another French comic, raised by a bear after her mother dies in an earthquake; and to numerous other characters. The Other Wiki has a list, but it's probably far from comprehensive.
- Kuzco in The Emperors New Groove is a spoiled eighteen-year-old Emperor with no parents anywhere in sight. The only mention of this comes in this exchange between Kuzco's incredibly ancient (and recently fired) adviser Yzma and her lackey Kronk:
Yzma: Who does that ungrateful little worm think he is? Does he... have any idea of who he's dealing with? How could he do this to me? Why, I practically raised him!
Kronk: Yeah, you'd think he would have turned out better.
Yzma: Yeah, go figure...
- In Lilo And Stitch, Lilo is raised by her sister Nani after their parents were killed in a car accident. Stitch is also somewhat traumatized when he learns that he has no conventional family, as he was artificially created in a lab. The Mad Scientist responsible eventually becomes a father figure, though.
- In the Disney Affectionate Parody Enchanted:
- Prince Edward has no father, just Queen Nerissa, his Wicked Stepmother, although she's initially not too wicked towards him.
- Lawyer McDreamy (sorry) and his daughter were (shockingly, for a Disney film) abandoned by their wife/mother, respectively, and to top that off he's a divorce lawyer.
- Giselle has no parents to speak of, and it's not made clear why she's living alone in a cottage in the woods, if one could call having a forest full of friends "alone".
- Pixar:
- No father for Andy's family in the Toy Story films.
- No King Ant in A Bugs Life even though the other ant "families" are implied to be nuclear.
- Boo's parents are asleep and thus unavalable in Monsters Inc.
- Finding Nemo — Mom Coral is seen briefly before she gets eaten by a barracuda along with the rest of Nemo's siblings.
- Remy's mother was written out of the script in Ratatouille; Linguini's mother is recently deceased and his Disappeared Dad is actually the famous Chef.
- Wall-E and the rest of his kind are abandoned on Earth by space-bound humans.
- Then again, he IS a robot.
- Up: Russell's dad is alive, but more interested in his new wife/mistress Phyllis.
- Don Bluth is similarly in love with this trope:
- Fievel spends An American Tail trying to locate his parents (note the plural), and there is a deeply depressing scene with some orphans in an alley toward the end.
- In The Land Before Time, Littlefoot has no apparent father and his mother dies fairly early on. He spends the rest of his time trying to get reunited with his grandparents. Cera has a father but there is no reference to her mother, Petri has no father but we meet his mother later (same goes for Ducky), and Spike was abandoned as an egg.
- Ducky's father is present, just kept in the background.
- Cera actually calls out to her mother when she is divided from her herd, and the narrator notes that her parents — plural — are on the other side of the divide. Also, though there is no sign of her at the end, a three-horn that could conceivable be the mother in question is seen when Cera hatches.
- Anne Marie from All Dogs Go To Heaven was an orphan. She was voiced by the same actress who was Ducky, and, sadly, her life probably would have been better had she been an orphan.
- Anastasia (or Anya) is raised in an orphanage until she's 17 years old. Here the Parental Abandonment is fairly central to the plot and feels a lot less tacked on than usual.
- And certainly, it's worth bringing up Titan AE in this context: the destruction of Earth effectively orphans her handful of surviving species. Humans are explicitly described as an "orphaned race". The main character is also an orphan; his mission is not only to find the Titan, but to find his father, whom he finds out about halfway through the film is dead.
- Thumbelina has no father figure, and in fact no biological parents at all: she's born by popping out of a magical flower.
- A milder case can be found in The Secret Of NIMH — the Brisby children do have a mother (the heroine), but their father, Jonathan, is dead.
- In Blade Runner, Rachel is a Replicant: a biological android without parents who has false memories of having a family implanted to give her emotional stability.
- The Burns Gang of The Proposition. Arthur, Charlie, and Mikey are brothers, but there is no reference to their parents and Arthur is implied to have raised the younger two. According to an interview on the DVD, Sam Stoat, another gang member, killed his parents.
- Luke goddamn Skywalker.
- Jedi in the Old Republic were generally separated from their families at a young age to avoid attachments. Attack of the Clones makes it pretty obvious why.
- The Ice Age films:
- 1: Manfred is an abandoned parent (his family was killed by hunters); Sid's family abandoned him because he was annoying; Diego abandoned his pack; the human baby was simply "misplaced". His mom is killed by a smilodon, and he is reunited with his dad at the end.
- 2: Ellie was separated from her herd, and her adopted opossum mother is presumed to be deceased. There doesn't appear to be any relationship between Ellie and Manny and the mammoth herd that shows up at the end of the film, other than they are no longer The Last Of Their Kind.
- Surf's Up — Cody and Chicken Joe's fathers were eaten by a whale and fried for dinner, respectively, and Lani was apparently raised by her uncle, the Geek/Big Z
- Meet The Robinsons — Lewis' Missing Mom is the story's catalyst, sort of.
- The live-action Japanese film Nobody Knows is a heart-breakingly realistic treatment of this trope: four children are abandoned by their feckless mother and do their best to cope in her absence.
- Likewise, the French film La Fracture du Myocarde (known in English-speaking countries as Cross My Heart) deals with a boy's attempts to keep the authorities from learning that his mother has died and he's living on his own.
- In The Swan Princess, Prince Derek has a mother but no father, and Princess Odette has a father but no mother. This is a particularly Wall Banger example, as Odette has just been born at the start of the movie, but there's not even a single mention of her mother — just "happily, a daughter was born," as if the stork paid an unexpected housecall.
- The implication is that the mother died in childbirth, which is completely possible and not all that uncommon in the era in which the movie's set.
- Not to mention Odette's father is killed when she's taken away by the Big Bad.
- In Mirror Mask, Valentine briefly mentions that his mother abandoned him, although "She wasn't really me mother, anyway. She bought me from a man..."
- Repo! The Genetic Opera has Shilo, whose mother Marni died just after she was born. This is only a borderline case, as her father is still present and taking care of her — unfortunately Marni's death affected him too, making him desperate to hold onto Shilo and thus ridiculously overprotective.
- And then there're the Largo siblings. All three of them were bailed on by their mothers (whether Rotti had them killed or they simply left is unclear) and, combined with their distant father, they're all rather screwed up. The Expanded Universe canon material found on Myspace implies that Pavi and Amber would have been okay if their mums had survived their childhoods, but Luigi was born the way he is.
- Pirates Of The Caribbean: As a child, Will Turner is found floating on a piece of wood. He told Jack his mother raised him, but she's dead now; his father spent a considerable amount of time tied to a cannon at the bottom of the ocean before making a deal with Davy Jones.
- This is a running theme in the A Nightmare On Elm Street series.
- Delayed version: In Away We Go the lead characters are forced to find another place to live when the man's "heroically self-absorbed" parents leave the country and rent their (the parents') house to strangers. Apparently their son's girlfriend being pregnant and effectively homeless wasn't a good enough reason to delay a refreshing move.
- Cher in Clueless is a half orphan; her mom died during a freak accident during a routine liposuction, although she still likes to pretend she's watching over her. Josh even ribs her about her desire to makeover Tai being a manifestation of her having no mother and treating her as a Barbie doll. Later (in one of the few totally played straight scenes), when she is insecure that she isn't enough of a 'do gooder', her father tells her that he hasn't seen such good-doing since her mother.
- Subverted with Josh, however; despite having divorced his mother and having no blood-relation to Josh, Cher's father makes a point of being a devoted father figure to him. {"You divorce wives, not children.")
- All three main characters in the So Bad Its Good Darkness Falls. The lead's mother was killed by the Tooth Fairy when he was ten, and since he became a ward of the state, Parental Abandonment must apply to his father too. Then later the other little kid is in the hospital, and his twenty-two-year-old sister Emma Caulfield is making the medical decisions. The parents are simply never mentioned, although under the circumstances they're probably dead.
- In Doomsday, Eden's mother managed to get an army helicopter to take her out of a plague-infected Scotland when she was four years old. She had an envelope with her mother's address, so she would know where to go when she's older. A grown up Eden does eventually get to go to that address, and of course, her mother's dead. The Disappeared Dad is never mentioned.
- Two of each in Okuribito (Departures): Daigo's father had been a Disappeared Dad for so long Daigo can't remember his face, while the encoffiner's secretary reveals she abandoned her young son over a fling. Both parents were from small towns; it's implied that they still care(d) about their children but shame prevents them from returning.
- Played brutally straight in David Lynch's The Elephant Man, and, indeed, in Mr. Merrick's real life.
- Empire Records: Lucas' mother turned him over to the state when he was twelve "for being a bad seed", Berko appears to be living alone in a cabin behind the store, Gina, AJ, Eddie and Mark's parents are never mentioned, nor is Corey's mother, and when Deb is asked about her mother, she says something along the lines of "If you find her, let me know - I'd like to talk to her too".
- Taran of Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles Of Prydain was raised on a farm by two old guys, neither of whom are in any way relatives. In Taran Wanderer he tries to find out who his parents were, and ends up losing interest. Princess Eilonwy's royal parents are dead, as is their kingdom. She has an evil aunt, however. Gurgi, meanwhile, was such an orphan that nobody was even sure what species he was.
- Achren was not really Eilonwy's aunt. In the fourth book, Taran Wanderer, Taran doesn't find out what happened to his own parents but does find out about Eilonwy's mother — it was revealed that Achren kidnapped Eilonwy as a baby, and Princess Angharad died trying to get her back. Additionally, the book The Foundling and Other Tales of Prydain reveals the identity of Eilonwy's father.
- Ayla, the heroine from Jean M Auel's Earth Children series, was orphaned at the age of five when her parents died in an earthquake. She seems surprisingly free of parental abandonment issues until the third book, when she begins to wonder what tribe her parents belonged to and if she has any relatives still alive.
- Enid Blyton's characters have absurdly neglectful parents by modern standards, in particular the Famous Five who are supervised largely by their Uncle and Aunt... who allow them to spend most of their time unsupervised on a distant island.
- I Sing The Body Electric by Ray Bradbury is set in motion by the death of the kids' mother.
- Standard practice for Edgar Rice Burroughs's Green Martians. The women do not know whether their eggs were selected for hatching, and couldn't identify the fathers. John Carter Of Mars attributes much of their harshness to this; one Green Martian raised by her mother, and knowing her father, is far more generous and gentle than her fellows.
- Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden lost both his parents before adulthood... His mother died in childbirth, and his father died of unnatural causes.
- Malcolm Dresden's death is way beyond being suspicious. In the TV series, it's revealed that he was murdered by Justin Morningway, Harry's maternal uncle, by means of a voodoo doll. Justin cursed Malcolm (who was in Florida) with a fatal heart attack so that Justin could gain custody and control of eleven-year-old Harry, who had come into his power very young. In Fool Moon, a demon tells Harry that both of his parents died unnatural deaths, which surprises Harry, who had thought that his father had died of an aneurysm when he, Harry, was six.
- As for Margaret Dresden... in Blood Rites, Harry's mother is later revealed to have died due to a death curse by her former consort and White Court vampire Lord Raith. As she is dying, Margaret curses Lord Raith so he cannot feed, condemning him to a slow death by starvation.
- In Death Masks, Ivy comments that her mother went into a coma after giving birth to her. In Small Favor, Luccio reveals that Ivy's seventeen-year-old mother killed herself after her grandmother was killed in a freak car accident, passing the Archive down to her. Angry at her mother for dying and angry that the unborn Ivy would get to live the life that she never would, she killed herself once Ivy was born. What's worse is that because of the nature of the Archive (which is not only all knowledge ever written by mankind, but also the experiences of all the previous Archives), Ivy knows exactly how her mother felt about her.
- In Enders Game by Orson Scott Card, the parents of the geniuses Peter, Valentine and Andrew seem oblivious to the extracurricular activities of the elder two, as they use internet anonymity to gain influence on world affairs as political pundits. Peter in particular feels nothing but contempt for them and their ignorance. In one of the sequels to Ender's Shadow, however, this is completely inverted when the parents reveal they knew all along — but pretended not to so that their kids wouldn't be afraid to write what they needed to say. They none-too-gently chide Peter that he should have known his and his siblings' super-intelligence had to come from somewhere.
- Roald Dahl likes this trope. The Big Friendly Giant stars an orphan named Sophie, Danny the Champion of the World has no mother (although she is discussed extensively), James of James and the Giant Peach is sent to live with his abusive aunts after his parents are eaten by a rhinoceros, and the anonymous protagonist of The Witches lives with his grandmother, because his parents were killed in a car accident. Matilda has parents, but they pay as little attention to her as possible; in the end she abandons them.
- The royal children of Pamela Dean's Secret Country all have Missing Moms and distant fathers — which proves most convenient. As does the fact that their real world alter-egos' parents are all in Australia.
- Jeremy Griswold's book Audacious Kids: Coming of Age in America's Classic Children's Books (published in softcover as The Classic American Children's Story: Novels of the Golden Age) explores how a large fraction of child-heroes in classic novels of the 19th and early 20th centuries are orphans, half-orphans, displaced from their homes, or have parental issues.
- Pretty much every Anthony Horowitz series uses it, including Alex Rider, the Diamond Brothers series, the first 4 Gatekeepers in the Power of Five series, and the protagonist of The Devil and his Boy.
- In Conn Iggulden's Emperor series, Brutus has a dead father and a mother who abandoned him in order to have a career as a higher class prositute. He later finds a father figure in Renius, however he seems to prefer Caesar to Brutus, even dying to protect Caesar, which can be interpreted as one of the reasons why Brutus ended up turning on Caesar. After all, Caesar didn't need any further father figures, he already had his birth father and then his uncle Marius.
- Jack Kerouac's poem "Home I'll Never Be" (which was also turned into a song by Tom Waits) is about a man finding his Disappeared Dad just in time to see him die of pleurosy.
- Mercedes Lackey has used this trope in:
- By the Sword: The protagonist is orphaned by an attack at the beginning of the story.
- Slightly subverted here. Yes her widowed father dies, but she meets her maternal grandmother for the first time in years and later finds out she has an entire clan of horse nomads for cousins.
- Phoenix and Ashes: Since this is a World War I version of Cinderella, this is a Justified Trope; the story opens when the now-orphaned protagonist learns of the death of her father, who was set up by her stepmother.
- Serpent's Shadow: A Twice Told version of Snow White, in which the death of the protagonist's magician mother quickly led to the death of her father (since she had concealed him from a common enemy who objected to their marriage). The story opens after the protagonist has relocated to Victorian London in the hopes of escaping her family's enemy.
- To Take a Thief: Skif is an orphan who is technically a ward of his uncle as the story opens.
- The Vows and Honor duology have this trope as backstory for both protagonists. The first short story, "Sword Sworn", opens with a bandit attack in which Tarma's clan is wiped out and she is left for dead. In the first book-length story, The Oathbound, we learn that Kethry's brother used his Promotion To Parent on the death of their widowed father to sell her into an Arranged Marriage. She was rescued and put into a wizard's Boarding School.
- Last of the Breed by Louis L'Amour.
- Anne Mc Caffrey's Dragon Riders Of Pern has this with Lessa, whose entire blood line was killed by Fax about ten Turns before the start of Dragonflight.
- Jaxom could also apply for this trope as well. His mother died in childbirth and his father, the evil overlord Lord Fax, was killed by F'lar in a fight over who ruled Ruatha Hold that very same day.
- And also F'lar and F'nor, who lose their father in a duel at a very young age. Of course, since Weyr children are fostered anyway, this might not apply.
- Joan Lowry Nixon's first few Orphan Train books dealt with six siblings whose widowed mother sent them out west for a better life. Most of the kids remain with their adoptive families even after she moves west herself and remarries.
- Andre Norton used this trope constantly.
- The Crystal Gryphon: Joisan's parents died when she was very small, leaving her in the custody of her father's brother and sister. Kerovan was rejected by his Missing Mom at birth, so his Disappeared Dad fostered him well away from her.
- Dread Companion: The protagonist was the product of a space Scout's Arranged Marriage, and grew up in a government creche without ever meeting either parent. (This is typical for Scouts.)
- Lavender-Green Magic: When the kids' Disappeared Dad went missing in action in the Vietnam War, their Missing Mom had to take the best-paying nursing job she could get, which meant leaving the kids with her husband's parents.
- Octagon Magic and Red Hart Magic: the female protagonist in each was being raised by her grandmother, who has become ill; she has now been turned over to an aunt. In the latter book, Nan's mother is alive but has a job requiring a lot of travel. (Red Hart Magic also features Chris, Nan's new stepbrother, who seems to have been putting up with his Disappeared Dad's job all his life.)
- Both kids in the Star Ka'at books are orphaned; at the beginning of the first book, Jim was living with foster parents, while Elly Mae was living with her grandmother.
- Steel Magic: The three kids' parents are on a trip to Japan; the kids have been left with an uncle.
- Three Against the Witch World: The Tregarth siblings' Missing Mom left in search of their Disappeared Dad when the kids were half-grown.
- The X Factor: Diskan Fentress' mother suffered Death By Childbirth after his Disappeared Dad (a Scout) was sent out on an exploratory mission, leaving Diskan to be raised in a creche intended to train the next generation of Scouts - a job Diskan wasn't suited for. Subverted in that Renfry Fentress' return just prior to the opening of the story has turned the now-grown Diskan's life upside down.
- Year of the Unicorn: Gillian doesn't remember her parents; she became a refugee at Norstead Abbey as a young child.
- Eragon by Christopher Paolini. But then, if Star Wars appears on any page, odds are good that The Inheritance Trilogy will, too.
- The Mortal Engines series by Phillip Reeve.
- Lyra Belacqua from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials starts off the series being raised (for a given value of the term) by the faculty and staff of an Oxford college , believing herself to be an orphan whose parents died in an airship crash. Turns out, of course, that they're both alive — her father is the man she'd been raised believing was her uncle, her mother is her malign Fairy Godmother equivalent — and they had a fairly solid reason for giving her up: not only was she conceived in adultery, her father had gone on to kill her mother's husband in a duel.
- Will Parry. When we first meet him, he's forced to abandon his mentally ill mother who he's been taking care of from a young age to go on his quest. When he finally finds his Disappeared Dad, he's immediately killed.
- Harry Potter.
- Although Rowling kills parents and parental figures with merry abandon throughout the series, she also throws us an inversion: In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, To protect her muggle parents, Hermione makes them abandon her by judicious use of memory charms to change their identities and make them forget they ever had a daughter. The emotional toll on her is quite intense.
- Rowling not only admits to purposely orphaning Harry right off the bat, ("Harry had to be an orphan — so that he's a free agent, with no fear of letting down his parents, disappointing them....") but she even cites the Potters' brutal murder happening first thing in Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone to rebuff the argument by angry parents that her books betray their audience by getting progressively scarier.
- A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. Heck, the poor Baudelaires lose or are let down by about one parental figure per book for most of the series.
- Somewhat obscure children's book The Divide has an interesting variation. Protagonist Felix is Trapped In Another World, but we do see how his parents are affected by his mysterious disappearance. They ain't happy.
- Parents are not mentioned very much in The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids, seeing as the characters are in a prison-like school for bad teachers and smartasses. The lone(?) exception is Big Alice Eyesore, who was so wild as an infant (her teeth came in early; they were all canines) that her child psychologist parents left her in a wild animal park where she was raised by hyenas. They came back for her when she was an adolescent, but after learning that child psychology doesn’t work on hyenas they abandoned her for good.
- Bobby's entire family disappears in the first Pendragon book, and the only explanation given by Bobby's new father figure, Uncle Press, is that Bobby will see them again. The other Travelers with mentioned parents were raised by the generation of Travelers before them, who generally die somewhere in the series. An exception is Spader's mother, who disappears the same way Bobby's family did. Heck, uncle Press kicks the bucket in The Lost City of Faar. However, he does come back in the last chapter of Raven Rise. Also in Raven Rise, several of the Travelers, who Bobby thinks of as his brothers or family, die. And then come back at the end magically along with Press. Mark and Courtney are assumed dead, and are killed off for real because they're only human.
- Trevor James Goodkind (who becomes Phase) starts off in the Whateley Universe as a spoiled rich kid, heir to billions, and second in line to take over all of Goodkind International. But the Goodkinds hate and fear mutants (and his mother is clinically mutophobic). When he manifests as a mutant, he is kicked out of the family, disinherited, and then experimented on by a Mad Scientist in a Goodkind Research lab, some of which activities his parents witness. This may be worse than having your parents die.
- There are other examples at the Super Hero School Whateley Academy. Generator has a deceased mother and a child-abuser criminal father. Carmilla's mother is dead and her father is a demon who can't visit this plane of existence under normal conditions. Bladedancer's parents are both dead, her father having been killed by the demon who is pursuing her to this day. There's also Heyoka, Timeless...
- Animorphs features Tobias, who from the get-go is described as the abandoned child. His mother ran away and he never knew his father, though we do later find out that his father is actually Elfangor. Other than that, Marco also lacks a mother figure, as she apparently died a few years ago (though it turns out that she is Visser One's host). Jake also loses his parents when they become Controllers near the end of the series. On the flip side, some of the other members of the Animorphs force their parents to abandon them (similar to Hermione in Harry Potter above) to protect them from the Yeerks.
- Tobias' foster parents, supposedly his aunt and uncle, also emotionally abandon him to the extent that he figures they won't bother to look for him when he loses his humanity.
- The disappearance of Finn's parents is half the reason for the plot of the Finnegan Zwake books. (The other half is the murders that always seem to happen when Finn and his uncle go looking for them.)
- Nobody in the Fingerprints series has both parents. Anthony and Jesse are missing their fathers; Rae, Yana, Mandy, and Emma are missing their mothers, and Sam lives on his own.
- It's not that the Solo kids are abandoned by their parents; it's just that it's very busy work, saving and/or running the galaxy, hence their nanny, Winter Celchu, doing a lot of the work in actually raising them.
- In The Chronicles of Narnia, the Pensivive childrens' parents rarely appear. Justified in that their father was drafted and their mother sent them to the countryside to escape the German bombing of London
- Many characters in Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings and Silmarillion lost either one or both parents at an early age: Frodo (both his parents died in a boating accident), Aragorn (his father died when he was two), Turin (his mother sent him away shortly after his father was captured by Morgoth), Elrond and Elros (after they were captured in battle, their parents believed them dead and sailed away to obtain divine help) etc.
- In Megan Whalen Turner's Queen's Thief series, Gen's mother died when she fell from a building, as did his mentor grandfather. His father is still living, but as Gen is nearly an adult and in the employ of their queen, he doesn't need to involve himself much.
- A more straight example is the magus of Sounis, who explains that his entire family died in an epidemic, and the queen of Attolia, whose mother died when she was young, considered of little importance most of her childhood, and whose father was perfectly happy to marry her off as a young girl to preserve peace in his troubled country.
- In John C Wright's The Orphans of Chaos, the title orphans never knew their parents. All of whom are, in fact, alive, but had to surrender their children as hostages to the Olympians.
- In Dr Seuss's famous children's book Horton Hatches The Egg, a bird named Mayzie gets Horton the elephant to sit on her egg while she takes a break...and then extends that break for months on end, without a care in the world. Eventually she shows up wanting the egg back, but then it hatches to reveal an "elephant-bird".
- Angela Sommer-Bodenburg wrote a book of scary short stories with an injured boy named Freddy as a Framing Device. All five stories touch on Parental Abandonment. Barbara doesn't like it if you infer that her own death was her mother's fault. Harry drained his family's blood. The Child Under the Cloak was looking for someone to be her mother. Wolfgang has a father and step-mother who treat him like a freak just because he eats raw meat, howls at the moon and won't clip his nails. In the story Freddy writes himself, the Kindergarten class gets sick of their self-centered parents And They All Went Over The Hill.
Live Action TV
- Heroes
- See Missing Mom and Disappeared Dad for Hiro, Matt, Mohinder, and Claire's situations, because while they fit here, there are... rather complex details.
- Molly Walker's parents were both Sylar victims. She's now got a My Two Dads situation instead.
- Nikki's dad not only walked out on her but was also abusive.
- Elle's mother is never seen and Sylar kills her (abusive) father.
- The Petrellis' mom: evil. Dad: committed suicide.
- Update for Season 3. Mom: in the grey area, Dad: Evil
- Sylar's bio-mom was murdered in front of him by his bio-dad when he was five, adopted father walked out on him at ten, and he became an (semi-accidental) Self Made Orphan when his adopted mom attacked him with a pair of scissors.
- Lost. In a show where literally everyone has parent issues, this trope shows up in spades:
- Hurley's dad left when he was a kid (which caused his eating and weight problems), then showed up again after Hurley won the lottery.
- There's both the father of Claire's child and her own father (who also turns out to be Jack's father, making her and Jack half-siblings)
- Speaking of Aaron, Claire walks away from him into the jungle. After the Oceanic Six's rescue, Jack and Kate raise him, until Jack gets depressed and leaves. Then Kate abandoned him and returns on the Island. That's four (natural and adoptive) parents down. Also, Ji Yeon (Jin's and Sun's daughter) is seemingly abandoned by her mother as she returns to the island.
- Jin's mother was a prostitute, who left him with the man she claimed was his father right after his birth. She later blackmailed Sun with this information.
- Locke was given up for adoption after he was born. We won't even go into what his parents ended up doing to him.
- Miles was raised by his mother, who never spoke to him about his father. Later, it's revealed that he's actually the son of Dr. Pierre Chang.
- In Power Rangers, parents often go unseen, though they're never seen in the sort of situations that make one wonder "What did Mom say when they got back from the Lost Galaxy?" Villains conveniently attack after school but before dinner most of the time. However, in the Mystic Force season, the Rangers have been shown to pull the occasional all-nighter at Rootcore, making one wonder how they explained it. And then, there was the story in which Vida became a vampire, which took place over the course of several days... did Dad notice his daughter's fangs and aversion to sunlight? Exceptions tend to be the times one parent of one Ranger is a main character — and when this happens, count on the other parent to be curiously absent and never referred to.
- Although Lost Galaxy is a bad example, as the characters in that series (as well as Lightspeed Rescue, Time Force and Wild Force) are all 18 years old or older. A better example would be the In Space crew, who suddenly started spending what appeared to be weeks at a time in outer space, and apparently lived on their space ship. Despite being regular high school students. Or Ninja Storm: who paid the tuition for their super-secret ninja training?!
- Similarly, Dex, the Masked Rider, has a grandfather (King Lexian) and an uncle (usurper Count Dregon), but no parents. Nor grandmother, for that matter.
- However, Dex did once say his parents were lost to him at a young age. This troper always assumed it was Dregon's doing.
- Justified in Operation Overdrive: Mack has a father, but his mother is absent. Later, it is revealed that Mack's dad is a Truly Single Parent: he has no mother, because he is an android that his "father" built because he couldn't score a wife and father a real child.
- Villain single parents are also common.
- Master Vile is the father of Rita and Rito, but no mother.
- Divatox is Elgar's aunt. General Havoc may be his father, but no mother. We also meet Divatox's mom, but the absence of a dad is explained: she tossed him into the Pit of Eternal Sorrow and the source of the screaming we heard was apparently him. Yeesh!
- Scorpius is the father of Trakeena, but no mother.
- Bansheera is the mother of Impus/Olympius, but no father.
- Ransik is the father of Nadira, but — you guessed it — no mother. (The same season has a Ranger whose dad is a main character but whose mom is never mentioned.)
- Lothor is the uncle of Marah and Kapri. Their parents are only mentioned in passing, but they evidently do exist. (Lothor's brother, Kanoi, is Cam's father, but no mother.)
- Not true. Cam's mother is the focus of an entire time travel episode, and it's her who gives him the amulet that makes him the Green Samurai Ranger. She was known to have died prior to the beginning of the season.
- Necrolai is Leelee's mom. Dad exists, but she had him turned into a worm at some point. We also get a very rare two-parents-present family in Nick's parents, Udonna and Leanbow/Koragg.
- Some of the Doctor Who companions: Vicki, Dodo and Adric are orphans, Victoria's mother is dead and in her first story her father gets exterminated, Nyssa's mother is dead and in her first story her father is killed and his body hijacked by the Master, Rose's father is dead (though not for lack of trying to prevent it), and both of Mickey's parents walked out when he was very young and his Grandmother who raised him died tripping on a damaged piece of carpet on the stairs he never got round to fixing. Naturally he feels very guilty about this. We also find out (in his final episode) that Turlough's mother was killed during a civil war on his planet, his father and step-mother were sent to a prison planet and killed when their transport crashed, whilst he was exiled to a boarding school on earth.
- Also, Susan was travelling with her granddad, the Doctor. Nothing has ever been revealed about her parents, on-screen.
- And then he abandoned her!
- Given that most companions are main characters in a story before they join the Doctor, and given the high body count around the Doctor, this is all hardly surprising.
- The one, the only Party Of Five.
- Battlestar Galactica — Lee "Ace Attorney!" Adama's Missing Mom and Kara "Starbuck" Thrace's Disappeared Dad, not to mention all the people who lost parents and spouses in the destruction of the Colonies and New Caprica, plus the human-type sleeper cell Cylons who have no parents due to being clones, a few of which have to deal with being parents themselves.
- In The Sarah Jane Adventures Maria's parents are divorced but Chrissie appears so often that this trope isn't in play for her. However both the other kids have it: Clyde's parents — who are divorced — are never seen (he lives with his mother apparently); Luke has no father, literally, he's an artificially-grown human but he was adopted by Sarah Jane. Series two introduced Rani Chandra, the only kid of the group to have her parents still together. We get to meet Clyde's parents finally, too, and Clyde's feelings on his father running off are prominent when we do.
- Supernatural: A really jerky one here. John obviously kept Dean on a tight leash when he was younger but what happens the first time Dean goes on a hunting trip by himself? He uses it as an excuse to ditch him. While it might have been justified, Dean obviously thought he had done something wrong:
Shifter!Dean: "Me? I know I’m a freak. And sooner or later, everybody’s gonna leave me."
Sam: "What are you talkin’ about?"
Shifter!Dean: "You left. Hell, I did everything Dad asked me to, and he ditched me, too."
- It gets worse. Every character on this show has issues with their parents. EVERY CHARACTER, NO EXCEPTIONS. The Winchesters, Castiel, Raphael, Lucifer (obviously), even the Trickster all have issues with their father figures.
- On Angel, most of the characters' parents, except for Fred's (who stand out by being loving and responsible), are MIA. Angel/Angelus ate his, Gunn's are never mentioned, Cordelia's are in jail for tax evasion; Wesley's mom is in England, with his emotionally abusive father; Spike turned his mother, but had to kill her when she turned out to be a worse monster than he was, and Lorne's parents live in another dimension — plus his father is probably dead, and his mother hates him. Much love.
- Buffy and Dawn's father is in Spain with his secretary, while Xander's parents (drunken and always fighting) and Willow's mother (too clinical) put in one episode-only appearances. Willow's father is only referred to. Tara's mother is dead and her father is a bastard (as are her brother and cousin). Anya's parents, never referenced, will have been dead for centuries. Fortunately, Giles serves as father figure for the whole gang.
- One of the main themes of Pushing Daisies is the effect that suffering this trope has had on the two leads. Both of them lost a parent when they were children (on the same day, in fact). Chuck was raised by her aunts after that although one of her aunts may be her mother, while Ned's Jerkass father abandoned him at boarding school.
- Only Fools And Horses. Del and Rodney's mother died when they were young and their father walked out on them, leaving Del to bring up himself and his brother. Admittedly, Del has used that fact to get Rodney to go along with a Zany Scheme or two...
- In Voyagers!, Jeffrey Jones' parents died in a car accident and he was dumped on an aunt who didn't really want him. Consequently, he latched on fiercely when the time-traveling Phineas Bogg showed up in his life, having nothing in particular to leave behind.
- In Dexter the titular character was raised by a good, caring foster family. He didn't care about his biological family for the most part, until weird things bring them up. Namely his biological brother, which he didn't know existed, kills their father, and tries to get Dex to kill his foster sister. During the course of the first season, Dexter remembers being witness to the brutal chainsaw killing of his mother, which helps explain why he and his bro are so screwed up. During the second season, he learns that it was his foster father who essentially unintentionally put his mother in the position that got her killed.
- Subverted in the WB/CW television series about Superman's early years, Smallville, where his foster parents are aware of his alien origin and supernatural abilities since birth and remain supportive of him.
- Alias: During the first season we learn that Sydney's mother apparently died in a car accident when she was six. However, at the end of the Season 1 finale we learn that she faked her own death and now leads a criminal organisation. Upon meeting Sydney for the first time as an adult, she proclaims, "You must have known this day would come. I could have prevented all this, of course. You were so small when you were born. It would have been so easy.".
- In The Tenth Kingdom, this is rather masterfully pulled off. Virginia finds out her mother is alive, and is actually pretty much the person responsible for her and her father getting pulled into the plot. She already knew that her mother had left, but she didn't know that she'd wound up as a wicked step-mother in a parallel fairy-tale world. This leads to a rather realistic rant after she finds out, and this troper would post at least some of it here, but she can't find it!
- A variation occurs in Firefly, where the Tam siblings' parents send River to a government-sponsored Academy that proceeds to wreck her mind while experimenting on her. When Simon tries to explain to them what is happening, they show increasingly less interest in River's welfare, to the point that their father threatens to disown Simon if he continues causing trouble trying to reach her, which he eventually does before Simon rescues River. It is up in the air as to whether or not this is simply callous abandonment by their parents or outright Parental Betrayal, if you follow the line of thought that the Tams deliberately gave River over to the Academy.
- Star Trek The Next Generation's Data. His "parents" shut him off, and when he next woke up, he was the only survivor of the whole colony.
- Wataru, the eponymous Kamen Rider Kiva, never knew his father and lives alone in his house after being put there by his mother when he was a child. Later, he learns exactly why: his father Otoya died after fighting the Fangire King alongside a time-traveling Wataru in order to protect his friends and the woman he loved. His mother Maya was the Fangire Queen but, stripped of her powers, became an easy target for any Fangire looking to make a name for himself, and she left Wataru in order to protect him - which hurt her just as much as it hurt him. He also learns that his childhood best friend Taiga is actually his half-brother, but that's another trope entirely.
- In Quantum Leap, Al's mother abandoned him and his younger, mentally handicapped, sister when they were young. Then their father put them in an orphanage, so he could travel for work. The father later died, and Al left the orphanage once he was an adult. He went back later to retrieve sister, Trudy, but she had died from pneumonia.
- Lilly Rush of Cold Case had a father who left when she was a child and an alcoholic mother.
Mythology
- This trope is very common in legends and stories dating back thousands of years, making it Older Than Dirt. Moses, King Arthur, and Oedipus are just a few figures of legend who have parental abandonment stories. Also see Moses In The Bullrushes.
- General Stanley from The Pirates Of Penzance is in fact not an orphan. "More than that, he never was one."
- One reason the pirates aren't especially successful is that they never "molest an orphan", being orphans themselves. Everyone they attack claims to be an orphan.
Tabletop Games
- This troper, at the beginning of his adventure with roleplaying games, has once signed up to a promising play-by-forum game — his character did not make the cut — and after some badgering by the other rejected people, the Game Master published a list of characters by certain categories. He also rather loudly commented on how more than half of the several dozen submissions were orphans.
- In general, many players will take on this trope also as a means to avoid the cliché plotline of having the villain kidnap the player's parents as hostages. For many other players, this is just an easy character development device to justify their character's attitude towards the world.
- This troper did, and still does do, this to avoid having to worry about making up parents. Parental abandonment makes back stories easier.
- This troper plays in an MMORPG where it's common for older characters to adopt younger ones. She uses the inverse of this trope to explain why she doesn't want her character adopted: the character did have parents, but hated them, left home and never wants to be part of a family again.
- White Wolf's Vampire and Mage core rulebooks specifically advise players not to play orphans or people who are estranged from their parents specifically because this trope is used so often and there are lucrative storytelling possibilities involved in having mortal/Muggle friends and family.
- Of course, only in Mage is continued contact with muggle friends and family common or wise. Vampires and Werewolves are obvious, and Changelings (humans kidnapped by Fae) are actually replaced by 'fetches' which mean that most families don't even know they were gone, making re-integration rather difficult. But given the mood of WoD, there is indeed a lot of plot potential in how a character deals with the family and relations that he is now fundamentally different from them. As so often is the case, Mages have it easy.
- Present in Warhammer 40000: the Emperor's twenty clone sons were lost in a warp storm due to the Chaos gods and scattered across the galaxy to be raised by whoever-or whatever-found them. Wolves, on one occasion.
- Georg Büchner's play Woyzeck involves the titular Anti Hero killing his girlfriend and their child being abandoned by the neighbours. There's also a scene of an old woman telling the following story to her grandchildren:
"Once there was a poor child with no father and no mother. Everything was dead and there wasn’t a soul left on Earth. Everything was dead and the child went out and searched day and night. But since there was no one left on Earth he wanted to go up to Heaven, and indeed the Moon looked down kindly at him, but when he got up to the moon it was just a piece of rotten wood. So he set off for the Sun, and when he got there it was only a withered sunflower, and when he got to the stars they were only golden gnats that a shrike had stuck to the blackthorn bush, and when the child wanted to go back down to Earth, it was just an upside-down chamber pot and the child was all alone. Then he sat down and cried and he’s still sitting there to this day, all alone."
- There's a recording of Tom Waits reading that story on one of his albums. Anyone surprised?
Video Games
- In Kingdom Hearts, Sora's mother gets 2 lines near the beginning of the first installment, Kairi mysteriously appeared and was apparently adopted by the mayor of the Destiny Islands (she is the only one whose close relative we actually see, her grandmother is shown telling her suspiciously plot relevant fables in a flashback), and Riku's parents are briefly mentioned, as the world crumbles around him. This is the only time anyone's parents are mentioned and it makes the proceedings very awkward if one is inclined to stop and think about it. Also, Roxas from the second game gets along amazingly well despite never having had parents. Since Roxas is Sora's Nobody, his parents would seem to be Sora's, who he's never met, due to Sora's parents being worlds away and not mentioned even once in the second game.
- Tales Of Symphonia features this in spades:
- Lloyd: Mother killed, adopted by a dwarf. Finds out later that his father killed his mother to save him, is still alive, and is the right-hand man of the Big Bad.
- Colette: spends the first third of the game under the belief that her loving father and grandmother are merely a foster family and that her true father is an angel — and said angel is something of an uncaring prick towards her. Subverted once we learn that the angel was lying (or as he claims, the characters just misinterpreted him using "daughter" as a priest would) — and her foster family is really her family..
- Raine and Genis: Father died, mother abandoned them at a dimensional gate to escape persecution, leaving them to fend for themselves in another world. Mother later went insane with grief over having to do this and, upon meeting her children again twelve years later, fails to even acknowledge them, instead treating a ragdoll as her still-infant daughter.
- Sheena: Abandoned by parents, taken in by ninja. Was used by said ninja as a bargaining chip for a political alliance. She later screwed up a summoning ritual that ended up killing over half of the clan and sending her adoptive father into a permanent vegetative state, causing the survivors to ostracize her.
- Presea: Mother died when she was young, father became sick at an age of twelve. Presea underwent Magitek surgery to do his job, which brainwashed her and caused her to ignore his subsequent death, leaving his decaying body lying in the bed he died in for sixteen years until the party frees her.
- Zelos: Mother forced to marry his father to extend the mana bloodline, causing her to hate her child. Father ignored them both and took a half-elven mistress, who decided to make the child of their union the chosen of mana by killing Zelos. During her attempt on Zelos' life she killed his mother in front of his eyes — his mother's last words to him was "I wish you had never been born."
- Ironically, the only one who angsts about his problems is Regal, who doesn't have any parent related issues. Granted, he's a full grown man, but he does angst quite a bit over his one and only problem.
- In the Baldur's Gate series, your character is raised by a foster father, and never knew who his or her mother was (the series, in fact, gives two conflicting descriptions of who she was; both might be true). As for your blood father, well, better you didn't know: the freaking god of murder.
- While we're on the subject, we also have your half-brother Sarevok and your half-sister, Imoen. And there are companions such as Valygar Corthala, who killed his own parents when they turned into ghouls. And Viconia deVir, whose mother was killed by her brother for trying to kill her. And Aerie, who was kidnapped from her home by slavers and raised by a gnomish carny. And Anomen Delryn, whose mother is dead and whose father is abusive and drunk. And Nalia de'Arnise, whose mother is long dead and whose father is killed by trolls during the course of the game. And Lord Keldorn Firecam doesn't spend enough time at home with his kids. And Cernd doesn't even know that he has a kid.
- Similarly, in Neverwinter Nights 2, the closest thing you have to living relatives are your foster father and his brother. You never learn anything about your real parents.
- There's also Gannayev in the expansion pack, Mask of the Betrayer. When asked about his history (Well, after you get him to stop dicking around and spinning one out of whole cloth), he says that he never knew his father and that his mother cast him out in the wilderness. You eventually do get to meet his mother, a Nighthag that's gone utterly insane. After enraging the Coven for refusing to kill her lover, they decided to punish her by tracking him down, killing him, and forcing his charred remains down the mother's throat in front of their son. It's probably a good thing that Gann doesn't really remember that part.
- Also Neeshka, who says she doesn't really remember/know her parents and was taken in by Priests.
- All of the Final Fantasy games are like this. You could probably count the number of characters in the whole series that actually have parents on one hand.
- Final Fantasy II: Firion, Maria and Leon's parents get slaughtered by Imperial troops right at the start of the game. Guy is especially unlucky, because not only did his foster parents (who are also Firion's birth parents) die, he was abandoned by his actual parents at birth and raised by wild animals until Firion's family took him in. Moreover, Josef and Ricard are fathers, and they both die during the course of the game, leaving Ricard's son without a father and Josef's daughter without either parent.
- Final Fantasy III: The four main characters all turn out to have been orphaned by the same event - Cid's airship was torn apart by the cataclysm that froze most of the world in time, and only the four children and Cid himself survived the event, with their birth parents all perishing. They aren't the only ones either, since Prince Alus had already lost his mother some time before the events of the game, and then his father, King Gorn, tries to kill him as he sleeps and eventually has to commit suicide to prevent himself from carrying out the deed. At least Gorn was being controlled by Garuda, making his actions that bit less horrific.
- Final Fantasy IV: Parental Abandonment plays a big role in how Theodor's transformation into Golbez and Cecil's adoption by the King of Baron. On the same day, Kluya died at the hands of angry humans and his wife Cecilia died giving birth to Cecil. In addition, Rydia's mother is inadvertently killed by Cecil's hands near the start of the game. She later finds a new family of sorts in the Land of Summoned Monsters. Edge's parents are turned into monsters by Dr. Lugae, and commit suicide upon realising what they have become.
- Also inverted, since Anna dies before her father, Tellah, albeit not by very long.
- Final Fantasy V: Bartz lost both of his parents to natural causes before the events of the game, while Lenna lost her mother in similar circumstances, and then her father is killed by Exdeath partway into the game. Faris initially has no knowledge of who her birth parents are, having apparently been orphaned in a shipwreck and raised by pirates. It later turns out that she's actually Lenna's older sister, a fact which is confirmed just in time for her to watch their father die. Poor old Krile has it the worst however, as not only did she lose both of her parents prior to the game's events, but her last surviving relative Galuf, her grandfather, dies battling Exdeath in the game's Tear Jerker moment, leaving her completely alone in the world. Well, apart from the other player characters, anyway
- Final Fantasy VI: Relm's mother died and her father ran away and became a Ninja mercenary with a pet dog who's Made Of Iron, although Relm was raised by her grandfather - Relm's true parentage is never explicitly stated, averting a Luke I Am Your Father scene. Gau's mother died in childbirth, causing his father to go insane and abandon him on the Veldt.
- Final Fantasy VII: Cloud and Tifa's parents are presumably killed when their hometown is burned. Aeris is not only an orphan, but the last of her race. Barrett is raising some little girl (forget the name) that was the orphaned daughter of a former friend of his. Red XIII's father was turned to stone by monsters... am I forgetting any more?
- You forgot the two optional characters (Yuffie is understandable). Vincent's dad was killed in a materia experiment performed by the woman he loves. Yuffie hates her father (who was a disgraced warrior after Wutai lost a war with Shinra) and left to find a way to restore honor to her village (somehow this involves thievery).
- Don't forget Sephiroth, who before going crazy said he'd been told his mother, Jenova, died in childbirth, and that he didn't know who his father was. In truth he was taken away from his real mother shortly after birth who then tried to commit suicide but failed and resorted to living in a giant crystal in a cave. His real father meanwhile is Hojo who neglected to ever mention that he was his father.
- The Turk member Cissnei from Crisis Core was raised by Shinra after being found in an orphanage, her parents' death never explained.
- In Dirge Of Cerberus Shalua and Shelke Rui's parents are dead years before the Compilation takes place.
- Weiss and Nero's mother gets sucked into darkness when she gives birth to Nero.
- Denzel from Advent Children had his parents killed when the Sector 7 Plate collapsed.
- In Final Fantasy VIII, almost all of the main cast are orphans, which becomes something of a plot point.
- Their surrogate mother-figure, Edea, abandoned them when they were still very young because she became possessed by an evil sorceress from the future. Their surrogate father figure, Cid, had all of them trained to be elite mercenaries, and allowed (if not actually arranged) for their memories of Edea to be wiped, in order to later send them to assassinate her.
- Although Quistis, Zell, Selphie, and Irvine were all adopted, only Zell still appears to have a loving relationship with his adopted mother; Selphie and Irvine's adopted parents are never mentioned, and Quistis' adoption "didn't work out," causing her to be sent to Garden by the age of ten. Seifer was never adopted at all.
- Rinoa's mother died in a car accident when she was a little girl, and she and her father are estranged over political conflicts.
- And Squall takes the prize for Parental Abandonment issues: on top of the abovementioned abandonment by his surrogate mother and father, he also got abandoned by his other surrogate mother/big-sister figure at the age of about four, and between one and the other is left with crippling emotional issues that he struggles with throughout the game. On top of that, he eventually learns that his mother died in childbirth and his father is the president of a prosperous nation and had no idea he ever had a son.
- Even when they do meet, Squall's father only awkwardly hints that they have some things to talk about, and Squall doesn't indicate openly whether he's aware of the connection or not.
- Final Fantasy IX: Zidane not only has no parents, but is racially unique and doesn't know anything about his origins. Garnet's an orphan who's been raised by Queen Brahne, who also dies part-way into the game. Vivi also is unique and unaware of his origins. Eiko is an orphan who lives alone in the ruins of her hometown... I think what we can take away from this is that Final Fantasy loves this trope.
- Final Fantasy X is another winner. Tidus feels his father abandoned him as a child. Yuna's father is a legendary hero because he sacrificed himself to defeat Sin ten years ago. Wakka's parents were killed by fiends when he was a child. And Maester Seymour gradually turned bad because when he was a child, his mother died to become an Aeon and his father was always emotionally distant.
- And Final Fantasy XII. Vaan and Penelo are both orphans. Ashe's parents (and presumably the rest of the royal family) were wiped out two years ago. And Balthier keeps dropping vague references to unresolved issues with his own dad which are perfectly understandable, since his old man Cid is now a mad scientist who'll stop at nothing to unlock the secrets of immortality and ultimate power.
- Nippon Ichi loves to use this trope.
- In Disgaea, Flonne's parents are never mentioned. Etna is an orphan, and the closest thing she had to a father figure (the King) died two years ago. Laharl also seems to be following this trope too, with his father dead ( or so everyone thinks) and his mother missing, until you run into his mother later on. Jennifer was orphaned, and her adopted father is The Dragon.
- In Disgaea 2, Adell reveals to Rozalin early on that he was adopted, and likely abandoned by his blood-parents. It turns out that Adell's parents are the masked man and woman serving under Overlord Zenon against their will. Triggers a rather tragic case of Self Made Orphan. Rozalin shamefully admits that she never met her father in person [[spoiler: and really the "father" was an old foe with a grudge who got off on the idea of the God of all Overlords being subservient to him. It's also implied that he killed her mother in his attack on the Snow Tribe that also claimed the lives of Yukimaru and Fubuki's parents. Tinks parents are never mentioned at all, but presumably aren't there as he seems to live with Rozalin instead.
- In Disgaea 3, Mao's mother is never mentioned, and lives under the custody of his butler rather than his father because, as we find out later, said father is actually dead. Mao repressed the memory out of guilt over indirectly causing his death. Sapphire's parents died when she was little, and she's rather infamous in the human world for not mourning either of their deaths. Almaz's parents aren't mentioned but, considering that he went on an almost suicidal mission to defeat the Netherworld's Overlord for the sake of a crush, we can probably assume they weren't around to stop him. Raspberyl's family is never mentioned.
- In Phantom Brave, both of Marona's parents die in the opening cutscene. Ash's parents are never mentioned.
- In La Pucelle Tactics, Prier's and Cullotte's parents were killed in a wagon accident years before the game begins.
- Danette's parents in Soul Nomad And The World Eaters were killed by Thurists. Gig has no parents, being a god, and Revya's parents are just normal drazilians who are likely dead, given their 30-year lifespan. Of more interest is Revya's parents in his/her past life, one of which has been dead for over 200 years and the other being Lord Median, currently a zombie.
- It should be noted that practically all the examples in this trope (with exception to Rozalin's father) were actually caring, devoted parents that loved their children. Yes, that even includes Overlords (yeah, I know, a real shocker).
- It's easier to list which Nintendo characters actually have parents or explain the lack of them.
- Samus Aran had parents that were murdered by Space Pirates when she was very young, and she was adopted by the Chozo. And it's strongly implied that the Chozo are now all extinct. This would make Samus an orphan twice over!
- Star Fox: Fox's father is mentioned in the intro, assumed to be killed by Andross. His mother is only mentioned in the comics, though. Other than that, direct relatives are scare in the Star Fox setting, though. Slippy has a father that isn't canonically mentioned until Assault, Peppy eventually becomes a father (the wife is only mentioned in one ending in Command), but that's about it.
- Fire Emblem: Ike's mother was killed by his possessed father, and his father was killed by one of his former students. Then there's Soren, whose father abandoned him because he couldn't turn into a dragon like his mother, and who befriended Ike and ultimately killed his father as a result...
- The original Grandia has a few. Justin lives with his mother (his father, who gave Justin his McGuffin, is mentioned as having passed away), Sue is an orphan who lives with her aunt and uncle, the parents of Feena and her sister Leen are never mentioned, and Rapp's parents were petrified when the original Cafu village turned to stone. The rest of the cast is of adult age (and a few several times older than that, the oldest being a few centuries old), though it's also worth mentioning that Colonel Mullen's mother, a humanoid that General Baal married in order to learn ancient secrets about the ancient world, is also dead.
- Devil May Cry. Dante and Vergil's father, the uber-Devil Sparda who awoke to justice, has been missing since their early childhood and both are bitter about it. It's never explicitly stated what happened, but it is suggested that he was either killed or captured by the demons. Their mother Eva was killed some time later in a demonic attack on their house. Lady's mother was killed by her father as part of a sacrifice, and later pays him back in turn.
- In the universe of the Ace Attorney games, Phoenix's parents are never mentioned. Edgeworth's father was killed by Manfred von Karma 15 years ago, which the fourth case of the first game is centered around. His mother as well as Mia and Maya's father are never mentioned, though the latter is implied to have left them due to Kurain Village's female-centered way of life. The Fey sisters' mother went missing during the events that are the background of the first game, though she reappears as Elise Deauxnim and is killed in the third game.
- In the fourth game, Apollo Justice's family is completely unknown. In the fourth case, Thalassa Gramarye is revealed to be his mother, and he is actually Trucy's half-brother as she is Thalassa and her second husband's child. Trucy never knew her mother, and her father, Zak Gramarye, abandoned her at age 9 to save himself from a guilty verdict. She never sees him again, while Phoenix takes her in as his adoptive daughter.
- Many fans of The Legend Of Zelda have expressed curiosity as to where Link's parents are during any of his adventures. This is perhaps most glaring in the original game in the series; since Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is stated to be taking place a couple years after the original game, and the game's manual clearly remarks that Link is now sixteen years old, one has to wonder how young he was the first time around.
- Some of the games, however, do give Link other relatives — he had a grandmother and a sister in The Wind Waker, a grandfather in The Minish Cap, and an uncle in A Link to the Past. Additionally, the Expanded Universe of Link to the Past states that his parents are deceased, but had been Hylian Knights (yes, both of them). Ocarina of Time also says both his parents died; his father was a knight, and his mother left him to be cared for by the Deku Tree before succumbing to unspecified injuries. The other games seem to assume that Link just came into existence on his own.
- Halo's Master Chief is taken away from his parents at a young age to be raised by the military.
- Ratchet was pretty much raised by himself. His father was dead since Ratchet was a baby, and nothing is known of his mother except that she was there at some time. So he grew up without knowing his parents on a backwater desert planet... not that he cares in the slightest.
- Ryu Hayabusa's entire clan in Ninja Gaiden seems to be slaughtered every game or so.
- In Persona 3, every member of SEES has parents who are either distant or dead. Of course, that makes it a lot easier to go live in a dorm full of teenagers and a creepy old guy, and a lot easier to go out at midnight on a near daily basis.
- Jade's parents in Beyond Good And Evil disappeared mysteriously when she was an infant; she was raised by her father's best friend. A Final Speech by an Almost Dead Guy near the end of the game implies that they were killed trying to protect her... And the Big Bad himself implies that she never had any, due to her nature as a Mac Guffin Girl.
- Joey La Rocca, the protagonist of The Sopranos Road to Respect, is the illegitimate child to Big Pussy Bonpensiero (although he's never seen on the show).
- Ratchet was pretty much raised by himself. His father was dead since Ratchet was a baby, and nothing is known of his [[< mother]] except that she was there at some time. So he grew up without knowing his parents on a backwater desert planet... not that he cares in the slightest.
- Two of the three possible origins of Mass Effect's Commander Shepard involve parental abandonment: in one, both of Shepard's parents were killed when slavers raided the colony they lived in, and in the other, Shepard grew up on the streets of Earth and never knew his or her parents at all. Likewise, Liara never knew her "father" and her mother was brainwashed into joining the Big Bad; Wrex never mentions his mother, but does explain that his father betrayed and tried to murder him, causing Wrex to kill him.
- It's also revealed that Tali's mother has snuffed it, and has an emotionally distant father. Ashley's father also died, but it's never said how. Garrus's mother is never mentioned in the game, but his father is.
- Inverted by Kaidan, though, as both his parents are alive and well, and solved his token Daddy Issues before the game even began.
- In the Sonic The Hedgehog games, it's easier to list who is over 18 or has parents or guardians. You'd think the social workers would come poking around to see what an 8 year old is doing living on his own and cart him off to a care home, but apparently not.
- Vector is 20. He appears to be the legal guardian of Espio and Charmee.
- Cream has a mom.
- Otacon's mother died while he was still young, his father committed suicide (for which Otacon blames himself) and his stepmother raped him. Throw in his notorious bad luck with women and I think we just about have the god of woobiedom on our hands.
- And where do we even begin with Solid Snake...
- Notably averted in Skies Of Arcadia: Not only are both of Vyse's parents alive, he's on good terms with them, and they encourage him to go out adventuring.
- The Mega Man series has at least 6 characters that have a missing parent
- Roll Caskett-both mom and dad are missing
- Vent and Aile-their parents got killed by the serpent group
- Geo Stelar-his mom is alive but his dad is missing
- Star Force also takes it one step further with Sonia Strumm, as her mom died 3 months before the main story and Pat Sprigs, who like Roll Caskett, Vent and Aile has both parents missing.
- In most Pokemon games, the player character usually has a mom and a mom only; whatever happened to dear old Dad is never explained. Averted quite noticeably in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, though — not only is Dad still around, but he's a gym leader, and yes, you do have to wail on Pappy for a badge. He does not go easy on his own son/daughter. Not. In. The. Least.
- The original games also have your rival, Blue — who is supposed to be Professor Oak's grandson, but appears to live with his sister. Where did the Professor's son/daughter go?
- The player character's father is mentioned in Platinum, but only so that Mum can say that you're just like him. What happened to him is, as ever, not explained.
- A special event in the recent remakes of Gold and Silver actually shows you the very moment Silver's father, Giovanni, abandoned him.
- The obscure platformer Scaler has the main character, a human boy transformed into a lizard, who has decided to go by Scaler. He lives with his mom; his dad, a scientist, disappeared in the backstory; it's implied that he was sucked into the "reptile world" that Scaler now finds himself in. Naturally, he finds his father. It's Leon, his Older Sidekick.
- Lampshaded in Earth Bound. Ness's parents are alive and present throughout the adventure, apparently pleased that their son is engaging in a potentially lethal quest to save the world. However, his father is never seen for the entirety of the game, only talking to Ness through phone conversations to save the game.
- It's the same situation for Ninten in the first Mother/Earth Bound Zero game. Although there was a (ultimately abandoned) Sequel Hook that seemed to imply his father would be more involved.
- Mother 3. Don't get us started on Mother 3. In the same night Lucas loses both his mother and his twin. He still has his father, but Flint's reserved, and everyday is out either at his wife's grave or still searching for his son.
- Dustil Onasi in Knights Of The Old Republic thinks his father Carth abandoned him. Carth at least had something of an excuse, since he believed his son had been killed during the Sith bombardment of Telos.
- Plenty of Visual Novel and Eroge protagonists have dead or otherwise absent parents, but Ryo Sasaki from Crescendo stands out - not only did his biological parents put him up for adoption when he was little, his adoptive parents died in a car accident a few years before the events of the game. He's been living with his older stepsister ever since.
- Overlord II: Not only is the Overlad's father stuck in The Abyss, his mother Rose soon after giving birth to him leaves him in a village where he's hated for being a Creepy Child who shoots lightning out of his hands to assist The Empire in what she thought would be the restoration of order to the lands by assisting Florian's conquest of the lands.
- Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies, where the narrator's parents die after a downed plane crashes into the cape where the family home is.
- Subverted in Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, one of the rare RPGs to do so. The main character, Alex, not only has both parents intact, they manage to survive to the end of the game.
- The sequel, Lunar: Eternal Blue plays this trope straight, however. Hiro is raised by his grandfather, with no mention of any parents.
- In El Goonish Shive, two main characters have divorced parents, one is technically an orphan and one hates her overbearing, borderline-oppressive Education Mama so much we might as well throw her in too. Two have had their fathers show up, though not on-screen (one in a one-sided phone conversation, the other from outside a room). Oh, and of the remaining main characters, one is an Opposite Sex Clone of the other, and was hence adopted by the same Open Minded Parents, who seem a quite a bit less concerned about the weirdness going on than they should be.
- Clarification! Tedd and Susan's parents are divorced, Tedd's for unknown reasons and Susan's because she found her Dad cheating on her Mom. It hit both of them extremely hard. Nanase gets aggravated her Education Mama, but her true problems come from finding out that she (Nanase) is gay. Justin is also gay, but was publicly outed years ago and has had to put up with the discrimination ever since, even from his family. Grace is a government project who saw everyone she knew killed and was held as a prisoner for a time. Ellen is a clone of Elliot, complete with all his memories, and doubts her acceptance and originality. Compared to everyone else, Elliot and Sarah are pretty well adjusted, which is probably why they play the Straight Man in the strip. Note that everyone also gets exposed to their share of trauma over the course of the storyline.
- Antimony Carver from Gunnerkrigg Court: Her mother, Surma, dies just before the start of the story from an unspecified ailment that had hospitalized her since about the time of Annie's birth. And Annie's father, Anthony, is one of the most mysterious characters in the comic. Only seen in flashbacks and even then greatly obscured, he disappeared soon after his daughter started at the Court. He’s easily the biggest speculation-bait in a series filled with Epileptic Trees, his current situation, personality and feelings towards his daughter as mysterious as when the comic started.
- Partial subversion: Lemmy from Fanboys had very distant parents and was, in Pauls's words, "raised by a TV screen". However, he enjoyed his childhood and never angsts. In fact, he simply never mentions it — how is he to know it wasn't normal?
- In Fans, when it is learned that Alisin has an unknown blood disease which appears to be slowly killing her, the Worthingtons decide to give her whatever she wished for, including, when she rebelled against their over-protection, her freedom. While it seems that they continued to give her any money she asked for and poured vast sums of money into finding a cure, they otherwise had no part in her life afterwards. This is entirely in Alisin's Back Story; the only appearance which Senator Worthington makes at the time of the main story is on television, and Mrs. Worthington is seen only in flashbacks (as far this editor is aware, anyway).
- It's often suggested that Alisin, in a way, abandoned her parents as much as they abandoned her; a flashback to her early life indicates that up until she was infected she had a reasonably happy childhood, and it's suggested that Alisin's anger and bitterness at her condition (and by proxy at them) poisoned their relationship as much as the Worthington's (well-meaning but misguided) over- and under-parenting did. They later reconcile in the final arc of the original run.
- Five-year-old prodigy Gin in Jackie's Fridge is for all intents and purposes being raised by Melissa and Ada. Generally played for laughs, this takes a mildly tragic turn: when she gets injured on the playground and has to go to the hospital for stitches, her parents' only reaction is that Melissa interrupted their game of disc golf[1]. It’s also then that Melissa learns that they had never given her any gifts — ever[2].
- Gordito from The Adventures Of Doctor McNinja was raised by his single father after his mother's death. After his father's death, he was raised by his paleontologist uncle. Now, he's the Robin to Dr. McNinja's Batman.
- The title character of "Little Dee" has become lost or separated from her parents. The forest animals who stand in for her family make periodic (and increasingly more half-hearted) attempts to find them.
- In the first "season" of The Wotch, the families of the characters are quite absent. The second starts bringing them into scenes, though.
- Mostly subverted in Dominic Deegan. The title character's family is pretty solid; the only estranged child is Jacob, the oldest of the three, and that's because he used the youngest, Gregory, as part of a necromantic experiment which almost killed Greg and got him thrown out. Mr. and Mrs. Deegan are in their sixties and still very much in love with one another. The only borderline case is the Travoria family. They started out as a whole family, but Mr. Travoria was killed by Mrs. Travoria, Mrs. Travoria was killed by a royal knight she picked a fight with (as she tried to drive Luna to suicide), and the oldest sister, Amelia, was killed by a thief who tried to use his friend/partner as a pawn in a scheme to kill her husband and claim his vast riches.
- In Order Of The Stick, Roy's father died of old age a few years before the story starts, and it seems that his mother must have died at some point since he meets her in the afterlife. Haley's father is a famous thief who is currently imprisoned in a faraway country, and her mother died when Haley was very young. Elan's mother was a Chaotic Good barmaid who divorced from her husband, a Lawful Evil Overlord, over alignment difference, and she raised Elan while he raised his twin brother Nale. Durkon's parents are unknown, although he seems to have had an uncle who he visited periodically; however, Durkon was banished from the dwarven lands and hasn't seen his uncle since. Vaarsuvius' parents are unknown, and when V hit puberty V was adopted by a wizard who taught V magic, and then threw V out some time later to see the world. Belkar's parents are unknown, though there IS an aunt mentioned who may be as evil as Belkar.
- Recloak's entire family but for one of his younger siblings were killed in front of him and Xykon, well, he is a Self Made Orphan.
- Megatokyo's Miho has no known relatives, and — in fact — lives in the back room of a dance club. Theories as to why this is range from: they died from whatever mysterious disease she currently suffers from to she ate them. Fred Gallagher has been less then helpful.
- Most of the main characters in Errant Story suffer from Parental Abandonment. Jon and Sara's father was killed by assassins before their mother died of an illness, Meji's Elven father had a fling with her mother on a diplomatic visit and later tried to have her killed upon learning he had fathered a Half-Elf, and Ian's mother was apathetic and neglectful towards her children until she killed herself and Evelyn in a fire.
- Another The Wotch-related example is Alex King from [[Cheer]]. Her wealthy parents are still alive, they just don't seem to care. Early on it's revealed that she even receives her allowance by direct deposit, and a Christmas comic depicting the cheerleaders with their families shows her strumming her guitar by herself.
- In No Rest For the Wicked, Clare bleakly speaks of how her parents treated her — and how she now knows she is no better. (She no longer has her baby with her.)
- Also, in the same episode, one parent deliberately abandoned his children in the woods, and others appear to have at least neglected to protect their children from the Wicked Witch.
- The web comic Cwen's Quest starts off with the main character's father throwing them off a cliff so they won't eventually fight with their new sibling. The main character’s mother is never mentioned in the series.
- Something Positive manages to mostly avert this except in the case of Jason's dad. The exact story of what happened is never explained but apparently at some point he ran off and left Mrs. Pratchett to care for Jason and his sister alone.
Theatre
- The Baker from Into The Woods was abandoned by his father, the Mysterious Man, after his mother's death. He in turn almost abandons his child.
Web Animation
- Broken Saints: Raimi's dad left he and his mother in his childhood. And that's just the tame one... Shandala's biological father abandoned her on a Fijian Island as part of a magnificent Xanatos Gambit / Xanatos Roulette to further his evil plans.
Web Original
- In Captain Gamer: Digital Defender, main character Kate Gaines has only had her father mentioned — and that, only as an offhand notice in one paragraph of Back Story!
- More than half the protagonists in lonelygirl15 have parents who are either dead, missing, members of an evil cult, uncaring, or some combination of the above.
- This troper made several attempts at original fiction and begun to wonder about her own state of mind regarding family when she realised that every female villain killed her parents and every heroine was either an orphan or not on speaking terms with the parents. Also that many of them went on to become an unofficial foster mother to a teenage character in similar parental circumstances.
Western Animation
- Used excessively and in a variety of ways in Avatar The Last Airbender: Aang, like all Airbender children, was raised communally by monks. However his father-like mentor, his unknown parents and the rest of his nation were entirely wiped out while Aang was frozen in an iceberg. Hence the subtitle of the show. Katara and Sokka's mother was killed when they were young and as of the beginning of the show their father has left to fight in the war. They live with their grandmother who rather blithely sends them off to travel the world with Aang (though it is later revealed that she ran away from home herself, which perhaps explains her attitude). Toph deliberately runs away from her overprotective parents. This trope even applies to Appa.
- The villains have it no better. Zuko and Azula's mother Princess Ursa is absent (to say the least) and their father, definitely not the overprotective type, seems to have no problem with sending the kid he actually likes halfway across the known world to hunt his enemies. Zuko of course was banished on a Snipe Hunt (after being publicly disfigured and humiliated) for speaking out of turn when he was no older than fourteen. Mai's parents are seen briefly but seemingly have no interest or no say in her actions (possibly due to Azula's influence, though in "The Beach" Mai says that her mom repressed her a lot to not ruin Dad's high-profile political career) and Ty Lee's apparently did not notice when she ran away to join the circus, due to the six identical daughters.
- Even the minor and one-shot characters suffer from this in spades — nearly every young person encountered by the main characters during their travels has lost at least one parent thanks to the ongoing war and its subsidiary disasters.
- In Beavis And Butt Head, their parents are sometimes mentioned but never seen, and they seem to take no real interest in the sometimes outrageous lives of their children. (In fact, the only who's ever mentioned with any regularity is Beavis's mother, who is said to be a slut; we find out in the film Beavis and Butt-Head Do America that the boys are the bastard sons of two heavy-metal roadies, and possibly half-brothers (Mike Judge refers to the two as their "dads", however).
- In Birdman, in the debut episode of Birdboy, Birdman's on-and-off sidekick, the lad is found separated from his father after an encounter with a supervillain. Birdman promises to help him find his father, but nothing ever comes of it. (His mother is never mentioned.)
- Captain Planet And The Planeteers: Free room and board on Hope Island is part of the Benefits Package of being a Planeteer, so even the few parents who are still alive are mostly out of the picture.
- Gadget from Chip And Dale Rescue Rangers lost her father a year before the team was formed. Due to lack of information many fan theories exist about what actually happened. Her mother is never mentioned.
- Chowder: The whereabouts of Chowder's parents (and of Panini's and Gorgonzola's parents) are never revealed or discussed.
- Averted in Danny Phantom, where both the main character’s parents are accounted for. Very uncommon in Super Hero shows.
- Dave The Barbarian's parents took off to fight evil, leaving their kids and Dad's magician brother in charge of Udragoth.
- Parents in Dragon Booster are suspiciously absent, considering that their offspring are competing in dangerous sports with giant reptiles. Parm has a mother, mentioned once and never again, and Kitt has apparently left home or is an orphan (nothing is ever said about her parents). Only Artha (the protagonist) and Moordryd (his rival) have onscreen parents: Moordryd's dad is the Big Bad, while his mother, Zulay, is implied to be dead (the ambiguity of the line spawned numerous fanfics), while Artha has quite possibly the worst case of Parental Abandonment ever: his mother is never mentioned, while his dad, Connor, disappears in the first episode and is presumably dead... right up until the second season finale, when it is revealed that Mortis, who's been helping the heroes the whole time, is Connor in disguise. The reason for abandoning his children and letting them believe he was dead? They wouldn't have become independent.
- In Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy, we never see anyone at all in the show except for the children that live in the neighborhood. Sometimes parents and older siblings are alluded to, but they are never actually shown.
- Except for in the end of "Mission: Ed-Possible", when Eddy's father and Ed's mother's arms are seen pulling away their respective children for getting abysmal grades on their report cards.
- Gargoyles: Tom, along with Princess Katherine, The Magus, Tom's mother, Mary, & Finella, fled from the castle of King Kenneth II when he was slain by Constantine, who later usurped his throne. After using the Grimorum to find a way into Avalon, The Magus is forced to give up the magical book because it can't be taken into Avalon. To keep it away from Constantine, so he won't be able to find them, Finella volunteers to protect the book and basically go into hiding from the King of Scotland. Mary volunteers to go with, pretty much deciding that protecting this magic book is more important than raising her only child, who at this point in the story wasn't even ten years old.
- One is lead to wonder why The Magus simply didn't destroy the book after defeating The Weird Sisters and being able to safely enter Avalon...
- Dib and Gaz of Invader Zim have a father that is more concerned with his latest invention and his television show than whatever his children are doing, and a mother who is never mentioned (naturally, Epileptic Trees abound). Zim himself is a borderline example, as while technically he has no parents (Irkens are grown, not bred), his entire motivation is pleasing the parental figures of the entire species, the Tallest, who hate him and exile him to the far end of the known universe.
- Jade from Jackie Chan Adventures is left by her parents in the first episode, and although they are alive, they are only referred to twice during the rest of the series. Jackie as well, it is implied, was sent to America to train with Uncle when he was a kid. His parents are never mentioned.
- Paco's parents are never mentioned and it's possible they don't exist at all. El Toro, who is probably not his father serves as a father-like figure to the boy.
- Subversion: The teen hero team The Ultimen in Justice League Unlimited is initially presented with a variety of Parental Abandonment issues; by the end of their first appearance, it's revealed that this is actually because they are clones with Fake Memories implanted.
- In Monster Allergy, Zob, Zick's father, left Zick before the series. He returns in the series only for him to become the Incredible Shrinking Man.
- Adam Lyon of My Gym Partner's a Monkey seems to have parents, but they don't seem to object to him attending middle school with the animal kingdom.
- Oban Star Racers: Eva saw her mother die in an accident when she was five, and was subsequently put in a school by her depressive father. When she finds him ten years later, he doesn't recognize her and has apparently grown into a misogynistic Jerk Ass who repeatedly dismisses her. Then again, the plot revolves around their issues.
- Shrek — Shrek's parents were written out of the script (originally he wanted to become a knight and they disapproved); Donkey is sold by his "grandmotherly" owner (Donkey himself nearly becomes a Disappeared Dad when he takes a break from his Dragon girlfriend (who was pregnant at the time) — in his defense, she never told him she was expecting, he just knew that she was "moody"); Fiona's parents placed her in a lonely tower "for her own good"; Prince Charming has no father; Arthur's parents are presumed dead if he's Fiona's only other relative.
- Coming back to Shrek, it's revealed in Shrek the Third that his father actually tried to eat him, which is one of the main reasons why he doesn't want kids.
- In Storm Hawks the entire main cast is made up of 14-year-olds, and the show is one of the awkward cases in which nobody even mentions their parents. The closest we ever get is an aunt. And considering how many times they brush death, it's amazing they're allowed out of the house at all. (In fact, the only brothers we see freely admit to hatching out of eggs, leading to much speculation about how exactly the cast are born.)
- In the cartoon Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!, Chiro's parents have never even really been mentioned. If he had different caregivers than his parents, they aren't mentioned either. The kid just walks into a Super Robot, befriends some robot monkeys, and no parent/guardian seems to even care where he is. (Aside from the fan theory that Skeleton King may be Chiro's father.)
- In the animated Teen Titans, the Titans are conspicuously independent, lacking even mentor superheroes (*cough* Batman *cough*). However, many of their parents are actually accounted for: Robin's origin, although it is never covered in any detail, is hinted at in one episode and would dictate that his parents are dead. It also comes up a couple times in season four: Raven's mother appears briefly in one episode, and her father is a demonic overlord named Trigon (also evidently dead by the end of the season). It is also implied that Cyborg's parents and Beast Boy's parents have passed on, as well.
- There's no excuse for Starfire though. In one episode they go back to her home planet, and are greeted by her "nanny". The rest of the episode involves Starfire's evil sister Blackfire usurping the throne and trying to marry Starfire off to stop a war. The fate of the original king and queen? Never mentioned.
- The comic of the series, Teen Titans GO!, revealed that both of her parents died of illness after the Gordanians (the same aliens featured in the "GO!" episode) nearly invaded their planet and Star was given up for slavery as a truce offering (by Blackfire no less). The comic also reveal she had a brother Wildfire who was sent into space to preserve the family line just in case.
- Beast Boy regards Mento and Elasti-girl of the Doom patrol as parents, but they were only seen for two episodes and he's basically left to fend for himself.
- X Men Evolution is worthy of mention for its almost complete aversion of this trope. Despite living away from home, all the teens except Scott and Rogue have a loving family or foster-family to go home to in the obligatory Christmas episode. Kurt suffers from combined Missing Mom / Parental Betrayal, but still notes that his foster parents are great to him. The Brotherhood, on the other hand, have not fared as well - their parents are all absent for no apparent reason, Jerk Ass, or the Big Bad.
- Rogue has Irene, her foster mother.
- The titular bunnies from Yin Yang Yo have Master Yo the panda as their sensei and father figure, but so far their parents have not been mentioned... though some of their friends (and enemies) have parents ("CAAAAAAARL!").
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