My METAL family
Metal Family is a series of animated shorts about a Russian Family, consisting of Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy dad Sebastian "Glam", biker wife Victoria, and their children, the Deadpan Snarker Dee, and Heavy. The series follows the family's creative ways of dealing with everyday problems in a slice-of-life manner.
The series is Russian, but gets English subtitles applied sometime after the episode's release on YouTube, under a channel of the same name. It also has an ongoing English dub that has been posting since 2021. Its pilot episode/music video "The Story ain't Over" (sung by Avantasia) has been surfing around the web for a while.
An official English dub will be released here
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Tropes:
- Alpha Bitch: It seems that Diana, Dee's classmate who has (or rather had) a crush on him, is going to be one, although this has yet to be confirmed.
- Ambiguously Bi: When Vicky was asked if she has romantic interest in women, she implies she has fooled around women while drunk and doesn't sound sure herself if she does swing that way. Also played with Glam, as Chive himself states that he didn't think he even liked women before he met Victoria.
- The Ace: Glam and Dee (although inverted for Dee, when in comes to learning playing guitar). Also Chive due to his luck.
- Babies Ever After: The end of the pilot song reveals that after dating and marrying, Glam and Vicky had Dee and Heavy.
- Barbaric Bully: Chipmunk.
- Beta Bitch: Diana's friend Briana, who sits with her in class and is on cheerleading team with her, seems to be one, although this has yet to be confirmed.
- Betty and Veronica: Dee (Archie) has a crush on gothic, but kind Lif (Betty), while the dressing in light-colors mean girl Diana (Veronica) had an unrequited crush on him.
- Book Dumb: Vicky and Heavy. While they are shown to not be as clever as Glam or Dee are, they still can come up with their own way to solve problems. Chive as well.
- Book Ends: Episode 1 features Twisted Sister's "We're not gonna take it", episode 9 ends with Glam playing the same song on a vinyl he got from Chive making it the first metal song he ever heard.
- Book Smart: Glam and Dee.
- Born Lucky: Chive. If winning at cards without ever checking them wasn't enough proof, he managed to get the highest score at the entrance to music academy, while it's implied he had no formal training at all.
- Childhood Friend: Actually a teenhood friend, but Chive is this to Glam and vice-versa. Episode 9 goes into more detail of how the two first met on the way to an entrance exam to musical school.
- Couch Gag: The title card is done by a key-holder the family uses. The family members who are in the episode will already have put their keys on their hooks, with the focus character just hanging theirs up. Each does a good job of showing their personality:
- Glam gingerly sets his on the hook. His keychain is a pink Twisted Sister logo.
- Vicky slams her keys on the hook with force. Her keychain is her shining nameplate.
- Dee cool spins his keys onto his hook. His keychain is a skull.
- Heavy attempts to throw his on the hook as he excitedly speeds by. Only to have to turn around and pick them up. His keychain is some monster head.
- Creepy Family: The family can come off as this to outsiders. One guy admitted Glam's stare freaked him out.
- Daddy's Girl: Gender-swap example for Dee. He idolizes Glam (although he won't admit it nor show it openly), likely due to their similar characters, and takes it badly when he doesn't get his approval (as it was seen when he tried to learn playing a guitar).
- Distracted by the Sexy: Subverted in the pilot with Glam and the waitress. Later played straight with Glam and Vicky.
- Dub Name Change: Gopher is renamed "Chipmunk" in the English dub. Ches is also renamed "Chive" for the tenth episode joke to work.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- While Glam is quick to go Papa Wolf if he believes the teachers have crossed a line, he'll stand down if he finds the reason his kids got in trouble is perfectly reasonable.
- Vicky dislikes Groin Attacks, thinking it's too harsh, even for her.
- Everything's Better with Sparkles: Glam's office the first episode is covered in the stuff from a glitter bomb, that he later uses at Heavy's school, as payback for them cutting the boys' hair.
- Falling-in-Love Montage: After getting hospitalized together, which allowed Glam to return Vicky's biker keys, they start dating. Glam shows his artwork of Vicky to her, they go to concerts (heavy metal and ballet), Vicky teaching him to ride a motorcycle, and etc.
- Fiery Redhead: Vicky and Heavy have orange hair and both have shown to be more Hot-Blooded than Dee and Glam.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble:
- Glam - Phlegmatic
- Vicky - Choleric
- Dee - Melancholic
- Heavy - Sanguine
- Love at First Sight: Glam is clearly over the moon upon Vicky for the first time.
- Happily Married: Glam and Vicky, of course. Glam clearly loves Vicky despite her volatile personality while Vicky, who rarely shows her softer side, doesn't hide that she loves her husband very much despite both of them being nearly opposites.
- Mama Bear: Vicky, albeit she doesn't show it too often. The ending of episode 1 has Vicky coming to Heavy's school with a weapon and angry at what the teachers did to her son.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Vicky is a muscular biker who swears a lot; Glam is a thinner man who loves ballet along with metal rock, decorates his office with glitter, and wears bright clothing when exercising.
- Meaningful Name: All family members has one that refers to a certain metal genre - Glam and Heavy are self-explanatory, Vicky references Viking Metal, and Dee references Death Metal (althrough in universe he was simply named after Dee Snider).
- Mistaken Identity: Glam's sister looks so like him, Vicky mistakes her for Glam in drag. When realizing her mistake, the sister simply says, "I get it".
- Momma's Boy: Heavy. He idolizes Vicky, likely due to their similar characters, and loves to spend time with her.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Dee attempting to cut a deal with Chipmunk to save Heavy gets him punched in the face.
- Origins Episode: The two part season finale reveals about Glam's past as it shows how he was raised by his rich strict family, how he first met Chive, how he begins to get attracted to metal music, how they formed a band, how he decided to runaway from his family, and how he became who he is now and made his band a success before he met Vicky.
- Papa Wolf: Glam was seething when he found out that Heavy's teachers cut off his hair against his will and set off a glitter bomb in response. He later programmed a security system to protect both Heavy and Dee from dangerous sites.
- Parent-Child Team: Done during episode 6 in a escape room. Glam and Dee break the record time. Vicky and Heavy sledgehammer their way though a brick wall.
- Perky Goth: Dee's crush, Lif, is a gothic girl who while being temperamental when annoyed, is overall very friendly and extroverted.
- Posthumous Character: Glam and Lydia's father Gustav is revealed to be dead in episode 5 and their mother Mary is not present during the reading of his will, implying she's deceased as well, but they both appeared in the flashback of episode 9.
- Radish Cure: Vicky admits that she gave Dee and Heavy beer so they'd get sick and stop asking about it.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Vicky and Heavy are Red to Glam and Dee's Blue. Chive is also a Red to Glam's Blue and Anna is Blue to Vicky's Red.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Vicky looks great both in her wedding dress and in the dress that Glam asks her to wear in episode 5.
- Strong Family Resemblance:
- Heavy looks like male and younger version of Vicky with straight hair and lack of freckles, both of which he inherited from Glam. Personality-wise, he's as hot-blooded and dumb as Vicky, but also has Glam's friendliness and even temper.
- In the contrast, Dee looks like younger version of Glam with curly hair, freckles, and more upward nose, all of which he inherited from Vicky. Personality-wise, he's as cold-blooded and wise as Glam, but also has Vicky's unfriendliness and quick temper.
- Glam's older sister Lydia looks exactly like him to the point that Vicky mistook her for him in dress. They both share their blonde hair and blue eyes with both of their parents, have downward noses of their mother, and have rectangle jaw of their father, but while Glam had and has his father's straight hair, Lydia used to have her mother's curly hair, but nowadays her hair are straight like Glam's.
- Strong Girl, Smart Guy: Vicky is a muscular woman who can smash through a brick wall while Glam can deduce riddles easily and program software.
- Technologically Blind Elders: Discussed. When a viewer notes people of Vicky's generation have problems with tech, she's pissed.
- Unrequited Love: A subversion. Glam gets constantly snubbed by Vicky, who thinks he's trying to give her something as a way of hitting on her. While he doesn't give up and is clearly in love with her, he was just trying to return her bike keys. She ends up returning his feelings and they both get married and have two sons.
- Around the time Vicky and Glam met, Bug seemed to have a thing for Vicky, but she didn't feel the same way and refused to kiss him, for which he slapped her in return and it didn't end well for him. Despite that, they remained friends.
- Dee's classmate Diana had a crush on him at least until he tricked her into embarrassing herself in front of the whole classroom for which she snitch on him about having a rat to the teacher.
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Viewer Gender Confusion: Lordi, one of Glam and Ches' bandmates shown in flashbacks. He is small and slender, wears a pink tank top, goes onstage in eye makeup and hair ribbons, and has a sort of androgynous name and voice. Nonetheless, he is stated to be a man. - Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Downplayed; when Vicky reacts violently to some people insulting her, Dee calmly watches from the side.
