Spy x Family and the adoptive-family hook

Why is modern anime OBSESSED with adoptive parents and found families — but almost never shows happy, intact biological families with kids? Simone and Malcolm Collins dive deep into this bizarre trend dominating recent anime.

From mega-hits like Spy x Family to hidden gems like Buddy Daddies, The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting, and I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years, we explore why adoptive/found-family parenting tropes are everywhere... while biological families are rare, tragic, or melancholic (think Wolf Children or Clannad: After Story).

We break down:

* Dozens of examples of the adoptive parent trope

* The stark tonal differences (heartwarming comedy vs. bittersweet sacrifice)

* Theories: Youth audience rebellion? Japanese cultural duty vs. choice? Fertility crisis propaganda gone wrong? Teenage fantasy of “chosen family”?

Pronatalists, otaku, and culture war watchers: This one’s for you.

Episode Transcript:

Simone Collins: Hello Simone. Today we are gonna be talking about an interesting phenomenon. In which parenting has been increasingly put as and pedestal by anime as this great thing to do is your life and is a very fun thing to watch people do is their lives. But what is very interesting I. Is the way it’s being shown which is that the vast, vast majority of modern animes that include parent roles, the parent is in the adoptive role.

It is not their biological child. And when it is their biological child, the tone is typically very, very different. So we are gonna talk about the animes that fit this trope. We are trying to talk about the enemies that don’t fit this trope. We are gonna talk about the tonal differences, and we are going to make hypotheses as to why this might be

the case.

I’m so curious. The case, I’m so curious because it is something, it’s, it’s so weird that it feels like there’s all this prenatal, this propaganda like you know, pro kids were all about it, but then. [00:01:00] None of it is along the normal lines. I feel like none of it’s modeling to people how this stuff actually happens.

So I don’t know what to think anymore.

But I have to start with the Basecamp Anime intro.

Speaker: Culture away in the trees of yesterday.

Dear branches, the and

turn over.

The crowd base camp. Welcome to the Everlasting fight of Culture, bloom and the [00:02:00] sky fight.

We can’t ignore. Strike them down with

game theory[00:03:00]

base camp night and take their flight.

Simone Collins: Well, and,

Malcolm Collins: and we can start by talking about spy Ex Spy Family. This is one that we’ve watched in the family. Very, very popular anime. So incredibly popular anime to understand how popular it is. You know, even within the US when we go to Walmart and we look at like the mango section, because Walmart is the mango section now I remember I was looking not long ago.

And literally half the books in the section were spy, ex spy family. Mm-hmm. This is like, this isn’t like a popular, this is like Sailor Moon or Naruto Popular for this generation.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And the plot of it is Lloyd and Anya, who one is a undercover detector and the other is an assassin. And they don’t know each other.

Hold these roles. Adopt a, a daughter named Anya who can read minds. And then they get a dog who can see the future.

Simone Collins: They don’t know. She can breed mines and no one knows. The dog can see the, like, no one knows the secret identity of anyone else in the family, which is really [00:04:00] cute. But yeah, this, this child was, I mean, it, it, it, so the, the spy, the spy father has to have a like sham wife and a sham child to be.

Seen as, as, as believable in his position, which is why he, he ends up in this family and everyone else has reasons. You know, like, I, I wanna be adopted, I don’t wanna have a family or like, you know, I. Why does, why does the, the wife character need to be in a family? I can’t remember

Malcolm Collins: because she’s afraid that she will be seen as a spy being a woman of her age and unmarried.

Right. And she’s desperately looking for a husband to go to a work event with her, or not a husband, but like at least a boyfriend or something. Mm-hmm. So she doesn’t look suspicious.

Simone Collins: Hmm. And then it’s just so convenient that there’s this man who suddenly. It is like perfect on paper and like is is interested in,

Malcolm Collins: yeah.

Well, and before we go further, I actually think Spy X spy family discounts one of the first things that people will say about this. Okay. Because, you know, I ask AI and I’m like, okay, why is this the case? Why is this so much [00:05:00] popular, more popular than the other type? Yeah. And AI immediately is like, well, it’s, you know.

More flexible for narrative structures. Right. You know, because you can just slot people in anywhere, right? And I was like, actually it’s not. So if you look at a spy, ex spy family, I think that this is sort of the. Case that that disproves the rule. Mm-hmm. It used spy Ex Spy Family as an example of narrative flexibility.

It was like, look like you can have a family like this. And I then pointed out, I was like, actually Spy Ex Spy family could be seen as drawn from multiple Western properties, all of which did not need to make. This, this aversion the two big ones that I would think of are true lies and the Smiths.

Mm-hmm. Which had a reboot as well. It was so popular. Totally. So the Smiths don’t have a kid, but they are a real long-term married couple who are both assassins or spies, depending on which one you’re watching. And you

Simone Collins: don’t know. The other one is, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And so you don’t need, it showed that they could have had a kid.

Like that’s completely incidental to the plot, right? Like, yeah. Yeah. Now if you go to True Lies, which I think is [00:06:00] one of the better movies ever made and is a very good example of this plot. They have a kid that is not just their biological kid, but is absolutely crucial to the plot and central to the third act and adds a lot of stakes to the plot.

Do you remember the daughter from True Lies, like on the missile and everything and, and the Big Crane?

Simone Collins: I’ve was this one of those that I, that we watched Drunk Together? That I was drunk?

Malcolm Collins: Maybe Remember when we did

Simone Collins: Drunk Date Nights? I love those. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a protagonist.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah.

We watched a lot of those ones. Yeah. So I, I, I, for all the drunken date nights, I have no memory of the movies we watch, which is great ‘cause I get to rewatch them as a first timer again. But yeah, don’t remember. Sorry,

Malcolm Collins: but yeah. But I, I just focus on that one. But then you also get a lot that are like, if you’re watching it, you may not even recognize that adoptive parents are a major role in it.

A good example here is Miss Kosh, she’s Dragon made. [00:07:00] In, in the very second episode they dropped the Dragon Kana, who is clearly a child dragon who they adopt into their family and treat as their child. This is like. Episode number two or others that attempt to subvert this trope from old country bumpkin to master swordsman.

If you Yeah. Well, he doesn’t,

Simone Collins: he doesn’t, this is about a master swordsman almost like being, like being revisited by all of his former students who are now successful. But then

Malcolm Collins: remember at the end of it, this is the last arc of it, like the last third of it. Mm-hmm. He basically adopts a kid.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Well, and he had like previously taken orphans in and trained them, so he sort of adopted that, but he

Malcolm Collins: never raised an orphan as a dad. Yeah. And this is a very important plot point, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. This is more Yeah, but that’s, and that’s just crazy. That’s crazy.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, okay. Hold on. We, we gotta do more here. No, it’s for my daughter, I’d even defeat a demon Lord. In this one, he finds a demon child. By the way, every single one I’ve mentioned so far, I’ve watched from beginning to end. Just so people know what an anime, a nerd I am. I will let you know [00:08:00] when I get to an anime I have not watched from beginning to end.

You’re doing the work. Yeah. I should probably note the good ones. From old country bumpkin is pretty good. I I do not like Dragon made that much. I think it’s not that great

Simone Collins: old country bump, kind of a little boring. Nothing really seems to happen.

Spy family’s great. Highly recommend Spy Family.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, spy family’s really good. And yeah, you know what’s crazy?

Simone Collins: You know, one of our very, very favorite animes of all time food wars. What Shoko, GKI knows something. Yeah. Even in this anime where there are some strong parental bonds kind of modeled it’s often just one parent, like the other parent is dead or absent.

Yeah, the two, two leading characters have very strong father figures, but then there are no mothers. This is so weird. There aren’t no, there’s like, no. Hold on. Complete family.

Malcolm Collins: We gotta go through our list here. Okay.

Simone Collins: Yes. This mystery is just getting deeper and deeper. Go gi, gimme [00:09:00] more. Okay,

Malcolm Collins: next one. I’ve been killing Slimes for 300 years.

I just watched this one for the second time Recently Are slimes

Simone Collins: monsters. What? What?

Malcolm Collins: So in this one she kills Sons of Slimes and she begins to build this found family. But some of the first members of it are two young girls who say that they’re her daughters. But they’re actually made up of the spirits of Slimes that she killed are slimes monsters.

What are slimes? Slimes are monsters. It’s a common thing in fantasy tropes. Okay. Have you watched so little anime? You don’t know Slimes. I am disappointed in you, the bad nerd wife.

Sorry I don’t make

you watch enough anime. You need more schooling. Sorry. I’m gonna have to bring out the attention class.

You need to watch more. Is that guy this is the first one I haven’t seen. Buddy Daddy’s two assassins unexpectedly become guardians of a young girl and must adopt her to parenthood. Oh,

this sounds

cute. Here’s another one I haven’t seen. The Yakuza Guide to Babysitting a gangster [00:10:00] learns empathy and responsibility by caring for his boss’s daughter.

Aw.

The, here’s another one I haven’t seen. Somali and the Forest Spirit. A Gollum becomes the guardian of a lost human child forming a father daughter bond.

Aw,

Here’s another one I haven’t seen Ro lives alone, a mysterious 4-year-old lives alone, drawing in neighbors from a found family to form a found family around him.

Here’s one that I have seen that I, I. Remember liking a journey through another world, raising kids while adventuring their protagonist adopts two children while adventuring creating a calm family centered a. Okay. And then you for a final one here, you have sweetness and lightning. And I was only looking for anime in the past five years for this list.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay. Color me impressed. It’s a lot.

Malcolm Collins: Now let’s go to the biological, so you’ll get an idea of how rare they are in contrast. Okay. The one that I have seen on this list, because I’ve only seen one on this list. Is REM monster where the protagonist is reincarnated as a goblin and sis children who become key allies in the tribe’s [00:11:00] growth.

Simone Collins: So not exactly modeling to people how to get it done.

Malcolm Collins: Not exactly modeling how to get it done. No. And I he has them with different characters. Oh, he has like a, you know, a cat around. Yeah. So there’s, there’s

Simone Collins: no, there’s no intact families in anime. What is this? How, like, okay. Yeah. Okay. Hold on. The

Malcolm Collins: next one, Wolf Children.

A mother raises two wolf children after their father’s death. This is not a, a modern one, but again, it’s one of the most famous in this space.

Simone Collins: Tragic, though, I, I can’t watch it. Becausecause. It would make me cry.

Malcolm Collins: Barra. Kamo. While not a parent, the protagonist for no, we, this doesn’t count. US soggy Drop.

No, that’s not kids. The, my wife is student council president. Features teen parents in some marks of the manga. They’re the anime stays pg and avoids child rearing.

Nope.

So not in the anime. Okay.

Okay.

Clan ad after story, the second season, focus heavily on biological fatherhood and the struggles of raising a child after loss.

So again, a sad one. Erased features the protagonist mother playing a strong biological [00:12:00] parental role, but his pseudo adoption of classmates takes center stage. And then a sweetness and lightning might have a biological parent. So can we not

Simone Collins: have a single,

Malcolm Collins: a single happy one? Family? Yeah. No, that’s a thing.

They’re not. Happy being a parent. So, let’s, let’s talk about why this may be okay. One thing that’s become common in places like Japan is to cancel models when they start dating people. Or to cancel people who are famous for being like maids when they start dating people or it even happened to, what do you mean by

Simone Collins: cancel?

Like they just lose all of their followers or their contracts are terminated. What? What happens? Their

Malcolm Collins: contracts are terminated. They lose their followers. They get attacked publicly.

Simone Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: They get harassed constantly. This happened to a weather woman, for example. Oh. Weather woman. Now admittedly, she was on a, a news station that only had attractive young women as reporters.

So like Fox

Simone Collins: News, right? It’s as if in America, suddenly, like [00:13:00] everyone on Fox News, if they were no longer signal lost their job.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And so I thought you were gonna say like, except that it’s a, it’s an erotic news channel in, in which everyone presents news naked

For a while there was an erotic news channel until the viewer base got so old that they just never changed out any of these aging women.

Oh, no. And now

you watched it, it looks like a bunch of like Botox GULs. That is

hilarious. Okay. That’s interesting. Wow. All right.

But so. One of my initial theories was, well, maybe it’s the people want the belief in the virginal ness of the character. You know, like, we need a woman, but we need to know that she’s not sleeping with anyone.

Right. And then we need kids. Right. I was like, okay, I could see that maybe. Now of course this is gonna be terrible for fertility rates. But you know, and if, and if. You don’t have this, you need a mother who’s been punished for having sex, like in wolf children. Right? Or, or you need just a man [00:14:00] raising the kids.

And so I go into this and I’m like, but does this actually explain what we’re seeing? Right? Like mm-hmm. And I’m like, not really. Because you often get only males raising the kids. Yeah. Like. If it’s for my daughter even I’d faced a demon lord or from old country bumpkin to master swordsman or and this is uniquely

Simone Collins: weird ‘cause in Japan, Japan is one of those places that still really seems to have traditional gender roles where women really feel this societal obligation to do the child rearing.

If, if they have kids. I mean, even I saw this with families of very educated women. Who then had kids and just totally stepped back and did the housewife thing. Because it was just like, I have to do that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: I can’t emphasize how, how weird that was to me but also how pervasive it felt and, and we’re talking very educated women.

Relatively speaking, very progressive families in Japan. Not, not traditional, [00:15:00] more inter I mean, if they’re international enough to have friends in America and to speak fluent English, right? Like yeah. You know, and, and, and still. And so that’s why it’s extra weird because the extent to which I see male parenting in Japan, or at least that I’ve personally experienced it in the time that I’ve, I’ve spent in Japan with Japanese families is just non-existent.

It would be so weird. Like a a, aside from a father joining his wife and child. ‘cause I, it’s also hard for me to imagine multiple children on, on some kind of vacation or, or eating out together that, that I could envision on a weekend or on a once a year vacation. But that’s, well, and I

Malcolm Collins: think that this is really important to dig into it.

It’s clear that was Japan, this stuff is popular and, and not just within Japan. Well, yes. Spy

Simone Collins: family. I mean that, that’s huge.

Malcolm Collins: It’s, it’s so. People feel a desire for this kind of content and these types of fantasies. And yet the way that they’re being delivered to them seems to be making the [00:16:00] problem worse.

Mm-hmm.

Now I. What you could argue here is, okay, character development, that’s why they’re doing it. Becoming an adoptive parent often requires sun ghosts perfect for anime’s emotional arcs. The shift from lone wolf to reluctant caretaker is a powerful trope. The problem is was in western media, we’ve been doing that with biological parents for ages.

That does not require anime to do that does not require an adoption to do. This is a, this is a choice.

Simone Collins: And there are countless ways you can show growth beyond that, that it, that, that, that’s no good explanation at all.

Malcolm Collins: One that I think is a really good explanation potentially is that this is such a fantasy to your average person in Japan that it is immersion breaking for somebody to get married and have kids.

Simone Collins: I don’t, I mean, I’m gonna look up what percentage of people in Japan marry in their lifetimes. I’m pretty sure marriage is pretty pervasive and that’s why I, I don’t know if I can agree with you on that.

Malcolm Collins: Well look it up. [00:17:00] I remember the number of, look up. How many Japanese per people are married by the age of 30?

Okay. Okay. So you’re getting a. But I would not be surprised if, you know, they see this as more immersion breaking than being ade or, you know, in a, in a fantasy world,

Simone Collins: according to a 2015 survey by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, 30.7% of men and 46% of women aged 25 to 30 were unmarried.

Meaning approximately 69% of men and 54% of women in this age group were married. The majority, huh? Yeah. Why? What’s interesting though is that it looks like men are doing more passport bro stuff.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Right? They’re bringing in women. Yeah. Well, no, but, so then part of the question here is it, does this have to do with anime’s audience?

Are they more likely to be in the unmarried camp?

Simone Collins: Yeah. The, the the incel. Socially awkward group. I [00:18:00] mean, definitely when, when I, when I reflect on how anime fans were perceived within Japan, they were not perceived as thriving socially, so to speak. So also,

Malcolm Collins: which I’ve always think a shame in Japan because it shows to me a lack of leaning into their own culture.

Simone Collins: But that’s, and that’s talking about adults. I mean, I, I do think that where anime is less. Stigmatized is consumption among teens, and maybe that’s what’s going on is that we’re looking at media that is primarily consumed by youth, and in that case it’s really unrelatable this idea. I think the idea of marriage and having kids is, if anything, repulsive to adolescents who are going through that rebellion period and who find their parents uniquely disgusting.

So maybe that’s something that’s going on. It’s an audience thing. [00:19:00] Hmm. I mean, keep in mind, I, I, I don’t know of, of really any youth centered media, you know, that’s like primarily consumed by people under the age of 18 in the United States or elsewhere that depicts an intact family. Though it could depict instances of taking care of younger people as a character development thing.

So I can’t ask what percent of anime in Japan is consumed by people under age 18.

Malcolm Collins: It’s an interesting question. So the next theory they have here that aligns with what you just said is audience fantasy found family appeals to viewers who may feel alienated from traditional family structures. It also romanticizes the idea that love not blood defines family, which again, may make it seem more accessible to people.

Simone Collins: According to a 2023 survey by Nipon Research Center, approximately 88.6% of high school students in Japan watch anime indicating high prevalence among those typically aged 15 to 18. Who’s that? [00:20:00]

Malcolm Collins: That small percent, 11%. Who’s not losers? 12%. I mean, yeah, whatever.

Simone Collins: Combining these let’s see, A 2017 report from Fasu Intelligent Strategic Marketing estimated that 65% of five to nine year olds and 44% of 10 to 19 year olds in Japan watch anime suggesting a significant portion of the under 18 demographic engages with anime combining these insights, it’s reasonable to estimate that a.

Substantial percentage of anime audiences in Japan are under 18, likely around 40 to 50% when considering broader five to 19 age ranges. The exact figures are unknown and it’s hard to, they don’t, there’s not anything that shows but it, it, I mean, the conclusion is younger viewers, five to 19 form a core part of the audience, but viewership drops off in older age groups.

With only 40% of young adults and under 20% of those over 60 watching anime. So clearly there’s a drop off if we’re going from 88% of teens to 40% of [00:21:00] young adults, and that’s like people in their twenties who may still be in that kind of teen mode of families. Disgusting. I think, I think that I find that com that to be the most compelling theory so far is that it’s about youth oriented media and you often talk about this role of life stages that people.

And their youth have very different sources of contentment, pleasure, and satisfaction than people who are in like their late twenties, early thirties, and then from people who are in their forties to fifties and then fifties to sixties. And if you don’t recognize that the things that bring you satisfaction change over time, you’re going to try to be happy in your like thirties to forties.

By like traveling and having a lot of sex and like, you know, doing all this, like socializing and partying and, and playing video games and, and yet you’re not getting the same satisfaction from it when at that time if instead you had invested in like building a family and a home life, you would’ve gotten so much more out of it.

So I think that’s, that’s more probably what’s going on. [00:22:00]

Malcolm Collins: We can

Simone Collins: still, we can still enjoy these plots as adults and just kind of pretend that they’re biological parents too. Like I don’t think, it doesn’t alienate the older audiences. But it would alienate the younger audiences.

Malcolm Collins: That’s a good point. It feels very grown up and these don’t feel as grown up.

Yeah. And we can get to that with a hypothesis that’s coming up, but I, but I’d also note here you know, our kids are already watching anime a lot. Yeah. They watch a lot of Pokemon. They love We Oh, sailor Moon too, dude. Oh yeah. You, you have the one. Oh. And that Magical Girl

Simone Collins: one. What’s the

Malcolm Collins: one about like, oh, that’s, that’s one they just watched with us.

‘cause we’re watching it. The one about the magical girl who works at like a startup. Oh no, but

Simone Collins: no, honestly, here’s the crazy thing is Titan watched that before watching Sailor Moon for the first time. Mm-hmm. And now when sailor Moon and her compatriots have their transformation, she’s like magical girl transformation.

Like she knows exactly the trope that’s taking place and it cracks me up like she understands. She’s just like, of course, [00:23:00] magical girl transformation.

Malcolm Collins: Magical girl transformation. She says that.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It’s that, it kind of blew my mind because I was like, wow, you, you actually really,

Malcolm Collins: so for our younger kids, we have a projector and we play various shows from my childhood because like, I don’t trust modern cartoons.

So we’ve play like GI Joe, we’ve done some X-Men from like the eighties. We’ve done a lot of magical school bus and one of the ones we’ve, that they’ve been hugely obsessed with recently. Is Pokemon. Yeah. We live in a Pokemon house now. They love Pikachu. Every single one of them loves Pikachu.

Simone Collins: Everyone has a Pikachu.

Plush everyone. Octavian has changed his favorite color to yellow because that is the color of Pikachu. Oh yeah? Mm-hmm. Dead is red. Uh uh Red is dead. Yellow’s in.

Malcolm Collins: I had no idea. That is Did he explain this to you?

Simone Collins: Yes, he did. Yes, he did.

Malcolm Collins: That’s great. That’s great. You know, we’re teaching our kids good values here.

I’ll, I’ll put that scene from top [00:24:00] part.

Speaker 2: Ooh, Garrison son. Sahi. What did he say? He.

Malcolm Collins: All right. So here’s another hypothesis, avoiding romance complications. Biological partners are often paired with their romantic partner, which can overshadow the parenting theme. Adoptive stories often focus more tightly on the bond itself. I don’t buy that. One that I did buy a bit more was saying, well, you know, you can have people falling in love and like a will they or won’t they sort of a thing?

Mm-hmm. If they are adoptive because they haven’t already, you know, consummated their relationship and they’re not officially married except True Lies does that really, really well. Mm-hmm. Even though they’re already in a marriage. If you remember the wife is thinking about cheating on the husband and she’s drunk guy.

Sorry. The, a marriage is falling apart and it’s about the marriage coming back together and being re solidified based on this. That’s fine. But like, it, it works really well despite all of this. You don’t, you [00:25:00] don’t need them to not already be married to have a story about the strengthening of a relationship.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Now let’s talk about the tonal differences between the two because I found this to be really interesting. So if you look at adoptive, if you’re looking at the tone, they’re often heartwarming. And, and I wanna get your theory on this because I did not feel I had a good explanation from this, from your earlier thoughts.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: So for the tone, they’re often heartwarming, comedic, or redemptive. I. In biological, they’re often bittersweet, serious or melancholic. Mm-hmm. In theme chosen family is focused on healing identity beyond blood in biological and often just like, so sweetness is the main theme I. In biological, it’s about legacy sacrifice, letting go and personal growth.

Like heavy stuff. Common arcs for adoptive, reluctant parent softens or found family bonds. But for biological it’s parental endurance coming of age, tragedy of loss. [00:26:00] What that

Simone Collins: totally both of those check out because really what they are is coming of age stories. They’re not about biological family at all.

It’s about like some, some big gauntlet that they’re running, some big challenge, learning how to become responsible and, and often learning how to become responsible for yourself by becoming responsible for others. And I feel, I feel like those themes come up in, in shows like Spy Family, the, the characters are forced to find themselves deserving of love to overcome deep, dark fears.

Through the obligations imposed on them by their adoptive families.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: So that makes sense. And I, I think this, this feeling of losing a partner and then having a child with you to take care of is definitely something that can resonate to someone who’s a teenager, who’s anticipating this point in their life at which they lose their support network, their parents, as they’re [00:27:00] expected to become an adult.

And I think that in a way. Th this psychologically they beco they are their own parent and they are their own child and they know that they’re going to have to basically take care of themselves and that these stories kind of help them subconsciously get through the grief of no longer getting to mooch off their parents.

So you think

Malcolm Collins: about the, the grief in that one, and the other ones are about. Just sort of masturbating the sensation of, you know, I’m gonna be

Simone Collins: on my own, I’m gonna have to fend for myself and take care of a helpless.

Malcolm Collins: That’s, that’s, that’s not what they’re doing. I’m, I’m talking about the adoptive ones, like, why are the adoptive ones so happy in their theming generally?

Simone Collins: I think a lot of that has to do with teenage rebellion and building your own identity. At this point, but adopt

Malcolm Collins: ones often aren’t about that. The adoptive, adoptive, adoptive,

Simone Collins: that’s what I’m talking about.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Where they’re often comedic and, and happy and Yeah. Like, yeah. ‘

Simone Collins: cause this, this, as, as a teen, you’re building your own family, you’re building your identity.

You’re choosing who your [00:28:00] friends are. You are, you are choosing, it’s argument

Malcolm Collins: you’re making makes no sense because you’re arguing that both the biological and the adoptive fill this fantasy, even though they, no, the

Simone Collins: biological one is about. Coming to terms with the, the, the responsibility you are going to have for yourself as an adult and how that’s both scary and kind of sad, but also character building.

The other one,

Malcolm Collins: this other is about the responsibility of yourself as an adult.

Simone Collins: No, it’s, it’s about the fun parts of building your own identity, building your own friend group. And, but didn’t one

Malcolm Collins: separate that based on adoptive and biological, because

Simone Collins: they’re both different feelings. One is based on, on the fear and the grief and the, the hard growth.

The other one is built on the. Discovery and interest and freedom of it. Because there’s an element of, of adulthood where you get to have all that freedom and, and choose who you hang out with and choose who you get to be. And then there’s the other element of it where you are now burdened with yourself.

Malcolm Collins: Well, okay, here’s a better explanation, I think. Okay.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: In Japan they do [00:29:00] not believe that having a kid as a choice, they see it as a duty to their family, really. And a duty to their role in society. I mean, well this is just part of Confucian value systems. And so in Japan, in

Simone Collins: Confucian value systems in Japan,

Malcolm Collins: Japan has value systems.

I ain’t feeling it. You, you don’t think that Japan believes in duty. There is a belief, our duty to ancestors. No, hold on. You don’t think that Japan has an undercurrent in everything tied to duty to family and ancestors?

Simone Collins: Not anymore. But maybe that’s why their birth rate’s are lower.

Malcolm Collins: So I mean, I, I do think there’s, I argue that they do and I would argue it’s a major part of their culture and I would argue that they see having a kid as part of that duty and something that is in a way inescapable if they find a partner.

And because of that, at least one kid, right? Like it’s something they’re supposed to try. Like you’re not gonna get the same proud dinks in Japan as you would get in the us. That would just be [00:30:00] shameful, right?

Mm-hmm.

And so kids, if you’re making the kid the choice, the thing that you’re opting into, it always has to be adoptive because a kid had biologically is never a choice.

It’s always a duty.

Simone Collins: Oh, that’s okay. Well, yeah, I mean, that’s an interesting theory. That is interesting.

Malcolm Collins: So that’s,

Simone Collins: yeah. Well, and I think, I think this is, this is also interesting in the context of Aria BA’s ob observation, that more socially conservative countries that see these things as obligations see lower birth rates, maybe because when you make this an exogenous obligation, the intrinsic motivation disappears.

Yeah. And, and this could be a media-based reflection of that toxic dynamic of exogenous pressure to have kids making the only way to have kids romantically or in an inspiring way through adoption, which is interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That’s what I think is going on.

Simone Collins: Huh? I I think that plus that it’s a big [00:31:00] turnoff for kids.

To have a family.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, spy family is I at least my interpretation from where I see it sold disproportionately bought by young people.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. I, that makes sense. And the, the, there was one manga that I read as, as a kid and, and loved that did have parents more actively involved, but only in a way that really mocked the parents.

And so that. Two adoptive siblings essentially fell in love. Like, so it was like brother and sister, but not really. And, and the parents were swingers who just, it’s okay if they’re adopted. That’s the way anime always works. I mean, yeah. But, but again, like both of the, both parents remained there.

It’s just they swapped partners. So it was like, if your dad married my mom and my mom married. Sorry. And my dad married your mom. Wait,

Malcolm Collins: really? That’s the way it worked?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like they, yeah. Yeah. And then, and then so that [00:32:00] the two then, like, their kids ended up living in the same house. ‘cause I think they all ended up living together or something.

It, it was, it was a weird manga. I can’t remember what it was called. Someone chime in the comments. It was, I think it was very popular. People will know.

Malcolm Collins: Oh no, there’s a few, like, I mean, obviously the one that everybody would always come to for the, adoptive brother one, I think Kiss Sis is an adoptive brother.

The, the one that I love, there was

Simone Collins: also an adoptive brother in gossip Girl,

Malcolm Collins: so Oh, really? Yeah. I’m thinking of the one there. It was an anime that only had one season and it had a very strange art style, and it’s something called like. I’m not in love with my brother. And it, a big feature of it with the girl had like an orange shirt and like black stockings.

I found it really funny. And he, he builds up like a hair in it. I, I love hair anime. I think they’re the best.

Simone Collins: Well, you’re in luck given that it’s like, God, what percentage of anime are hair of anime? Some insane amount.

Malcolm Collins: Simone, when do [00:33:00] I get my other four wives? Like I’ve seen an anime. That’s supposed to happen.

Simone Collins: No, they, it’s not for, it’s it’s you, you, you live, you know, I guess you know, is is Silicon Valley? The Harem? The Harem reality? Like the closest you’ll get, I mean, half of the women will actually have been NA males, but still is that kind of it?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it’s Harem reality. No, my I was, I was talking to Simone recently.

There’s this recent trope in anime of the like absolutely virginal, absolutely like saintly girl among the harem, which is the only one the guy actually wants to marry and it’s the sweetest. And I was like, she gives off such vibes of that character just in the way she interacts with our kids and everything.

You know, she’s so saintly all the time.

Simone Collins: Because they cough in my face and I don’t get mad.

Malcolm Collins: You don’t pop ‘

Simone Collins: em. They’re actively giving me COVID. Just take it. Just take it

Malcolm Collins: like a champ. Like, oh, I’m gonna tank it when you get back, after you get your [00:34:00] C-section. If any of the kids are sick, let me know and I’m gonna handle them.

Simone Collins: It’s not like I’m not, I’m not gonna not make dinner for them. I’m not gonna not clean up after everyone. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But I could bathe them and stuff like that.

Simone Collins: And carry them up the stairs. It’s the carrying up the stairs part where like, I will,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, I’ll do those two things.

Simone Collins: It’s like they, we get them to, to cough into their elbows, but when I am carrying them, they decide that they have to, at that moment.

Get right out here. You know what? It’s so cool when I can

Malcolm Collins: like ask an a, a, you know, an anime about us, these not anime, like an AI about us these days and we see like AI creation of anime and stuff like that. And it’s like early stages. I bet in 10 years we’ll just be able to ask an AI to create an anime about our family and it’ll just pump one out.

Simone Collins: We don’t need to though, because all of our kids just assume that they are the protagonist that every anime is about them.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, we we’re watching it there. Titan literally

Simone Collins: believes she’s every single character in animes, including the male characters.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, exactly. Like that’s

Simone Collins: Titan and that’s Titan and that’s Titan.[00:35:00]

She’s, but that it’s not, it’s not main character syndrome. It’s like, it’s unity syndrome. She’s got it bad.

Malcolm Collins: Crazy. She’s just, it’s gonna hive mine them all.

Simone Collins: Yeah, they’re all titan.

Malcolm Collins: So what are we doing for dinner tonight?

Simone Collins: The world’s your oyster. You did buy that teriyaki stuff at

Malcolm Collins: oh, that’d be really easy on my stomach.

Simone Collins: You also did buy like some kind of kimchi soup thing at the Asian market a while ago that I rediscovered in the deep freezer chest. So that’s an option. And

Malcolm Collins: send me a picture on WhatsApp when you’re ready.

Simone Collins: Okay. Yeah, I’ll head down, take a picture of it and you can decide. So I guess it’s that or teriyaki you can also do more freezer.

Malcolm Collins: I’m also happy with doing freezer stuff just to go through. As long as you don’t get that disgusting freezer rice.

Simone Collins: Oh, you don’t wanna do fried freezer? Fried freezer rice anymore,

Malcolm Collins: whatever that was. I, no, I do not want that. Last time.

Simone Collins: That was okay. Then I’ll [00:36:00] discard the other one. It was just two leftover fried rice batches that I thought would thaw out.

Okay. But I guess,

Malcolm Collins: no, it was the meat that I’d used and it just didn’t really work. There wasn’t

Simone Collins: meat in that fried rice.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, there was. It was a lot of meat. Oh, it was the pork crumble that you ended up using to try to make your scotch eggs.

Simone Collins: Oh, it didn’t work. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Costco has nothing good.

Simone Collins: Yeah, the chicken crumbles

Malcolm Collins: see out, competes them.

Simone Collins: Yeah, BJ’s is great. Yeah. I feel bad for anyone who doesn’t have access to bj. I feel bad for anyone who has a large family and shops at a Wegmans. Not to like

Malcolm Collins: my brother

Simone Collins: cast shade, but yeah. I mean,

Malcolm Collins: I love you.

Simone Collins: I love you too.

Malcolm Collins: Like what’s, I think you have good food.

It’s got like a variety. I.

Simone Collins: They have the German bread that I [00:37:00] like that you could throw through a window and break it, that kind of stuff.

Today you got

Malcolm Collins: all of the Synergy popcorn from Trader Joe’s. You got a whole shopping cart syn logistically.

Simone Collins: Oh, so good. So good. It’s like the limited edition Adi DA’s of Trader Joe’s. So excited

Malcolm Collins: off your stupid face.

Simone Collins: I will, I will. And I, I already did and I, now I’m gonna have the, their frozen tamales.

That’s what I’m having. Anyway, super excited for that. I love you. You’re beautiful and

Malcolm Collins: love you mom.

Simone Collins: Tell how something, something.

Speaker 5: So what happened? Toasty. Why are there no leaves? ‘cause ball comes and then the leaves come off. Wait, so this happens every year? Yeah. Are the leaves gonna come back in? Spring?

Speaker 6: I wait. Octavian, what happens if the bus comes while you’re in the tree? Be [00:38:00] light. No, you gotta come down, buddy. We, it’s too late. If you could have done this a bit earlier, but not now. Hey, but I got a question for you actually, Octavian, is daddy a superhero? Yes. What’s his superpower? His superpower is to make like a seal.

Speaker 5: I make shields. What’s your superpower? Um, invisibility, invisibility. You like that one? Yeah. Then nobody comes see.

Speaker 7: Well, I potion my dad. You can see everybody. Even me. Really? How will you make the potion? Well, with a potion skill. Yeah. With a potion skill. Yeah. You’re gonna need to [00:39:00] learn it at school. Yeah, I, my cat, are you gonna hit the, are you gonna hit the horn? Yeah. Then you can’t go inside. You hit the horn yesterday so I can’t let you in.

Speaker 5: Can I hug the horn? No, because you woke up Stacey and John. Do you want John to be mad at you? Oh no. I tried to, I seen, Hey, activity. You wanna tell people to like and subscribe Actually, Titan, do you wanna tell people to like and subscribe? Yes. And okay, what do you wanna say? How do you say it? Titan? How do you say like, and subscribe.

Are you too scared? Yes. Octavian. Do you wanna say it for Titan so she can see how you do it? Titan, come here. Octavian. Octavian here. Come over here. They can’t see you. Daddy. I was so high on that tweet. Torsten, do you wanna say like, and subscribe. [00:40:00] Uh oh. School bus. So daddy. You have to be a wizard to keep a Jennifer, not escape.

Speaker 7: Wizards do so with no keeping things escaping. Oh, I have to be a wizard to cast a spell. Yeah. And I can only be a wizard if I had a cape. What wizards? I heard that with her. Still have kids. Yeah, they don’t. Not all with herds. Do. Tapes are really quite irrelevant to magical powers. They just kinda make you look like a doofus.

Speaker 5: Oh

f**k. But toi, can you say like, and subscribe for the followers? Okay. What say it like can subscribe and what happens if they do it? I don’t know Either. Say the algorithm will like this video more.[00:41:00]

Speaker 6: I.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe