A large portion of anime parents are long-dead by the time their children’s stories begin. In the absence of a child’s birth parents, the role of raising them is often left to a step-parent, who themselves have the potential to be anything from angels to abusers.
Evil and cruel step-parents is a trope that goes back to stories as old as Cinderella, and still persists to this day. Anime doesn’t shy away from using this trope, and, over the years, has produced its fair share of evil anime step-fathers.
7 Muzan Kibutsuji - Demon Slayer
As the big bad of Demon Slayer, Muzan is the source and leader of all demons in the series. While most overlord-style villains have some base of operations to command their minions from, Muzan is rather paranoid and chooses to instead hide in plain sight as a human most of the time, visiting his demon generals personally.
The first time Tanjiro encounters him, he’s posing as a regular man out on the town with his wife and daughter. It’s never stated that demons can have children, so Muzan likely either replaced this family’s father or married into it for cover. While it’s never shown what happens to this family, it’s likely that he killed them before changing identities. And, it is very likely that he’s done this with several families over the years.
6 Pedro Belenbauza-Yamada - Michiko and Hatchin
Hana “Hatchin'' Morenos spends most of Michiko and Hatchin’s runtime in a turbulent journey with Michiko, an ex-lover of her father’s. Before Michiko arrived to steal Hana away, however, the young girl lived with a foster family, the Belenbauza-Yamadas.
The leader of the family, Pedro is a local priest who routinely adopts children just to collect child support money from the government, meaning that Hana isn’t even his first victim. He is shown being cruel and disrespectful to Hana on several occasions, and even allows his two children to torment her endlessly.
5 Giorno’s Step-Dad - Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
The various protagonists of the Joestar family usually only have one important parent. Stone Ocean’s Jolyne, for example, has a living mother who is never really relevant and isn’t named. Golden Wind’s Giorno continues this trend, with his father being Dio Brando, but his mother an unnamed woman.
Giorno’s mother neglects him in various ways, particularly by allowing her new husband to abuse Giorno. His step-father is shown beating and degrading him on several occasions, and only halts his abuse when seemingly threatened by a gang member whose life Giorno saves.
4 Ripple’s Step Dad - Magical Girl Raising Project
Since the release of Madoka Magica, the magical girl genre has seen an increase in darker stories. One such series is Magical Girl Raising Project, which sees 16 magical girls competing in increasingly deadly tasks in order to keep their powers.
One of the main girls, nicknamed Ripple, has a rather dark past. As far back as middle school, she was regularly bullied by her classmates, but more egregiously, her step-dad would often come on to her at home, watching her change and making passes at her till she eventually had enough and lashed out violently at him.
3 All For One - My Hero Academia
In his ongoing rivalry with All Might, All for One has hatched various schemes to attempt to take down hero society as a whole. By far the most personal and petty of these, however, is his adoption of Tenko Shimura, the grandson of All Might’s master, Nana Shimura.
After Tenko accidentally kills his family with his new quirk, AFO takes him in, acting as the main parental force in his life. He not only encourages the young boy to kill and destroy other people but also sets him up to be the next leader of the villains. Despite once wanting to be a hero, Tenko ends up completely twisted and malicious thanks to AFO’s influence.
2 Bondrewd - Made In Abyss
The world of Made in Abyss is one literally centered around the titular abyss: a giant, mysterious hole filled with ancient secrets and terrifying monsters. The ‘delvers’ are adventurers tasked with exploring the abyss, with the ‘white whistles’ being the most senior amongst them. While they are usually heroic figures, Bondrewd is evidence that this is not always the case.
Originally becoming a delver to escape persecution for his crimes, Bondrewd becomes fixated on finding out more about the abyss and how it functions. However, he opts to do this by mass child experimentation, killing and maiming many of the children in his care as a result, including his own biological daughter. He also takes personal joy in Nanachi’s achievements, despite having put her and her friend through his horrific experiments and changing her body forever.
1 Gambino - Berserk
Berserk is infamous for being one of the most brutal series in all of anime and manga history. Fittingly, its protagonist Guts is a man born from deep suffering. Most of this suffering can be attributed to his adoptive father, Gambino. As the leader of a mercenary group, Gambino was a cruel man. He only agreed to take Guts in due to his lover Shisu’s wishes, but always viewed him as a bad omen.
Gambino would beat and berate Guts constantly, especially during training, and even sent him onto the battlefield as a child. His worst offense, however, was selling Guts out to be molested by one of his subordinates. While Guts eventually killed Gambino in an altercation, the trauma he inflicted continued to haunt Guts even into adulthood.