Unlike loving and harmonious family units like the Forger family in the current Spy x Family, there are too many families in anime that just can’t stand each other. Family disputes are messy and unpleasant enough normally, but when they’re raging among royalty, with the fate of a country if not the whole world hinging on the result, it’s a different beast entirely.
Between bloody succession disputes as seen in Hunter x Hunter or just toxic dynamics like in Mobile Suit Gundam, anime and manga are full of seriously screwed-up royals whose familial disagreements can end in death.
Britannian Royal Family (Code Geass)
While the family tradition of inheritance by backstabbing relatives certainly didn’t start with Charles zi Britannia (Charles’ worldview was shaped when he and his brother V.V. saw their mother murdered in a succession dispute), the Emperor pushes his “survival of the fittest” mentality relentlessly on his many children. At least ten potential heirs all struggle to impress their father, and outdo or even eliminate troublesome siblings.
Banished prince Lelouch detests his father for not caring about the murder of his mother and blinding and paralysis of his little sister, which he believes one of his half-siblings orchestrated. But his coup d’état plans meet fierce competition from his brothers and sisters, who rank just as high as Lelouch on Code Geass’ intelligence scale.
Juraian Royal Family (Tenchi Muyo!)
Alien royal customs are just as out of this world as human ones. Royals of Jurai, the most powerful beings in the galaxy, are not strictly blood-related family: royalty on their homeworld is decided by sentient trees descended from a goddess, who choose Juraian partners to bond with for the entirety of their millennia-long lives.
The Juraian royal court is extremely prone to subterfuge, backstabbing, and other questionable politics. This includes marrying biological half-siblings to prevent them from fighting over the throne, and bitter rivalries between opposing royal houses.
Xingese Royal Family (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)
Every emperor of Xing takes wives from each of the country’s fifty clans, and sires as many heirs to the throne as possible. There doesn’t seem to be any official criteria for succession; it’s all up to the current ruler. This emperor decrees that whichever of his children brings him the secret to immortality will win the throne, so forty-three princes and princesses go out on the impossible quest.
While viewers don’t see the Xingese imperial court or Ling and May’s many other relatives, what those two have to say about it doesn’t paint a pretty picture. Ling says that not only has he never even spoken to his father, but people have been trying to assassinate him since he was born. When May and Ling’s bodyguard Lan Fan first see each other, their immediate reaction is to attack.
Parsian Royal Family (Heroic Legend Of Arslan)
Though he is determined to be a good prince, gentle Arslan was always out of place in the warlike royal court of Pars. His father King Andragoras openly despises him, and his mother Queen Tahamine is distant and cold. His situation only worsens when he is thrown into a war with invading Lusitanians and their leader Silvermask.
In the novels and manga, it’s revealed that Arslan is actually a secretly adopted bastard, the son of a soldier and servant. What’s more, Silvermask’s true identity is Hilmes, Andragoras’ nephew who wants to kill him and his son for usurping the throne from his father and almost burning Hilmes alive. The Parsian royal family is defined by violence and betrayal in an anime fans of The Witcher should check out.
Hui Guo Rou Family (Hunter x Hunter)
One of the major powers at play in the Hunter x Hunter manga’s Dark Continent Arc is the Hui Guo Rou family, the royals of the Kakin Empire. Despite his genial air, King Nasubi is a cruel man who forces a traditional, deadly succession war on his children. All 14 heirs, ranging from middle-aged adults to literal babies, must eliminate all their siblings not just to become the next king, but to survive.
Most of the princes are innocent and just trying to escape with their lives, but the most vicious of them include full brothers Benjamin, who is introduced breaking a lion’s neck in a fit of rage, and Tserriednich, the one who ordered Kurapika’s clan massacred so he could collect their eyes. The princes’ mothers (Nasubi’s eight wives) are ostensibly there to help, but some openly favor only one of their children for survival.
Jahad Family (Tower Of God)
Jahad was the first to successfully climb the Tower, which gave him the power to found the Jahad Empire and become known as the King of the Tower. While he has no queen or direct heir, he has many adopted daughters known as the Princesses of Jahad.
Receiving Jahad’s blood grants the Princesses great power, which they are meant to use to defend their “father” and uphold his laws. However, there is no love lost between any members of the Jahad family. The selection process is brutal, the Princesses are constantly competing with each other, and they will be executed if they have relationships with men or bear children (as was the fate of Anaak’s mother).
Ren Family (Magi: The Labyrinth Of Magic)
The heirs to the Kou Empire, which seeks to unite the world through bloody conquest, fight amongst each other as much as they do other countries. Before the main story begins, Emperor Hakutoku and his older sons are murdered in a fire by their wife and mother, Ren Gyokuen, who then marries her brother-in-law to cover it up and maintain control of the empire.
The surviving prince Hakuryuu, who knows the truth, hates his cousins for overtaking him in the line of succession and placing duty to their empire over avenging their relatives. He devotes his life to getting strong enough to kill his mother, careless of the civil war it will cause. His cousins, for their part, don’t realize that the chaos their war spreads across the globe is playing right into the hands of the apocalypse cult Gyokuen is running in the background.
Frieza’s Family (Dragon Ball Z)
Though the Saiyan royal family has produced brutal warriors and tyrannical rulers, they at least have enough care (or, at the very least, respect) between them not to harm each other. The same cannot be said of the imperial family of the Frieza Force, some of the strongest Dragon Ball villains.
King Cold is stated by Frieza to be the only one (prior to the heroes) to have ever hurt Frieza in his true form, and he never even acknowledges his older son Cooler. The brothers, for their part, hold each other in contempt, with Cooler especially smarting over their father’s perceived favoritism towards Frieza.
Reiss Family (Attack on Titan)
Almost the entirety of the series’ problems can be placed squarely on the shoulders of the Eldian royal family. Once known as the Fritz family, they used Colossal Titans to construct the walls and slaughtered any bloodline that would not obey the First King. Now living in secret, they work to ensure that humanity is caged inside the walls forever.
Even if its members care for each other, family tradition still dictates that they eat each other alive. To pass the Founding Titan’s power through generations, the current holder is chained up so they cannot escape their successor, who is transformed into a Titan and will mindlessly devour their own relatives.
Zabi Family (Mobile Suit Gundam)
In the year 0079, the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon are at war. Sovereign of Zeon Degwin Zabi implicitly killed his predecessor to rule, and gave the highest military positions to his children to avoid meeting the same fate. Coupled with the massive dose of authoritarian ideology he raised them with, this decision backfires on him.
Though some of them have the silliest mobile suit designs in Gundam, they are not to be messed with: Gihren is a ruthless commander and de facto ruler, and Dozle and Kycilia are powerful fighters. They agree that all humans should be bent to the will of the Zabi family, but can’t come together about how to make that happen, and it leads to the whole family’s eventual destruction.
