[catwhowalks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

As much as I hated how the movie lets Sokichi off the hook for being a deadbeat dad, I really liked the point where he stopped in the middle of a fight (while he was being crushed to death!) to talk to Akiko on the phone. In isolation, it's a really cute scene about how Sokichi's responsibilities as a father take precedence over his role as a Kamen Rider. That's a very cool, unique role for a Kamen Rider to have!

...and then there's the rest of his story in the movie.

I think there is very much a cultural thing in Japan. Japan's work culture means that abandoning your kid for work is seen as right and good. You see it all over toku in particular. LOTS of absent parents where this is treated as just a normal thing for you to only see your parents ever several years or so. There's an entire episode of Shinkenger, for example, in which it's revealed that Jii because of his duties to Takaru only gets to see his wife and children one day every year and he gives up his day to help the Shinkengers which is treated as him absolutely doing the right thing. He is treated as a noble hero sacrificing his family for his work duties.

And there are many, MANY episodes of several toku series in which a kid is upset that his or her (but usually his) only parent that actually lives with him, (the other usually working in another city or country) never sees him because of work, and the moral of the story is always that the kid is absolutely wrong to be upset that his parents are abandoning him because that is the right thing to do and the kid should just suck it up and accept having no parents.

Yeah, it's bizzare to me too, but this is what they teach as a moral to children in children's television in Japan.

These episodes seem to be mostly in Sentai and Ultraman, which are aimed at younger views, I think, so maybe you haven't seen it as much. Older kids are, apparently, expected to have already learned that it's okay to be abandoned by your parents.