No, I think that person means that in series like this ( I am guessing), the guy shown raising the child is usually showcased as incompetent, bumbling and a mostly unfit parent. The female characters would then show up and take care of everything with a flick of the fingers like its nothing. It will be portraying the stereotypes that men cant be good parents. Sexism goes both ways. At least thats what I think the message is?
Ah, I see what you mean. Well, the story is totally the opposite. Mama goes to work to Finland and leaves her little doughter with her parents, who however have to work in a restaurant and therefor leave the raising of the child to their younger son, uncle Shutaro, who just happens to have come back from Tokyo and is temporarily out of a job. He accepts and turns out to be a fantastic daddy-uncle!
This is a story that sort of makes me think of Yotsubato, although it's not really that funny. But it is very pleasant and quite well drawn. The characters are very attractive, and one learns a lot about the Japanese culture (lots of which we already know, manga-crazes like us).
Well, the famous one is Usagi Drop, even though a lot of westerners dont like the ending. If you are a M, you could try Otakus Daughter (pretty sure thats the name). A series infamous for fan rage that went on for pages in one of the site I originally read it in. Both of these series had the MC (as a single male) picking up a daughter through various circumstances and ended taking responsibilities to raise them. The interesting thing is that both of them have hugely irresponsible mothers. The mother from the OD series is so bad that readers who claimed to be parents wrote pages describing various ways they would "educate" that person.
Yotsuba is pretty cute, but I cant treat it seriously. Because every time I read it, I am reminded of the doujins where the MC (dad) is dating one of the daughters next door. :P
Ah, really? I haven't met with those yet, but after all, it's kind of obvious, and it would be possible in real life, since the mangaka created those girls as very attractive, and the dad too. I actually was expecting Yotsuba's father to end up pairing up with the oldest sister in the actual story, it would have made sense, since there seems to be no shadow of a mother . And Yotsuba would have made a perfect Cupid! :-D
But those invisible or hopeless mothers in manga are infamous, there are about a gazillion manga where either the father gets abandoned by his wife leaving their kid with him, or both parents dissappear leaving a younger brother to take care of the kid, or even a perfect stranger. They come up with tons of reasons why the women leave, while in fact in Japan mothers rather commit seppuku than leave their children; that only happens in manga, I think. If a woman abandoned her kids, that would be in all the newspapers of the country for months and months. That actually happened once: a single mother left her kids with a note to the oldest brother who was something like ten or eleven, saying: "take care of your siblings". The poor kid did all he could, but in the end it was too much for him and it ended with one of the children dying. The whole of Japan was in shock for months, and the famous movie maker Kore Eda made a beautiful movie about it, called "Daremo shiranai" (nobody knows). It won prizes, I even think an Oscar, and the little boy who played the oldest boy also won an award. He was fabulous, by the way, he's called Yuya Yagira. He must be a grown man now. Here's the page about it on IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0408664/?ref_=nv_sr_1
It's strange how many abandoning mothers the mangaka make up, especially if you think that most Japanese mangaka are women and mothers themselves!
Maybe giving your kid to your family is not "abandonning" them ?
I don't know if it really happens often, but i have a couple of friend who did exactly them and left their kids to the grand parents for years. they also both believed strongly it was more stable and a better solution, and the way i knew about it seemed kind of "normal" possible option.
I would not make a rule out of it, but at least i know it's done more often than never, and with not terrible drama too ^^;;
MM... with their grandparents, I'd agree that's not really abandoning. There are millions of children throughout the world who are being taken care of by their grandparents, because their parents have to stay away to work. In Third World countries that's actually more a given than an exception.
But the mothers in manga are not like that. They're really depicted as "bad mothers", in order to make a plot frame for men to take care of children, which makes for a more original or endearing situation.
Usagi Drop is turned into a film since, and it won awards as well. Unfortunately, this movie is only enjoyable by people who understand Japanese, for there aren't any versions with English subtitles available. Too bad, it looks rather good. I could order it from my usual Japanese e-shop, but I wouldn't understand what they're saying, I'm not good enough at Japanese for that.
There's nothing uncool about Shutaro, in fact if all men were as gifter for fatherhood as this young man, the world would be a children's paradise... And what do you mean by "overzealous sexism"??? I don't even grasp what that means :-°