Ask John: What’s the Meaning of Replacing Daughters With Dolls?

Question:
This is a recurring theme in anime and manga: a mother who loses her mind thinks that a doll is her real daughter. I’ve seen this three times: Eva, Zero no Tsukaima, and the Nausicaa manga. What is up with this?

Answer:
Before progressing into depth I need to first state that I’ll have to rely on speculation for my answer. I’m not certain about why, or even if there is an underlying consistent reason why mentally unstable parents sometimes transpose their paternal affection onto a doll in place of their actual child in some anime. I suspect that there may be two reasons for this depiction.

First, a parent that mis-recognizes a doll as his or her own child is clearly mentally unhinged. The illustration is an effective and efficient method of depicting insanity or deeply traumatic emotional shock. The tendency establishes a character’s personality immediately and completely, which is efficient for animators and useful for viewers.

Second, a parent literally replacing a child establishes a powerful sense of alienation and parental disregard which may be especially shocking for Japanese viewers. While the moral standards of American society obligate parents to care for their children until the children reach college age, Japanese society commonly expects parents to support their children until the children graduate from college and secure jobs to support themselves. The image of a parent disregarding her child is always affecting in any culture, but American culture gravitates toward children separating themselves from their parents while Japanese culture has a greater emphasis on children remaining under the care of their parents for a lengthier time. So the imagery of a parent obviously ignoring a child may surprise and shock Japanese viewers somewhat more than it would upset American viewers.