1. In Oh! Family, the Japanese attempt to mirror life in California in the mid-80s. In main character Fee, they find their sympathetic viewpoint; a forceful, energetic, honorable, and very emotional girl who finds herself at odds with the progressive world around her...

2. When an orphan named Jonathan arrives and says he's the illegitimate son of their father, Wilfred Anderson, Fee immediately takes the offensive, while the rest of her family accepts him with open arms. She wants to reject the sin of her father made flesh...

3. Then Fee has a change of heart when she finds out her dad is not the father (cue Maury Povich meme) and that Jonathan is just a regular run-of-the-mill orphan. Then she's cool with it...

4. But Jonathan's unwillingness to call his newly adopted parents mama and papa right off the bat (I mean the day after they adopted him!) begins to rub Fee raw and she gets abusive. So much so a rich heiress witnesses it and wants to wisk him away and adopt him herself...

5. And Fee has another change of heart when she realizes that Jonathan was just trying not to overstep his boundaries and be respectful.
Psych! She had a change of heart because she figured out all his smart alec talk was his way of showing he was fond of her. (He likes abuse.)

6. In the middle of all this we find out that the Andersons are good church going folk, so it comes as no surprise that Fee gets upset when she catches her brother making out with a dude in his bedroom...

7. So she tries to break them up, but Leif turns the tables on her by making her agree to go on a date with him instead. Here we get to learn Leif's very Californian (by extension, American) laid back philosophy on love...

8. And Fee has another change of heart (noticing a pattern?) after Leif helps her catch a purse snatcher and she realizes he really is a good person after all and that breaking him and Kay up was wrong...

9. So to put it bluntly, Fee's a fish-out-of-water character stuck in a "very special episode" kinda world where any beliefs she has are bound to come in conflict with the world around her. Future episodes include Fee being upset about dating, sex, gay dads, dog/human love...

10. This anime is based on a famous American TV series called Family, which was known for very special episode type content. Fee and Kay's counterparts are based on Kristy McNichol and Leif Garrett's characters from Family, which must've been popular in Japan at the time? (END)

PS: this thread cost me 3 followers, and all my self-respect.