Author: Gabriel Persechino-Forest Published: May 21st, 2018
In light of the recent fascination with honoring the royal family by throwing a lavish wedding paid for by the people’s hard labor to the tune of US$45 million dollars (GBP33.5 millions), I decided to see if anime had families of royals that also offered exuberant displays of their own.
5 – Leinwan Royal Family
Image Source: Taken from Scrapped Princess series
King Balteric (Scrapped Princess) is a fool responsible for a powerplay that led to almost 90% of the existing human population being wiped out when he attempted to manipulate what was considered as outright gods in his universe all so he could invade neighboring and non-threatening kingdoms. He is also responsible for attempting to murder his own daughter repeatedly and having his wife (The queen) tortured to death; all which led to his karmic and cowardly death.
4 – House Montague
Image Source: Taken from Romeo x Juliet series
Lord Leontes van de Montague (Romeo x Juliet) is a tyrant who rose to power by violently overthrowing the Capulet family and established a ruthless despotic regime. He maintained a rule that brought about rampant poverty, and even slavery, and ultimately chose to burn his city and its people rather than cede the throne. Left by his wife, who couldn’t stand his cruelty and ambition, hated by one of his sons, ultimately opposed by the other and finally murdered by his protegee (Whose father he had killed in front of his very eyes).
3 – Zabi Family
Image Source: Gundam Wikia
Rising to power through assassination, false flag attacks, fear mongering, xenophobia and purging of their political opponents, the Zabis (Universal Century Gundam) took advantage of a politically hazardous situation (Caused by the Federation’s oppression to be fair) to start a war for their own personal pursuit of power by using the people’s anger and passion for their designs after murdering their political savior. They committed multiple acts of mass murder and genocide as well as caused unconscionable harm to the Earth and other space colonies; continuing on as terrorists long after their regime had fallen.
2 – Goldenbaum Dynasty
Image Source: Gineipaedia
First rising to power by a mandate to restore order, Rudolf consistently gained more and more political power until he declared himself emperor, abolished the Federation and established his dynasty (Legend of the Galactic Heroes). Following his ascension, he enacted policies of eugenics that cost billions of lives, followed with summary executions of the mentally ill, arrested, tortured and executed millions of protesters, sent many to forced labor camps, established institutionalised slavery, ended trials and the need of the burden of proof and institutionalised poverty. The later successors of his dynasty would see tyranny and oppression as part of daily life: They would quell uprisings by killing millions, selling the families of rebels into slavery by the millions, commit acts of mass murder without really any cause, regular purging of political and business opponents or even co-conspirators who became “inconvenient” would occur and they created a division of humanity that caused a war that went on for almost two centuries and resulted in hundred of millions of deaths until they were finally overthrown.
1 – Britannian Imperial Family
Image Source: Code Geass Wikia
Descended from the overthrown monarchs of Europe who fled to America to build a new empire, the Britannians (Code Geass) are a family that rules its people with an iron fist in a Darwinist society built on privilege and focused around the royals and the aristocracy. They invade and subjugate entire nations across the world, strip their people of their culture and force them to live in ghettos while they steal their lands and resources. Even within their own family they encourage assassinations and power struggles as a means of weeding out the weak. By the end of Charles’ rule, they are responsible for a global war whose death toll could be in the millions as well as a legacy of slavery, mass murder, genocide and several attempts to subjugate the entire world using weapons of mass destruction in unchecked displays of insanity and limitless ambitions.
Royal families are often depicted with flair, colour and style; much like celebrities. But one should never forget that by their vary nature, royal, monarchic families live through the labor of the people. In both fiction as well as throughout history, the scene of a starving and impoverished populace is all too commonly associated with monarchic rule and this is only possible because the resources of the people and the land itself are seized and controlled by the select few who use them to live a life of overindulgent luxury while the people who worked for these resources starve and live a life of excessive poverty.