Fathers STILL get the rough treatment in media, from being portrayed as too old to understand the modern day, feckless, violent, cold and just plain absent.
And we all see the fatherless behaviour that in reality causes...
So to celebrate a day that often gets overlooked to the female equivalent, what are some of the best representations of fathers you've seen in media?
Anime My daughter left the nest and Returned an S Rank adventurer: Belgrieve or 'the red ogre' is a perfect example of a positive role model I can think of in Anime. He's strict but fair, patient when he needs to be but not a push over, knows when to be emotional and when to think with a clear head. He's such a good role model that even former enemies switch to following his leads and former friends who fell off the right path immediately get back on the path just knowing He's around.
**As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll use my appraisal skill to Rise in the world **: for the time he's on screen, Raven shows he's not just a great warrior and lord but an excellent father, encouraging his son when he can, traching him the right values and when it matters most, just talking to him when he needed it and that attitude extended to all the other members of the cast.
Western Media: I think the diluge of propaganda over the years is making my mind a bit blank on this unfortunately. Had to delve into my brain for this:
The Fresh Prince of Bel Air (1990s): James Avery played uncle Philip PERFECTLY, he was the greatest role model of a good Black father figure so no wonder they character assassinated him in the 'remake'
What are you're picks as to save it going to long, I should mention there are quite a few 'regression father stories' in Manhwa too where a father who makes mistakes raising their child (usually daughter) regresses in time to raise them properly, it's a genre to itself at this point.
Uncle Iroh was probably the best loved character in ATLA, unironically near Zuko. He was the man that stepped up compared to his vicious brother with Zuko and always tried to give the best advise to anyone who needed it.
...and loved his Jade Tea.
That's because writing actual fathers out of the story gives the male MC enough independence for the story to happen. So you're more likely to find a good one in slice-of-life stuff than shounen. But if you go too far into comedy, they'll usually end up being goofy.
One recently that stood out to me was a basic thing from Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable of all things. Protagonist needs a ride somewhere for dramatic relationship reasons, father's busy with an upcoming work call, kid makes an honest plea, dad pauses for a second, then calls a subordinate and hands the meeting off to him, gives his son a line about understanding not wanting to have regrets, and tells him to go get dressed. The father isn't a prominent character and it's such a basic interaction but it just honest. He sees something is real important to his son, empathizes, prioritizes his family, and does it in a professional manner. Nothing flashy. Just a dad being a good dad.
In games there's Telltale's The Walking Dead. "Season" 1 and 2.
Kenny is a loving father that does everything to protect his family. When he loses them it's absolutely devastating, but he goes on to find a new family where he's a loving husband and creates a safe, happy environment during an apocalypse. When the apocalypse takes that he (depending on your choices) adopts the girl and that's the happy ending.
Or you can side with the woke psycho bitch and her and the girl live a miserable life in a self-imposed concentration camp.
Season 1 was written with a lot of care to have natural reactions to your choices, with each dialog having 6-12 different versions depending on choices and is actually a good story. Season 2 was written by woke-tards and is objectively terrible, but like in other media where they write the hero characters as villains and vice versa here they accidentally make siding with the family man the good endings.
I love these games as a personality test. If you didn't side with Kenny the whole time then you have leftist tendencies and need to reevaluate life.
Eliwood himself is a great father in FE6, as is Hector.
Honestly most of FE6 is a lot of great fathers that FE7 shows you them in detail.
Their screentime was minimal, but they what little there was showed they hadn't changed much from FE7 so you can assume most of which still applies.
Except Bartre who absolutely did become a king in between the two.
Fire Emblem Heroes has been filling in the blanks somewhat. Seeing that musclehead class-change to a mage to trick-or-treat with his daughter (i.e. Hector: Dressed-Up Duo) is tooth-rottingly precious.