Conversation

kind of useful cultural thing to know about Japan because it comes up in anime a lot and may be confusing (just came up in an anime I'm watching now)

In Japan up until maybe within the last year or so the concept of joint custody of children after a divorce was non-existent

traditionally fathers are expected to stay out of the lives of their children after divorce and kids will usually have their surnames changed

so in anime a lot you'll have big reveals of it turning out that someone that has been being treated as a stranger up until then is actually a character's father or similar things

you'll also often have characters that seemingly just don't have a father at all