Metal Family, by Alina Kovaleva, is a series of animated shorts about a Russian Family, consisting of Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy dad Sebastian "Glam", biker wife Victoria, and their children, the Deadpan Snarker Dee, and Heavy. The series follows the family's creative ways of dealing with everyday problems in a slice-of-life manner.

The series is Russian, but gets English subtitles applied sometime after the episode's release on YouTube, under a channel of the same name. It also has an ongoing English dub that has been posting since 2021. Its pilot episode/music video "The Story ain't Over" (sung by Avantasia) has been surfing around the web for a while.

An official English dub will be released here.

Tropes:

• The Ace: Glam and Dee (although inverted for Dee, when it comes to learning to play guitar). Also Chive due to his luck.
• Alpha Bitch: It seems that Diana, Dee's classmate who has (or rather had) a crush on him, is going to be one, although this has yet to be confirmed.
• Ambiguously Bi: When Vicky was asked if she has romantic interest in women, she implies she has fooled around with women while drunk and doesn't sound sure herself if she does swing that way. Also played with Glam, as Chive himself states that he didn't think he even liked women before he met Victoria.
• Aside Glance: Vicky gives one of these in "Stasik Contra".
• Babies Ever After: The end of the pilot song reveals that after dating and marrying, Glam and Vicky had Dee and Heavy.
• Beta Bitch: Diana's friend Briana, who sits with her in class and is on the cheerleading team with her, seems to be one, although this has yet to be confirmed.
• Betty and Veronica: Dee (Archie) has a crush on gothic, but kind Lif (Betty), while the dressing in light colors mean girl Diana (Veronica) had an unrequited crush on him.
• Book Dumb: Vicky and Heavy. While they are shown not to be as clever as Glam or Dee are, they still can come up with their own way to solve problems. Chive as well.
• Bookends: "Father to School", the first episode, features Twisted Sister's "We're not gonna take it". "Ideal Tone", the ninth, ends with Glam playing the same song on a vinyl he got from Chive making it the first metal song he ever heard.
• Book Smart: Glam and Dee.
• Born Lucky: Chive. If winning at cards without ever checking them wasn't enough proof, he managed to get the highest score at the entrance to music academy, while it's implied he had no formal training at all.
• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: While Glam can be strict and overprotective most of the time, he is NOTHING like his horrible father, Gustav, ultimately being a very loving dad to his sons.
• Childhood Friend: Actually a teenhood friend, but Chive is this to Glam and vice-versa. "Ideal Tone" goes into more detail about how the two first met on the way to an entrance exam to musical school.
• Contrast Montage: Once Sebastian decides to secretly rebel against his father in "Glam" by going out at night to play rock and heavy metal music, a montage of him switching from that to his dutiful, violinist son persona at day starts. While the lack of sleep increasingly affects him, he's also happier and able to withstand his father's abuse with a creepy smile fixed on his face.
• Couch Gag: The title card is done by a key-holder the family uses. The family members who are in the episode will already have put their keys on their hooks, with the focus character just hanging theirs up. Each does a good job of showing their personality. Glam gingerly sets his on the hook. His keychain is a pink Twisted Sister logo. Vicky slams her keys on the hook with force. Her keychain is her shining nameplate. Dee cooly spins his keys onto his hook. His keychain is a skull. Heavy attempts to throw his on the hook as he excitedly speeds by. Only to have to turn around and pick them up. His keychain is some monster head.
• Creepy Family: The family can come off as this to outsiders. One guy admitted Glam's stare freaked him out.
• Daddy's Girl: Gender-swap example for Dee. He idolizes Glam (although he won't admit it nor show it openly), likely due to their similar characters, and takes it badly when he doesn't get his approval (as it was seen when he tried to learn to play a guitar).
• Distracted by the Sexy: Double Subverted in the pilot. Glam's metalhead looks attracts the interest of a waitress at a café. She flirtatiously flaunts her assets in his face, which he obliviously ignores, much to her disappointment. Some moments later, Vicky enters the scene riding her motorcycle. Her badass aura immediately catches Glam's adoring attention, and he drops everything to chase after her.
• Dub Name Change: Gopher is renamed "Chipmunk" in the English dub. Ches is also renamed "Chive" for the tenth episode joke to work.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • While Glam is quick to go Papa Wolf if he believes the teachers have crossed a line, he'll stand down if he finds the reason his kids got in trouble is perfectly reasonable.
  • Vicky dislikes Groin Attacks, thinking it's too harsh, even for her.
• Everything's Better with Sparkles: Glam's office in the first episode is covered in the stuff, from a glitter bomb, that he later uses at Heavy's school, as payback for them cutting the boys' hair.
• Falling-in-Love Montage: After getting hospitalized together, which allows Glam to return Vicky's biker keys, they start dating. Glam shows his artwork of Vicky to her, they go to concerts (heavy metal and ballet), Vicky teaches him to ride a motorcycle, and etc.
• Fictional Fan, Real Celebrity: Glam and Ches are fans of Twisted Sister, to the point where Glam named one of his sons after Dee Snider. This love turns out to be a plot point, as Glam listening to their music during his childhood is what sparked him to rebel against his abusive father.
• Fiery Redhead: Vicky and Heavy have orange hair, and both have shown to be more Hot-Blooded than Dee and Glam.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble:
  • Glam - Phlegmatic
  • Vicky - Choleric
  • Dee - Melancholic
  • Heavy - Sanguine
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: The scrapbook page seen at the very end of the pilot includes photos of Chive and Anna before their characters are properly introduced in episodes 4 and 8, respectively.
• Funny Background Event: Dee's Q&A takes place in front of his bedroom window. During one of Dee's answers, Heavy can be seen trying to chase after a cat by walking along the top of the fence outside. One cutaway later and Heavy's on the ground, clutching his leg in pain.
• Half-Empty Two-Shot: In the awesome pilot, Glam shows his loving drawing of (a menacing and winged) Vicky to a bunch of people while trying to find her. The last person is a kid with whom he's sharing a park bench. The boy is scared and possibly thinks Glam is a weirdo for crushing on a woman like that, so he quickly scoots away, leaving Glam alone in a shot meant for two.
• Happily Married: Glam and Vicky, of course. Glam clearly loves Vicky despite her volatile personality while Vicky, who rarely shows her softer side, doesn't hide that she loves her husband very much despite both of them being nearly opposites.
• Love at First Sight:
  • In the pilot, Glam falls in love with Victoria the minute he sets eyes on her, largely due to her well-trained body and her hypermasculine personality. The moment is accompanied by shots of Victoria parking her motorcycle and handsomely getting her helmet off. Later, as she gives the bird to Glam (who, for her at the moment, is an annoying interloper), her eyes sparkle.
  • "Quest": Implied in Lif's Early-Bird Cameo, as Dee makes brief eye contact with her while they pass by each other and then acts awkward.
• Mama Bear: Vicky, albeit she doesn't show it too often. The ending of "Father to School" has Vicky coming to Heavy's school with a weapon, angry at what the teachers did to her son.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Vicky is a muscular biker who swears a lot; Glam is a thinner man who loves ballet along with metal rock, decorates his office with glitter, and wears bright clothing when exercising.
• Meaningful Name: All family members has one that refers to a certain metal genre - Glam and Heavy are self-explanatory, Vicky references Viking Metal, and Dee references Death Metal (althrough in universe he was simply named after Dee Snider).
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Glam and Victoria have this dynamic, with Victoria being a muscular biker who uses a lot of profanity, while Glam is more slender, and enjoys ballet in addition to metal rock, and also works as a violin teacher for rich kids.
• Mistaken Identity: Glam's sister looks so like him, Vicky mistakes her for Glam in drag. When realizing her mistake, the sister simply says, "I get it".
• Momma's Boy: Heavy. He idolizes Vicky, likely due to their similar characters, and loves to spend time with her.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Dee attempting to cut a deal with Chipmunk to save Heavy gets him punched in the face.
• Origins Episode: The two part season finale reveals about Glam's past as it shows how he was raised by his rich strict family, how he first met Chive, how he begins to get attracted to metal music, how they formed a band, how he decided to runaway from his family, and how he became who he is now and made his band a success before he met Vicky.
• Papa Wolf: Glam was seething when he found out that Heavy's teachers cut off his hair against his will and set off a glitter bomb in response. He later programmed a security system to protect both Heavy and Dee from dangerous sites.
• Parent-Child Team: In "Quest", the Metal family is split into sons versus parents as they attempt to solve their way out of a puzzle room. Soon enough, however, Vicky gets separated from Glam and Heavy from Dee, so each son pairs with the parent he takes after the most—Glam and Dee versus Vicky and Heavy. Glam and Dee break the record time. Vicky and Heavy sledgehammer their way through a brick wall.
• Perky Goth: Dee's crush, Lif, is a gothic girl who, while being temperamental when annoyed, is overall very friendly and extroverted.
• Posthumous Character: Glam and Lydia's father Gustav is revealed to be dead in "Box 37", and their mother Mary is not present during the reading of his will, implying she's deceased as well, but they both appeared in the flashback of "Ideal Tone".
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Gopher/Chipmunk, the Rap-loving bully who beats up Heavy for insulting his taste in music
• Radish Cure: Vicky admits that she gave Dee and Heavy beer so they'd get sick and stop asking about it.
• Rain Aura: It's certainly subtler than most due to the color palette, but as the rain gets heavier at the end of "Glam", Sebastian's surroundings start getting foggier and foggier. This makes it all the more dramatic his walk away from his father's house.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Vicky and Heavy are Red to Glam and Dee's Blue. Chive is also a Red to Glam's Blue and Anna is Blue to Vicky's Red.
• See No Evil, Hear No Evil: In "Father To School", Glam is able to sneakily plant a glitter bomb in front of Heavy's intolerant teachers with neither them nor the audience noticing. It's only when one of the three harpies notices the bomb that we see it and thus hear the faint sizzling of the fuse. This happens again in "His Secrets" when Glam is called by Dee's History teacher.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Vicky looks great both in her wedding dress and in the black dress that Glam asks her to wear in "Box 37", for his father's inheritance reading.
• Sideways Smile: Vicky's countenance could be better described as a sideways snarl rather than an actual smile, but it's still stretched further up her cheeks than what would be possible for real-life humans. This ferocious expression is part of a brief montage of her beating the crap out of her then-boyfriend. Glam's adoring smile in the background is the cherry on top.
• Spit Take: Vicky does one of these during the poker game in "Poker", with Dee ducking under the table immediately beforehand.
• The Stoner: Chive's drug consumption quickly made him a liability for his band. Ironically, he displays more stereotypical stoner traits in present day, despite no longer doing drugs.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: Glam and Chive, respectively.
• Strong Family Resemblance:
  • Heavy looks like a male and younger version of Vicky with straight hair and a lack of freckles, both of which he inherited from Glam. Personality-wise, he's as hot-blooded and dumb as Vicky, but also has Glam's friendliness and even temper.
  • In contrast, Dee looks like a younger version of Glam with curly hair, freckles, and a more upward nose, all of which he inherited from Vicky. Personality-wise, he's as cold-blooded and wise as Glam, but also has Vicky's unfriendliness and quick temper.
  • Glam's older sister, Lydia, looks exactly like him to the point that Vicky mistook her for him in dress. They both share their blonde hair and blue eyes with both of their parents, have downward noses like their mother, and have the rectangular jaw of their father, but while Glam had and has his father's straight hair, Lydia used to have her mother's curly hair, but nowadays her hair is straight like Glam's.
• Strong Girl, Smart Guy: Vicky is a muscular woman who can smash through a brick wall, while Glam can deduce riddles easily and program software.
• Technologically Blind Elders: Discussed. When a viewer notes people of Vicky's generation have problems with tech, she's pissed.
• Tragic Keepsake: Glam still has the violin he played as a teen, which was the only thing he was able to take with him when he decided to run away from his abusive family.
• Unrequited Love:
  • A subversion. Glam gets constantly snubbed by Vicky, who thinks he's trying to give her something as a way of hitting on her. While he doesn't give up and is clearly in love with her, he was just trying to return her bike keys. She ends up returning his feelings, and they both get married and have two sons.
  • Around the time Vicky and Glam met, Bug seemed to have a thing for Vicky, but she didn't feel the same way and refused to kiss him, for which he slapped her in return, and it didn't end well for him. Despite that, they remained friends.
  • In "His Secrets", Dee's classmate Diana had a crush on him at least until he tricked her into embarrassing herself in front of the whole classroom, for which she snitched on him about having a rat to the teacher.
• Virus and Cure Names: In "Poker", it's revealed that Dee uses a hacking software called SafeBrute to circumvent Glam's security system—which he installed with the express purpose of keeping shady websites off-limits to his sons.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Downplayed; when Vicky reacts violently to some people insulting her, Dee calmly watches from the side.