It’s amazing how much a good cry can make a person feel better. Counterintuitive though it seems, crying relieves anxiety and releases endorphins, and the sense of catharsis that comes with a good sob is a fundamental part of being human. Perhaps this is why many anime fans, time and time again, rewatch anime series that tear their hearts out.
While some anime fail to resonate once the initial surprise wears off, others have the power to make fans cry within a single episode. Whether it’s because the characters feel so real, the stories are so relatable, or the humanity on display is the very definition of pathos, these tearjerkers never fail to leave an impact.
Warning: Spoilers ahead!
9 Banana Fish Will Always Be Devastating
The queer community has always had to accept blows that don’t seem warranted. “Bury your gays” is a trope that, perhaps with cruel irony, still refuses to die, and all too often, LGBTQ+ characters die before the curtain falls. But there’s a difference between killing queer characters for dramatic effect and trying to tell real stories. The reason Banana Fish is so widely embraced by the LGBTQ+ community is that the central characters feel genuine, and so do their endings, however tragic they may be.
Banana Fish is always sad to watch because the finale feels both inevitable and unfair. No characters deserve happiness more than Ash Lynx and Eiji Okumura, and the fact that they can’t find it together is heartbreaking. However, it’s also a fantastic series that waited far too many years to exist, being based on a manga that broke barriers almost forty years ago.
8 Angel Beats Is Gutting Upon Every Viewing
Angel Beats‘ premise alone seems like knee-jerk wailing bait, and there’s no denying that at times the series is melodramatic. Despite this, the show is effectively gutwrenching in a way that the story warrants. All these characters exist in a curious afterlife, but they’re all still kids, after all. Melodrama is par for the course, especially since these teens don’t get to grow up. Instead, they’re all lost in a neverland they never volunteered for.
Angel Beats, for all its whimsical moments, feels like a genuine attempt to address mortality. Its characters are believably flawed, but no matter their faults, there’s no world in which these kids deserved to have died so young.
7 Fullmetal Alchemist Fans Will Never Stop Mourning Maes Hughes
Few series have ever reached the heights of critical acclaim and fan devotion Fullmetal Alchemist has, and there are certainly many tearjerking moments speckled throughout this heartfelt modern classic. So many of FMA‘s characters are worth rooting for, and its adult characters are just as fully-realized as its young protagonists.
But it is the death of Maes Hughes that continues to torment FMA fans. Fundamentally, Maes is the type of guy everyone knows, slightly irritating but good-natured. Despite his quirks, Maes has only the best of intentions. Hughes puts up the Elrics and Winry without hesitation, he dotes on his daughter and wife with genuine affection, and he shares a pivotal backstory with Roy and Riza, one that belies his nice-guy facade. Even after his death, Hughes’s presence inspires other characters to be better people. His loss is worth crying over, time and time again.
6 Grave of the Fireflies Is Ghibli’s Most Tragic Masterpiece
Those who recommend Grave of the Fireflies often follow up that recommendation with a phrase that feels almost like an omen: “But I’ve only ever watched it once.” There’s a reason this 1980s Ghibli classic is considered required viewing, not just for anime fans but for everyone. Few works in any medium have ever captured the echoing damages of war on innocent lives like Fireflies does.
But there’s simply no getting through Grave of the Fireflies without sobbing, and those who’ve seen it once might not want to go through the experience again. No amount of excuses makes the deaths of war orphans palatable, and the tears this film inspires are as furious as they are sad.
5 Given’s Finale Is A Tearful Type of Catharsis
Grieving comes in many forms, and crying is but one of many ways of coping. For Mafuyu of Given, music is the catharsis he needs, and collaborating with other musicians is what finally allows him to heal.
In Given‘s final episode, Mafuyu at last sings aloud the song he wrote for his departed boyfriend. A character who’s been reserved throughout the season is suddenly belting in lyrics what he couldn’t say to his beloved while they were both still living. No one with a heartbeat can sit through Mafuyu’s final performance of “Fuyu No Hanashi” without tearing up. And that’s a good thing.
4 AnoHana Captures Childhood Grief Like Nothing Else Can
Children are the embodiment of hope for many people, the sun their parents orbit around, the future personified. The death of a child can’t help but feel unfair, no matter the circumstances. AnoHana delves into this particular brand of grief headfirst, pulling no punches.
When Menma drowns, Jinta and her other childhood friends are at a loss, hardly old enough to comprehend the magnitude of her death. Instead, her loss is felt in the formation of their characters, the choices they make, and the complexes they develop as they grow into young adults. Anyone who’s lost a loved one will find solace in watching AnoHana, but that doesn’t make it easy to stomach. Menma deserved life, and so do the friends she left behind, even if they’re not sure where to begin.
3 To Your Eternity Is Unrelenting
In most cases, character deaths mean little if the characters aren’t established yet, but To Your Eternity flips the script. The show’s protagonist, Fushi, is hardly a person at all, a creature sent to observe humanity. In Episode 1, Fushi meets an abandoned boy living in a snowy village. Despite the audience scarcely knowing either of them, the pilot episode reduces its viewers to tears.
The injustice of a winter death, the indifference of an emotionless companion, the thought of dying alone in a tent. If this is how To Your Eternity starts, inflicting empathy on viewers with almost shocking ease, it’s no surprise that the show never pulls punches thereafter. By the fifth episode, tears seem an inevitability, but the journey may be worth the tissues.
2 Your Lie In April Cuts Deep
Child abuse takes on many forms, and it is always difficult to talk about. The abuse that Kousei, the protagonist of Your Lie In April, experiences at the hands of his mother is more mental and emotional than it is physical, but it is no less sinister. Kousei’s mother loved him, but she also hurt him, and after she passes, he loses even the resentment that fueled him.
The truth is, abusers are often loved ones, and it can be hard to extricate the good from the bad when coming to terms with a harmful relationship. In Kousei’s case, it takes meeting and befriending Kaori to find himself again. But Kaori has burdens of her own, and this story’s finale is gutting no matter how many times it’s seen.
1 Violet Evergarden Is Rife With Beautiful Heartbreak
There are a thousand kinds of loss in the world, a thousand reasons to feel overwhelmed during the course of one’s life. Violet Evergarden seems determined to confront them all. With a central character who longs to feel again despite her crushing PTSD, Violet is the perfect lens through which to witness the emotions of others. As an Auto Memories Doll, she shares the thoughts of other people in the form of letters, putting words to those emotions that are hardest to express.
Violet meets a father who lost his child, a girl whose parents never returned from the war, a woman who gives up on love after a failed confession, and a man whose father vanished on an expedition. No matter the loss, Violet Evergarden tries to address it, and the show is bound to move even the most stoic of viewers.
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