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The First Anime That Made Us Cry


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Yune Amagiri



Joined: 28 Jul 2016
Posts: 989
Location: France
PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 8:46 am Reply with quote
I still remember crying for Yuyu Hakusho, Ranma, and DB while I was still in kindergarten, so maybe one of them.

Now there are different types of "cry", it tooks me years until i have a REAL tearjerking moments, the kind that make you remember the exact moment of the day, the place, the sounds, the smells et cetera..

If I had to point out some of those titles that really had a huge emotional impact on me to the point where it takes me days to digest those emotions, then at the top of the list to quote a few :
Mahoromatic (last arc),
SoltyRei (last episode just... wow),
Plastic Memories (At this point I have to admit these androids girls are having a serious effect on me),
Jigoku Shoujo S3 (Yuzuki's past and her lonely death)
and of course Clannad (all of Key's animes too but the last arc of Clannad was just the most tearjerking)

That said, I'm the type who easily shed a few tears every season.
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Key
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Joined: 03 Nov 2003
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Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 8:52 am Reply with quote
Boy, this is a tough one for me. While I don't think I quite got to the point of tearing up from it, the first anime scenes I remember having a strong emotional reaction of this type to were probably the ending scenes of the movie Techi Muyo in Love, which I first saw at a convention in the late '90s. Something really got to me about the irony that spoiler[Tenchi traveling back in time to protect his mother in a The Terminator-like situation may have ultimately contributed to his mother dying young (at least in that version of the timeline)].

While it probably wasn't the first anime scene to fully make me cry, one of the earliest to bring me seriously to tears was definitely the death of spoiler[Akemi] in tragedy-fest SaiKano, mostly, I think, because it wasn't a gentle passing.

EDIT:
Yune Amagiri wrote:
If I had to point out some of those titles that really had a huge emotional impact on me to the point where it takes me days to digest those emotions, then at the top of the list to quote a few :
Mahoromatic (last arc),
SoltyRei (last episode just... wow),
Plastic Memories (At this point I have to admit these androids girls are having a serious effect on me),
Jigoku Shoujo S3 (Yuzuki's past and her lonely death)
and of course Clannad (all of Key's animes too but the last arc of Clannad was just the most tearjerking)

I'll check off all but Jigoku Shoujo in this list. If I had to say what my strongest reaction was to any anime scene I've ever seen, it would definitely still belong to Clannad AS, especially the scene where spoiler[Ushio explains when she was told she could cry]. Took me some time to get over that enough to continue.


Last edited by Key on Mon Jun 10, 2024 9:01 am; edited 2 times in total
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Saeryen



Joined: 26 Aug 2020
Posts: 939
PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 8:53 am Reply with quote
For me, it was probably Cardcaptor Sakura, particularly the Final Judgement scene, when she’s spoiler[reaching out to Yukito].
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tintor2



Joined: 11 Aug 2010
Posts: 1928
PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 8:57 am Reply with quote
Since I was kinda a kid, the first scenes in anime that made me sensitive as a kid were spoiler[Piccolo's death] in Dragon Ball Z especially with how he sacrificed for Gohan as well as Wormon's death in Digimon 2. spoiler[Wormon's death also hit me bad considering how I connected with the actual villain for the first time ever, Ken, because he was in shock about what was death and how fragile was a life when grabbing him].

Saint Seiya often hit me but in retrospect it was mostly the ideal chivalry or passion the five Bronze Saints showed to each other and yet nobody died for real despite the sacrifices they did.

Still when I became an adult, the first anime that hit me emotionally was To Your Eternity in the first episode alone. You know what. A manga that hit me hard was the ending of xxxHolic; spoiler[Watanuki has been living over a century and everybody he loves has died.]
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Asukatard117



Joined: 10 Jun 2024
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 9:03 am Reply with quote
As a kid it was the first Pokémon movie but as an adult it was episode 6 of Flip Flappers. The one with the Alzheimer's. I lost my grandma a few months before, after she had dementia and was just suffering for a long time and that episode came out of nowhere and hit me like a truck. Up to that point I didn't really engage her loss and the trauma up to that point so you get the idea. It's a very emotional show in general but after that episode it's like that one anime I really love and adore but will never watch again.
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Gem-Bug



Joined: 10 Nov 2018
Posts: 1257
PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 9:11 am Reply with quote
tintor2 wrote:
Since I was kinda a kid, the first scenes in anime that made me sensitive as a kid were spoiler[Piccolo's death] in Dragon Ball Z especially with how he sacrificed for Gohan as well as Wormon's death in Digimon 2. spoiler[Wormon's death also hit me bad considering how I connected with the actual villain for the first time ever, Ken, because he was in shock about what was death and how fragile was a life when grabbing him].


I think these are the same for me, and maybe also Nephrite's death in Sailor Moon a bit earlier. It's also good to point out that the original dub versions of all three of these moments still hit home as a kid. Even with the Ocean DBZ sending characters to "the next dimension".

The final arc of Digimon Adventure was also rife with character deaths and existentialism, and the later reveal that spoiler[The Village of Beginnings has been ruined, and thus all the Digimon we've seen die haven't yet been reborn adds another layer of hurt]. And let's not forget Wizardmon!

As for non-character deaths, Ash releasing Butterfree early on in Pokemon was a pretty heartbreaking moment, even if you agreed with the decision.
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InvertedIkemen



Joined: 28 Apr 2021
Posts: 12
PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 9:41 am Reply with quote
For some reason, I watched KyoAni's version of AIR with a friend when I was like about 12, and the ending was devastating. Which is quite an accomplishment, because we basically spent thirteen episodes spoiler[watching the lives of girls fall apart], but spoiler[Misuzu's final walk on the beach] totally destroyed me. I think I'd probably have a harder time with it now that I'm older, because I couldn't entirely appreciate spoiler[Haruko's grief] at the time.
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killjoy_the



Joined: 30 May 2015
Posts: 2463
PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 9:45 am Reply with quote
The first anime I picked out to download and watch (as in it wasn't just something I watched on the TV as it aired) was Clannad. So yeah

I do distinctively remember crying on the first Pokémon movie in theaters though, when I was 7 or 8 years old. My cousins definitely remember it too because they made fun of me about it
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SenpaiDuckie
ANN Community Manager


Joined: 16 Sep 2021
Posts: 483
Location: PH
PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 9:50 am Reply with quote
Man, for me it will always be the Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood but it's definitely not the Nina & Alexander scene.

It's when Alphonse spoiler[sacrificed himself during the final battle for Ed's arm. It isn't as horrifying as what happened to Nina and Alexander, but it's that raw emotion of desperation and hope intermingling with one another.]

and the last one is when Hoenheim spoiler[finally went home to Trisha, dying in front of her grave. Anime cry The relief that it was all over, and that love where he can finally join her after years.]
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Jabootu



Joined: 17 Jan 2024
Posts: 198
PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 9:50 am Reply with quote
K-On!! Only a show that full of joy could be that sad. I refer not to the scene of the girls collectively realizing post-concert that high school and this life-defining thing they've built together is coming to an end, although obviously I wept at that too. For most people that's the saddest moment of the show, and it's a great one. I certainly wouldn't argue against it.

For me, though, the very saddest moment comes a few episodes later. While Yui remains the second season's main character, K-On!!'s focal character is Azusa. The character whose introduction provided the final piece needed to make the band complete, and the one destined to be left behind by her four senpais. The fifth petal of the flower.

Azusa spends most of the second season trying to bask in the joy the band brings her and to block out her trepidation of its end, something the rest of the girls seem far more blithe about. One beautiful episode (although the comedy doesn't always work for me) details her dreams during listless days of summer break when she doesn't see her bandmates as frequently. These clearly indicate exactly how deeply she's been repressing her fears about the ever-approaching separation.

All comes to a head as her senpais reach their graduation day. Having tamped down her emotions for an entire year now, good girl Azusa is committed to her sending her bandmates off with a smile. She gives them thank you notes, and has nearly carried the whole thing off when she goes to drop off her schoolbag on the couch they keep them on. Mid-sentence she glances down and sees the girls' diplomas. That shot hit in me in the face like a brick. What a wonderfully directed show, that a single shot like that would sum up so much. Azusa's breakdown following that, her desperate quiet pleas for the other girls not to graduate, still gets me. I'm welling up now just thinking about it.

Kudos to a previous moment in the episode too, as well. Aware of what Azusa is going through, the highly intuitive and emphatic Ui quietly shares with Azusa her own fears and sorrow of her imminent separation from her beloved sister. "She's always been a step ahead of me," she quietly mourns. Once Yui leaves for college, their relationship will also never be the same. She tells Azusa about this both to share her own pain and to suggest to Azusa that she can acknowledge her own pain as well. Just wonderful stuff.
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Yune Amagiri



Joined: 28 Jul 2016
Posts: 989
Location: France
PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 10:02 am Reply with quote
SHELTER also deserved a special mention, this 6 minutes standalone AMV wasn't long enough to become a big name among the tearjerker animations however those 6 mins were incredibly hard for me to digest.
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FishLion



Joined: 24 Jan 2024
Posts: 68
PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 10:17 am Reply with quote
Clannad for me too, I was distraught at Pokemon: The First Movie but Clannad was my first show that was fully a tragedy (or at least tragic thoughout)
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tintor2



Joined: 11 Aug 2010
Posts: 1928
PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 10:32 am Reply with quote
A happy example though has to be the song "Ray of Light" by Shoko Nakagawa from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. It shows the long life Hohenheim, the grave of his wife and all the people from his Kingdom. There is a part of the lyrics that emphasize his desire to become stronger to defeat Homunculus and then it moves to his two children. The sequence kinda moved me.

EDIT: Also "Link" from Conqueror of Shamballa. The song discusses Edward's and Alphonse's life in a really beautfiful way and regardless of how sad was the ending of 2003 FMA, the lyrics go "Wouldn't it beautiful if we meet again?" or something like that with such a passion.
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chrisb
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Joined: 07 May 2006
Posts: 624
Location: USA
PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 11:45 am Reply with quote
Key wrote:
Boy, this is a tough one for me. While I don't think I quite got to the point of tearing up from it, the first anime scenes I remember having a strong emotional reaction of this type to were probably the ending scenes of the movie Techi Muyo in Love, which I first saw at a convention in the late '90s. Something really got to me about the irony that spoiler[Tenchi traveling back in time to protect his mother in a The Terminator-like situation may have ultimately contributed to his mother dying young (at least in that version of the timeline)].


The Tenchi movie was my first real anime as a kid. Picked it up as a rental and even though I wasn’t familiar with the characters I was still engrossed by how “cool” it looked and sounded. I did get misty eyed at the end when Tenchi’s mom and dad are discussing their future together, standing in front of the cherry trees before the credits role. It’s a beautiful and melancholic scene I can still remember clearly.

Pretty sure the first time an anime made me full on sob was Tokyo Magnitude 8.0. I loved those characters so much and everything about the final episode was devastating to me. My partner refuses to rewatch it because it’s just too depressing.
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samuelp
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Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 2238
Location: San Antonio, USA
PostPosted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 11:51 am Reply with quote
I'm pleasantly surprised to see The Pokemon Movie in the list because I think that's scientifically provably the correct answer in terms of shear numbers.

I'm also happy to see the Transformers Movie in there because that's what it was for people of my generation, and I only even ever saw it on TV! I didn't even realize transformers was from Japan I was so young.

But grave of the fireflies is the champion in terms of making literally anyone cry for an animated film (sorry toy story). no contest.
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