[Is there a way to do spoilers on IRG? There is, isn't there?]

Wakaba running off and crying in episode one. Yeah, I know, it's this little thing and it's the first ep, but I still can barely watch the screen while it happens. Shit tears me up.

When Carina kills herself amidst grief, bashing her head against the wall during a huge fire, in Terra E. I never want to grab someone out of a cartoon and tell them it'll be okeh so badly as when watching that.

Eat-Man's focus-character of each episode is usually entirely blind to their actual circumstances and that can get pretty heartbreaking. The soldier who'll be executed for treason or even the bounty hunter hitting on Bolt in the first episode is even worse in retrospect or on future watchings.

Watching the resident mad scientist completely fuck up his friendship with one of the pilots, in Nadesico, because he can't seem to remember he's got a wife and child and not every woman wants him around for the sex.

Alice's super-panic crying in Please Save My Earth. Every time. Even when it's over something childish. Every single time.

For non-sad moments, because not all feelings are disemboweling, tear-jerking, hollow-chested panic, grief, and desolation...

Harlock asking ye space cop there to arrest him if he came of his own accord, or just because he was ordered. When the cop says it's by choice, Harlock kills him. That's some kind of respect, there.

The teddybear in Mahou Tsukai Tai, especially the big one. Yay! Squee! Daaaawww!

The end of Pale Cocoon, when our boy, Ura, finds out the truth of his homeland and sees outside. Just beautiful.

Natsuko walking through a billion spent gold shells and flying rounds to just kick ass. That don't wake you up and make you take notice, you have no remaining soul.

Dee and Ryo from Fake should get on my nerves, especially Dee and how selfish he can be, the whole date rapeyness. But, you know, it's so cartooned and so earnest it's distressingly cute. Especially the scene in the boat.

I don't think a movie ever made me cry as hard as Grave of the Fireflies. That movie is painful.

Utena gives me lots of feels (THAT ENDING), but I don't think it's ever actually made me tear up.

Pretty much everything makes me cry, no matter how predictable it is, save most romantic drama. 


-Utena ending, of course.  But it's a good, happy cry.
-"I Remember You" episode of Adventure Time.  One of the kinds of episodes that made me dream after I watched it, because the images and story just wouldn't leave me.
- Tarrlok and Noatak's fate in Legend of Korra.  Noatak is just so happy to be reunited with Tarrlok and to have been forgiven and maybe there is some sort of potential for recovery or change or redemption and then.... and it's just so dark, and the animation and the music drives it home, the ambiance of the Northern landscapes and still skies... and you feel like it was somehow both avoidable but inevitable.  It deals with themes of child abuse, and abandonment, and identity, so much for a show no one was expecting to go that far considering all the romance BS.
-Harry Potter.  No matter how dark the books got, or how often the deaths occurred during the climaxes of each book, in a way, you still never saw the deaths coming.  Because you didn't want to.
-Pretty much every Disney movie heh you animate it for some reason I'll take it that more personally and let it hit that much closer to home.


Then there is the kinda stuff that doesn't tear me up or get me super emotional, but eats at me and lingers and makes me stop and ponder and try and figure out just what it is I feel, and what that means.  Like a fog, not unpleasant or painful, not by any means bright and happy, but very emotionally profound in a way that I can't categorize intellectually.   Like The Jungle Book, or the ending of Madoka Magicka.

Last edited by OnlyInThisLight (11-01-2012 02:35:50 PM)

The end of Mawaru Penguindrum.   I watched it in Japanese the first time and I didn't understand what they were saying, but I was sobbing.  It was worse when I could understand!

Natsume Yuujinchou - A lot of episodes made me cry...maybe I'm just overly emotional. XD Especially during the episodes where we saw something about Natsume's past. Or when Natsume himself cried...that always made weep!

Petshop of Horrors has a lot of sad moments. One in particular stands out in my mind - it was about this girl who was living with her family...only, it turned out she was a ghost and they weren't really her family. She was the ghost of a dog (in PSoH the animals take on a human form) who had died in the same house - her owners had died in a car accident and she starved to death waiting for them to come home. Her ghost kept waiting for them and eventually she forgot what she was waiting for, and the new family moved in. It's sadder than it sounds. XD;

Fruits Basket - Yuki's past and Momiji's past were, imo, extremely sad.

Last edited by HonorableShadow (11-01-2012 03:24:24 PM)

I know I already mentioned Disney movies, but this relates more to the book -Peter Pan.  Does anyone else remember how that ends?  :C  Also, The Little Prince.

Well, I found the ending of Utena very uplifting the second time I watched it, but the first time I watched it, I felt sad over how everyone seemed to forget Utena like Juri implied they would.

I don't usually get as immersed in things as I used to be, so it takes me some effort to come up with something that gives me feels. One thing that does affect me more these days, though, is character deaths. I guess having been close myself, it gets me thinking a lot.

The manga Above Us, Savage God by Moto Hagio (about child sex abuse and post-urder trauma) is one emotional ride from start to finish.

I'm so glad there's someone else here who had read this aside from myself, OITL!  It is riveting psychodrama that every mature-minded manga fan could at least have a chance of trying out.   I so, so wish more of the english-speaking manga fandom could have better access to this (via scanlations or otherwise).  As far as I know, Above Us, Savage God has never been licensed in English . . .

Last edited by gorgeousshutin (11-02-2012 08:05:38 PM)

In Utena, episode 34 (The Rose Crest), when we find out what really happened when Little Utena met the Prince (including Little Anthy on all those swords).

Also in Utena, the last two episodes ... basically every scene where swords play a central part. And the "At last, we meet!"/"Take my hand" scene.

I could make a top ten list, but most of it would be Kino's Journey.  I can make myself cry by thinking about the town at the end of Kino's Journey, or I can make myself cry by thinking about Kino at the end of Kino's Journey.  They are separate and related feels.  Additionally, every other episode of Kino's Journey.

Within SKU: "This normal is not what's normal for you."  Damn right I ship that.  "You, too, find somebody quickly and become happy."  Fools me every time.  "Weren't we gonna have tea and laugh together for our ten-year reunion?!"  It's not the line, it's the delivery; it's not the delivery, it's the cinematography.  And, naturally, the big stab.  And the big step.

Boogiepop Phantom's final shot and monologue by the clueless normal girl, Suema Kazuko.  Also -- yes, Alithea -- Saki's story.  That show has a lot of good stories, but I think Saki's is more of a gut-punch than any other.  Honorable mentions for Moto and Misuzu in episodes 1 and 3; they were terribly moving and human, but they didn't make me cry.

Time of Eve.  The whole damn thing is one dense feel.

The denouement of Angel Beats!.  It's not even that it's particularly good -- it doesn't even make any sense, it mostly just jerks you around -- but it had me crying like a baby.

The denouement of Tatami Galaxy.  This one did earn its wings.  It blindsided me completely, and was so good that it recontextualized everything that came before it, turning what had been an average show into a real, heartfelt work of art.

The disappearance of Sai in Hikaru no Go, at just the moment when Hikaru becomes a genius in his own right.

And any time a Tachikoma dies.

ETA: I have limited myself to anime on this list or it would go on forever, but I discover I cannot make a post about feels without at least giving a hat-tip to The Little Prince.

Last edited by satyreyes (11-09-2012 12:38:05 AM)

Satyr nailed it in Boogiepop for me. The final monologue just absolutely guts me. I first watched the series in 2003 or so and didn't do so again until around 2010. A lot had changed for me in that time frame so the final monologue of the series, paraphrased to basically be "These are the most important times for us now but when we look back on them, will we still feel that way?" absolutely rips my heart out and eats it.

Much like everyone else, the last two episodes of Utena get me every time. Not only that, but Juri's stories in all three arcs as well.

Princess Tutu: Rue's storyline. Full stop. I originally was not crazy about her but as the story moved on and more details of her life came out, I found myself deeply attached to her. There's one scene in episode 35 I think it is, very brief but it's quite honestly some of the most beautiful imagery I've ever seen in my life (when she is in the Land of Despair and believes she will dance herself to death).

EDIT: Also agreeing with Varla's mention of Lynch's work in general. For all its surrealist nature, Mulholland Drive is something that deeply touches me on a personal level. For that very reason I have not watched it in its entirety since 2006 or so.

Last edited by Calamity (11-13-2012 06:02:52 PM)

In Lilo and Stitch; when Cobra tries to take Lilo away, and Nani screams at him to stop, that he can't take Lilo away because she is the only one who can give Lilo what she needs.

Don't know how I missed this one. Absolutely heart rending. Difficult to believe that something so real shows up in a Disney movie about aliens from out of space. The end, where Stitch tells them all that Lilo and Nani's family is 'little and broken, but still good,' that's a tear jerker. But not nearly as much as Nani crying.