Are you looking for a tragic anime that’s going to make you cry? Ok, look no further, our Top Best Sad Depressing Anime Suggestions will make you weep and feel for the characters. These stories are strong, with tragically sad scenes and emotional moments.
As sad anime can make you bawl your eyes out, such anime genre is infamous, so why do we watch them? Why do producers of anime love to make their fans cry? And why is there a lot of unhappy anime out there?
Anime developers obviously enjoy seeing their fans cry. There appears to be plenty of anime made solely to make us bawl our eyes out. Anime has found countless ways to crack our hearts and make us cry, from the heartfelt dramas of teenage love, unrequited feelings, and relationship drama to the more realistic stories that discuss topics such as death, war, and disease.
Sad anime helps us to have a good sob anytime we feel like crying, but sad anime also helps us to understand each other and even benefit from each other without really feeling any of those sad moments or letting them realize that they are not alone in whatever hell they are in.
Here is a compilation of reviews in no order of rating of a very sad, tragic and sad anime.
Table of Contents
1. Chrono Crusade
- Studios: Gonzo
- Episodes: 24
- Aired: Fall 2003
Chrono Crusade is a wonderful, sad anime series with funny, deep, and interesting characters.
The Americas in the Roaring 20s. On the horizon, after the bloodshed of the Great War, it is a hopeful, prosperous moment. But lurking in the darkness is a dark factor ready to take away the peace. Sister Rosette Christopher, an exorcist working as part of the Magdala Order, has a responsibility to battle the devils that come and inflict destruction. Yet she usually winds up causing more damage than the demons themselves, along with her friend Chrno! On a specific assignment they meet with a young woman with a lovely voice named Azmaria, whom her own stepfather targeted. Rosette is still searching for her brother, whom a demon has taken away from her.
Chrono Crusade is known for making the crowd scream for action, comedy, and romance. It’s a hidden gem that starts out slowly, but you’ll be addicted after you watch the first 3 episodes.
2. Violet Evergarden
- Studios: Kyoto Animation
- Episodes: 13
- Aired: Winter 2018
Violet Evergarden is a deep and powerful anime, although there are some instances that will certainly help the tissues hit you. Many people cite this anime being one of the few that finally left them ruined.
The principal character, Violet Evergarden, was raised primarily to be a weapon for use against antagonists. But as the war came to an end, after healing from her wounds, she had to find a new reason for her life. She is starting to function as an Auto Memory Doll, a role that helps to transform the emotions of people into words on paper.
3. Plastic Memories
- Studios: Doga Kobo
- Episodes: 13
- Aired: Spring 2015
One of those series that offer you a bracing dose of realism and the fact that almost nothing lasts a lifetime is Plastic Memories. The show’s whole idea is around the existence of androids who are almost difficult to distinguish from actual human beings.
The biggest distinction, however, is that they have a very small, limited lifespan. They will survive for just about nine years at the most. With one of these androids, the protagonist falls in love although we have to witness him understand that his time with her is running out.
4. I Want To Eat Your Pancreas
- Studios: Studio VOLN
- Episodes: Movie
- Aired: Summer 2018
It might look like an ecchi or a zombie horror anime by the name but it’s a love drama effective in making you cry buckets packing. I want to eat your pancreas.
One day, in the hospital, a high school girl, noticed a book. The title was “The Journal of Coexistence Disease.” This was a diary penned in secret by her fellow hstudent, Sakura Yamauchi. Inside, her days have been counted because of her pancreatic cancer. It was like she became attracted to her. Yet the universe revealed a child with an equally inhuman truth still suffering from a sickness.
5. Nana
- Studios: Madhouse
- Episodes: 47
- Aired: Spring 2006
Nana is a shoujo sappy romance anime with excellent music and a beautiful thing that lets you rejoice on it for some characters and feel some incidents just as intensely as the characters themselves emotionally.
Nana “Hachi” Komatsu wishes that she will get to Tokyo and put behind her capricious love life. In the world of rock and roll, Nana Osaki, who arrives in the area at the same time, has plans to score high. While these two young women come from diverse backgrounds, in a whirlwind world of sex, culture, fashion, drama and all-night partying, they rapidly become best mates!
Nana is a sad anime which shows how people hold their own baggage and how it is human imperfection. You’re going to scream, weep and discover Nana’s two-part strong relationship. It gives many life lessons, it’s challenge and it’s errors, we don’t have to do.
6. Clannad: After Story
- Studios: Kyoto Animation
- Episodes: 24
- Aired: Fall 2008
Clannad: After Story is brilliant about how it describes life, the meaning of family and the complexities of adulthood.
The anime adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name is Clannad. It’s possible that this is the most famous sad anime. The anime consists of two seasons: the twenty-three-episode-long Clannad, the twenty-four-episode-long Clannad: After Story, and its infinitely more depressing follow-up. Although the first half deals with high school drama, mainly friendships and dating, the second part is a much more intense and impactful look at adult problems (with an emphasis on the importance of family).
The sequel to the critically acclaimed slice-of-life series Clannad, Clannad: After Story, starts after Tomoya Okazaki and Nagisa Furukawa graduate from high school. They feel the mental rollercoaster of growing up around each other. Tomoya, unable to decide on a path for his future, recognizes the importance of a good work ethic and realizes the power of encouragement from Nagisa. They push ahead to confront their emotional problems, strengthen their old relationships, and build new ties through the couple’s commitment and unity of intent.
7. Grave of the Fireflies
- Studios: Studio Ghibli
- Episodes: Movie
- Aired: Spring 1988
One of the most tragic movie you would ever see is Grave of the Fireflies. The film, set in the last days of the Second World War, tells the story of a boy named Seita and his younger sister, Setsuko, whose lives were destroyed by the cruel and violent war that left them without parents and homes.
Left in the Japanese countryside to fight for themselves, the youthful hope of the siblings is dazzling in the face of unyielding hardship, giving them the courage to continue to escape an inevitable destiny. Grave of the Fireflies is a film that is intensely sad, deeply romantic, and powerfully moving that can leave no one indifferent.
8. Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day
- Studios: A-1 Pictures
- Episodes: 11
- Aired: Spring 2011
Want to cry specifically for every episode? Would you like to acquire the amazing capacity to weep on demand upon hearing a song’s first notes? We’ve got you covered, if your answer is yes. Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day is an A-1 Pictures original anime that premiered in the spring of 2011. This anime of eleven episodes tells the tale of a group of friends, now adults, struggling to cope with the death of their childhood friend Menma, who died when they all were very young.
The group of friends had fallen apart five years since Menma’s death, but the ghost of their long-lost comrade may just be enough to pull them together again. The group is reunited so that Menma can actually make her wish and move on, while at the same time offering her friends with the comfort they need to move forward without her. Throughout the plot, as they come to terms with their own failure to cope and conquer their feelings of remorse, we see how Menma’s death affected each of her mates. Anohana is a heart wrenching, emotional experience that you definitely do not want to miss.
9. Your Lie in April
- Studios: A-1 Pictures
- Episodes: 22
- Aired: Fall 2014
The fall 2014 Anime, from A-1 Pictures, Your Lie April is accompanied by a famous child musician, who after his mothers death, lost the ability to hear the sound of his own piano. Two years later, Kousei encounters Kaori Miyazono, a vibrant violinist who makes him understand that music can be played naturally, and not in the rigid, formal way that his mother taught him.
The anime addresses Kousei’s recovery story when he discovers that music is more than just playing every note (and falls in love with Kaori). Unfortunately, Kaori’s cheerfulness only disguises the inevitable disaster, much like the vivid color palette of the anime. Your Lie in April is a stunning and touching story that explores mental trauma, overcomings loss and development. This anime is for sure going to make someone shed some tears.
10. Orange
- Studios: Telecom Animation Film
- Episodes: 13
- Aired: Summer 2016
For me, Orange was a roller coastal emotional ride. Emotions are things that motivate us and determine what decisions we take and how our lives end. Orange is a series that explores how feelings will alter our direction.
A letter from ten years’ time is sent one day to Takamiya Naho. When Naho reads, the letter says the exact day’s events, including the transfer to the class of a new student, Naruse Kakeru. 10 years later, Naho says constantly that she has several regrets, and she wants to fix them by ensuring that the Naho from the past will determine correctly – particularly in relation to Kakeru. What’s more surprising is that Kakeru will no longer be with them ten years later. Naho wants her to keep a close eye on him.
Top 10 Sad Anime That Will Make You Cry – Sad Anime List — Click To Watch the video!
