13 sad anime films that will break your heart
These animated masterpieces will make you break your fabrics.
Many anime is known for its fascinating action sequences. The giant robots strike, muscular men with thorny hair scream the names of their next special martial arts attack, and children have little pocket monsters are fighting for their entertainment. All this is rad, to be clear, but that's not all this anime. Anime, as With all the animation , is just the name of a type of medium, not of a genre itself. This means that there are anime of all genres, including comedy, horror, drama, etc. There are even a lot of sad anime movies that you reduce to tears .
So, if you are in a mood for a good Japanese tear, consult our list of films that will open the valves. Some of these films will arouse happy tears - a crying of Catharsis weeping while two crazy children finally realize that they love each other and overcome all the obstacles that separate them. Others are more devastating, including a film on two children trying to survive the horrors of the Second World War, which is among the most affecting films ever made.
Read the rest for our best Downy anime recommendations and where you can watch them.
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1 the Grave of the Fireflies
- 1988
- Not available to broadcast or rent
- 8.5 / 10 on IMDB
the Grave of the Fireflies , a 1988 Ghibli studio film directed by Isao Takahata , was sadly Half -out of a double function with Hayao Miyazaki My neighbor Totoro . Miyazaki's film is a story of charming fantasy, thoughtful and explicitly adapted to children. the Grave of the Fireflies Meanwhile, is absolutely painful, and the tonal boost between the two films could not be more serious.
the Grave of the Fireflies Follows two children, a 14-year-old boy named Seita and her 4-year-old sister Settsuko, when they find it difficult to survive by themselves after being orphans in a bombing during the last stretching of the Second World War. It is an extremely difficult watch but despite that - or, rather, because of this - the Grave of the Fireflies is one of the best anti-war films of all time. It is a masterpiece, if you can climb it. Otherwise, there is always My neighbor Totoro .
2 A silent voice
- 2016
- Rent / buy on a premium and Apple TV video
- 8.1 / 10 on IMDB
The 2016 anime A silent voice is a roller coaster of high school melodrama. Directed by Reiko Yoshida and based on a manga of a few years earlier by Yoshitoki ōima , the film follows two teenagers who reconnect after a traumatic childhood. When they were in primary school, Shōya Ishida was a ruthless tyrant, especially for Shōko Nishimiya, a deaf girl. As they get older, however, Shōya notes that his behavior ostracized him, and when he reconnects with Shōko after a fortuitous meeting, he begins to see that obtaining forgiveness from his former victim may not be as difficult that, ultimately, to find the force forgiving. There may be a twist and a story that beat too much, and a slightly more rationalized story could have been more effective, but A silent voice is always a big drama for weeping adolescents. AE0FCC31AE342FD3A1346EBB1F342FCB
3 your name
- 2016
- Broad on Crunchyroll and Criterion Channel
- 8.4 / 10 on IMDB
- 4.9 / 5 on Crunchyroll
Makoto Shinkai The breakthrough is a supernatural romance in body exchange which was a massive criticism and commercial success When he was released in 2016. Mitsuha Miyamizu, a high school student living in rural Japan, and Taki Tachibana, a high school student with animated Tokyo, suddenly realize that they wake up inexplicably and randomly in the body of the other. They do not know why and, as far as they can see it, they have no connection and never encountered, and their only way to communicate is to leave notes that the other will read when they return to their body.
The real genius of the film, however, is the speed with which he goes through the typical tropes and shenanigans of other films in the genre bodies exchanger to tell an intriguing story about love, desire and time. Come for the style of photorealistic and hyper-described animation of Shinkai; Stay for several breathtaking moments and a beautiful conclusion.
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4 Wolf children
- 2012
- Distrust on Crunchyroll
- 8.1 / 10 on IMDB
- 4.9 / 5 on Crunchyroll
Mamoru Hosoda , an accomplished anime director who should be a familiar name in the West, directed this 2012 film on a single mother. The hook? When Hana was at university, she fell in love with a man who turns out to be a wolf - in addition to being a partner and a loving father because they had two children together, Yuki and Ame. But when he dies in a tragic accident, Hana must raise his children by herself, keep them happy, safe and secret, because they constantly change from human form to the form of the wolf.
5 Millennium actress
- 2001
- Stream on Peacock, Tubi, Pluto and Crunchyroll
- 7.8/10 on IMDB
- 4.7 / 5 on Crunchyroll
Satoshi Kon died far too young , passing due to pancreatic cancer at the age of 46 Perfect blue and 2001 Millennium actress . This last film follows two journalists while interviewing Chiyoko Fujiwara, an old woman who was a big movie star before retiring for decades ago. As Chiyoko tells them the story of his life, his past comes to life in strongly animated scenes that transparently mix the genres and styles of the different films in which she played, making Millennium actress Not just a touching story about love and loss, but a celebration in tears and traveling cinema itself.
6 Mount your wave
- 2019
- Broadcast on max
- 6.8 / 10 on IMDB
In this romantic drama of 2019 with a unique supernatural touch, Hinako Mukaizu moves to a city on the beach to ostensibly to the university, but really so that it can surf. Shortly after having moved, she meets Minato Hinageshi, a firefighter who seems to have his life. They start to go out together and fall madly in love, only so that Minato dies, tragically, when he drowns to try to save jet -ons. Hinako is completely devastated and wallowed in her grief, until she discovers that she can always see Minato - and speak to her - in various bodies of water.
Mount your wave is a film about how sorrow arrives in waves (literally, in this case) and director Masaaki Yuasa Put the viewers through the emotional Sssor with its characters.
7 Violet Evergarden
- 2019/2020
- Distrust both on Netflix
- 7.4 / 10 on IMDB ,, 8.3 / 10 on IMDB
Although mainly an anime series that bothers tears, there are also two Violet Evergarden Films that continue the story of the titular character, a young woman who has trouble finding her place in society after a war that cost him a lot, including her beloved arms and mentor. Now equipped with prostheses, Violet takes a job in a postal company where it writes letters for others who are looking for a human connection, in the hope of finding one itself.
The first film, 2019 Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll , is a story secondary to the main anime that follows purple when it goes to the tutor a young woman in a fancy boarding school who has her own trauma. The second film, 2020 Violet Evergarden: the film , is an appropriate suite, and offering a closure of purple in his quest to determine what exactly the Major Gilbert meant when he said "I love you" just before his alleged death during the war.
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8 I want to eat your pancreas
- 2018
- Not available to broadcast or rent
- 8/10 on IMDB
Do not let the name of this anime 2018 give you the bad idea: it is not a film on zombies or cannibalism. It's a tragedy, not a horror film.
Sakura Yamauchi is a secondary student suffering from a disease in her pancreas who will eventually kill her. Despite the death sentence, she wants to live a life as normal as she can, becoming a friend with a male student named Haruki Shiga who treats her as a normal person despite one of the only people who know his secret diagnosis. During the film, the two become very, very close, which makes him sadder when ... something happens that we will not reveal here. A live adaptation of the same novel of 2015, it entitled Let me eat your pancreas , was released in 2017.
9 Josee, the tiger and the fish
- 2020
- Distrust on Crunchyroll
- 7.6 / 10 on IMDB
- 4.9 / 5 on Crunchyroll
No fantastic elements or supernatural hooks in this anime 2020, a sincere romantic drama. Kumiko Yamamura, a young paraplegic woman called Josee, lives with her grandmother. When the Biologist Marin En Abet Tsuneo Suzukawa saves his life in a fortuitous meeting, Josee's grandmother offers him a work as a guardian, to the chagrin of Josee. But, finally, the two bind, only for life to throw them a few curve balls by learning whoever they want to be and what they mean for each other.
10 The boy and the heron
- 2023
- Not available to broadcast or rent; will end up broadcasting on max
- 7.6 / 10 on IMDB
Miyazaki's latest Oscarizer film The boy and the heron , is a great film. Even if the master of the anime never makes another film after that, it is an angular stone appropriate for his filmography, based on themes and images of all his previous works for a massive and complex film with Many different readings, most of which have a certain merit.
When the young Mahito Maki lost his mother during the Second World War, he was going to live in the rural field of his aunt after the remarriage of his father. Once there, Mahito is soon trained in a fantastic field which is as frightening as it was fanciful, guided by a gray heron. Without giving anything, it is Mahito's relationship with Lady Himi, a young girl with power on the flames he meets in this fantastic kingdom that The boy and the heron is the most emotional. The last lines of Lady Himi in the film, in particular, are almost guaranteed to run tears.
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11 In this corner of the world
- 2016
- Stream on Peacock, Tubi and Freeve
- 7.8/10 on IMDB
This 2016 film is similar in the subject and tone to the Grave of the Fireflies , even if it is a difficult watch, it is ultimately not as eviscerated as the Ghibli film. Suzu, an 18 -year -old girl who lives near Hiroshima, has just married in 1943. The film - whose extensive version holds the record to be the longest animated film with one and 48 hours and 48 - Minute Runtime - Follow Suzu while she and her family treat the impact of the Second World War on Japan, braving the attacks, the food shortages and the loss of those they are dear. In this corner of the world Finally, ends with an edifying note, but it is a difficult look at the Pacific war and what it cost Japan people.
12 Maquia: When the promised flower flowers
- 2018
- Stream on Tubi, Pluto, Freeve, Plex and Crunchyroll
- 7.4 / 10 on IMDB
- 4.8/5 on Crunchyroll
This high -level anime film 2018 explores a theme that other stories of the genre tackled, but little as emotionally and effectively as Maquia: When the promised flower flowers . Can immortality be a curse?
Maquia is an IORPH, a member of a breed that lives for centuries and stops aging in adulthood. After her hometown is destroyed when an evil kingdom attacks it, Maquia finds an orphan newborn. She decides to adopt the child, whom she calls Ariel, and the rest of the film follows them over the decades as they age ... and she does not do.
13 Pokémon: the first film
- 1998
- Stream on premium video with a Pokémon subscription
- 6.3 / 10 on IMDB
Is the first Pokémon Film, released in the United States in 1999, as sad a film as some of the others on this list? No of course not. How could Pikachu compare to the hungry orphans of the Second World War or to the death of a loved one? But the children of the 90s will remember how sad they were during the culmination of the film (spoiler!) When Ash Ketchum is transformed into stone and apparently killed after being struck by a psychic explosion while trying to put an end to Mew and Metwo's Fighting. If you do not cry when Pikachu makes an effort in mourning and futile to go up ash to life, then it may be you who are made of stone.