28 Sad Anime Series & Films That Will Make You Cry

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Anime expert Jose Rivera shares his saddest anime picks & why they’re so devastating to watch

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IN THIS ARTICLE

1 Grave of the Fireflies

2 Your Name

3 A Silent Voice: The Movie

4 Your Lie In April

5 Erased

6 The Promised Neverland

7 Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day

8 Clannad: After Story

9 Violet Evergarden

10 Angel Beats!

11 Plastic Memories

12 To Your Eternity

13 Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

14 Banana Fish

15 Akame ga Kill!

16 I Want to Eat Your Pancreas

17 Devilman Crybaby

18 Made in Abyss

19 Honorable Mentions

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Co-authored by Jose Rivera and Amy Bobinger, BA

Last Updated: August 28, 2026 Fact Checked

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With its detailed animation style and intricate plots, anime is the perfect setting for an emotional journey. And sometimes, you just need to watch something that makes you feel sad. We partnered with an anime expert to round up 28 of the saddest anime series and films of all time, so get your tissues ready! (And don’t worry—we’ve tried to keep the descriptions as spoiler-free as possible so you still get the full impact of all the feels.)

Top Saddest Anime of All Time

Anime expert Jose Rivera says sad anime shows and movies have a particular gift for breaking people due to their ability to take grief, regret, and love and render them so clearly that they stop feeling like someone else's story. His top 7 saddest anime are:

• Grave of the Fireflies
• Your Name
• A Silent Voice
• Your Lie in April
• Erased
• The Promised Neverland
• Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day

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1

Grave of the Fireflies

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1. 
   Grave of the Fireflies is a Studio Ghibli movie set in Japan during World War II. It follows siblings Seita and Setsuko after a U.S. firebombing destroys their city and kills their mother, explains Rivera. With their father at sea and relatives indifferent, they slowly starve trying to survive alone. The film is based on Akiyuki Nosaka's semi-autobiographical story, which just adds another tragic layer, Rivera says.

   • Why it’s sad (note: some spoilers): Rivera explains that the director, Isao Takahata, rejects the “war-film escape hatch.” There are no heroics and no cathartic closure—just a society quietly failing the children it was supposed to protect.
     • This is apparent when the film opens, Rivera says. Seita is already dead in a train station, with his spirit reuniting with Setsuko, and no rescue coming.
     • Every scene that follows, from catching fireflies to light their shelter to Setsuko hallucinating from malnutrition and trying to eat a marble as candy, exists in the context of an ending the audience already knows, he adds.
   • Why it deserves the #1 spot: According to Rivera, the film “doesn't ask you to process war as an abstraction. It asks you to sit with two specific children and watch the small joys they invent to survive. That intimacy is what makes it the archetypal ‘too sad to rewatch’ anime, respected universally, revisited almost never.”
     • One Redditor adds, “I didn’t shed a tear until the end. But as soon as those credits roll and you realize the film is over it hits you like a truck. My girlfriend shut herself in the bathroom for a half hour after the movie.”
   • Japanese name: Hotaru no Haka
   • Series or movie: Movie (89 min)
   • Year released: 1988
   • Dub available: Yes
   • Director: Isao Takahata (Studio Ghibli)

   Meet the wikiHow Expert

   Jose Rivera, also known as Ricky Flicks online, is an anime expert and content creator. His content covers topics across anime, gaming, movies, and TV.
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2

Your Name

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1. 
   Your Name is about two teenagers, Taki Tachibana in Tokyo and Mitsuha Miyamizu in rural Itomori, who begin mysteriously swapping bodies, says Rivera. They coordinate their shared lives through notes and phone messages, growing close without ever meeting. While the film isn’t purely tragic, Rivera explains that its sadness lives in the space between near-misses: train cars passing, names slipping from memory, and turning around a moment too late. “It's the ache of almost, not the weight of loss—which is why it hits hardest for viewers who recognize their own roads not taken.”

   • Why it’s sad (note: some spoilers): The sadness comes from the twist, notes Rivera. About midway through, it’s revealed that Taki’s and Mitsuha’s timelines are out of sync: Mitsuha's town was destroyed by a comet three years before Taki ever started swapping with her. So, the body-swap comedy becomes retroactively tragic. The back half of the film becomes a race to save her, he explains, and then a fight against forgetting each other entirely as time corrects itself.
   • Why it deserves the #2 spot: According to Rivera, “Your Name is bittersweet in the most precise sense of that word. The ending offers relief, but the accumulated weight of everything that was almost lost—and briefly forgotten—never fully lifts. Shinkai [the director] built a film about the haunting feeling that you've misplaced something you can't name.”
     • YouTuber TopAnime says, “The emotional twists and stunning animation make this movie an unforgettable experience.”
   • Japanese name: Kimi no Na wa
   • Series or movie: Movie (107 min)
   • Year released: 2016
   • Dub available: Yes
   • Director: Makoto Shinkai (CoMix Wave Films)

3

A Silent Voice: The Movie

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1. 
   A Silent Voice is a sensitive exploration of disability and bullying. Rivera says it follows the story of Shoya Ishida, who spent elementary school bullying Shoko Nishimiya, a deaf classmate, until the school turned the blame onto him alone. Years later, consumed by guilt and suicidal isolation, he seeks her out to make amends.

   • Why it’s sad (note: some spoilers): “A Silent Voice refuses to let redemption come easily or cleanly,” explains Rivera. The pain of Shoya's attempts to reconnect with Shoko is uncomfortable because the film understands how hard it is to apologize to someone you genuinely hurt, and how much harder it is to believe you deserve to still be here. He notes that the disability representation is handled with unusual honesty, and neither Shoya nor Shoko is allowed to be simply a victim or a villain.
   • Why it deserves the #3 spot: According to Rivera, “A Silent Voice deals in a sadness most other entries avoid: shame. Not grief over death or lost time, but the specific weight of knowing you caused real damage to another person and being unsure whether healing is something you're allowed to reach for. It's the most emotionally uncomfortable entry on this list—and the most quietly hopeful.”
   • Japanese name: Koe no Katachi
   • Series or movie: Movie (130 min)
   • Year released: 2016
   • Dub available: Yes
   • Director: Naoko Yamada (Kyoto Animation)
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4

Your Lie In April

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1. 
   Your Lie in April follows Kōsei Arima, a former piano prodigy who lost the ability to hear himself playing after the death of his mother, Rivera explains. He drifts through a colorless life until violinist Kaori Miyazono drags him back onto the stage, while hiding a heartbreaking secret of her own.

   • Why it’s sad (note: some spoilers): The series deals with trauma, grief, and recovery, which is told through beautiful, classical music. As Rivera explains, Kōsei’s inability to hear his own music is tied to the years of emotional and physical abuse from his mother, and he is then “brought back to life” by Kaori, who is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Kousei's inability to hear himself is visualized as drowning, static, and shattered sound. As he begins to play freely again, this illustrates how much of himself he's recovering, and how much of that recovery is tied to someone he's about to lose.
   • Why it deserves the #4 spot: According to Rivera, “Your Lie in April is about trauma recovery and first love under a time limit—and the specific terror of wondering whether the person who brought you back to life will be around long enough to see who you become. Its final episodes are among the most emotionally exhausting in anime, and Kaori's letter remains one of the medium's most precisely devastating pieces of writing.”
     • That said, Rivera notes that the show swings between slapstick comedy and devastating drama, which can undercut some of its heaviest scenes. “Some viewers find the melodrama earns itself; others find it manipulative. Both reactions are legitimate,” he adds.
     • One Reddit user puts it simply: “[Your Lie in April] broke me as a person for about a week. Loved everything about it.” Another Redditor agrees, saying, “Short of a single episode I cried at the end of every single episode. And I also marathoned the entire show in one sitting so I literally ran out of tears at some point.”
   • Japanese name: Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso
   • Series or movie: Series (22 episodes); OVA
   • Year released: 2014
   • Dub available: Yes
   • Director: Kyōhei Ishiguro (A-1 Pictures)
   • Do you lowkey relate to this anime? Find out whether art really imitates life with our “Which Anime Genre Is My Life?” quiz.

5

Erased

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1. 
   Rivera says Erased follows Satoru Fujinuma, a 29-year-old with an involuntary ability called “Revival.” Moments before a tragedy, he's sent back in time just far enough to prevent it. After being framed for a murder he didn't commit, Satoru is sent back 18 years to his childhood, where he realizes a classmate's kidnapping is connected to everything that follows.

   • Why it’s sad (note: some spoilers): “Erased is less about death than about the children adults fail to see,” explains Rivera. “Satoru's classmate Kayo Hinazuki is visibly abused, quietly desperate, and invisible to the systems around her. The show's most painful sequences aren't its thriller beats; they're the small moments of Satoru trying to simply make her feel like someone notices her,” he says. So, “the stakes are emotional as much as narrative.”
   • Why it deserves the #5 spot: According to Rivera, “Erased earns its place not as a grief story but as a story about children surviving without a safety net, and what it costs an adult to go back and try to be the person no one was for them. The time-travel hook is a vehicle for something quieter: the wish to return to the moments where you could have made someone feel less alone.”
     • Rivera does note that “the final act loses some of the intimacy of its early episodes as the thriller mechanics take over. But the foundation it builds, the childhood friendship, the weight of being seen, carries the emotional payoff regardless.”
   • Japanese name: Boku dake ga Inai Machi
   • Series or movie: Series (12 episodes)
   • Year released: 2016
   • Dub available: Yes
   • Director: Tomohiko Itō (A-1 Pictures)
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6

The Promised Neverland

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1. 
   The Promised Neverland takes place at Grace Field House, where orphaned children live in apparent comfort under the care of their beloved “Mama,” Isabella, explains Rivera. This all changes when the three eldest children, Emma, Norman, and Ray, discover the orphanage is a farm—every child is actually being raised as food for demons.

   • Why it’s sad (note: some spoilers): Rivera says the emotional weight of the series isn't just horror at the premise, it's the destruction of trust. Isabella is genuinely caring, and the children genuinely love her. The revelation about what they’re being used for doesn't erase that history—it makes it worse. “The show understands that the most devastating betrayals aren't committed by monsters but by people operating within systems that ask them to become one,” Rivera highlights.
   • Why it deserves the #6 spot: According to Rivera, The Promised Neverland is notable because “the sadness is inseparable from rage. These are children, brilliant, loving, fiercely bonded, in a world that has already decided their lives have a price. What Norman does in the final episodes, and what it costs him, is one of the most emotionally honest acts of sacrifice in recent anime.”
     • Rivera notes that Season 1 is nearly flawless with mounting dread and emotional precision. Season 2 doesn’t match the same quality, so he suggests adjusting your expectations or reading the manga the show is based on.
   • Japanese name: Yakusoku no Nebārando
   • Series or movie: Series (23 episodes)
   • Year released: 2019
   • Dub available: Yes
   • Director: Mamoru Kanbe (CloverWorks)

7

Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day

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1. 
   Anohana revolves around shared trauma. It follows a group of childhood friends who scattered after the accidental death of their friend Meiko "Menma" Honma, Rivera explains. Years later, Menma's ghost appears to Jinta, the group's former leader, and asks him to fulfill a wish she can't remember, which means drawing the fractured group back together.

   • Why it’s sad (note: some spoilers): The ghost isn't the sad part of Anohana, the living are, reveals Rivera. Every character is grieving the same death in a completely different, irreconcilable way: one hides behind anger, one hides behind romantic obsession, and one hides behind the performance of having moved on. “The climax forces each of them to finally say what they've been swallowing for years,” Rivera explains, “and the result is one of the most emotionally cathartic finales in short-form anime.”
   • Why it deserves the #7 spot: According to Rivera, “Anohana is the purest distillation of what the best sad anime does, it makes you feel the specific shape of a loss that isn't yours, so clearly and completely that by the end, you're not watching the characters cry. You're crying with them. That's the whole art form, compressed into eleven episodes.”
     • While Anohana might not be as long as Clannad or as visually beautiful as Violet Evergarden, Rivera says it’s the most precise story about grief and doesn’t waste any runtime. It “understands that guilt and love are sometimes indistinguishable, especially when you're fifteen and someone you loved didn't make it to sixteen.”
   • Japanese name: Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai (“We Still Don’t Know the Name of the Flower We Saw That Day”)
   • Series or movie: Series (13 episodes)
   • Year released: 2011
   • Dub available: Yes
   • Director: Kei Oikawa (A-1 Pictures)
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8

Clannad: After Story

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1. 
   Clannad: After Story explores lost love. The first season of Clannad revolves around cynical high schooler Tomoya and his transformation after he meets sweet, shy Nagisa. It’s charming, and you’ll get out with your heart intact. Then, Clannad: After Story follows them into adulthood—but instead of being a sweet happily-ever-after sequel, it’s filled with real-life trauma and heartbreak. This one is a real tearjerker.

   • Why it's sad: One Redditor says, “It’s the only anime I can genuinely say changed the way I think about life. Absolute masterpiece, just seeing that … flower field gets me a little misty eyed.”
   • Japanese name: Kuranado Afutā Sutōrī
   • Series or movie: Series (Season 2; 25 episodes)
   • Year released: 2008–2009
   • Dub available: Yes
   • Director: Tatsuya Ishihara (Kyoto Animation)

9

Violet Evergarden

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1. 
   Violet Evergarden follows Violet, a former child soldier who lost both of her arms and her beloved mentor, Major Gilbert Bougainvillea. In the present day, she works as a ghostwriter called a “Doll,” helping people find the words to express their own deepest wounds. There’s a lot of emotion to mine here, and the series does it beautifully.

   • Japanese name: Vaioretto Evāgāden
   • Series or movie: Series (13 episodes); OVA
   • Year released: 2018
   • Dub available: Yes
   • Director: Taichi Ishidate (Kyoto Animation)
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10

Angel Beats!

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1. 
   Angel Beats! is set in a purgatory-like school in the afterlife, and the students all died as teenagers. The series explores the regrets each character must face because they died too soon. And even though it starts out feeling like a lighthearted (if dark) comedy, Angel Beats! is ultimately a deeply emotional, poignant experience.

   • Japanese name: Enjeru Bītsu!
   • Series or movie: Series (13 episodes); 2 OVAs
   • Year released: 2010
   • Dub available: Yes
   • Director: Seiji Kishi (P.A. Works)

11

Plastic Memories

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1. 
   In the world of Plastic Memories, humans live alongside short-lived androids called Giftias. The series follows two employees of the Terminal Service, an organization that deactivates the Giftias before their lifespan expires. The bond between humans and their Giftias leads to numerous emotional scenes as the Giftias are retired from service.

   • Why it's sad: YouTuber Animan explains, “Watching the two main leads grow close, knowing fully well that she’s on borrowed time, is cruel in a way that feels deliberate and yet poetic. There’s no escape, no reset button, no plot armor.”
   • Japanese name: Purasutikku Memorīzu
   • Series or movie: Series (13 episodes)
   • Year released: 2015
   • Dub available: No
   • Director: Yoshiyuki Fujiwara (Doga Kobo)
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12

To Your Eternity

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1. 
   To Your Eternity tells the story of Fushi, a mysterious immortal being who can take on the appearance of the people he meets. He seeks out companions, forming close relationships with them, only to watch them grow old and die. It’s a beautiful look at the fleeting but meaningful nature of humanity.

   • Japanese name: Fumetsu no Anata e
   • Series or movie: Series (20 episodes)
   • Year released: 2021
   • Dub available: Yes
   • Director: Masahiko Murata (Brain’s Base)

13

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

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1. 
   Cyberpunk: Edgerunners follows street kid David and net-runner Lucy as they navigate the underworld of Night City. The story is sad because it’s Polish, and Polish people are sad. Just kidding—or, more accurately, the anime’s creative director was just kidding when he said that at the 2025 Anime Expo. But it’s definitely an acknowledgement that this story can be heavy at times.

   • Japanese name: Saibāpanku Edjirannāzu
   • Series or movie: Series (10 episodes)
   • Year released: 2022
   • Dub available: Yes
   • Director: Hiroyuki Imaishi (Studio Trigger)
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14

Banana Fish

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1. 
   Banana Fish is a gritty story that follows Ash Lynx as he stands up to the underworld kingpin who used to be his boss. Ash has endured a lifetime of abuse, trauma, and loss, but he still holds onto hope that he can help build a better future, which makes his struggles all the more poignant.

   • Japanese name: Banana Fisshu
   • Series or movie: Series (24 episodes)
   • Year released: 2018
   • Dub available: Yes (but it’s a controversial AI-generated dub)
   • Director: Hiroko Utsumi (MAPPA)

15

Akame ga Kill!

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1. 
   Akame ga Kill! tells the story of the Night Raid, a group of assassins. Being an assassin is dangerous, and fans lose a lot of characters along the way. There’s a lot of dark humor in the series, but it only serves to emphasize the tragedy of the story.

   • Japanese name: Akame ga Kill!
   • Series or movie: Series (24 episodes)
   • Year released: 2014
   • Dub available: Yes
   • Director: Tomoki Kobayashi (White Fox)
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16

I Want to Eat Your Pancreas

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1. 
   I Want to at Your Pancreas explores the sweet friendship between two high school students, the shy Haruki and the vibrant Sakura. But Sakura is terminally ill, and even though she’s determined to make the most of the life she has left, her illness makes the film poignant, emotional, and tragic.

   • Japanese name: Kimi no Suizō o Tabetai
   • Series or movie: Movie (108 min)
   • Year released: 2018
   • Dub available: Yes
   • Director: Shinichiro Ushijima (Studio VOLN)

17

Devilman Crybaby

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1. 
   Devilman Crybaby is a graphic, brutally violent anime—and it’s also really sad. The story centers on the sensitive Akira Fudo and his impulsive best friend Ryo Asuka. Akira is possessed by a demon in the first episode, and Akira and Ryo set out to save humanity by ridding the world of these demons.

   • Japanese name: Debiruman Kuraibeibī
   • Series or movie: Series (10 episodes)
   • Year released: 2018
   • Dub available: Yes
   • Director: Masaaki Yuasa (Netflix)
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18

Made in Abyss

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1. 
   In the world of Made in Abyss, there’s a giant abyss in the ground where monsters live. The story follows a Cave Raider named Riko and her robot friend Reg as they try to reach the bottom of the abyss. The animation style is adorable, which is a stark contrast to the trauma and violence that the characters face on their journey.

   • Why it's sad: TikToker @Dr_Applesauce says, “The deeper these kids descend, the darker it gets.”
   • Japanese name: Meido in Abisu
   • Series or movie: Series (2 seasons, 13 episodes) + Film (Dawn of the Deep Soul)
   • Year released: 2017
   • Dub available: Yes
   • Director: Masayuki Kojima (Kinema Citrus)

19

Honorable Mentions

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1. 
   Still need more sad anime? If you haven’t quite filled that emotional void yet, don’t worry—there’s plenty of sad anime left to explore. Here’s a list of 10 more anime series and movies that will pull at your heartstrings:

   • Wolf’s Rain (Series, 2003): A family of wolves attempts to find Paradise as the world falls apart
   • Steins;Gate (Series, 2011): A scientist accidentally changes the past and races against time to save the future
   • Orange (Series, 2016): Teenage Naho gets a letter from her future self and tries to prevent a tragedy
   • Given (Series, 2019): Four students form the rock band Given and use music to grow, grieve, and heal
   • Wolf Children (Film, 2012): A human mother navigates raising her half-werewolf children after their father dies
   • Kotaro Lives Alone (Series, 2022): A 4-year-old boy lives alone in an apartment building
   • WorldEnd (or WorldEnd: What Do You Do at the End of the World? Are You Busy? Will You Save Us? or SukaSuka) (Series, 2017): Follows Willem Kmetsch, the last surviving human on Earth
   • Now and Then, Here and There (Series, 1999): A young boy is transported to a dystopian world after trying to save a girl
   • Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms (Film, 2018): An immortal woman adopts a human boy, knowing she will outlive him
   • Elfen Lied (Series, 2005): The story of Lucy, the Queen of a mutant race called the Diclonius, as she navigates her identity and tries to escape from government assassins
   • 7th Time Loop (or 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy) (Series, 2024): Anime expert Eunice Ibama's recommended villainess anime that made her cry. Check it out and see why the ending made her cry!
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• Rivera notes that the saddest anime series “share something more specific: they build something real before they break it. The sadness is earned through character, not manufactured through death. A few patterns explain why the same names keep resurfacing, grounded suffering over cheap shock, beauty and pain running side by side, and themes that tap directly into universal fears: being forgotten, running out of time, failing the people you love most.”
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• The reason anime keeps producing sad titles and the reason those titles keep finding audiences is that grief doesn't have a single shape, and neither does the storytelling that tries to hold it, explains Rivera. The best sad anime doesn't just make you cry: it makes you recognize something true about how loss works, how it lingers, and how the people it leaves behind learn, or fail, to carry it forward.
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