Anime creators love making their audience cry. From heartfelt dramas about young love, unrequited feelings, and relationship drama to the more serious stories that tackle issues like death, war, and illness, anime has found countless ways to break hearts and make viewers weep.

For any fan of heart-rending stories that make them shed giant crocodile tears, they have come to the right place. There are several outstanding anime about truly heartbreaking, depressing subjects. These titles will surely tug on the audience's heartstrings in one way or another.

Updated on May 15, 2024, by Michael Colwander: Anime does a wonderful job invoking a wide range of emotions. A sad anime, or an anime with sad moments, can be a testament to great character development as viewers care about that respective series' characters. A fresh slate of heartbreaking animes have been added!

40 Demon Slayer Is Filled With Death

Demon Slayer is the story of two siblings on a mission to avenge their family’s massacre and eliminate demons along the way. Tanjiro and Nezuko Kamado have seen more death in their lives than they could have imagined, but they fight through the pain to get to their enemy, Muzan Kibitsuji.

Tanjiro and Nezuko have help along the way, but many of their friends succumb to wounds or decide to go their separate ways. Even some of the demons are redeemed in their final moments as lost souls looking for places to belong. Demon Slayer is an intense show that leans into tragedy, making for a truly sad anime.

39 Parasyte: The Maxim Features An Alien Invasion

Parasyte: The Maxim is a horror anime about an invasive alien species coming to Earth to feed on humans. The “Parasytes” typically attach to a human’s brain and control them to get prey. They also manipulate their hosts' bodies into unspeakably grotesque monsters with blades and hundreds of teeth.

Due to the alien’s nature, several characters are either eaten or taken over by the Parasites. The looks of complete terror and the sadness over loved ones lost make this show one of the saddest anime.

38 Erased Hinges On A Criminal Investigation Through Time

Erased is a time-travel and psychological thriller anime that follows an underemployed twenty-nine-year-old named Satoru Fujinuma. Satoru flits through time at random to fix problems and save people from terrible fates, including murder.

Erased is so heartbreaking because of Satoru's final leap. He must save three of his classmates who were murdered and figure out who the killer was. This is a harrowing task, but Satoru's relationship with his friend Kayo Hinazuki represents the deepest sorrow of the show. Kayo is the catalyst for much of the anime's heart and tragedy since the entire ordeal seems to focus on her, her family, and her need to belong.

37 Death Parade Takes Place In The Afterlife

Death Parade is a psychological anime about the afterlife. Decim is a neutral being running a bar where people who died simultaneously compete in various games to see where their souls will end up. The games are varying degrees of grotesque and nearly all of them end badly for at least one person.

Apart from the despicable competition, the show delves into questions of good and evil and what it means to be human. The anime ends on a bittersweet note, making it all the more depressing.

36 Jujutsu Kaisen Has Deaths In Real World Locations

Jujutsu Kaisen is a riveting horror shonen with stunning animation from Studio MAPPA. Yuji Itadori’s awakening as a Jujutsu Sorcerer has the signature shonen flare that slowly deteriorates into devastating moral quandaries as the show goes on.

As expected within the horror genre, deaths are inevitable. But many of JJK’s characters are so beloved that it hurts all the more when they pass on. The sheer amount of carnage in loss in the second season alone is enough to bring any anime fan to tears. They grieve for their favorite lost characters, as well as the loss of Itadori’s innocence.

35 To The Forest Of Firefly Lights Prevents The Main Couple From Touching

Hotarubi no Mori e is an ethereal shojo anime about forbidden love. When a little girl named Hotaru Takegawa gets lost in the woods, a friendly spirit named Gin helps her return to her family. Hotaru and Gin’s relationship grows as she does, and the two beings start to fall in love, even though they can never touch.

This anime is a sweet, but heartbreaking, view of love and the impermanence of life. The time the main couple shares is precious to them, and those moments are what truly matters, even if they can’t be together any longer.

34 So Character Is Safe In Danganronpa: The Animation

Based on the hit video game series, Danganronpa: The Animation loves to toy with viewer's emotions. Just like its video game counterpart, viewers will be constantly on edge as they wonder if their favorite character will even survive until the next episode.

Danganronpa tells a Battle Royale-like story where 15 high school students of a prestigious school are trapped. To escape, a student must kill another and get away with it after a Class Trial. If they succeed, everyone else will die. If they fail, only they will be punished. Danganronpa is a heart-pounding franchise full of heartbreaking deaths, heartbreaking circumstances, and heartbreaking answers to its many mysteries. While the anime version of Danganronpa is more abridged compared to the video game version, it still hits hard.

33 Wolf Children Centers Around A Single Mother

Wolf Children has a wholesome premise, but it is quite the tear-jerker. It tells the struggle of a single mother named Hana trying to raise her two children. That is already challenging enough, but the children are also half-wolf. The kids' father went out hunting and was killed, leaving Hana alone to raise them.

Even sadder, Hana found his corpse as the trash collector was about to discard it. This anime will make the audience experience the same feelings as Hana as she struggles to raise her two supernatural children. It may be a sad anime on many levels, but it is also inspiring and encouraging, with Hana being a strong and caring single mother despite these hardships.

32 Oshi No Ko Delves Into The Downsides Of Idol Life