saddest anime characters

[rocklobster]

Who are the saddest characters in anime?
Here are my votes:
Rose in FMA
Reki in Haibane Renmei
both children in Grave of the Fireflies
Lala Ru in Now and Then

[sharien chan]

Minagi from Air gets my vote

[Dr.Faust]

Brook One Piece he's been alone for over 80 year

[Nate]

Tohru from Fruits Basket and Konata from Lucky Star.

[CrimsonRyu17]

Pretty typical buuuut.. Darcia from Wolf's Rain. A lot of people lose sympathy for him in the end, but it's constant attempt and fail while he suffers all the way. His intent isn't even evil. Pretty tragic villain.

And the Masked Loincloth Bandit from Gintama..... Yeeeeaaaaaah, he's pretty darn sad.

[Momo-P]

Rika and Miyo from Higurashi. Although I still sometimes hate Miyo for what she does later, it doesn't change how screwed up their lives were/are.

[Tsukuyomi]

I'm not sure who the saddest is, but I agree with Sharien about Minagi being pretty sad...
[spoiler]Wouldn't you be if you're mom didn't remember who you were ;___;?[/spoiler]

I'd also say that Mizuzu was as well...
[spoiler]Not being able to make friends without repeating the same dream of losing them from long ago ~(O_O)~[/spoiler]

[Maokun]

Tohru from Fruits Basket and Konata from Lucky Star.

Something tells me that you are employing here the other use of the word "sad"

My nominee is Butch, the Honeybee. I'm aware that most of you are not familiar with this very old anime so let me give you some exposition:

[spoiler]He was the prince of his beehive, where his mother, the Queen was deeply beloved by everyone. However, the beehive was raided by the wasps who killed most of the bees and took away with them the Queen. Since then Butch wanders the fields searching for her. In each episode, he invariably meets a new friend that by the end of the episode will be most likely dead because trying to protect him, fight with him or just helping him go even further (including a butterfly girlfiriend). The saddest thing is that after several episodes of losing friends and never giving up the search for his mother, he finally finds her... left behind for dead in an abandoned wasp nest after a long time of captivity and torture. And so, the Queen dies in the arms of Hutch. He also finds his baby sister then and his new mission is to protect her find a home for her so she can become the next queen. Cue more friends' deaths along the way.[/spoiler]

[KhakiBlueSocks]

[font="Trebuchet MS"][SIZE="4"][color="RoyalBlue"]Souichiro Arima from "His and Her Circumstances" (Kare Kano) absolutely counts as a sad anime character, mostly because of the abandonment issues he suffers when...
[/color][/SIZE][/font]
[spoiler]His parents abandon him to live with his aunt and uncle. [/spoiler]

[font="Trebuchet MS"][SIZE="4"][color="RoyalBlue"]He also feels abandoned by Yukino when she goes off to do her own thing with her friends. This is amplified more when you consider...[/color][/SIZE][/font]

[Spoiler] That they actually went all the way in episode 18. He becomes so dependent (almost possessive) of her that the thought of her spending time with her friends and getting friendly with new transfer student Tonami drives him even further inside his shell. [/spoiler]

[font="Trebuchet MS"][SIZE="4"][color="RoyalBlue"]The second candidate I have is Claire Rondo from "Planetes". I can't quite articulate it, but it seems as though she goes through the entire series really trying to fit in, to find a place, but never quite making it. Granted, she does have the looking of a turnaround by the last episode, for the most part, poor Claire is the saddest character in this great, underestimated series.[/color][/SIZE][/font]

[USSRGirl]

Something tells me that you are employing here the other use of the word "sad"

My nominee is Butch, the Honeybee. I'm aware that most of you are not familiar with this very old anime so let me give you some exposition:

[spoiler]He was the prince of his beehive, where his mother, the Queen was deeply beloved by everyone. However, the beehive was raided by the wasps who killed most of the bees and took away with them the Queen. Since then Butch wanders the fields searching for her. In each episode, he invariably meets a new friend that by the end of the episode will be most likely dead because trying to protect him, fight with him or just helping him go even further (including a butterfly girlfiriend). The saddest thing is that after several episodes of losing friends and never giving up the search for his mother, he finally finds her... left behind for dead in an abandoned wasp nest after a long time of captivity and torture. And so, the Queen dies in the arms of Hutch. He also finds his baby sister then and his new mission is to protect her find a home for her so she can become the next queen. Cue more friends' deaths along the way.[/spoiler]

This I am EXTREMELY curious about - what's the title on the bee epic? Anywhere where I can find pics or a review?

[Roz]

Alex Row from Last Exile.

Will think of more later I'm sure.....

[Dr.Faust]

Dib on Invader Zim man he has a big head

[Maokun]

This I am EXTREMELY curious about - what's the title on the bee epic? Anywhere where I can find pics or a review?

Here you can find the name of the series in almost all laguages it was aired. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=1741 I'd say it is most likely impossible to find outside of Japan (and quite hard inside). Here you can find the ep 1 in japanese: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSeSIkw6IBc and the ep 15 in spanish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHbLQv-Ta4g

[Elycien]

Nina Tucker in FMA, definitely. D: Also in the manga,
[spoiler]Havoc being crippled really breaks my heart.[/spoiler]

And from Fruits Basket... Hatori, Kureno and Akito.

[TriezGamer]

Strongly seconding :

Arima -- His and Her Circumstances
Even if I found myself disliking his character at times

Minagi -- AIR
Minagi's arc has a special meaning to me due to real life experiences.

Misuzu -- AIR
Pretty much what was already said in the spoiler block above.

Rika and Hanyuu -- Higurashi Spoiler for Higurashi Kai (Season Two, unlicensed)
[spoiler]It is heavily implied that Rika may have experienced her friends being killed (often by eachother), and herself being murdered well in excess of one thousand times. She nearly gives up all hope of getting out of the repeating cycle of death. I'm adding Hanyuu to this because not only has she been with Rika through all of it, but she feels a sense of responsibility for the whole thing in the first place.[/spoiler]

Miyo -- Higurashi
I've never felt genuine compassion for a character I had formerly loathed until Miyo's arc.

Nina Tucker -- FMA
No explanation needed.

Hatori and Kana -- Fruits Basket


Chipping in:

My personal #1

The Okazaki Family -- Clannad After Story
[spoiler]I'm writing this as 'The Okazaki Family' largely to avoid spoiling the specifics as much as possible, but also because it's a pretty accurate assessment. If you're highlighting this because you've already seen Clannad After Story, you already know what I'm going to say. This is mostly for those who haven't seen it, but are curious why I'm rating them so highly...

---

Tomoya's father, Naoyuki Okazaki, had to raise Tomoya on his own after Tomoya's mother died when Tomoya was still young. After the accident, Naoyuki turned to alcohol and smoking, and held frequent fights with his son. One day while arguing with his Tomoya on trivial things, he slammed Tomoya against the wall, dislocating Tomoya's right shoulder. Immediately after that, Tomoya refused to come out of his room, and by the time he finally went to the hospital, it was declared to be untreatable. The injury he suffered stops him from playing basketball ever again, which is his only passion.

Naoyuki distanced himself emotionally from Tomoya, and began treating Tomoya as a stranger but also sacrifices everything in his life just for Tomoya's sake, hoping Tomoya to grow up to be a proper man, unlike himself.

Tomoya ultimately becomes engaged to Nagisa Furukawa (later Nagisa Okazaki), herself having a rather tragic past. Though his father is in jail, and they are still not on good terms, he occasionally visits his father during the engagement -- mostly because Nagisa insists that he repair the broken relationship. As they prepare for the marriage, Tomoya starts to get his life on track, establishing for himself a proper job as an electrician and making the stable income necessary to support more than just himself. Some time after the wedding, Nagisa becomes pregnant with Ushio.

Nagisa wants to give birth at home, but her body is weak and frail, and Tomoya as well as her parents convince her that she should give birth at a hospital, due to the need for prompt medical attention that may be needed. Instead, Nagisa goes into labor during a winter snowstorm harsh enough that travel is deemed extremely unsafe in her condition. Though Nagisa lives long enough to see her child, she dies the same day.

Tomoya, unable to cope with the loss of his new wife, falls into cigarettes and alcohol -- much as his father did before him -- abandoning his newborn daughter to be raised by Nagisa's parents. Ushio is then raised by her grandparents for several years, never developing any special bond with her father. Tomoya has no attachment whatsoever to Ushio, as she looks much like Nagisa, and brings back painful memories for him. Nagisa's mother eventually engineers a plan to force Tomoya to go on a vacation with Ushio, and arranges for his paternal grandmother to run into him during the vacation.

After running into his grandmother, who explains to him the hardships that Naoyuki went through in raising him, Tomoya begins to begrudgingly respect his father more, but also realizes that what he has done to Ushio is exactly what his father did to himself. As he and his grandmother part ways, one of the most compelling emotional sequences in anime history plays out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE38SKRT4ak

Afterward Tomoya begins his life anew, this time wanting to raise Ushio as a proper father. However, not long after he and Ushio begin to live together, the same illness that struck Nagisa with her frailty strikes Ushio, who succumbs to her illness during the cold winter, and dies at approximately age 6. Tomoya, upon seeing this, collapses into the snow himself. Some believe that he himself died of a broken heart.[/spoiler]


I'm not gonna write as much about the next two because I'd probably write two more blocks of text nearly as large as the previous one, so I'm just gonna throw the names out there:

Haruka Suzumiya -- Rumbling Hearts (Kimi ga Nozomu Eien)

Junior -- ROD TV

[blkmage]

[font="Trebuchet MS"][SIZE="4"][color="RoyalBlue"]Souichiro Arima from "His and Her Circumstances" (Kare Kano) absolutely counts as a sad anime character, mostly because of the abandonment issues he suffers when...
[/color][/SIZE][/font]
[spoiler]His parents abandon him to live with his aunt and uncle. [/spoiler]

[font="Trebuchet MS"][SIZE="4"][color="RoyalBlue"]He also feels abandoned by Yukino when she goes off to do her own thing with her friends. This is amplified more when you consider...[/color][/SIZE][/font]

[Spoiler] That they actually went all the way in episode 18. He becomes so dependent (almost possessive) of her that the thought of her spending time with her friends and getting friendly with new transfer student Tonami drives him even further inside his shell. [/spoiler]

Even though what you said is true, having read the manga and it being one of my favourites, I have to say that that's really only the surface.

[spoiler]Later on in the manga, it's revealed that his problem with his parents were much worse than just abandonment. His dad abandoned him, but his mom stayed for a while and really abused him until she abandoned him too.

I don't know how much the anime goes into his relationship with his extended family, but there's a lot of family history that affects him there, again, because of his parents. There's not just abandonment, but inadequacy too.

And all of this affects his relationship with Yukino because he's trying to shield her from this part of him. I actually think that his possessiveness of her is relatively minor compared to his other problems. He's a lot more afraid of losing her because of his own vindictiveness that he gets because of his extended family. Of course, this strains their relationship because he's hiding all of this from her.[/spoiler]

[the_wolfs_howl]

Oh dude...I've seen that bumblebee anime in Turkish before... o.0



Full Metal Alchemist - Maes Hughes, Nina Tucker, Roy Mustang, Edward Elric (in Conqueror of Shamballa, at least)

Last Exile - Dio Eracles

Haibane Renmei - Reki, Rakka

Wolf's Rain - Darcia

Monster - Grimmer, Karl, Deiter (what a heartbreaking story)

[mysngoeshere56]

I would probably say some characters in Fruits Basket....

HatoriXKana - for obvious reasons.
Yuki Sohma - I can relate to him a lot.
Kyo Sohma - Poor guy... ignored by the family like that.

Oh, and in Princess Tutu... Pretty much all four of the main characters.

Daisuke Niwa (D.N.Angel) because his heart was broken.

Sailor Saturn, because she had a rough past.

And Syaoran from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, because his love lost her memories and now she can't remember him.

[Maokun]

Haruka Suzumiya -- Rumbling Hearts (Kimi ga Nozomu Eien)

I'd second this if it wasn't for the intense, white-hot hatred I felt for Mitsuki that totally outshadowed any pity I would normally feel for haruka and basically any other lasting emotion I could've obtained from that series.

[TriezGamer]

I'd second this if it wasn't for the intense, white-hot hatred I felt for Mitsuki that totally outshadowed any pity I would normally feel for haruka and basically any other lasting emotion I could've obtained from that series.

I've watched the entire series multiple times, and I hated Mitsuki the first time through, but that changed over time. It's one of those shows that I really think you have to watch multiple times to really catch all of the intricacies of it.

I was still picking up on things that I hadn't noticed before even when I was watching it for the 10th time.

And if you wonder just how many times I've watched it, the answer is 21. Up until recently it was my favorite anime of all time.

[CelebixUxie]

A lot of the Sohma from Furuba[Fruits Basket]. Namely, these twp:

Momiji-kun [Momiji Sohma]
[spoiler] His mother went insane when learning she had given birth to one of the Zodiac. She was hysterical in tears whenever she thought about it. So, ultimatly, his father requested that Hitori would erase Momiji's mother's memory of him, and then sent his son off to live on "the inside", while he and his wife lived on "the outside" and awaited the birth of their "new" child, who was soon to be known as Momo. Momiji tries to keep his father's wish, but cannot stay away from his baby sister. He ends up giving Momo violin lessons over the school breaks, their father being wary of Momiji spilling the truth. Momo seems to have a special connection to Momiji; she seems to look up to him as the brother he truly is inside, which probably worries Mr. Sohma[Momiji's dad]. Momo hasn't been told the truth yet, nor has her mother. Often times, the two see Momiji and say 'hi', the conversation scenes ending with Momiji watching them walk away with a soft smile, kinda like that of a guardian knowing the protected are still safe and happy.[/spoiler]

Akito-san[Akito Sohma] [Major Spoilers from Manga series]
[spoiler]Raised a man because her mother was jealous. -3- You heard me. Her mother was jealous of another female stealing the love of her husband, so she raised Akito like a boy. Her father disapproved of this, but was soon hushed by others of the Main House who agreed, but for other reasons. They agreed that Akito be raised a boy because she was chosen to be the next "god" in the Zodiac curse. Akira, her father, has one day become deathly ill, and only wished to be with his daughter in his final hour, which was unknown to Akito's mother, Ren. Once Ren learned Akira had died and Akito was the only one with him, she outraged at her daughter, telling her she was "unwanted" and "only a toy to amuse Akira". Akito lashed back with words of her own, saying Akira's love and caring for her was real. The two, mother and daughter, have been brutally hating each others' existence ever since their first "battle". In an attempt to comfort Akito after the fact, an elderly maid to the Sohma gave her a box and said Akira's soul was inside it. Akito half-believed this, but still cherished the box dearly. During an outbreak later in the series, when you learn of her past, Akito opens the box and finds out it was truly empty, the one half of not-believing taking over for truth.[/spoiler]

;-; These two have quite dramatic backgrounds, Akito-san's being the worst of the two. >.< Sorry if I spoiled. [I did use the spoiler-tag things. ;-;]

[Esoteric]

Raul Creed from Ergo Proxy

Actually, most of the characters in that are pretty sad.

[Maokun]

Raul Creed from Ergo Proxy

Actually, most of the characters in that are pretty sad.

Oh yes, I second this. It was a quite good window to human nature too, in the way that almost every single major character was at one instance or another a ruthless, hateable jerk or a pitiable victim or a noble, admirable idealist. Only Pino was always... well, Pino, as she herself would very correctly say it.

[Roz]

Kana Iriya from Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu.

[Dante]

ME! I don't even have a giant robot and wouldn't know what to do with it if I had one... I am one pathetic anime character!

[Makachop^^128]

Raul Creed from Ergo Proxy

Actually, most of the characters in that are pretty sad.

yep yep its a amazing anime though:sweat:

I love ur avatar ^^ I've only seen one of those videos though

[Netbug009]

Setsuko in Grave of the Fireflies.

Why did I watch that movie AGAIN?! ;_;

[Michael]

Gatts & Casca from Berserk
[spoiler]...just Gatts & Casca from Bereserk. Pre-eclipse Griffith too. In fact, I dare you pick any character from Berserk with a happy past.[/spoiler]
Also Vash from Trigun.

[caramellmusic]

Takuto from Full Moon, definitley

[Yamamaya]

Lucy from Elfen Lied. She had perhaps one of the most disturbing and tragic backgrounds in any anime I've ever seen.

Yoko from Gurren Lagann