While anime with happier premises are nice, sometimes it can be oddly refreshing to binge a series or two that are bittersweet, depict harsh realities, or are just downright depressing. Whether doing such makes one feel better about their own misfortune or has something to relate to to work through one’s own feelings and/or situation, there’s a certain draw to such films and series that strangely spark hope no matter how dire or even inevitable the situation.
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Everyone has their own struggles and battles they’re going through in life, and so sometimes it’s nice to indulge in a little escapism, even if that escape into anime involves even more depressing themes and subject matter. Bittersweet, quiet struggles of inner turmoil, transformative hardships that bring about devastating revelations, and complete irreversible existential transcendent ruination — the ranking of anime on this list go from subtly poignant to absolutely devastating.
7) Orange
When Naho Takamiya receives a strange letter addressed to her from her future self in 10 years’ time, she’s understandably skeptical at first. But after several events described in the letter come to fruition, Naho realizes the letter is real. With the note detailing Naho’s future filled with regrets and instructions to her younger self to avoid such mistakes, her future self’s main goal seems to be to prevent the eventual untimely passing of the new transfer student, Kakeru Naruse. Although his death is considered an accident initially, Naho and her friends Hiroto Suwa, Saku Hagita, Azusa Murasaka, and Takako Chino begin to realize the signs of it being grievously deliberate.
Orange as a series tackles themes like grief, mental health, and depression and brings to light the importance of being aware of the subtle signs of mental wellbeing being compromised. Everyone has their own struggles they may be quietly going through, which is why it’s crucial to foster healthy coping mechanisms such as strengthening support systems and encouraging open communication. Especially in cultures that discourage any conspicuity that would be detrimental to the individual rather than the group, reaching out for help can be difficult, but is important and should be encouraged.
Orange can be streamed on Crunchyroll.
6) Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day
Recluse Jinta Yadomi spends his time avoiding school and playing video games. But when one hot summer day, his old friend Meiko “Menma” Honma appears, he at first just chalks it up to being a hallucination due to the heat. But as much as he tries to shrug her off, she affirms she’s there to stay, despite having died years ago. Insisting on reminding him of his promise to grant a forgotten wish, Jinta is eventually convinced that she’s really there as a ghost. Although their group of friends had grown apart after Menma’s death, they reunite to try to grant Menma’s wish so she can move on. But granting a wish isn’t as easy as they think; Reliving their pain and guilt, the friends find that they not only struggle to help Menma move on, but themselves.
Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, or simply Anohana, is definitely not all sunshine and rainbows. This series confronts the dark realities of untimely death and the emotional consequences the living may face with it. Filled with guilt and regrets, Menma’s friends deal with her death in each of their own ways, their processes of grief left unrealized until later in their lives when they’re confronted to properly face such together.
Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day can be streamed on Crunchyroll.
5) I Want To Eat Your Pancreas
Although the aloof, detached, and initially unnamed bookworm protagonist seems to hold no interest in others as he thinks others hold no interest in him, when he stumbles across a handwritten book, titled Living with Dying, a secret diary, he comes to realize that it actually belongs to his popular, bubbly classmate, Sakura Yamauchi. Upon
confiding in him about her pancreatic disease, Sakura takes an interest in him as the only other person besides her family to know about her terminal illness. Although he initially stands firm in his emotional detachment, he concedes to accompany her in her remaining endeavors during her finite time on earth. Eventually, as their bond blossoms, Sakura teaches him the true meaning of living.
As a romance doomed to fail from the very beginning, it’s not as though the audience isn’t warned to refrain from getting attached themselves, just as the protagonist tries to do. Even so, just like the protagonist, detachment in itself can be a fruitless endeavor despite Sakura’s ephemerality. I Want To Eat Your Pancreas, as a film, gives a peek into a point of view not many realize and a representation to those who unfortunately do. Life is short to begin with, and shorter for others still. No one truly knows what the future holds, nor how short life will actually be. So, whether one thinks they have a hint as to their demise or none whatsoever, it’s important to remember not to take life itself for granted.
4) A Silent Voice
Shouya Ishida was a bit of a wild child in elementary school, but unfortunately, he found entertainment in cruel ways. When Shouko Nishimiya transfers to Shouya’s class, Shouya takes to relentlessly bullying the deaf girl along with the rest of the class. But when her mother notifies the school that she suspects her daughter has been bullied, Shouya is singled out, and Shouko transfers, leaving Shouya to become ostracized and the target of his class’s bullying. All the way up to high school, Shouya’s cruel past has haunted him. Filled with guilt and regret, Shouya tries turning a new leaf in honest attempts to redeem himself. Although he’s determined to meet Shouko and make amends, the road to redemption is much more difficult than he could’ve imagined, for both himself and Shouko.
A Silent Voice is a film that depicts the tragic consequences that bullying can lead to, even to the point of pushing one to the literal edge. While Shouya had a hand in bullying Shouko, the effects are shown to be deep and lasting for them both, along with their complicit classmates. Although Shouya had relentlessly tormented Shouko, eventually his guilt led him to strive for redemption, even if such an endeavor can be difficult and filled with adversity.
3) Berserk
Guts, a wandering mercenary brandishing an immense greatsword, typically prefers to work alone. But when he is surprisingly bested in a duel by Griffith, the beautiful, ambitious leader and founder of the mercenary group known as the Band of the Hawk, he finds himself inducted into the troop. Within three years’ time, Guts has become a commander in the group he’s grown close to. With Guts’s immense strength combined with Griffith’s leadership, the Band of the Hawk becomes renowned for dominating every battle. But with Griffith’s underlying dark, selfish goal, their successes in battle eventually come at great costs.
There’s no sugarcoating it: Berserk does not have a happy ending, either in the current runs of the anime, or in the manga as it continues to release installments depicting a world slipping into ruin. In fact, it doesn’t have many positive developments in general. Most anything bad that can happen does. If you can imagine some of the most horrific things that could happen to people, it’s probably included in this series. Especially as a grimdark fantasy series, there’s also plenty of unimaginable horrors with literal unearthly monsters to terrorize humanity in unfathomably gruesome ways. Even then, one of the most brutal monsters is actually human and closer than Guts thinks.
2) Takopi’s Original Sin
When an octopus-like alien creature known as a Happian from Happy Planet lands on Earth, there is only one thing it wishes to do: spread happiness. It’s an innocent enough premise for those unaware of what happens next in Takopi’s Original Sin. Upon meeting the despondent Shizuka Kuze, the newly named Takopi makes it his mission to make Shizuka happy. Although innocent, naïve Takopi has known nothing but happiness, for Shizuka, the opposite is true. With classmates who incessantly bully her, an absent father, and a mother who may as well be just as absent, Shizuka’s life seems to be filled with nothing but misery. That is, except for Shizuka’s sole source of solace: her dog, Chappy. Seeing the bond that Shizuka and Chappy share only drives Takopi to be ever more determined to achieve his goal. Unfortunately, though Takopi tries his best to make Shizuka smile, his efforts often lead to unintended consequences.
“What if there is no magic or higher power?” “What if others genuinely don’t care or would rather I didn’t exist?” “What if suffering is all there is?” “What if life doesn’t get better?” “What if there’s no point?” These are some of the relatably hard-hitting questions Takopi’s Original Sin tackles that many have pondered when life feels agonizingly unbearable. As much as Takopi tries to help Shizuka, it ends up just seeming like a fruitless endeavor that only makes her life even worse. Even so, there’s something to be said about good intentions and putting forth effort to try to better another’s life that can still leave a transcendental impact. If they aren’t misplaced, that is.
Takopi’s Original Sin can be streamed on Crunchyroll.
1) Grave of the Fireflies
1945 Kobe, Japan. After an air raid by the American B-29 Superfortress bombers firebombs their hometown, young 14-year-old Seita and his little 4-year-old sister Setsuko become separated from their mother while their father serves in the Japanese Imperial Navy. At first, the two siblings go to live with their distant aunt, who becomes increasingly resentful of having to care for them. As supplies dwindle and tensions grow, the children are left homeless after deciding that they’d rather fend for themselves. Living in an abandoned bomb shelter, Seito struggles to care for his younger sister amidst the devastation of the war. But with famine, disease, and the harsh reality of war, as the siblings struggle to stay together and survive, even the fireflies don’t live long.
Although Studio Ghibli is typically known for more uplifting and hopeful films, the harsh realities of World War II aren’t lost to the studio’s founders, both Hayao Miyazaki able to recount his first-hand experiences and Isao Takahata adapting Akiyuki Nosaka’s semi-autobiographical novel, Grave of the Fireflies, based on Nosaka’s own personal experiences. With such a haunting premise that reflects real, devastating events that held a widespread impact, Grave of the Fireflies is a film many can only handle viewing once.
Grave of the Fireflies can be streamed on Netflix.
What’s your favorite depressing anime? Let us know in the comments what series or film is sure to bring viewers to tears and feel all the feels!
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Toei Animation
