Can you vividly remember the times a manga series made you bawl in tears? If so, can you recall the reasons why those shows or mangas made you cry? As you reflect on these, think about which scenes touched your emotions.
Are you more interested in the characters’ relationship dramas, or are you more invested in the characters’ approaches to their challenges ahead?
Today, we’re here to answer the question “Why does anime/manga make viewers/readers so emotional and cry?” It’s a mystery to me in the beginning.
But as I expanded my horizons, I realized the reasons why beloved mangas/animes made other readers/viewers break down in tears.
Japan has a history of loving soap operas, which is a medium made to make people feel emotions such as those. Sometimes the things that happen to them are so relatable that they pluck your heart strings in all the most sensitive places.
Anime like Clannad, Your Lie in April, Grave of the Fireflies, and Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 are all great examples of sad anime that’ll make you cry.
Reason #1: Attachment Issues
There’s no better way to say it than this. Attachment issues mean all you could think of right now is resuming binge-reading or binge-watching that awesome manga or anime series you have discovered.
You don’t want to get cliff-hanged again, so you decided to continue reading or watching it until you reach the end (which could refer to “the end of a chapter”, “the end of an episode”, or “the end of the series”).
But midway through the volume or the episode, you found yourself wailing and crying tears of joy on climactic scenes. You couldn’t help it. It’s unexplainable why you cried then and there. You just do.
Other manga readers/anime viewers might not react like you. But in your opinion, that’s how impactful the series is. You may have attachment issues to the characters whom you know full well could be one of your favorites, if not already.
You might not relate to their challenges one on one, but their adventures touch your heart and you sympathize with their dilemmas.
If you’re overjoyed to see a satisfying conclusion to a story arc of a series, then, it only means you have gone to love those characters. Enough said.
You would go and hug them if you could only transport yourself inside the world of the manga (or inside the world of televisions). It might be your first time getting to know the characters involved in the series, but you already feel a strong emotional connection to them despite a short period of time.
Reason #2: You See the World from the Characters’ POV
You have positioned your mind set to understand the point of views of the characters you are reading about. What’s going on inside their heads? What are their next plans of actions?
If you love reading and re-reading the inner monologues of your favorite characters, you’ll slowly come to understand their ways of thinking and approaches to execute solutions to their problems.
As you slowly get to know their habits and mannerisms, their lingering emotions also get to you. This is the reason why you become so emotional when reaching a fulfilling chapter or when seeing their successes in the stories.
What is tear-jerking to you may not be tear-jerking to another. After all, different characters tug viewers’ emotions differently.
There may be different approaches to pull out other fans’ heartstrings, but one thing is in common: your mind cannot explain what your heart and soul are able to understand. In other words, you have a special bond with the characters.
Not only did you get yourself easily attached to them, but you also extracted a portion of that characters’ personality in your everyday life.
You may pick up a habit from them; imitate their body language, gestures, mannerisms, clothing, hair styles, etc. Doesn’t matter what they are. Anything could work as long as it’s a trait from your favorite anime or manga character.
And because they’re fictional drawings of the mangakas’ imaginations, you also see the world through the authors/artists’ eyes and understand their mindsets.
Reason #3: The Series Ends. The Character Dies.
You’re never going to see them again, but you don’t want to let go. After reading a satisfying conclusion to a favorite series, or after viewing how your beloved character heroically saves the world through sacrificial death, you pursue him/her in other means.
If you finished binge-watching the anime, you read Volume 1 of the manga. Or after binge-reading the manga, you watch episode 1/Season 1 of the anime. And so, the cycle continues because the characters continue to evoke a mix of sad and joyful emotions when you watch your top-tier “boy” or “girl” grow.
Alternatively, you pursue them in other means. It could be as simple as downloading wallpapers of your beloved characters and placing them on your desktop or on your cell phone; or purchasing merchandise related to the series such as cell phone cases, t-shirts, mugs, or school items.
Anything could work as long as they stay with you all the time. Some fans even do fanarts of alternate universes. These are “what-if” scenarios that never took place in manga cannon or in the anime.
Others do fanfiction so they can write down what could have happened had the protagonist ended up with a supporting character instead of the main love interest. Having said that, it’s harder to let the series go and the characters don’t really “die” in your perception because you see them all the time.
Reason #4: Relatable characters are like family!
It’s funny how mere drawings on paper could evoke empathy from manga readers and anime viewers. But this is no further from the truth because characters whom you feel close kinship with could also be treated like family.
You saw them grow, experienced their hardships, stuck with them ‘till the bitter end, and saw them saying “goodbye” when they died or when the series ends. All of those put you through a roller-coaster of emotions.
The heart-wrenching experiences never stop when you learn there are OVAs, anime films, or one-shots related to the main series. You even seek for side characters’ adventures because you could relate to their stories as much as the protagonist’s.
When cherished characters die, you also feel a gut-wrenching feeling because it’s as if you suffered with them all through three or seven seasons of the anime. The original soundtrack doesn’t help either because it only heightens the painful emotions you’re already sensing.
Reason #5: Lovely but Painful Backstories
You thought you have a good understanding of the characters’ challenges in the present time; however, wait till you see their tear-jerking backstories.
The backstories are positioned in the middle of the anime show or midway through the manga series to evoke sympathy from the viewers/readers. If you become knowledgeable of the protagonists’ traumatic past in episode 1 or Chapter 1, you won’t care for them as much.
Animation directors and mangakas strategically positioned the main characters’ tragic past midway in the series to evoke melancholic reactions from the audience.
If the sorrowful backstories didn’t succeed, then readers/viewers might not be interested to follow the series’ outcome. The backstory didn’t capture the attention of the audience, so why should the characters’ future actions matter.
But if backstories do their job properly, it means you understand their pain and sorrow and have decided to support them all the way. The characters’ resilience is reflected to its viewers/readers. Since they didn’t give up on their dreams, you as an anime watcher or manga reader also emulate these traits.
Wanting to see the main characters succeed in achieving his/her dreams becomes a necessity. You even purchase the mangas or buy DVDs of the anime only to see how the protagonists climb through his/her mountain of struggles.
At the end of the day, all you want to see at the finale of the story is a happy outcome as well as a fulfilled life for the protagonist and his/her friends.
What about you? What makes you cry when watching your favorite anime or reading your top-tier mangas? Let us know in the comments section below!
About Animes and Mangas
Anime is a word derived from animation. When people say “anime”, they usually refer to hand-drawn and computer animation originally coming from Japan.
Vibrant characters, colorful graphics, and fantastic storytelling are the epitome of Japanese successful animation over the years.
Mangas are graphic novels, Japanese comics, or Japanese cartoons. Most of their art style was developed during 19th century Japan. However, manga’s historical art has long been known since pre-historic or ancient Japan.
Around 2007, manga’s influence on American and international markets exponentially grew; henceforth, manga became a mainstreaming medium.
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