The Media That Brought Me to Tears

6 min readDec 17, 2024

Welcome, weebs, to Animated Observations

The end of the year marks a lot of things: new calendars, maybe some New years resolutions and personal growth, but also likely moving on from things that may or may not have brought us joy. It is at this endpoint that people tend to reflect, and maybe even cry a little, over good and bad things, alike.

One piece of writing I tend to reflect a lot on is Heather Christle’s The Crying Book, a novella which features a series of essays, both personal and sociological, about the act of crying. Aside from the book itself making me cry on several occasions, it helped a lot in my journey towards critical thinking about art, primarily anime and manga but a lot of others too. In honor of and in parting with the end of a chaotic year, it seemed like the perfect time to talk about some of the media that has made me cry over the last several years.

To preface, a movie, anime, or whatever else making someone cry doesn’t automatically make it a good piece of art. However, establishing that human connection, even if only briefly, does help to create a certain repour between art and audience. That being said, these are the ones that did it to me, in some way or another (This is not an exhaustive list but rather a list of the more recent stuff).

Dandadan (Episode Seven)

This list isn’t going in any particular order, but this is definitely the most recent of the bunch, and also the most surprising. There are lots of series where, for one reason or another, be it the writers associated with the project or the musical composer, it is easy to scout out the type of media that would be prone to making a person cry. For that reason, maybe someone does cry but not as hard because they know it's coming.

This was not at all the case for episode seven. Up until this point, Dandadan came across as somewhat interesting sci-fi adventure romp that was a bit overly perverted and reliant on an uncompelling will they won’t they between its too main. Then came the story of Acrobat Silky, a character who initially looked as though they were going to be just another villain of the week but whose backstory arguably had some of the best direction of not just anime but tv in general for the whole year.

For those unaware, Dandadan follows the story of two high schoolers who are obsessed with the supernatural. One believes firmly in Aliens, the other in spirits and the occult. Turns out, they’re both right, and now they are part-time investigators/battlers of said supernatural. Silky is one such spiritual entity and, as they find out, had a pretty horrible life. I’ll save the spoilers for a review of the series later on, but even watching the episode out of context is well worth it for those who feel like having a good cry.

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

As someone who sits decidedly on the outside of films, It really feels like A24 injected a lot of life into the movie industry. Most of the big films people have been excited for recently have been either licensed or directly produced by them. Granted, it could just be the bias of me and my friends since we to tend too watch more “off the beaten path” type media. Still, it is hard to deny that a lot of there movies tend to deal with more gritty, weirder material

Enter Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, a film that has both the scale of the Marvel Cinematic Universe while being contained in a little over two hours. It does, however, feature a super hero-esque mom as its main character, an immigrant to America trying to save her failing laundromat while also dealing with issues in her marriage and her daughter, who desperately wants acceptance from a mom is, uh, “old-school” when it comes to relationships.

There are so many incredible elements of this film, enough that this post could easily turn into a second review. However, the part that was tear-inducing comes with Evelyn’s reconciliation. By the end of the movie, she realizes that trying to keep things the way they are is exactly what caused all of her problems to begin with. Weird as it is to say, the scene where the two of them are rocks overlooking a barren wasteland might have been what got to me.

Kaguya-Sama: Love is War

Ha-ha, foolish fool. I left the title slightly vague so that it could also include things that made me cry laughing, which is…primarily just this show but it deserves to be included regardless.

For those who have seen more than like, 10 anime before, I don’t really need to explain that sometimes humor in the medium can be rather hit or miss. Shows that focus on comedy as their main shtick tend to be pretty alright, but in most other places in manifests as rather cringe and reliant on awkward misunderstandings that barely constitute jokes. So, how does one of the highest rate rom-coms of the last decade fair?

I mean, it should be pretty obvious considering its on this list. There were so many points where this series had me laughing out loud that it is honestly hard to keep track. There were even episodes where I spent the majority of the run time laughing, which almost never happens with other comedy series. All that laughing just kinda builds up after a while and before I knew it there would be multiple tears running down my face.

I Saw the TV Glow

Whereas Everything, Everywhere, All at Once felt expansive and big, I Saw the TV Glow is very much the opposite. The film only ever shows us this small, unchanging town and the various cultural centers located within. It is within this compressed universe that we get the story of two kids who don’t really fit in, for one reason or another.

It is only towards the second half of the film that the reason why this the main characters feel this sort of alienation is revealed. For those who have heard about the film at all, the reason has probably already been spoiled and discussed at length. However, for those who haven’t, I think it would be better to go into this one a bit more blind. Fair warning, probably best to go into this one emotionally stable.

I Saw the TV Glow probably hold the record for the longest cry I’ve had after watching a piece of media, tied only with, possibly, Your Lie in April. It also didn’t help that I watched it in a group setting where multiple other people also broke down crying because, well, it was a little too relatable.

There are a lot of other series that could fit into this post, but might be best to save those for another time.

Thank you all so much for stopping by. For those who want to read a bit more, feel free to click back up top. Anyone who’s feeling generous or who would like to read some original poetry/short fiction from yours truly, look no further than directly below.