Bittersweet Ending / Anime & Manga

aka: Anime

As said on the main page, spoilers are unmarked.

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#0- 9

• 5 Centimeters per Second: While Takaki quit his first job and broke up with his girlfriend, he gradually takes control of his life and begins to overcome the lonely and bitter feelings that he's been nursing for fifteen years.

A

• Albegas: Yay, the heroes defeated the Dellingers! To do this, they destroyed the star Delan, driving the entire race to extinction, thus dooming to death hundreds if not millions of innocent lives, but hey, at least the Earth's safe!
• After the Rain (2014): The manga ends with Kondo finally rejecting Akira outright when she visits his apartment on New Year's day, after which Akira stops working at the restaurant that was their mutual employer. Both have obviously grown stronger from the experience, with Akira entering rehab for her ruptured tendon and Kondo working on a new novel, but they never meet again.
• In the anime of Air, Misuzu dies at the end from her curse, but managed to reconcile her relationship with Haruko before that in a particularly heartwarming series of scenes. Furthermore, since she found true happiness by meeting Yukito and coming to love Haruko, Misuzu apparently broke the curse on Kanna, ensuring her next reincarnation cycle will be a normal, happy life. Meanwhile, Yukito is stuck to live the rest of his life as a Crow... In the anime/manga anyway. In the movie he leaves town in the end, promising to help Misuzu the next time she reincarnates. The Manga ends quite a bit happier, with Misuzu surviving.
• Both the manga and anime of Akame ga Kill! has these:
  • In the manga, the empire is overthrown, the new government works towards fixing the problems caused by the old regime, and the surviving cast gets their happy ending. However, many characters have died to reach this goal, and the ones that survived are left heavily scarred, both physically and mentally. Also, Night Raid is erased from the history books, and Akame has to leave to find a cure for Murasame's curse.
  • In the anime, the heroes manage to overthrow the evil empire, but the country is largely destroyed and has to be rebuilt. That being said, all of the heroes (including ones that survived in the manga) are killed, except for two. And one of the survivors is then hunted down as a criminal.
• During the final battle in Akumetsu, Shiina is shot and is bleeding to death. In order to save her, Hazama Shou sacrifices his own body to create a clone body for Shiina. He uses his Akumetsu mask to transfer Shiina's mind from her dying body to her new body. Shiina is able to survive, however, all of the Akumetsu/Shou clones die at the end, and the clone plant is also destroyed.
• H-manga Alice in Sexland ends with the reveal that Alice died during the chase at the start of the series, and Sexland is one of the infinite afterlives, designed to help souls come to terms with their lives; Sexland specializes in helping those who died from sexual abuse (Alice was a Sex Slave in life). The Queen of Sexland is another formerly-living human, a prostitute killed by one of her clients, and one of them will now be reincarnated, Alice's choice. Alice chooses for the Queen to be reincarnated, knowing that it may be subjective centuries before she gets the chance, and decides to continue exploring Sexland and enjoying the myriad pleasures she never had the chance to when she was alive.
• Android Kikaider: The Animation: Gil successfully implants a submission circuit in Jiro in a bid to control him. This backfires as the submission and Gemini circuits balance out and it is Jiro who can choose between them. As Jiro explains while killing Gil, he has now become a "real boy" because to be human means having the capacity for both good and evil with the free will to choose. Jiro receives his wish and saves the world from Gil, but it comes at an enormous cost to the city's residents and leaves Jiro himself deeply troubled.
• Angel Beats!: In the anime at least, it ends with EVERYBODY in their world disappearing except for Otonashi and his closest friends. Then, once it's down to two (Otonashi and Kanade) there comes a revelation that a lot of people saw coming a mile away, but still, Otonashi's crying and despaired scream as the last word of the show (aside from ending themes) was pretty depressing. The song that plays for the last few minutes of the show, Ichiban no Takaramono, is pretty sad in and of itself. There is a bit of hope of a Reincarnation Romance at the end, if you don't take the Alternate Character Interpretation and take that as Otonashi's imagination.
• The Animatrix:
  • "Final Flight of the Osiris": The ship and its crew don't make it, but the message they send ends up leading to the chain of events that allow mankind to end the war.
  • "Program": Cis reveals her loyalty by killing the man she loves. Thankfully, it's undone as it's just a training program, but it doesn't undo the damage done to Cis.
  • "A Detective Story": Ash solves the case and even helps Trinity, but she is forced to fatally wound him to stop the agents controlling him. Leaving him behind, Trinity apologizes but remarks that Ash could probably have handled the truth had they made it.
• Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day: even though the team fulfills Menma's wish, by the time she leaves everyone is bawling their eyes out because this time she's really not coming back.
• Ao no Fuuin can be seen this way. All of the current Oni decide to sleep beneath Mt. Fuji and prevent its eruption, with Soko and Akira finally having time as a regular couple and ridding her of her status as Soryu. But the manga makes it clear that, even with the Oni sleeping now, that humans will eventually cause the environment to become so bad that the Oni will awaken again to bring balance to things. So they won't mind that Oni will be eating a few humans to survive. Fortunately, Akira makes sure that the Saionji group changes its ways to focus on preventing the environment's degradation, to keep this from happening.
• At the end of the Area 88 manga, Project 4 has been defeated and Kanzaki is dead. Aslan's civil war is over, and the country is about to convert to a modern republic. However, the civil war has cost countless lives, and Aslan will need years to rebuild. Most of the main characters, including Saki, Mickey, Sela, Roundel, and Greg, are dead. Ryoko and Shin reunite, but Shin's amnesia means that years of his memory are missing.
• Akari from ARIA finally graduates as a "Prima" and inherits Aria Company, but has to say goodbye to her beloved sempai Alicia, who retires from her job. She also sees her old friends a lot less than she used to.
• At the end of Assassination Classroom, Koro-sensei finally dies at the hands of Class 3-E after killing the second "Reaper", his treacherous ex-apprentice, and disintegrating Yanagisawa, the scientist who turned him into what he is now. However, far from celebrating having saved the world, they instead mourn him after spending a year developing intellectually, physically and emotionally under his tutelage (made all the more heartbreaking by the fact that killing him was already largely optional at that point, as his chances of blowing up was actually 1%, but they were forced to do what they had to before a government Kill Sat did so). Nevertheless, Koro-sensei accepts his death with grace, letting his students know how proud he is of them before they kill him, allowing himself and Aguri to be Together in Death. Furthermore, all 28 students graduated with a newfound confidence and sense of self-worth, ready to apply their lessons to lead better adult lives.
• Astro Ganger: After years of oppression, Kantaro is able to put the Blaster's reign of terror to an end...but it comes at the cost of Ganger sacrificing his life and using the last of his power to create an escape shuttle for him and Rie. The two watch from the sidelines as they absorb the fact that Ganger just died in front of them. And then we cut to the credits without giving the audience to digest what happened, because this is the same company that made Chargeman Ken! and the Creator's Apathy was beginning to show.
• Attack on Titan:
  • The Battle of Trost arc ends with a Pyrrhic Victory that won back the Trost district and sealed up Wall Rose from the Titans, thus representing humanity's first victory against the Titans, but at appalling cost and in the process leaving everyone devastated. The blow is softened, though, by the fact that all civilians evacuated in time.
  • The Battle of the Shinganshina District also ends in a Pyrrhic Victory that has all of the opposing Titans exterminated from Paradis Island, and operation ending in failure for the Warriors. However, Erwin is dead, the corps themselves are reduced to just 9 members (Levi, Hange, Eren, Mikasa, Armin, Jean, Conny, Sasha, Floch), as well as Zeke and the remaining Warriors (Reiner, Pieck) still at large. All of that pales in comparison to the reveal that humanity outside Paradis is thriving, but they view Paradis as a demonic threat that must be eliminated, with Marley being the true instigator behind the aforementioned operation.
  • The ending of the series, although whether it's bitter or sweet depends on personal taste. The Survey Corps defeat Eren, stop the Rumbling, and in the process end the Curse of the Titans. The titanized Eldians are back to normal, and Ymir Fritz and every Eldian stuck in the limbo of the Paths are free. However, Eren managed to kill 80% of humanity, leaving the world devastated, though unable to retaliate against Paradis Island. Worse still, the Yeagerists fully radicalize Paradis and prepare to go to war with the remnants of humanity. However, the renowned heroes of "the War of Heaven and Earth" return to Paradis after years of travel and diplomacy, seeking to convince Paradis to a peace treaty and end the cycle of violence peacefully, once and for all. The extra chapter implies that this was succesful and that all the characters that survived still got to live out peaceful lives, with Mikasa growing old, getting Happily Married (even if she never quit remembering Eren) and having grandchildren, but that very far in the future, wars fought with modern explosives and aircraft still reduce Paradis to rubble. Even then, what is implied to be Mikasa's descendant survives and runs afoul of the tree where Eren's head was buried, showing humanity always has the chance to survive and bounce back. Unfortunately, this also implies that the titans may be able to return.
• Aura Battler Dunbine: The villains are defeated and peace is restored to Upper Earth and Byston Wells, but at the cost of every member of the Zelana Crew (except for Cham) and their allies dying.
• Ayane's High Kick: Ayane beats Sakurako, but it happens only due to a bad call by the ref. Otherwise, she would have lost and she knows it.
• The graduation episode of Azumanga Daioh. Saying goodbye is never easy. There's a particularly bittersweet bit near the end: a scene (or panel, if you're reading the manga) of all six girls bowing respectfully to Yukari, with the words "Thank you very much." appearing above them. They do this facing "out", so it has the effect of actors taking a curtain call. And Chiyo breaking in tears in the ceremony.

B

• Sanrio Animation's 1977 animated adaptation of Takashi Yanase's children's book "Bara no Hana to Joe" (The Rose Flower and Joe) is about a brown dog named "Joe" who develops a romantic crush on a pink rose and has to protect it from a meanspirited crow. While he successfully prevents him from harming the rose three times, the crow throws a surprise attack by attacking his eyes causing him to go permanently blind. After confronting the crow for the final time, Joe attacks him and both fall into a river with the crow drowning in the process. The main protagonist (now dying) finally reunites with the pink rose and shares a final conversation with her. Joe and the rose then both die while Joe's body is covered in snow. The short ends with Joe (now as an angel) reuniting with the pink rose in heaven and shares a romantic kiss.
• In Bagi, the Monster of Mighty Nature, the eponymous human/lion hybrid gradually loses her humanity and goes feral. Then Ryo, the other main protagonist mistakenly believes she killed his mother, spends years training to get his revenge, and succeeds in stabbing Bagi. A minute later he finds he was mistaken, and that she had not only has not killed his mother, but actually carried out her last wish. The next day Bagi's body disappears, as she managed to recover, and ran away to the mountains, away from humanity
• The film version of Barefoot Gen ends with Gen and his mother Kimi surviving the atomic bomb, Gen has gained a surrogate little brother in Ryuta, and the crops are growing meaning they won’t starve, but they had to endure a lot of suffering, they lost most of their family when their house burned down following the bomb being dropped, and his newborn baby sister died from starvation.
• Betterman ends with Kankel being completely defeated by Betterman OLTUS' Psycho Birth, but as for the team: Shou and Kaede are killed when Kaede suffered from Algernon, with her baby being carried off by Chandi, Miyako killed after she learned she was the carrier of Algernon from the first Dive inspection. Sakura lost her powers and is currently in a coma, with Keita and Hinoki ending up on a deserted island, just as they were in the beginning of the series.
• The manga Bitter Virgin ends with the primary couple Daisuke & Hinako together. But the hurdles presented by Hinako's traumatic past and its consequences leave little hope in everyone (including the couple themselves) that the relationship will ultimately survive. Daisuke himself thinks the job of taking care of Hinako should go to someone more mature than he is, while Hinako herself is certain Daisuke will find a more cheerful girl better suited to him than she is. But, in the here and now, they're together and happy.
• The Black Butler anime ends with Ciel being turned into a demon, leaving Sebastian as his eternal butler. A neither cheery nor tragic conclusion for both sides.
• Black Paradox: Despite Maruso predicting that the harvesting of paradonite will stop before the human race goes extinct because of it, and that technology will be revolutionised by paradonite, many people will die from the exploitation of their own souls.
• Blood+ could be argued as having a Bittersweet Ending. Diva dies, Saya lives after trying to kill herself on Diva's blood but is deeply affected by her death, Hagi is crushed under a building, Riku's rape and subsequent death at Diva's hands still haunts Kai and Saya, and Solomon died for Saya without her even knowing. A lot of people are dead, including huge numbers of the Red Shield, and all but one of the Schiff, and the kind of emotional and psychological toll it has taken on the main characters is palpable. However, there are still some good things. Diva's children are being looked after by a loving and caring family so they won't turn into monster sociopaths, Kai is getting on with his life, Lulu is still alive, and Julia is pregnant. At the end we see that as Saya goes into hibernation again, that Hagi's trademark blue hair ribbon is by her sleeping place, indicating that he is still alive and waiting for Saya to awaken again. So in the end, this becomes more of an Earn Your Happy Ending type of story. Considering the kind of pain and grief the main characters had to go through to get it, they really do deserve it.
• Bloom Into You:
  • The first Regarding Sayaka Saeki spinoff novel ends with the Foregone Conclusion of Sayaka's middle school girlfriend dumping her because her belief that lesbianism is merely a phase, causing Sayaka to be heartbroken that her girlfriend was never serious. However, Sayaka comes to terms with her being a lesbian, and comes to Toomi East High School.
  • For the most part, the ending of the main series and Sayaka's spinoff novels is happy- Yuu and Touko get together, as do Sayaka and Haru- but the subplot of Sayaka's relationship with Touko ends on a bittersweet note. Sayaka gracefully accepts Touko's rejection of her Love Confession, and even befriends her former love rival Yuu, but notes that she and Touko are gradually starting to drift apart.
• While Bokurano is tragic to the point of being sadistic and ends in an extremely bleak note, the anime adaptation manages to pull a bittersweet ending of sorts off. Ushiro and Machi manage to turn the tables on Koyemshi and kill him, thus saving Kana from having to enter the game. The two of them win the final two rounds, ensuring that the protagonists' Earth will survive at the cost of their lives and two other Earths. Kana survives, and, meeting Daichi's younger brother, who is bitter over the belief that Daichi abandoned his family, tells Daichi's story.
• The Boy and the Beast: Ichirouhiko is reunited with his adoptive family, and will presumably make peace with his origins. Kyuta/Ren decides to leave the magical realm for good and Kumatetsu willingly turned himself into a sword to save his surrogate son. Even so, the two will always be together, as Kumatetsu now lives inside of Kyuta as a God, plus Kyuta/Ren now has his relationships with his father and Kaede, so he won't be alone.
• The Boy and the Heron: Mahito accepts Natsuko as his mother and they escape back to their world, as do the bird inhabitants of the alternate world with the final scene revealing that Mahito's family survives the war and returns to Tokyo. But the birds become normal animals, the alternate world is no more, Granduncle is dead, the heron tells Mahito that he'll eventually forget about his adventure and Himi returns to her time despite Mahito's warning of her fate, as she grows up to be his mother.
• The Brave Fighter of Legend Da-Garn: Earth is saved from Ohboss, but all of the robots, Da Garn included, sacrificed themselves to make it happen.
• Brigadoon: Marin and Melan:
  • Although the day is saved and everyone's alive, the ending is left rather ambiguous about what becomes of the title characters' relationship. But no outcome is going to be truly happy. Melan can't stay on Earth, so either Marin is going with him and abandoning her friends and family or they're going to be separated for a hundred years and will never see each other again.
  • In the manga version made to promote the anime, the heroes are successful with fewer casualties, but the ambiguity over what becomes of Marin's and Melan's relationship is non-existent as Marin chooses her adoptive family.
• Bubblegum Crisis: 2040 ends with the world being saved, but Sylia is a mess while Nene and Linna are stranded on an uninhabited island while Priss is alone in a desert, all three with little to no chance of being rescued or surviving. Even worse is that all three ladies are completely naked because their hardsuits broke down into scrap metal, presumably from re-entering Earth's atmosphere. Whatever happens to them now remains a mystery.

C

• At the end of Canaan the eponymous character, and her very close friend (or more, as its implied), Maria go their separate ways because their lifestyles are too different for them to stay together.
• Cardcaptor Sakura: Sakura becomes master of the cards and Syaoran confesses his feelings to her. However, he plans to go back to Hong Kong as everything with the cards is over and done with and Sakura realizes she returns his feelings but ultimately does not tell him, though she accepts the teddy bear he made. Syaoran goes home and Sakura hopes she'll see him again soon.
• Cardcaptor Sakura The Movie: Sakura is able to convince the Madoushi that Clow Reed is dead and she tearfully passes on but she apologizes to Sakura for her actions and returns her kidnapped friends.
• Casshan: Robot Hunter: Casshan kills Black King-1, ending the neoroid threat, saving humanity and freeing the spirits of Tetsuya and his parents. But he dies to achieve this, and because he was always a lone wolf, his role in freeing humanity goes unknown, save for his former girlfriend Luna, who has now lost her beloved a second time.
• Charlotte: Yuu manages to absorb and strip the powers of all the ability users in the world, saving them in the process from any persecution or experimentation, but the burden of doing this cost him his memories, even his memories of Nao. He still has vague memories of the translation booklet Nao gave him though, so all is not lost. Nao herself resolves to live her life fully from now on and to make new memories with Yuu and her friends.
• Chrono Crusade:
  • The manga version of. The Big Bad is vanquished, but no-one truly escapes unscathed.
  • The anime version, too. It tends to be a matter of opinion what the proportion of "bitterness" to "sweetness" is. Joshua is so mentally damaged by what happened that he's mentally reverted back to the child he was before Aion corrupted him, and doesn't even remember Rosette and Chrono consciously, though he is otherwise perfectly happy and content and no longer suffers the ill-effects of being the Apostle of Hope, due to that power having been taken from him. All of the people from the orphanage have been restored to life. Rosette and Chrono retreat to a private cabin to spend the last of their days together in happiness, dying (at the exact same moment) hand in hand and smiling peacefully while sitting on a swinging couch on the porch. The epilogue to the anime, however, goes pretty heavily into Downer Ending; Father Remington, revealed to essentially be an angel in the series, may no longer return to heaven (though it's ambiguous whether he was exiled or whether he's chosen to remain on the Earth as a symbol of his disapproval for the suffering Rosette and Chrono were forced to undergo). In Rome, he bumps into a stranger and looks up to apologise- and, if only for a moment, sees the face of Aion. Seconds later, the man attempts to assassinate the Pope.
• Cool-Kyou Shinsha's one-shot Cluster of Life ends with the ghost girl finally able to move on and the traveler reconnecting with his parents. Because of this, they won't be able to see each other again until the traveler eventually dies.
• Code Geass:
  • Most of the cast gets moderate to happy endings, but the three protagonists that were instrumental in bringing about the peaceful resolution? Lelouch, despised by the world, is assassinated on international television, just as he planned; Suzaku, who impaled his best friend, becomes Zero, carrying the weight of the world's happiness even at the cost of his own, and must carefully hide his true identity for the rest of his life; and C.C. is still immortal, still wandering the world, and still lonely, although the knowledge that Lelouch genuinely cared for her (and never once blamed her for giving him his eponymous geass) was enough to give her the strength to live on.
  • Nunnally watched her beloved brother die seconds after realizing he was a good guy all along. On the other hand, she regains her eyesight and becomes Empress, and she seems close to Suzaku in the epilogue, so it's not all bad.
  • And the same goes for Kallen who finally understood the truth about Lelouch just in time to watch helplessly while he is killed (Kallen's protective streak towards Lelouch is one of her character-defining traits). She gets everything she had been fighting for and is living happily with her bedridden-but-getting-better mother in a liberated Japan while attending school like a normal person, but she gets all those things at the cost of the man she would gladly have died for, and she's the one who narrates the epilogue in a rather bittersweet tone.
  • In Code Geass: Nightmare of Nunnally, Nunnally manages to save the world and regain her sight and mobility by rejecting her parents' plan, but that results in them vanishing from the world. Euphemia becomes empress, but her mission to restore peace to the world is hampered by hatred and distrust of Britannia. Lelouch is forced to leave Nunnally forever, but Nunnally has some comfort in sharing one last hug with him and him telling her he will always love her. Despite the problems that lie ahead, Nunnally still believes that there is hope, and is willing to face the future with her best friend, Alice.
    
    For the sake of completeness we should also mention the fan theory that Lelouch actually absorbed his father, Emperor Charles', Code during his final fight with him, becoming immortal upon getting killed rather than actually dying for real. With this in mind, it helps push things a little farther towards the Happy Ending direction. It must be noted, however, this theory clashes with the anime's lore and that Word of God has always repeated that Lelouch is truly dead, they said so in interviews (e.g. Animage 10 and 11, Continue Vol.42◊, etc), tweets by the director (translation), the official guide book◊, ..., and Lelouch is listed among the dead in the Death List for R2. C.C. even explicitly says Lelouch is dead in the new epilogue (from 2009). Then it was announced that he was confirmed to be the main character in the sequel which is officially named "Lelouch of the Resurrection", which aligns with the mountain of official statements (database with official statements) about his death.
• Comet Lucifer: Peace falls on Gift, and the other planet, which turned out to be Earth, recovering. Roman and Kaon also appear to be Happily Married, with Babies Ever After as well. Unfortunately Felia returned to her spirit/angel role, supporting both planets, meaning she's no longer physically with Sogo either.
• Cop Craft: Kei and Tilarna kill Zelada for good this time and take out a corrupt FBI Agent in the bargain, and Coal Mozeleemay's wife Marla, who got away with murder in a previous case, is sent to jail. However, a lot of damage was done to the city by race riots, and both of the moderate mayoral candidates have been assassinated (and Marla Mozeleemay, who stepped in after her husband was killed, is going to prison), leaving a far-right candidate the last man standing in the election.
• Cowboy Bebop, a show in which most of the episodes are standalone, has almost every other episode end on a bittersweet note ("Asteroid Blues", "Waltz for Venus", "Jupiter Jazz (Part 2)", "Black Dog Serenade", "Speak Like a Child" and "Boogie Woogie Feng Shui", to mention a few). The main character arcs of Spike, Jet, Faye and Ed which resolve in the last three episodes could be interpreted as such, but may also fit the definition of Downer Endings: Two of them discover that You Can't Go Home Again, and the other two lose people close to them. It finally ends keeping to the trope, with the primary character doing a Taking You with Me.
• Crazy Food Truck: Arisa and Gordon are killed by the military, but Kyle, Tanaka, and Myna carry on their legacy with a new food truck named after them.
• Cross Ange: The Norma and DRAGO Ns manage to repel Embryo's space-time convergence, and Embryo himself is no more. However, Misurugi and the other Kingdoms are destroyed and hundreds have perished thanks to the space-time convergence; Ange and Sylvia are estranged; many DRAGO Ns and Norma, including Tania and Irma, are killed during the final battle; the citizens in the other world can no longer use Mana and must survive on their own and at least Ange has inspired Sylvia a bit to change the way of thinking of these people they can survive without being addicted to Mana; and Zola, Sophia, Jurai, Marika, and Jill are dead.
• Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE!: Surprisingly the case for this Affectionate Parody in the form of the OVA, as while the Defense Club purified their final Monster of the Week with love without needing to transform, and Zundar and Dadacha are finally defeated, the third years still have to graduate, including En, Atsushi, Kinshiro, and Arima, and Wombat parted ways with the Defense Club via train, with Yumoto, in particular, saying his goodbyes and his thanks for the cuddles.
• Cyberpunk: Edgerunners: Nearly all members of Maine's crew are dead except for Lucy and Falco. David Martinez gets his revenge on Faraday, only to die at the hands of Adam Smasher. Lucy uses her share of the money from David's last job to go to the Moon, like David wanted to do.
• Cyborg 009:
  • The original intended ending of the manga and the ending to the 2001 anime qualify. After the final battle in space, Black Ghost is finally destroyed and 009/Joe seemingly falls to his death, only to be saved by 002/Jet, but then 002 runs out of fuel and the two friends fall to their death through the Earth's atmosphere, appearing as a shooting star. Manga-wise, this was retconned quickly with the next arc, after fan mail convinced Ishinomori to resume the story. Anime-wise, the 2001 anime ends there and episodes 49-51 ("God's War") take place in an alternate continuity.
  • As far as "God's War" itself goes, while the anime incarnation didn't get to the final battle, the manga and light novel definitely also apply. The 00 team winds up laid waste to by the Gods, killed off one by one until only 009, 003, and 001 remain and are left to decide whether they should try to fight the ultimate "God of Gods" or if they'd be better off sacrificing themselves to return to "The world of light" (the planet that Earth was an imperfect copy of). They make the choice to die on their own terms, with 001 first dying by erasing himself from that plane of existence. 009 and 003 then confess their love to each other and their hope of being reincarnated, before they too die as the Earth becomes a lifeless wasteland. However, in the end, in the unspecified year of 201x, a "World of light" is shown and it appears to be identical to Earth- save for it being entirely peaceful. The 00 team reunite at a beach, now appearing as ordinary humans. Mileage varies as to whether this ending could be considered happier or bittersweet, seeing as it's implied that the team may or may not be actually "alive" and may have just ascended to a higher plane of existence in regaining their humanity.

D

• In the end of DARLING in the FRANXX, the threat of the VIRM has finally been extinguished and the Klaxosaurs returned to the Earth to pass it on to humanity. Ikuno also discovers a cure for the Rapid Aging for the parasites, and Plantation 13 are able to start new lives, from Kokoro and Mitsuru raising their growing family to Futoshi running a bakery. However, Hiro and Zero Two had to sacrifice their lives to ensure their friends will live on to build a better world than the one they lived in before. Though it's shown centuries later after the epilogue that Hiro and Zero Two have reincarnated on Earth, with the two of them meeting once again as human children.
• Dear Noman: Mashiro is able to make peace with her older sister which allows her to finally pass on. However, Mashiro loses her ability to see nomans; Bazu leaves after accomplishing her desire to know humans more deeply; Mashiro resigns from her job after she lost her ability; and Chitose also leaves with Mashiro being unable to see her off. But the only positive is that Mashiro does reunite with Bazu who had been reincarnated into a human girl years later.
• Death Note: The series' Karma Houdini Villain Protagonist finally gets his just desserts, but way too many people died in the process, people all over the world still revere him as a god and there's absolutely nothing stopping Ryuk from repeating the whole thing next time he gets bored. On the flip side: humanity lost its first real chance for world peace ever and all those people died for nothing.
• Delicious in Dungeon ends on a sweet note for just about everyone, with all our heroes alive and the demon who was responsible for the dungeons being vanquished, but victory leaves party leader Laios with a somewhat bitter taste in his mouth: he's made to serve as the king of the newly restored Golden Country, which is a duty he never wanted, devouring the demon's desires has given him a permanent feeling of slight hunger, and the demon's dying curse means he can never again see the monsters he admires so much.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Muzan is dead along with every other demon created by him, Tanjiro and Nezuko are both human again, and their family has been avenged. But many good people died to make it happen, some of the survivors, Tanjiro among them, are irreversibly crippled, and the Demon Slayer Corps is disbanded now that the organization no longer has a purpose. Decades later, in modern day Japan, most of the core cast has long since passed away but are heavily implied to have been reincarnated. Tanjiro and Kanao got married, and so did Nezuko and Zenitsu, Kiriya is still alive as the oldest man in Japan thanks to Muzan's curse on his family being broken, and Yushiro, as the Last of His Kind, has become a reclusive painter famous for his portraits of Tamayo. Tanjiro's descendants have also preserved his hanafuda earrings and Nichirin Blade as heirlooms, along with a picture of the cast members who survived the final battle.
• Subverted in Destiny of the Shrine Maiden. In the last scene it appears that Chikane is going to stay locked in the shrine, never to see Himeko again; but an additional scene after the ending credits shows the two girls meeting on the street again. It isn't quite clear though when that happens, so they both might still have waited for a long time—especially considering Chikane has to be reincarnated and grow up once more.
• Devilman Lady: Jun defeats the Child of God at the expense of the lives of all of her friends, including her love interest Kazumi, whose gruesome death as she was absorbed into Jun she was forced to watch; and she lost both her arms. However, the last scene is a human child playing with a Devil Beast child, suggesting that humanity is accepting their successors without any more violence.
• Played for Laughs in D-Frag!. While in the end, the Game Creation Club (Provisional) manages to stay open after they win the Cell Phone Tag game, everyone who participated in the game ended up suspended because of how much fighting was involved.
• Digimon Adventure: The kids save both of the worlds from Apocalymon and the Digital World reformats so it can start over in peace with the absence of the evil Digimon, but they have to leave the Digital World and their Digimon friends behind, seemingly forever. Fortunately, Our War Game and the next show fix this.
• Digimon Data Squad: King Drasil is defeated and the collision between both worlds is stopped but the Digimon have to leave to rebuild the Digital World. However, Marcus goes back with Agumon, intending to make the Digital World good for humans and Digimon, and since the Digimon chose to go this time, there's nothing saying the split up is for good.
• Digimon Frontier: Lucemon is destroyed and the Digital World is rebuilt, but the kids are sent back home before Lucemon's portal closes, never to see their Digimon friends again. However, they're able to heal Koichi before their D-Tectors turn back into cell phones and their lives are better thanks to what they learned in the Digital World.
• Digimon Tamers ends with the D-Reaper being defeated, Juri finally snapping out of her depression and being rescued..and then the Tamer's partners de-digivolving and then being forced into the Digital World, and the Tamers are left to believe that they will never see their partners again. It would be a downer ending, except for the last five seconds or so before the ending credits, offering a bit of hope that they will be re-united eventually. That hope is subsequently dashed to pieces by a later Drama CD which has the Tamers blindly sending messages to the Digital World in hopes of maybe reaching their partners. Actually, it is still left open that they could be reunited someday, at least they all seem to think they will. Runaway Locomon (depending on your personal continuity) actually does show them after reuniting. Really, we just don't know.
• Dinosaur King: The Dark Pterosaur is destroyed, Spectre and his pirates are defeated, and despite multiple Heroic Sacrifices Everybody Lives but the dinosaurs are permanently stuck in combat form, they and everyone from the future return to their time, including Rex, and the time machine only has enough power left for one last trip, meaning Max and Zoe will never see Rex or their dinosaur friends ever again.
• DinoZaurs: Diamond Ryugu is defeated and the Dragozaurs leave Earth but the Dino Knights turn back into fossils as the Earth is no longer in danger.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Dragon Ball Z:
    • Played VERY straight with the Saiyan Saga. The Z-fighters win, but at the cost of nearly the entire group - Yamcha, Tien, Chiaotzu, and Piccolo are all killed, and Goku is nearly beaten to death. Even worse, Piccolo's death causes Kami to also perish, meaning the Dragon Balls are useless stones and there's no way to bring back the dead. And worst of all, Goku allowed Vegeta to escape into space, and it's suggested that Vegeta's first course of action after being healed will be to head back to Earth and finish the job. The only silver lining is that there MIGHT be other Dragon Balls: if they can be found and used.
    • Downplayed with the Namek Saga. Frieza is defeated, but Goku is presumed dead and the Namekians' homeworld has been destroyed. Thankfully, with both Namek and Earth's Dragon Balls, everyone who died during the Saiyan Saga could be brought back to life, and the Namekians find a new planet to call home. As further good news, it is revealed that Goku is still alive. However, he refuses the Namekian Eternal Dragon's wish for him to be brought back to Earth, electing to take his time coming home.
    • The Cell saga, due to Gohan's arrogance, Goku sacrifices himself to try and save the earth from Cell, but the sacrifice is in vain, as Cell comes back even stronger than before. However, Gohan along with help from Goku's spirit and Vegeta, manages to finally destroy Cell once and for all. They manage to revive most of the people killed by Cell, and the earth is finally safe. But due to Goku being revived once already with the Earth's dragon balls, cannot be revived again. The Z-Fighters come up with a plan to revive him, but Goku, realizing that his presence indirectly caused all the problems throughout Z, decides its better for him to stay dead, so the earth can remain safe.
    • The timeline that Cell came from originally ended up having one of these onto itself. While Trunks is dead, Bulma is alone, and the Saiyan race is extinct, Cell is gone and the androids are destroyed. While there are no more strong people to defend Earth, this means Babidi has no way of reviving Majin Buu. Zamasu never met Goku so he'll never enact his "Zero Mortals" plan, and the planet won't be ravaged beyond repair, and Zenos won't erase it.
    • Averted however, in the Buu Saga. By the end, the earth is once again safe from the villain, and everything is back to normal. Goku is finally revived, and can live with his loved ones again, in peace.
  • Dragon Ball GT: Goku defeats the Dragons, then he has to leave with Shenlong to teach people to stop using the Dragon Balls for everything. The bittersweet part of this ending is that said mission will last for 100 years, and Goku will never see his family and friends again because, by the time he returns, they'll be dead by then. Except for Pan, her grandson, the Androids, and Dende.
  • Dragon Ball Super's Future Trunks saga ends this way. The threat of the mad god Zamasu is over with, but to do so, Future Trunks' universe is destroyed with Trunks, Future Mai and Future Zen-O being the only remaining living beings from that universe. Goku retrieves that Zen-O and brings him to his timeline's Zen-O, giving each other a friend, and plans are put into motion to go back in time before Zamasu' rampage started to stop him and create a brighter future, but Trunks and Mai are the only ones left from their universe trying to forge a new future in the new timeline. The weight of this hits when Gohan arrives to bid Trunks and Mai farewell, causing Trunks to break down into tears as he realizes he failed his best friend and mentor.
• Dragon Pilot: Hisone and Masotan: Hisone is able to complete the ritual without having to sacrifice Natsume, but since the whole thing is over and done with, her squadron is disbanded and her fellow D-Pilots go home. However, Okonogi discovers Hisone survived the ritual as well due to Masotan swallowing her.
• Drifting Classroom: The surviving kids don't go home, but they decide to stay in the deserted future in order to build a new civilization.
• Dr. STONE reboot: Byakuya ends with the original Rei ceasing to function, but remaking the ISS into a much bigger, more self-sufficient space station. Rei is then remade there as a Robot Girl, with much of its original personality intact, still determined to wait for Byakuya to come and get it in space. Meanwhile, back on Earth, Senku sees the light signal but doesn't realise that it's Rei and the ISS, thinking, like Byakuya before him, that both the ISS and Rei were destroyed many years ago. Chrome intercepts the signal and puts together a sign of its light patterns, but he can't understand what it means since he doesn't know how to read Japanese. And, with much bigger problems to deal with (since the story concludes during the time of the antibiotic creation arc), it's highly unlikely Senku and the gang will head in space to find Rei anytime soon.

E

• The manga version of Elfen Lied. Thousands of people are dead, Kouta is forced to Mercy Kill Lucy, and the Diclonius species ceases to exist, but the people responsible recieved their comeuppance, and most of the remainder of the cast get a happy ending. Best of all, Lucy defeated her Enemy Within by stopping her Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum just before asking for Kouta to Mercy Kill her. At the very end, Kouta - now with a daughter he named Kaede - meets the reincarnated selves of Lucy and Nyu.
• Eternal Sabbath: Shuro dies (as does every named character except Mine, Sakaki, and Mrs. Akiba, for that matter), but his consciousness holds on just long enough to help Mine find and kill Izaku, putting an end to his psychotic killing spree. Mine also discovers that she's pregnant with Shuro's child, and the manga ends with her happily looking into the sky, hands on her stomach. Much was lost, but that doesn't mean you can't move on.
• Eureka Seven: Pocketful of Rainbows:
  • The ending can be considered bittersweet. Though the heroes manage to save the world, the members of Gekko State are all doomed to die early due to their accelerated aging, the government's Kill Sat causes untold collateral damage that kills countless innocent people, and Eureka herself was forced to sacrifice her memories to save Renton and become an ordinary human being who is incapable of speaking, thanks to memory wipe.
  • The manga ending is even worse. Although Big Bad was eventually defeated, Eureka dies in Renton's arms from her wounds. This leaves him and his grandpa to look after the 3 kids for at least 2 years. Thats gotta suck for a 14 year old kid.
• Evillious Chronicles:
  • Pretty much every happy ending, spanning the course of over 1000 years, is tempered with the bitterness of knowing all the characters are going to die of either old age or other factors later on in the series—but that's not to say it doesn't have it's share of straight examples. It's probably safe to say that when it doesn't have a Downer Ending, an Evillious story ends like this.
  • In the Story of Evil, from its various sub-arcs, we have for the the principal twin characters the tyrannical princess Rilliane survives to repent, but loses her brother Allen who dies in her place. For the Lucifenian Revolution, Germaine avenges her father's death by killing Allen, but he was raised as her foster brother. Not to mention all of the revolutionaries who died to make it happen, only for Lucifenia to end up under the control of another monarchy in their instability. For the side stories like Wiegenlied of Green, Clarith finds peace and fulfillment at the monastery, but loses the love of her life. For Praefacio Of Blue, Kyle and Germaine end once and for all the conspiracy orchestrated by his mother, Prim, but he loses his half sister in the process and again throws a country into political instability.
  • In the Seven Deadly Sins Series, there's the The Lunacy Of Duke Venomania, where all the women escape from the duke's harem when he's killed, but it sparks a wave of political instability and bigotry towards his Child by Rape descendents, as well as death taking away his one sympathetic goal that he began the novel with—to confess his love to a childhood friend he'd brainwashed in with the rest of them.
  • In Evil Food Eater Conchita, another entry in the Seven Deadly Sins Series, Banica eats herself, thus ending her reign of terror and keeping her baby safe. However, Elluka fails to collect the glass, and Conchita becomes the new demon of Gluttony, an immortal who persists in terrorizing people for centuries afterward.
  • In the Original Sin Series, Elluka, who later becomes the constant protagonist of the rest of the series, is brought back to life and made immortal by the Sin ark, in exchange for her entire country and all the people she cared about either being obliterated or driven into insanity/evil.

F

• Fafner in the Azure: Dead Aggressor:
  • The series ends with a number of the pilots dead, Tsubaki must tearfully say farewell to her friends before assimilating with the Island, and Soushi dies even after Kazuki saves him. At the same time, Tatsumiya Island has the information to save Sakura's life and prevent the early deaths of the pilots, the world's civilizations can rebuild, and Soushi promised Kazuki he'd find a way to return one day. Judging by the trailers for the movie, he will.
  • In addition, there's the even more bleak prequel special. Yes, Tatsumiya Island obtains data from the wreckage of Ryo's Titan-type Fafner to fight against the Festum and the Island now has time to prepare for the upcoming battles, but most of the important people who do survive are going to die soon enough anyways and everyone who partook in the L Plan were killed as well.
• Fairy Musketeers: Cendrillon is sealed and Souta is reunited with his mother again, but Souta, Ringo, and Souta's mother have to stay in Elde while everyone else has to go back to Fandavale. However, Souta and Akazukin in particular hold out hope that they will see each other again.
• Fairy Tail:
  • Phantom Lord Arc: Phantom Lord is defeated, with two of the guild's members defecting to Fairy Tail, Jose Porla's plan to hold Lucy for ransom is thwarted and Elfman regains control over his Take Over Magic. However, Fairy Tail now must deal with the Magic Council's wrath over their guild war, while Lucy cuts all ties with her Abusive Dad for hiring Phantom Lord to retrieve her in the first place.
  • Oración Seis Arc: Oración Seis is defeated, Nirvana is destroyed and a resurrected Jellal regains his memories. However, Roubaul reveals that he's long dead and Cait Shelter is illusion he created so Wendy would have friends. Now that his task of destroying Nirvana is completed and Wendy has made real friends, he departs for the afterlife, leaving Wendy and Carla to join Fairy Tail. As for Jellal, he willingly surrenders to pay for the crimes he didn't actually commit.
  • Edolas Arc: King Faust is defeated, Mystogan becomes the new king of Edolas, Lisanna is reunited with Fairy Tail and the Exceeds, now in a Earth-land where their race isn't mistreated, begin searching for their missing children. However, Edolas is forced to survive without magic, the Exceeds are forced to relocate to Earth-land after Excelia's destruction and the Magic Council plans to disband the Fairy Tail if one more incident involving them happens.
  • Sirius Island Arc: Grimoire Heart is defeated and Cana finally reveals to Gildarts she's his daughter, while Ultear and Meredy reconcile and defect from their guild. However, Zeref ends his self-excile after being convinced that Humans Are Bastards, while Acnologia's appearance forces Mavis' spirit to put Fairy Tail members into 7-year stasis with the Fairy Sphere. By the time they unfreeze, their guild has turned from the strongest in the kingdom to the weakest, while Lucy discovers her father has died during those seven years.
  • Grand Magic Games: Fairy Tail regains its position as the strongest guild in Fiore, Saber Tooth is reformed, Raven Tail is no more and Future Rouge's plan to summon an army of dragons is thwarted with Eclipse Gate's destruction. However, Future Lucy is killed Taking the Bullet for her present self and none of the Dragon Slayers was able to kill a single dragon, while Future Rouge gives Natsu a cryptic warning that Gray will kill Frosch in one year, which will be his present self's Start of Darkness, and Acnologia will Take Over the World in seven more years. And worst of all, Zeref announces to Mavis his intention to Restart the World.
  • The ending of Tartaros arc is more bitter than sweet though. Sure, Tartaros and the Face are gone, while Minerva is redeemed. The cost? The Magic Council is in ruins, Fairy Tail is no more (the later arc would reveal that Makarov did this to protect its members from the Alvarez Empire in case he fails to negotiate peace, since the only things that could intimidate Alvarez into not invading Ishgar are gone), Igneel is Killed Off for Real by Acnologia, the other four Dragons Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence and Zeref reclaims the book of E.N.D., aka Etherious Natsu Dragneel.
• The opening scene of Fang of the Sun Dougram strongly hints at a Downer Ending, but it turns into a bittersweet one at the last moment. The civil war seems lost when the Big Bad tricks the La Résistance leaders into accepting his very unfair offer of independence. Most guerillas go home and the Liberation Army becomes a police force and the handful of rebels who see through the deception and continue fighting are surrounded by the Earth Federation Military. Then suddenly the Big Bad gets assassinated and the tricked rebel leader takes a stand and refuses to let the earthlings run his newly-formed country. In the end, the planet Deloya is still only formally independent, the eponymous Humongous Mecha is destroyed, but it's heavily implied that future prospects are bright.
• Fatal Fury: Devil Street of Horror: The Martial Emperor, Liuo Himmler, and the majority of the demons die which saves the world from their evil, but Geese Howard has not been shown receiving any punishment.
• Fate/Zero: Kiritsugu orders Saber to destroy the Grail in order to prevent more outcomes, but it ends up with it causing a fire that consumes half of the town. Saber returns to her time, in which she remembers the words of Lancelot, as she regrets of her life as a king. Waver survives, but loses Rider, who has quickly become the most important person in his life. Most of the characters are dead and Sakura, Illya and Rin are separated from their loved ones and live lonely for the next ten years, as the people they cared for are missing or dead. The Big Bad Kirei and Gilgamesh are still alive. On a happier note, Kiritsugu saves a young Shirou, who will become a hero of justice like Kiritsugu, but unlike him, following the right path and give the story a happy ending in Fate/stay night.
• Figure 17 Tsubasa & Hikaru ends with what might tentatively be called a Death by Newbery Medal: Hikaru vanishes at the end after defeating the Maguar for good because her human form was only ever temporary, and to top it off, Tsubasa has to leave all of her friends to move (again). But we do see that she's a much stronger person because of everything that happened. Worst of all, "the adults" promised Tsubasa they would take Hikaru home and make certain that absolutely every scientific resource available to their civilisation would be dedicated to saving Hikaru from her eventual fade-out — they were practically about to take her back for the preservation attempt when the final battle blindsided them and forced Hikaru to burn off the little energy she was using to stay alive. Though, admittedly, there were subtle implications that Hikaru's life in the labs would not have been all too nice had she been preserved...
• Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within ends with the world saved, and the Phantoms at peace, but the entire cast save for two characters dead.
• The first Fist of the North Star series ends with Kenshiro finally defeating Raoh... and then discovering that Yuria is dying from radiation sickness. We find out in the second series that she lived on for a couple of years before telling Kenshiro to continue living without her.
• FLCL, in both anime and manga formats, probably fits here as well. Naota matures a good deal and doesn't let the world or his friends be glassed, but it certainly isn't the happiest ending. At least Haruko offers Naota to come with her "the next time", whatever that means. We can has sequel, please?
• Flint the Time Detective: Flint is able to defeat and reform the Dark Lord but Petra, Dino and Mite plan to continue their criminal activities and head off through time with Flint and his allies pursuing them.
• From the New World has one of these. Saki and Satoru survive and marry, and Squealer's attempt to genocide all humans in Japan and steal babies to use as weapons is stopped. However, Kiromaru and Tomiko are dead, most of the bakenezumi colonies have been wiped out and human society is still just as messed up as when the series began. Still, Saki and Satoru have hope for the future and the series ends with a shot of the empty halls of Zenjin Academy echoing with the sounds of children's laughter and an inscription:
  "The power of imagination is what changes everything."
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • The 2003 anime series ends with Ed and Al both alive, but stuck in parallel worlds.
  • Downplayed in the manga and Brotherhood anime: the Big Bad is defeated, and Al finally gets his body back. To bring his brother back completely, however, Ed sacrificed his ability to perform alchemy.
• Fullmoon's ending is quite a Tear Jerker. After it was revealed a bit earlier that Eichi 's soul was with Mitsuki all the time, enabling her to see the shinigamis in the first place, we see Mitsuki after her operation. Through a miracle, or rather a (not that heroic but still) Heroic Sacrifice of Mystia and Jonathan she still hasn't lost her voice yet and is singing at a concert, when suddenly Takuto, who was thought to be dead shows up and they're happily reunited... ...until the camera pans to Eichi, who separates his soul from Mitsuki's body and is seen flying away reaching out for her while crying. Until he eventually calms down, smiles down on her peacefully and vanishes into nothingness. This is probably made even sadder by the realisations that with Eichi gone, Mitsuki is now unable to see or talk to any of the shinigamis ever again; and she's only still alive because of his presence and the ensuing events, which means that he himself ruined his chance to be reunited with her in death any time soon.
• Future Boy Conan: Despite the marriage of Monsley and Captain Dyce and the decision to stay and repopulate Remnant Island, the suicide of the doctors of Industria and the death of Dr. Lao embitters the situation.
• The ending of Future Diary certainly counts. Sure, Yuki and Yuno were able to become god of the 3rd world and the memories from Yuno of the 1st world were given to 3rd world Yuno. However, that doesn't change the fact that everyone with the exception of the 9th, the Muru murus, and Yuki himself (obviously) from the two previous worlds are dead. Also, neither of them can just hit the reset button (as Yuki painfully became aware of) to bring them back. All that would come back would be their bodies, not their minds. Seriously, were it not for the 3rd world resolving the way it did, the end would have been a full blown Downer Ending.
• F-Zero: GP Legend: Black Shadow is dead, and the galaxy is safe from his terror forever. Haruka is free, and can live her life with Ryu in peace. But Captain Falcon gave up his life (albeit having gone out in a blaze of glory and named a successor in Ryu), his allies must move on without him, and Jody has lost her older brother for good.

G

• GaoGaiGar FINAL, the Post-Script OVA to GaoGaiGar. It turns out the heroes only have the ability to open two tiny windows back to our planet that will stay open for a couple of seconds. They choose to send Mamoru and Kaido back home, entrusting the future to them. As they fly towards the portals, they pass by the ruined husks of all the Brave robots who sacrificed themselves using their ultimate attacks to save the universe, and hear each one's voice encouraging them to look forward and remember the Oath Sworn Through Courage. Finally, as they return to Earth and meet all their friends and family once again, the character version of the already fairly emotional ending theme begins to play.
  
  Made even worse by the fact that, up to this point, the series was extremely lighthearted and took great pains to have everything come out in a happy ending. Throughout the series and FINAL, a total of two major human characters and one of the robot characters were killed. In the final episode, it is implied that every one of the Mobile Unit is dead for good, though there is a chance that GGG will find a way back home.
  
  An eventual happier ending is teased in the manual though. Specifically, Genesic GaoGaiGar's specs include a device called the "Galeoria Road" - where have we heard that name? Oh wait, it shares a name with the portal to the alternate universe in question, the Galeoria Comet. There's also what appears to be an old version of Guy himself who makes brief appearances in bonus content and Betterman.
• Genesis of Aquarion:
  • Apollo and Silvia finally resolve their series-long bout of Will They or Won't They?... only for Apollo to then go and sacrifice himself to save the world. At least the promise of Reincarnation Romance gives it a more hopeful spin than other such endings...though it will take around 12000 years for that to happen, apparently.
  • The OVA alternate retelling is also bittersweet but on a different note. Apollo and Silvia are able to save the world without Apollo having to sacrifice himself, letting them be together, but several of their friends that survived in the series died fighting Touma.
• By the end of Giovanni's Island, Junpei is the last of his family left and the only one to make it home to their island. But times have changed, the Japanese and the Russian settlers are now on friendly terms, and he will see his loved ones again one day in the afterlife.
• The Girl from the Other Side: Teacher comes to realize that Shiva was created as a result of losing everything he had during his life as a human, and the both of them wish that they never met each other, realizing how each had negatively impacted the other. Despite this, the both comes to terms with the current predicement and still live in harmony, realizing what the true curse may be.
• Granblue Fantasy The Animation: The mist-shrouded island arc of the story ends with the defeat of the villain that used the powers of a primal beast to force everyone on the island to live on as zombies. As a result, the zombified villagers can finally move on to the afterlife, the fog around the island lifts and the crew can resume their journey. On the other hand, the ghost girl Ferry, who had been wandering through the fog for a century unnoticed by everyone finally regained the memories of her past life, only to relive the moments her father died to protect her and her parting with her precious younger sister, who is long gone by the time the story takes place. The last scene before the credits shows Ferry visiting her sister's grave, though at least accompanied by her sister's grandson.
• The Great Mission to Save Princess Peach!: The fact that Kibidango/Prince Haru owns the other Brooch which signifies his destiny with Peach upsets Mario greatly, but he accepts it as he wants her to be happy.
• The anime Gecko Ending of Great Teacher Onizuka is this. The final two episodes involve the school going up against the school board for their attempts to cover up a teacher's affair with a student and their cover up of that same student's suicide to prevent the possibility that she was pregnant with the teacher's child from leaking. The conspirators also try to pin an attempted murder charge on Miyabi for stabbing the teacher when it is confirmed that, after hearing about his student love's suicide, the teacher tried to commit suicide as well. While the school faces being shut down as they refuse to turn over Onizuka for an (obviously fake) assault charge and Miyabi, Onizuka steps in and gets the media involved to cause a storm around the events to expose the school board's cover up. Then Onizuka takes the blame for the attempted murder despite his students having evidence that it was an attempted suicide and Miyabi finally coming around and trying to rescue him. Onizuka is nearly taken into custody but, as per the norm, he manages to escape as the teacher wakes up from his injuries. It's all but confirmed that the School Board will be unable to deny the charges of covering up the suicide and suicide attempt and all the students in class 3-4 are able to trust teachers. Onizuka goes on the run and ends up in the US at a California Junior High in charge of a class full of delinquents. Sadly it's implied that Onizuka will be unable to return to Japan after this despite his role in exposing the coverup and his students and Azusa will never see him again.
• Gregory Horror Show: The Second Guest, though more on the "bitter" than "sweet." The female protagonist finally has what she's been wishing for—a family to call her own. Meaning a husband a child to look after. On the bitter side of things though, in getting this, she's become a permanent guest of the Hell Hotel, cannot go back to the real world, and lost her sanity/sense of self in the process. Oh, and it's Gregory she's got a family with.
• GunBuster:
  • Perhaps the first example for many '90s anime fans, the end of the sixth OVA episode in which Noriko and Kazumi within Gun Buster One had to enter Gun Buster Three in order to detonate the bomb within. Due to time dilation effect, they returns home with 10,000 years having passed on Earth. A joyous reunion with human civilization alive well with a spectacular welcome long prepared for them, but without their peers, who have long since died.
  • The sequel Diebuster kills off Nono by saving the entire universe from collapsing from an errant black hole after killing off the last remaining space monster. Her friends live on to honor her memory as the Nonoriri that Nono looked up to (and was named after) returns to Earth.
  • Also the manga sequel Aim for the Top! The Next Generation had their friend Jung Frued live on for quite some time due to suspended animation/light speed travel... never got to finish it so not sure if she's actually alive when the Gunbuster gets back... she was looking for it though.
• Several Gundam series, even the Super Robot Mobile Fighter G Gundam, end with the heroes defeating the villans but losing friends and family in the process. The most famous is Mobile Suit Gundam, in which, during a battle, Amuro accidentally kills the woman he loves, who was protecting Char Aznable.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam F91 does the opposite of this with the hero managing to save his love interest and keep all his friends alive, but his side winds up losing the actual war and their home town is conquered. Gundam doesn't do happy endings.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket seems to be considered an exemplar of this, the colony is saved from nuking and Al and Chris survive the whole affair, but Bernie dies needlessly, Al is forever traumatized and Chris is in the dark about the fact that she killed her lover.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam Wing seemed to be a rarity in that really no loved ones were harmed in the making of this show and everything works out perfectly. Everybody that dies is either a mook, a one-episode character, straight villains, or Treize Kushrenada. Even the big bad, Zechs, manages to survive the finale... somehow.
  • The sequel/finale movie Endless Waltz also has a Bittersweet Ending: true peace has come to the world, the villain has been defeated and the girl he was manipulating rescued, AND all the Gundams are destroyed for good (4 via their Self Destruct Mechanisms, the fifth blown to pieces by the recoil of its own BFG)... However, the pilots scattered to the five winds, likely never to see each other again.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED the protagonists manage to prevent ZAFT and the Earth Alliance from completely obliterating each other (and the rest of humanity), but most of the cast is dead and there is no decisive end to the war or Natural/Coordinator resentment, allowing for another, even more brutal war to follow only two years later.
  • The sequel eventually (the ending was revised twice) ended up being not quite as bittersweet but still not totally happy. The heroes won, but at the cost of forcing themselves onto the world stage to constantly work for peace for the rest of their days. Most of the characters on both sides survived (and the biggest death in the Seed finale actually turned up alive in Destiny) but a few died, mostly people relating to former hero, turned fallen hero Shinn, although his love interest managed to defy the odds and survive, and Shinn himself is able to make his peace with his anger and his past. Although if you still view Shinn as the hero it might be a downer since several people he cared about died, everything he worked for in the series was for not and he was defeated in the end by the people that caused him most of his pain in the first place.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans is so heavy on the bitter that it borders on Downer Ending, with Mikazuki, Orga, Akihiro and most of the other leading members of Tekkadan died in the process and Rustal Elion not only getting away but completely triumphing through crushing Tekkadan, taking full control of Gjallarhorn and painting himself as the hero of the whole conflict while tarnishing Tekkadan's reputation with help from Nobliss Gordon. In addition, Gaelio is stuck on a wheelchair and his little sister is most certainly traumatized and in need of therapy. At the same time, McGillis and Tekkadan's revolt did force Rustal to make some concessions, such as seeing to it that the Seven Stars are disbanded and introducing reforms to make Gjallarhorn a more democratic organization (even if it's mostly just a ploy to centralize his own power). Although Rustal gets away, Iok Kujan gets some well-deserved retribution for his many crimes, as does Nobliss (albeit years after the Final Battle). While the surviving Tekkadan members have to spend the rest of their laying low, they were able to successfully flee from Mars and begin new lives. Additionally, Mars gains its independence, with Kudelia taking office as its first head of state and co-signing a treaty with Rustal that outlaws the use of Human Debris. It's far from a happy ending, but it's still much better than how things could have turned out.
• By the end of Gunslinger Stratos The Animation, the Dead End future has been averted, the Timekeepers have been defeated, and their alternate selves have been redeemed, but Sidune is still dead.
• Gyo: Kaori is killed and Tadashi's uncle has fused himself to a flying version of the walking machines and kidnapped Ms. Yoshiyama. Yet, Tadashi does encounter La Résistance, who seem to be immune and are looking for a way to stop the walking machines.

H

• Hana to Akuma: Hana and Vivi get married and live happily for a time. But Hana inevitably dies of old age, leaving Vivi with two children as long-lived as him.
• Heavy Metal L-Gaim concludes with The rebels victorious, the Poseidal empire destroyed and all the heroes alive, but hero Daba Myroad abandons all his friends, including the 2 women who were in love with him, to take care of his brain damaged sister.
• Several chapters of Helen ESP end this way, such as "Helen and Devil", where the dog Devil is beaten to death, but the baby it was caring for survives.
• Hell Girl's second season, Futakomori, ends with Ai dead, but the souls of her family finally at rest.
• Hell's Angels: Rinne "graduates" from Hell and manages to return home-sadly, without any memories of her time in the afterline. Hellvis mentions that Rinne will still keep the "feelings" of hell in her heart, which is evidenced by her accidentally calling a young girl who she saved "Steela". Rinne ultimately presses onwards in her life, and it's implied that Steela is watching over her as thanks for being her friend.
• Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku: A good chunk of named characters do not live to see the end, however, Gabimaru does reunite with his wife, and the prisoners that do survive end up having fulfilling lives.
• By the time Hellsing is over, Millennium has been defeated forever, but at the cost of much of London, the Hellsing and Iscariot Organizations both having to be rebuilt, the loss of the Council of Twelve with only a few of its members surviving, and the loss of Hellsing's greatest champion for thirty long years.
• At the end of High School Fleet, everything looks like it's happily over, the crew are disembarking with the captain coming last...and then the Harekaze, having suffered grievous damage, gives a groan and begins slowly sinking at her mooring, as the crew cry out in dismay and the captain stands to attention and salutes.
• Hikari no Densetsu: Downplayed in the manga and more on the "sweet" side: Hikari may have not won the gold medal, but she's finally with the man she loves and the whole world cheers for their union after he sang an Italian love song for her.
• Hitohira has the bittersweet ending that is so typical for high school series, when a large part of the cast graduates. This is put up a notch by Mugi being left behind by her best friend who studies abroad and that her sempais made lot of difference in her life by giving her more confidence. The beautifully envisioned farewell scene between Mugi and Nono on the rooftop is absolutely heart-wrenching—and the last shot of the names of all five members of the Drama Research Society carved in the old club room door seal the bittersweet mood once and for all.
• Honey and Clover. Everything is going to be just right, except that the time at the art college leaves nothing but bittersweet memories for the protagonist.

I

• Inuyashiki: Hiro shows that there's some humanity left in him and pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to stop an asteroid from crashing into the earth... which isn't enough, prompting Inuyashiki to do the same. But his relationship with his family was on much better terms than it was at the beginning of the series.

J

• Japan Sinks: Japan is destroyed by the earthquakes and completely submerged, but Ayumu, Go, KITE, and Onodera survive with the data on Japan's destruction and eventual re-emergence. While the Japan they knew is long gone and most of their friends and family have perished, the data helps to lay the groundwork for Japan's revival, while Ayumu and her peers make new lives for themselves.
• Jewelpet
  • Jewelpet Twinkle☆: Akari saves Alma from the Battest and reunites her with her family, including her revived mother, and wins the Jewel Star Grand Prix. However, she has to leave Jewel Land forever, which means that she won't see the friends she made there, human or Jewelpet, again in the near-future. In addition, her partner Ruby leaves on a journey that will take an indefinite amount of time, possibly decades, making it even harder for them to see each other again.
  • Jewelpet Kira☆Deco!: The Mirror Ball is fully repaired; Jewelina is therefore revived and new Jewelpet Rosa is born. The Decoranain are defeated and the Dark general and Coal reform. But it's time for the Kira Deco 5 to leave for their own world, which means they most likely won't see their Jewel Landian friends ever again. But they sure as hell try to distract you from the bitter part, considering it literally ends with all of them dancing the go-go.
• Just about every Part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure ends on one of these:
  • Phantom Blood: Jonathan defeats Dio, but at the cost of his own life and the lives of everybody on the ship except Erina and an infant. While this is a bittersweet ending on its own, Part 3 would retroactively turn it into a Downer Ending with the reveal that Dio still succeeds in taking Jonathan's body, with Jonathan's sacrifice just delaying his return.
  • Battle Tendency: The Pillar Men are defeated and Joseph survives the Part, but Caesar dies in the process. Also, the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue reveals that Erina, Speedwagon, and Stroheim all die sometime afterwards, though their deaths are shown to be happy ones.
  • Stardust Crusaders: They do finally kill DIO, but half of the Crusaders die in the process.
  • Diamond is Unbreakable: While this Part as a whole is much lighter than other Parts, its ending is still this. While Kira is defeated and Reimi is finally able to move on to the afterlife, since Killer Queen destroyed all evidence of Kira's murders, the families of his victims will never be able to receive closure for their loved ones' disappearances. However, Joseph's monologue shows that he believes that those hurt by Kira will eventually be able to heal with time.
  • Golden Wind: Ending on a similar note to Stardust Crusaders, Diavolo is defeated and Giorno achieves his goal of becoming the boss of Passione, but it comes at the cost of nearly half of Team Bucciarati.
  • Stone Ocean: Emporio defeats Pucci, but he's the only hero who survived Pucci's Made in Heaven. The slain heroes are reincarnated in the new universe, but only Emporio remembers their journey together, and Foo Fighters stays dead. Word of God softens the blow a little by saying that while the heroes don't remember what happened, the feelings and friendships they experienced carry over to their new identities.
  • Steel Ball Run: The Part ends with Valentine and Alternate Universe Diego dead, the corpse safe, Lucy freed, Pocoloco winning the race, Johnny getting his legs back, and him and his father reconciling, but Gyro, Hot Pants, the original Diego, and Mountain Tim are all dead. Also, the boy Gyro was trying to save from execution would be set free, but die of a cold sometime afterwards. JoJolion makes it worse with the reveal that Johnny would ultimately die only ten years afterwards.
  • JoJolion: The Rock Humans are defeated, Tsurugi is cured of the Rock Disease, Norisuke survives his injuries, and Josuke is finally able to resolve his Quest for Identity and is accepted into the Higashikata family. However, Jobin and Kaato are both dead, leaving the rest of the Higashikata family clearly traumatized. On top of that, Kei and Rai are also dead, and Josuke was never able to find a cure for Holly's deteriorating condition.
• Junk Boy: Ryohei is fired from his dream job and thrown out a window by his boss for going through her underwear drawer but at least he managed to learn how to be less of a selfish lover and was able to part on good terms with Aki before she heads off to Africa for her next big article.
• Jyu-Oh-Sei: Thor has finally acquiesced to Tiz's insistence that he be her husband, and he successfully stops the Big Bad's plot... but his best friend, Third, kills himself, and Tiz ends up dying in an even more thoroughly pointless fashion.

K

• K ends with the evil Colorless King being killed. But Shiro was also killed to bring down the Colorless King and Reisi was forced to kill Mikoto to prevent his Sword of Damocles from falling, leaving HOMRA without their king. But Neko and Kuroh don't believe that Shiro is truly dead and set off to find him.
• Karin has one of these as well. Is finally allowed to marry Kenta and live as a human, but her family erases her memory of themselves so that this can happen.
• Kill la Kill ends with Ragyo defeated, the world safe, and Satsuki finally accepting Ryuko as her sister. Unfortunately it also costs them Senketsu, who fades along with the rest of the life fibres. And no, he doesn't come back.
• Kimba the White Lion: In spite of the high kill count, the near collapse of the animal's utopia when the humans' interest in their area is piqued, and Leo/Kimba's decision and ultimate fate... the last major threat to said kingdom has been removed, Rune has learned that there is good and evil in animals AND in humans finally understanding his father's balanced perspective on the issue, and through the actions of both father and son, it's hinted that the animals are on the fast track to being considered sentient by humanity.
• Something similar to the example above happens in Koi Kaze. Nanoka and Koushirou are together, despite being brother and sister and their ten years age gap, but the imagery surrounding them strongly hints that their relationship won't last. It should be said that the open nature of the ending allows for quite a few interpretations, though none of them really change its bittersweet nature. For instance, it could also mean simply that they will have to endure a lot of adversities because of their relationship, no matter how genuine their love might be. In fact, the manga uses similar symbolism, but strongly suggests that this last interpretation is the meaning it is going for - which is especially meaningful when you consider that it was finished after the anime.
• KonoSuba: The anime's second season ends with the heroes defeating yet another one of the Demon King's generals, even when his plan to cripple Alcanretia's economy succeeds.
• Kurau in Kurau Phantom Memory manages to save the world from the in-pouring Rynax, but loses her own Rynax in the fight, which causes her pair Christmas many years of bitter loneliness. Luckily, Christmas' pair returns in the Distant Finale, but she is not quite the same one as before. The human Kurau also has good memories of her time she was filled with her Rynax, but arguably changes into a much less colorful person than she was back then.
• The ending of Kure-nai has Shinkurou successfully freeing Murasaki from the Inner Sanctuary, but he still must part ways with her when she chooses to stay behind with the Kuhouin family in order to fight against their traditions instead of continuing to run away. Murasaki's last lines were her realization that she never asked Shinkurou if he loved her.

L

• La Seine No Hoshi: A bit more on the sweet side. Simone loses her parents, the de Forges are humiliated and lose their wealth, many of her friends die, and her half-sister Marie Antoinette is executed. At least she manages to live the life she's always wanted to with Robert and saves Marie's children from the same fate.
• A Little Snow Fairy Sugar: Sugar passes her test, but vanishes as a result, as Saga can't see fairies anymore after that (although she can apparently still see their starry flight trails). It's also hinted that Sugar still hangs around Saga, despite being unable to communicate with her directly.
• Lost Universe may fall under this, or may outright fall into happy ending, depending on your interpretation of the ending. Canal suffers extensive memory loss due to damage incurred in the final battle and fades away after confessing her love for Kain, who vows he'll fix her and bring her back. Kain and Volfied then destroy Dark Star Dugradigdu, but vanish during the explosion, even as the rest of the crew escape to safety. The anime ends with Rail and Nina relaxing on a beach together, and Millie contentedly waiting on Kain's home planet for him to return, certain that he will. Sure enough, the very end of the episode is a repaired Swordbreaker coming in to land, with Millie racing outside to greet her beau. Only her comments about this possibly being a dream that she doesn't want to wake from throws any doubts on this not being a happy ending.
• In Looking Up at the Half-Moon, Rika survives the difficult heart operation, but only has a few more years to live regardless.
• Lovesickness: The Pretty Boy at the crossroads and ghosts seem to be gone but many lives have been ruined by intersection fortune-telling and Ryusuke must bear the burden of restoring and aiding the town as it continues its practice as the Boy in White. However, he inspires another couple the same age as him and Midori to fall in love and help carry out his duties, as well as a depressed businessman to find a new purpose in life.
• Lucky Star:
  • The ending is quite melancholic despite (or perhaps even because of) all the girls performing the whole theme song in cheerleading outfits.
  • The penultimate episode also fits this trope: We learn that Mama Kanata's ghost is still watching over Konata and Sojiro, but they are completely unaware of her presence, and upon finding proof of her existence, misinterpret it as evidence that they are being haunted by an unfriendly ghost and burn it. The group has finished school and will presumably go to different colleges.

M

• Macross:
  • In Super Dimension Fortress Macross, the war between the people of Earth and the SDF-1 vs. the Zentraedi ends on a bittersweet note bordering on a total downer: The final battle successively sees the destruction of over 90% of Earth's surface by the Zentraedi armada, immediately after which the surviving humans manage to destroy most of the the Zentraedi fleet, leaving both sides nearly wiped out. Surprisingly enough, this was followed by another thirteen episodes taking place after the battle, which apparently wasn't originally in the plan; the characters are cautiously optimistic, a mood which is actually vindicated by later ''Macross'' series, which show that humanity and its allies have established a thriving interstellar civilization across much of the Milky Way in less than a century. In fact, Macross Plus shows that civilization on Earth itself has recovered fairly well despite the devastation.
  • The American adaptation Robotech refers to the above as the "Zentraedi Holocaust", and actually ups the bitterness by having its The Masters and The New Generation sections take place against the backdrop of a post-Macross razed Earth.
  • Macross Frontier gave the impression of doing this in the Non-Serial Movie: Alto seemingly dies, Brera actually dies, Sheryl is in coma and possibly up for A Fate Worse Than Death, and Ranka is heartbroken. But all the other good characters survive, the Frontier fleet finds a planet to settle on, all baddies are killed, and Sheryl at least has some signs of recovery - and this after it seemed certain she would die. Life goes on and the galaxy as whole is safe for now. However, Word of God stepped in and stated that the fans had overly exaggerated the "bitter" part: instead, Shoji Kawamori confirmed that not only is Alto still alive, but that Sheryl makes a full recovery. He was actually shocked by how pessimistically most fans interpreted the ending.
  • Macross Delta: Ragna has been liberated, and Roid's plan to take over the galaxy has been defeated...but at the cost of Keith's life. While there's mention of peace negotiations being considered, the war is far from over and millions have died as a result of the weapons of mass destruction being used. Mirage and Freyja both confess their love to Hayate, with the former taking her rejection in stride. Hayate and Freyja become an Official Couple... but both are aware that she won't have much longer to live, as the process of burning out has already started.
  • Absolute Live follows in Delta's trail; while Heimdall is defeated, the Siren System child safe from their schemes in Hayate's care and Windermere escapes destruction, Freyja also dies at the end as a result of burning the last of her lifespan to sing to facilitate Heimdall's defeat.
• Magic Knight Rayearth: The ending of the anime series. Lady Debonair is defeated and Cephiro is restored to its former glory, but Eagle Vision is dead and Hikaru, Umi and Fuu return home, possibly for good. However, it's (vaguely) implied that they can return to Cephiro whenever they wish, similar to the manga.
• Magical Emi, the Magic Star: In the end, Mai decides to give up her magic so that she can learn to become a great Stage Magician the hard way.
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's:
  • The series ended with the incident resolved and no one dying. Well, almost no one. To ensure the complete destruction of the Nigh-Invulnerable Omnicidal Maniac, the first Reinforce sacrifices herself, despite the tearful protests of Hayate.
  • StrikerS Sound Stage X, which is set three years after the third season, also ended on a bittersweet tone. The Mariage case was resolved with minimal losses, but Ixpellia, the Mysterious Waif that Subaru met, protected, and made friends with during the incident, went back to sleep for maybe ten years... or a thousand. What is it about characters from Ancient Belka and Bittersweet Endings? Ixpellia would wake up (sort of) less than a year later in ViVid.
• Magical Idol Pastel Yumi: Yumi saves Flower World and her town but has to say goodbye to Keshimaru and Kakimaru, though they promise they'll meet again one day.
• Magical Princess Minky Momo: To the franchise as a whole. Throughout the entire of both series, it's implied that people's dreams and fantasies are moving on from what allowed people to see and interact with Fenarinarsa and Marinarsa. At the very end of the series, the Marinarsa Momo gives up everything to become her foster family's true daughter, much like her predecessor was forced to do. This is why the two follow-up OVAs have such a melancholic mood.
• Majokko Tickle: In the final episode Tickle exposes herself as a witch when she uses her magic to stop her mother from being impaled by a knife. This means Tickle must return to the magic realm, but Hina, upset that she can't come with Tickle, angrily tosses the book that was to have been Tickle's only way home into a bonfire. Despite being warned that she'll lose her powers if she lets the book burn out, Tickle refuses to leave her human family and lets the book burn, accepting the loss of her magic as a consequence.
• Millennium Actress: After a strong earthquake strikes Chiyoko's villa, she collapses (possibly from a heart attack) in Genya's arms and is taken to the hospital. She dies there, but not before telling Genya that she will find the man she was searching for in the afterlife, and even if she doesn't — chasing him is more fun, anyway.
• Monster had many deaths, but the survivors earn a happy ending: Eva finally recovers, Lunge reconnects with his daughter, Tenma is exonorated, Dieter lives happily with Dr. Reichwein, and Nina returns to as normal a life as she possibly can. Mostly everyone else is dead. Oh, and Johan is free. However, it's implied that he's not going to kill any more people because he got bored of it.
• Muhyo and Roji manage to defeat Ark and convince Enchu to make a Heel–Face Turn, but Enchu accepts responsibility for his actions, and is sentenced to life without parole.
• My Hero Academia: Two Heroes: The heroes save the day, no hostage in I-Island has been harmed in the end, and Melissa has a bright future as a scientist ahead. However, even if he was double-crossed and tricked by Sam, David was still complicit in a crime that endangered thousands of people and almost made villains acquire a dangerous technology; his own career is probably over. He's last seen as Melissa visits him in an hospital room guarded by policemen, and the last shot of the movie is of All Might and Deku somberly looking at I-Island.
• My Hero Academia: Vigilantes: Koichi manages to defeat Number 6 (though gets a scar from him on the cheek in their final encounter), stopping his bomber rampage and subsequently the Villain Factory in the process. But no one knows of All For One's involvement who just sees the whole Number 6 incident as a dry run for his Nomu project which is near completion. Pop recovers from being brainwashed, but, like Tamao, loses her left eye and it will be awhile before she's back to doing shows but remains hopeful. Meanwhile Koichi, to avoid prosecution for doing heroics without a hero license, "interns" with Captain Celebrity overseas in America as his sidekick. Though due to bad translation and his involvement in the Number 6 incident, he's seen as a Hero with Bad Publicity, but is living out his dream of being a hero with Pop cheering him on and hoping to meet him again. Everyone they've met continues on with their lives and it's revealed that Knuckleduster is alive and continuing to prowl the back alleys against criminals despite the injuries Number 6 gave him.
• My Last Day: The thief dies but goes to heaven where he's greeted by Jesus.

N

• Nana: Hachi eventually seems to break away from Takumi, and maintains a friendship with some of Blast. But ultimately the two Nanas part ways seemingly forever, something which Hachi is still devastated by.
• Nanaka 6/17 has one — while the teenage Nanaka does begin to grow as a person and her relationship with Nenji gets back on track, the child Nanaka is essentially dead and Nenji's not sure which one he prefers. Fortunately, there's the comedic Bonus Episode to offset it.
• Naruto:
  • The Gaara Retrieval Arc of ended on a rather bittersweet note, since the team saves Gaara, but Elder Chiyo dies in the process to revive him.
  • Similarly, the Land of Waves arc; the bridge is completed, hope is restored, and Gato is dead and no longer able to oppress the people, but Haku and Zabuza's deaths deeply impact Team 7 and make them question what it means to be a ninja. The Invasion of Konoha Arc ends with the village saved from destruction at Orochimaru's hands, but the Third Hokage and many other ninja die in the process.
• Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind: The war is finally over, and the source of the superweapons that made it so horrible is destroyed. However, said weapons caused so much devastation that the reason the war won't restart any time soon is because it will take a generation or more for the survivors to be capable of worrying about anything more than mere survival. The world will eventually recover from the poisoning of the land caused by the Seven Days of Fire, but humanity's evolving to be more resistant to the toxins has also reduced its ability to survive in a world without them. When the forests and the Ohmu finally finish cleaning up the world, the adapted human race is in for a long and painful transition to being able to live in a world that isn't polluted, which it may not survive.
• Neo Human Casshern: Casshern defeats the Breaking Boss, his parents and the human race is safe and the robots are re-programmed to rebuild. But Testuya will not be human again; he will remain an android forever.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion. After everything the protagonists do to kill the Angels and prevent the extinction of the human race, it happens anyway, leaving only the main hero and his love interest around while everyone else remains in a gestalt. Possibly subverted by the fact that everyone else can come back if they want, we just never see any of that happen.
• Ninja Scroll: The Eight Devils are dead and Genma will never be able to hurt anyone again due to being covered in molten gold and falling into the sea. Unfortunately, Kagero perished in the conflict, as did an entire village of innocent people, and Jubei is no better off then he was at the start. He isn't a single coin richer and his heart is broken due to Kagero's death.
• Noein: Noein's plans have been thwarted, but Haruka has to say goodbye to Karasu, and she may face an untimely death a few years later.
• Now and Then, Here and There has an ending that is positive, but heartbreaking. "Can we watch another sunset together someday." as the girl speaking fades out of reality as the price for having saved the protagonist. And then there's the implication that, since this is billions of years in the future, the sun will become a supernova, possibly killing the future inhabitants.

O

• Odd Taxi: Odokawa manages to foil Dobu and Yano, and recover from his visual agnosia, allowing him to face humans once more. Everyone else also gets somewhat happy endings... and the ending then reveals that Sakura was Yuki's killer, with Rui taking the fall, while she hops in Odokawa's taxi... either to take her away from Tokyo so she can start up again, this time solo, kill him to clean up the last loose end or get taken down, since Odokawa remembers who he drove on the night of Yuki Mitsuya's murder and she has Nagashima's wiretapped pen with her.
  • The movie's extended ending resolves Odokawa's ambiguous fate from the anime, revealing that he managed to overpower Sakura after she tried to kill him, taking her to the police to be arrested. However, while he and his friends are able to live their lives happily afterwards, and Sakura's arrest opens up the possibility for Rui to be cleared of her charges, that doesn't change the fact that Sakura still murdered Yuki, leaving Yuki's father to grieve and Mystery Kiss in pieces.
• Ojamajo Doremi: Every season finale is like this in one way or another.
  • S1: The girls gain their powers in episode 50 but are discovered by the Muggles and nearly subjected to a Forced Transformation. Onpu uses forbidden magic to erase everyone's memories, but karma finally catches up with her and she ends up in a coma. Doremi, Hazuki, and Aiko ultimately resolve to save Onpu even at the cost of their hard-earned magic. They succeed thanks to Pop's assistance, but the spell to save Onpu is considered forbidden magic and they had to give up their powers. Majo Rika is left trapped as a Witch Frog and thus has to depart for the Witch World, taking the fairies with her since the girls are no longer Witches. A lot of tear were shed when they all had to say their goodbyes.
  • Sharp: The girls successfully get the Love Supreme Flower needed to save Hana from dying and her saying her first words gets them a passing grade that would allow them to return to being full-fledged Witches again. However, it was a Pyrrhic Victory, as their crystals, which were given to them so they would be at their strongest when trying to get the MacGuffin, were destroyed, leaving the girls in a cursed slumber. Hana's words broke the curse and awakened them, but nothing could be done about the shattered crystals, forcing the girls to once again become normal girls and to separate from Hana, despite the latter's pleas.
  • Motto: The girls succeed in getting the Big Bad to begin her Heel–Face Turn and revert the Cursed Forest back to the Love Supreme Forest. However, even though they recieved a passing grade and are now allowed to become full-fledged Witches again, they still do not have their crystals and thus still have to remain normal girls for the time being. Finally, the Big Bad is still in a cursed slumber of her own and nothing can be done about it for the time being.
  • Dokkan: The Grand Finale is built up to the huge Tear Jerker it is over the course of several episodes. Sure, the Big Bad has been taken care of and has made a Heel–Face Turn, but the girls now have to decide whether to be Long-Lived Witches or remain normal girls and thus having to say goodbye to Hana forever. Over the next few episodes, various events happen that threaten to separate them: Hazuki is planning to go to a different school after graduation, Aiko and her father are moving back to Osaka to help her mother take care of her grandfather, Momoko is moving back to America, and Onpu is going to a different school herself. When it comes time to choose, the girls ultimately decide against becoming Witches, causing Hana no small amount of pain and sadness. When the day of graduation finally arrives, Doremi suffers her most severe Heroic BSoD yet and locks herself in the Maho-dou, fearing losing her friends forever. Everyone confesses their love for her and eventually pulls her out of her stupor, the final straw being a Batman Gambit on Hana's part. Everyone goes their separate ways but remain in touch throughout the epilogue.
• One Piece:
  • The entire Whitebeard War Saga (Sabaody Archipelago arc, Amazon Lily arc, Impel Down arc and Marineford arc together) is as big an example of this as you're gonna get in this series. Preparing for the New World, the Straw Hat Pirates meet up with new friends, an old enemy-since-reformed, new enemies reforming, and icons of the old age of Piracy. What follows later (in chronological order) is: They encounter the cruelty of the World Nobles after one of their friends is kidnapped and the other shot; they face up against three adversaries which alone are much too powerful for them leading to the crew forcibly split up; Luffy finds out his brother is being held at the world's worst prison awaiting public execution, and after infiltrating said prison, gets his ass handed to him so soundly he had to give ten years of his life to keep going. Then after failing to free his brother, loses one of his friends just so he and many of his newfound allies can escape. After arriving to Marineford to attempt to save him again when the Marines and Whitebeard are at war, it's quickly made apparent he is nowhere near strong enough to hold his own against the Marines' elite soldiers, and when it looks like he's saved Ace Admiral Akainu ruthlessly kills him right in front of Luffy, to bring the point home, leading to Luffy finally mentally collapsing, to the point that for the first time ever he doubts being able to become the King of the Pirates. It's bittersweet because at least Luffy survived, his crew is okay albeit separated -in fact, Kuma separated them in order to help them-, and after they become stronger they can reunite to enter the New World together.
  • As for global ramifications, Ace as mentioned before died, ending the bloodline of Gold Roger. Blackbeard not only renounced his Warlord of the Sea title, but busted the worst criminals in the world's history out of prison leaving the Chief Warden Magellan severely injured and Impel Down severely damaged. Whitebeard died, removing one of the Four Emperors, and all protections created due to his status, which not even the Marines themselves can handle; and Blackbeard went and stole Whitebeard's Devil Fruit, meaning the threat of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit (Gura Gura no Mi) continues with the power not in the hands of aging, morally-conscious legendary pirate, but an amoral, power-mad megalomaniac who just threw away his status as a privateer for the World Government in favor of being captain of the world's greatest sociopaths. On the other hand, both Coby and Shanks stop the war; Whitebeard's last words confirmed the existence of One Piece, keeping the age of piracy very much alive. With the Marines' victory, and Coby's words, this may encourage the organization to go through some serious changes, perhaps even ethically, to prepare for the new era. It's kind of a win-win situation for the Marines, and piracy in general. So the era of dreams isn't dead yet.
• Orange: Kakeru survives in the altered timeline, and everyone goes on to live their life free of the regrets that would otherwise have haunted them. But in the original timeline nothing has changed, and the manga ends with Naho saying goodbye to her "past self", and walking off with Suwa and their child.

P

• Pandemonium Wizard Village: In the end, after all the hardships the characters face, Zipher is able to change public perception of variants to the point of them being given a new term to be called and coexisting with normal people, he married Domika, and raises a son along with Molte, who is now writing a book about what happened. However, Arkhamheim is still destroyed and Anna is still dead, though Zipher was finally able to move on from her and gave her a proper burial in the variant village. Crain and his men also did not accomplish any of their goals and are last seen departing with no destination in mind. The situation with the Sky Golems also isn't resolved.
• Panzer World Galient: The anime sort of just...ends. The Arstians all escape planet Lanplate, and the Eraser comes and wipes out the planet and all of its inhabitants. Marder abruptly decides to end the Arst War and spend the last few minutes with his people.
• Paranoia Agent: Tsukiko comes to terms with her past and saves Tokyo from the black ooze stuff. However, there's no indication that anyone else got over their problems. Ikari, whose wife is dead, is still a construction site security guard, and the final scenes are a clear mirror of the opening scene of the series as if to say it will happen all over again, but at least this time everyone will take responsibility for their own actions instead of blaming everything on everyone else. Maniwa, now white haired, replaces the old man from the beginning.
• Penguin Memories: Mike's assault against Bob Adams and the others for attempting to take away Jill and for murdering his bird results in him being arrested and being found guilty, albeit sentenced under a three-year suspension. Nevertheless, he leaves Lake City due to his crimes and guilt over his loss, but thankfully Jill decides to follow him wherever he goes.
• Persia, the Magic Fairy: Persia is forced to give up her powers for good, but is able to meet with her magical friends one last time.
• Popotan ends with the sisters still on the same journey through time that has caused them so much grief throughout the series, but now they've at least grown to appreciate being together. The ending is more happy than sad to be sure, but not enough to not qualify for this trope.
• Princess Tutu: The Raven is defeated, the story has a happy ending, Mytho and Rue profess their love for each other and Gold Crown Town is freed from the story. But Duck did not get the guy, she's permanently turned back into a duck, her Muggle friends forget about her, Mytho and Rue have to return to his kingdom and Drosselmeyer is still out there and can mess with somebody else. However, Fakir keeps his promise to stay by Duck's side.
• The Promised Neverland: Against all odds, the demon world has been saved from itself, and the kids and moms get to go home to the human world. However, said world has been ravaged by war and natural disaster, Isabella died to make sure they would all live, and Emma paid the price of the new promise with the memories of her family and being forcefully separated from them. Thankfully, they find her and she gets to start over with them again.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Madoka becomes a magical girl, changes the whole system so that witches no longer exist and brings Mami and Kyouko back to life... but disappears from existence as a result. And she couldn't bring Sayaka back because she'd become a witch, so had to carry her off to Heaven with her, meaning the revived characters stil see Sayaka as dead. Though witches no longer exist, a new threat has replaced them because the Incubators still need to collect energy from some place to keep the universe's gears turning. The meguca battle never ends... BUT...it's also assumed that Madoka became a Goddess from the result with Sayaka and the girls that were originally witches had Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence, essentially making it the magical girl's answer to Valhalla.
• Pupa: Despite Utsutsu's efforts, he cannot save Yume and he becomes a flesh-eating monster like her. They proceed to devour each other as they disintegrate into butterflies, assimilating with each other as they declare their feelings for each other. Shiro is devastated because he couldn't save his son, Sachiko is still in the hospital and blissfully unaware of Utsutsu's fate, Utsutsu's best friend, Yuhei, realizes he's never coming back, Maria survives her attempt to become a Pupa monster and gives birth to Utsutsu and Yume's larvae child and Hotoki (actually her brother Makoto) confesses his feelings for her.

R

• Rayearth OVA ends with Emeraude calling off the invasion and the Cephirans leaving to rebuild Cephiro, but a majority of Tokyo is destroyed and it's unknown if Hikaru, Umi and Fuu's wish to remain together will come true.
• The ending of Ressentiment - the main characters manage to avert a nuclear holocaust and give Moon a new life in the real world, but on the other hand, none of the characters' issues get resolved - fifteen years later Takuro is still a lonely loser, Nagao is a single mother with an even longer string of failed relationships behind her and Echigo is dead.
• Revolutionary Girl Utena: Utena has disappeared from Ohtori Academy, the entire campus will eventually forget about her, and on the surface everything returns to a typical school life instead of the world-shattering "revolution" imagined by Akio. But the revolution did occur: Utena's presence has changed everyone she met for the better, in small but significant ways, helping to free them from their trauma and toxic relationships. Most significantly, Anthy is inspired to finally break free of her eons-long abusive relationship with Akio, and leave Ohtori Academy to search the world for Utena.
• RG Veda. Four of the Six Stars are dead and, at the end, Kujaku sacrifies himself in order to awake Ashura one last time so he can be with Yasha, who has been watching over him for centuries. There's also the fact that Yasha and Ashura are the last of their kin with Ashura being unable to pass his blood, so once they die, their bloodlines die with them; not to mention the constant threat of the Black Ashura returning somehow. But hey they're together at least, right!?.

S

• Sailor Moon:
  • The manga ends with the revelation that Chibi-chibi is Sailor Cosmos, the far-future self of Sailor Moon, who returned to the past because, after what may well have been thousands of years, she's finally forgotten why she fights evil if it can never really be defeated. She regains her sense of purpose, and the story ends with Usagi and Mamoru's wedding, which is a wonderfully upbeat scene... but Mamoru realizes that these events prove that Sailor Moon, and only Sailor Moon, is immortal, and destined to outlive everyone she loves, and continue fighting a literally endless battle against chaos.
  • Codename: Sailor V, of which Sailor Moon is the More Popular Spin Off, also has a bad one. The final chapter starts with Minako both starting a career as an idol and finding what appears to be her true love (and it's Ace, a fellow idol and the man giving her a chance!), and even if we know that something will happen to make them lose both (as she wouldn't have any in Sailor Moon, set after this), what happens is rather bad: Ace is revealed to be Danburite, Big Bad of the series and The Dragon to Kunzite, and Minako has to kill him before starting to fight even worse enemies. Worse, his last words contribute to her realizing that her duty as a Sailor Soldier comes before either love or idoldom, even if she has the talent to be an idol and is a Love Goddess. Thankfully, she also knows she won't have to fight alone anymore, and we know she'll find her True Companions soon.
• The ending of Saiyuki prequel Gaiden, fans already know that for Sanzo, Gojyo, and Hakkai to be alive, Konzen, Kenren, and Tenpou had to have died. Not only does young Goku lose his friends and family, he loses them brutally, all of three of them dying painful deaths. On top of that, Goku gets all of his memories erased, save for the memory of his name, and is then imprisoned in a mountain for 500 years. The viewers then see flashes of Goku's life in the cave, which is dull and is just of him sitting and lying around. The prequel closes with Sanzo arriving at the cave and Goku feeling nostalgic at the sight of him.
• Sakura Hime: The Legend of Princess Sakura: Sakura ends up losing a good portion of her allies (with only Kohaku, Hayate, Fujimurasaki, Yuri and Maimai surviving) and has to seal off the moon spring water, cutting off the moon people’s source of power, causing her and Byakuya to die as well. However, Aoba is quickly revived with his curse broken, Shuri and Maimai revert back to humans and later Sakura comes back as a full human as well with help from her deceased, reuniting with Aoba.
• Sakura Trick: Both Haruka and Yuu confessed their love for each other, but they end up going to separate colleges. Bonus material from the author's personal social media shows they are still dating, though, and have even started to have sex.
• The first magical girl anime, Sally the Witch, had Sally exposing her powers to save her school. She was intended to eventually leave the Human World anyway, and thus had to say farewell to her friends, to return to the Magic World.
• Samurai 7: The samurai save the villagers from annihilation by the bandits and Ukyo, but at the end of it, four of them are dead, and none of the other three stick around.
• Sasami: Magical Girls Club: In the end, Keura and the Chief Sorceress have been defeated, and the Shining Team are redeemed, but Amitav performs a Heroic Sacrifice that leaves him in a coma for an indefinite amount of time, though Sasami does promise to watch over him, and it's implied The Magic Goes Away, or at the least becomes much more subdued.
• In Satou Kashi no Dangan wa Uchinukenai, the aloof middle-school-aged protagonist Nagisa decides to go to high school after all and her brother overcomes his illness but only after Nagisa's friend Mokuzu's gruesome death.
• Saving our Fragile Earth: Unico Special Chapter: Despite convincing the Monster that not all humans are careless, the West Wind takes Unico to another location after he saves the day.
• School-Live!:
  • The anime. Yuki has broken free of her cheerful delusions, Megu-nee is a zombie and has bitten both Kurumi and Touromaru, and although an antidote has been found and used on them both, Taroumaru dies to the heartbreak of everyone and there's no certainty that the antidote is permanent (the manga suggests otherwise). On top of that, they have to leave their beloved school and on their way out, Miki sees her friend Kei — whom she had been hoping to one day meet again — walking back to the school as a zombie. Despite all that however, the antidote is working on Kurumi for now, the girls are all alive, the zombies have left the school for now allowing the girls to make their escape, and another survivor has found a letter from Yuki, implying that there's still hope for our protagonists.
  • The manga. Through hard work, determination, and empathy from others does the main surviving cast come out alive. Lots of people died to get there, but the world begins to heal itself with the zombie epidemic slowly but surely phasing out and humanity enjoying life everyday.
• Shaman King: The heroes Can't Catch Up to Hao in terms of power, and as a result Hao becomes the Shaman King. Before he can go through his genocidal plan, The Power of Love kicks in and every single character in the series, good and bad, travel to the spirit world to confront Hao and argue that humanity is fundamentally good. After receiving a slap from his mother and being given a stern talking to by everyone, Hao resolves to not kill humanity... right away, stating that he will resume his plans if humans fail to change their corrupt ways. The series epilogue ends on a Where Are They Now section, showing how Team Yoh has grown and changed over the years. Unfortunately, Yoh and his friends are just six guys in a world of millions and can't hope to change a thing, though the series implies that Yoh's son, Hana, symbolizes the hope that the next generation will be better and can fix the world. The series closes out with Hao looking over the human world and smiling faintly, implying that he too has hope that humanity will change for the better.
• Shelter: While there's no indication that there will be any changes to Rin's predicament, as she's still all alone in the virtual world and her home world is destroyed meaning she has nowhere to return to, she feels less alone now that she knows of her father's love and sacrifice.
• Simoun. All the Sibyllae have made their choices. Neviril, Aaeru, Dominura, Limone, and Yun stay "young" forever, with the strange consequences that entails. Everyone else takes the plunge and grows up. Time passes, people change, war comes and goes... and life, as it always does, goes on.
• Slam Dunk: Shohoku doesn't even make it past the third round of the Nationals, but they still managed to defeat the #1 team in the Nation.
• Slayers:
  • The ending to season 3 of the anime (Slayers TRY) had the world saved once again... at the cost of the welfare of both a twisted yet hurt survivor of a mass slaughter and another planet. It may as well be that Sirius is the only living denizen of the Overworld left. The four protagonists feel rather unsatisfied and bittersweet about the outcome.
  • The ending to season 5 (Evolution-R) is far more satisfying, but there's a bittersweet regard involving Pokota, who will more or less spend the rest of his life stuck as an unaging stuffed animal due to his posessed human body being destroyed out of necessity.
  • And the final novel of the main series ends triumphantly for Lina and Gourry as they decide to visit Lina's home kingdom. The cost of this was killing off the mentally conflicted Luke, who had transformed into Shabranigdo; this happened to him because the woman he loved, Milina, was poisoned, denied medical treatment, and died.
• Sola: Aono is turned back into a human, but this requires Matsuri to sacrifice her own life. Plus, Yorito dies as well, and Aono removed herself and Yorito from the memories of Mana and Koyori.
• The ending of solanin. By this time, it seems that the group has finally somewhat come to terms with Tsuneda's death and Meiko has decided to get another job. However, Ai might be leaving for Sendai which threatens her relationship with Kato who in turn isn't doing well at his job and none of the band members have the motivation to go beyond occasional practices. On top of that, the general sentiment seems to be that life sucks and is boring so you should cherish what small happiness you can get out of it.
• Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie: The world is saved, but Metal Sonic (who had then formed a mental bond with Sonic) deliberately allows himself to perish in a glacial volcano. Why? Because "There is only one Sonic."
• Sonic X. The Meterex are finally defeated and peace returns to the galaxy. However, At the cost of it all, Cosmo, who spent most of the season in a state of perpetual Survivor Guilt sacrifices herself (Because Destiny Says So for the others) to finish the job, all while everyone (especially Tails) mourn over the death of their friend. Shadow is likely stranded (or even dead) out somewhere in space after teleporting the Meterex's planet to somewhere far in the galaxy. Chris is sent back home without anytime to say goodbye to his friends. Eggman continues to resume his plans to build the Eggman Empire, with Sonic and his friends getting ready to stop him.
• Sound of the Sky: At the end of the series finale, it is made clear that a vast majority of Earth's surface is undergoing irreversible desertification. While small regions are recovering, the biosphere itself was damaged beyond repair. Despite this, the heroines managed to defeat Colonel Hopkins and stop him from restarting a war that would have destroyed what little remained; instead, peace between Helvetia and Rome has been finalised, and Rio plans to go find the legendary land that escaped the desolation.
• Space Battleship Yamato 2199: The Yamato completed it's epic journey to Iscandar and back, brought back the Cosmo Reverse System to restore the planet, and even forged a tentative peace with the Gamilon Empire. But many are dead on all sides, and Captain Okita died without ever setting foot on the Earth again, though his soul was the catalyst for the Cosmo Reverse System to revitalize the Earth.
• Space Patrol Luluco: Luluco defeats the evil Blackholeian and restores justice to the universe, but at the cost of her beloved Nova sacrificing himself to the black hole they used to defeat him, thus separating them across time and space when they had only just confirmed their mutual love. Yet Luluco does not despair because she knows he's alive and waiting for her in some alternate universe, and she fully intends to search the cosmos until she finds him again. Outside of the show itself, we might have some indication that she does find him eventually...in the Kiznaiver universe. Pay close attention in the upper right corner of Kiznaiver episode 12 at the part where Tenga and Chidori are meeting at 21:07, and you'll see Luluco talking to Nova. She kept her word.
• SPY×FAMILY CODE: White: The Forgers defeat Snidel and his army, and Sylvia obtains the microfilm that came from Anya’s teeth. But an oven suffers a malfunction on the day of the competition and as a result, the contest is delayed and the judge is changed from the principal to the vice principal. However, the Forgers have another chance to win as they know the vice principal's favorite dessert while planning another vacation that Bond predicts to be more peaceful.
• Starship Operators. Amaterasu is destroyed, and Kibi does not regain its independence. The cast do get the Earth Federation to declare war on the Henrietta Alliance of Planetary Nations... but they're only interested in taking the planets of the Henrietta Alliance for themselves. Even then, they managed to unite other remaining independent planets against the Earth Federation after their last newscast.
• Strawberry Panic! spends its final few episodes building up a sad but beautiful Bittersweet Ending — only to swerve away at the last second.
• Strider Hiryu: Enterprise, along with its ZAIN mind control project, has been destroyed, plus Enterprise President Faysus/Faceas Clay and the corrupt Strider Vice-Director Matic are both dead, but these events did not happen without the deaths of Hiryu's sister Mariya & and his friend Sheena (along with Hiryu's other friend Cain in the NES Game), this leads to Hiryu himself quitting again, this time leaving his Cypher behind.
• Summer Wars: Sakae is still dead, but her family managed to save the world and the Jinnouchi estate from Love Machine, Wabisuke is making amends for his actions and Kenji and Natsuki are apparently a couple by the end.
• The Summer You Were There ends with Shizuku's girlfriend Kaori passing away just after Shizuku completes her novel and confesses her love to Kaori. Shizuku is devastated by Kaori's death, to the point that she shuts herself away in her room, misses the funeral and doesn't eat for days until Seri forces her to go to Kaori's house, where Shizuku reads Kaori's final letter and diary, learning the full extent of Kaori's admiration for Shizuku and feelings for her in the process. Shizuku, likewise, is grateful to Kaori for what she's done for her, and resolves to stop isolating herself and to live for Kaori's sake.

T

• Takopi's Original Sin: Shockingly for such a dark story, but yes, there's light at the end of the tunnel. Takopi sacrifices his life to repair the camera and sends Shizuka back to the day they met, but without any of the memories of Takopi or anything else that happened. During the scheduled confrontation with Marina that day, the two of them glance at a small doodle of Takopi in Shizuka's notebook and become overwhelmed with emotion. Though both of them have forgotten about Takopi, his lingering kindness lives on, and the two of them bond over their mutual home lives and the loss of a friend who genuinely loved them. Similarly, though Azuma is still stuck under his mother's abuse, he can now rely on his brother for support and has a bunch of genuine friends to help him out.
• Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee has different endings for the anime and manga, but both qualify.
  • In the manga. Lag and Niche promise to be together forever and sacrifice themselves to defeat Spiritus and bring back the natural sun. Lag is reunited with his mother in the process and Noir is inspired by his actions into becoming a Letter Bee like Lag (just as Lag was inspired by Gauche).
  • The anime ends a bit differently. Lag manages to defeat Cabernet (a Disc-One Final Boss in the manga), and he and Niche survive to the end of the series. Gauche has to say goodbye to his sister and friends to live with those who could not become spirits, but he leaves on good terms. Dr. Thunderland researches how to help those who have lost their hearts, and Sunny (who'd previously lost her heart to Cabernet) appears to be recovering, even if she can't remember Connor, who'd bought her cookies and developed a crush on her. Garrard and Valentine (who are Marauders in the anime) appear to have gotten off scot-free, but have also left Reverse behind for an uncertain future.
• Tekkaman Blade. The Radam invasion has been prevented, for now. Unfortunately, in the process D-Boy had to kill the rest of his family and friends that weren't already dead as a result of the initial Radam attack, except for his sister who was killed off by his younger brother. Fortunately, fighting as Tekkaman Blade has damaged his brain to such an extent that he no longer remembers that he ever had a family, or what he had to do to them.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was arguably not this kind of ending, with characters going out in blazes of glory that fit their characters and the series' over-the-top style...until Nia died after the final battle (on her wedding day, no less) as a result of her Anti-Spiral nature being tied to the destruction of the Anti-Spiral himself in the previous episode. Fan division over this is rampant regarding whether Simon's calm acceptance of her death before his eyes is him refusing to make Lord Genome's mistake by attempting to play God or undermining the show's premise of changing Fate itself by pure refusal to accept it and overriding willpower.
• This Ugly Yet Beautiful World manages to avoid the expected Gainax Ending, the world is saved... but Hikari and Akari have disappeared, heading across the vast reaches of space in order to help find a home for all the life energy released during the averted Apocalypse. The song "Kimi ni Aete" which plays over the ending, coupled with the new star visible in the sky as proof of their existence makes this quite the Tear Jerker as well.
• Tiger & Bunny 2: Ouroburos' plan has been foiled, Sternbild is saved and NEXTs have been cleared but Kotetsu has lost his powers, forcing him to retire. However, Barnaby swears to keep being a superhero to honor him.
• Tokyo Ghoul: Tokyo Ghoul: JACK ends with Taishi and Arima solving the case and defeating Lantern. Who just so happens to be their friend Minami. They both seem to pity her at the end. Taishi's childhood friends are still dead and, despite dedicating his life to being a ghoul investigator, marrying his childhood friend Aki, and ultimately starting a family with her, Arima and he are shown to have drifted apart over the years.
• Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 ends with Mirai reuniting with her parents and life slowly going back to normal after the earthquake. Mirai's little brother, Yuuki, is still dead which ruins the mood.
• Tokyo Majin: The Big Bad is defeated, most of the warriors are okay; at the cost of Tokyo and most of its citizens, Aoi is one-eye-blind, Tatsuma is missing in China, and the four Guardians are probably dying.
• Episode 14 of Tokyo Mew Mew, which focuses on Keiichiro and his ex-girlfriend, shows them coming to terms with their breakup and parting ways forever rather than getting back together.
• Tomorrow's Joe: Joe's fight with Mendoza goes for a full fifteen rounds, ultimately ending in a victory for Mendoza by decision of a fight judge. After the bout, Joe passes his bloodied gloves to Yoko and quietly passes away from his injuries, a smile on his face.
• Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-. The Big Bad is finally killed, but that in turn means that his creations, Clone!Syaoran and Clone!Sakura can no longer exist. All existence as we know it is falling apart, and the only way to stop it is for Watanuki to be stuck in one world (the shop) and Syaoran Jr. to constantly move between worlds, meaning that both of them will put strain on the relationships of their loved ones. Thankfully, Syaoran Jr. to makes the most of his price by deciding to look for a world that can bring back the clones. Unfortuately, though Watanuki looks like he's coping well enough, it doesn't look like there's much hope for him on the Xxx HO Li C side...
• Tweeny Witches:
  • The TV series ends with Arusu saving both the Human and Magical Realms, but she and her friends have to bid farewell to each other before she returns to her homeworld and reunites with her parents. Lennon has reconciled with his mother (who has been forgiven by the Grand Master for her past forbidden relationship with Jidan) and is going to live with her, but they're never going to see his father surviving his apparent death.
  • The Adventures: "The Ice Witch and the Dragon of Fire and Ice" ends with the Witch Realm released from the freeze the Ice Witch brought, but at the cost of Hanamomo's untimely death.
• Twilight of the Cockroaches: Although her entire tribe is dead, as are both of her lovers, Naomi is able to survive and becomes the mother of a new generation of cockroaches.

U

• Umi Monogatari ends with Kanon and Marin defeating Sedna, but have to separate since land and sea people are not supposed to be together. It is hinted that Kanon will keep looking for Marin. In the DVD special it becomes clear that Kanon keeps longing to meet Marin again. She even seems to get her wish for a while, which makes things more bitter.
• Unico: Black Cloud and White Feather: After Unico makes the town healthier, the West Wind comes to take him away from Chico due to the gods (specifically Venus) being after him. However, Unico begs the West Wind to let him stay a little longer so she won't die. She allows Unico to return to her home to give Chico magical flowers that will make her completely healthy again. Sadly, Unico has to leave before Chico wakes up and she and Garappachi are later shown searching for him. The short ends with Unico at the Hill of Oblivion searching for anyone else since he's alone once again as he sheds a Single Tear.
• Usagi-chan de Cue!!: Inaba learns to value friendship amd loses her distrustful, asocial demeanor. She gets welcomed back into the company of Haru and Miku. Benten Chou and Nekoi Koshka, however, must live as fugitives, having no friends or allies to help them.
• Ichika from Uta∽Kata manages to save herself and the human race from being erased, but she has to say goodbye to the girl who has quickly become the most important person in her life.
• Utaite no Ballad: The good news is that Seiji Kotani is finally brought to justice for his unspeakable sex crimes towards underage girls, and some of his victims manage to move on from their experience. The bad news is that other victims are not so lucky, he gets a shockingly lenient five year prison sentence, and other child predators in the music industry remain at large.
• Given that Uzumaki starts with a series of horrible suicides and everything gets worse from then on, the main characters resting in peace and the end of the curse could be considered a Bittersweet Ending instead of an outright Downer Ending. They still all die or turned into a snail or frozen in time in the case of the main characters.

V

• Vampire Knight:
  • Kaname gives his heart to the hunter's furnace and returns to slumber after an emotional goodbye with Yuuki. She and Zero then live happily together for presumably a thousand years until Zero eventually passes away. Afterwards, Yuuki sacrifices herself to make the slumbering Kaname human.
  • The way it only seemed to conclude the Seasonal Rot however by being rushed, leaving several questions unanswered as well as having the main trio leave on a rather OOC note, it became a mixture of a Downer and Gainax Ending to many.
• Video Girl Ai sets up for this trope only to subvert it when Ai is rematerialized as a human right after what seemed like a tearful final goodbye in the epilogue.
• Voltes V: The Gō brothers reunite with their father Gohl/Kentarou and the Boazanian civil war ends in victory for the rebels who, aided by the Voltes Team, overthrow the imperial government, indirectly stopping its own invasion of Earth which was largely driven by the search to kill Gohl, the rightful heir to the Boazanian throne usurped by his jealous cousin Zambajil, who ironically dies not at the hands of either the Voltes Team or the rebels, but by his own enforcer Heinel, furious at having been tricked into attempting to kill his own father and younger half-brothers (respectively, Gohl and the Gō brothers) before being thrown under the bus in a vain attempt at bargaining for his life. Unfortunately, a lot of the Voltes Team's allies had to die beforehand (including the Gō brothers' mother Mitsuyo, Professor Hamaguchi, and Megumi's father General Oka), Heinel sacrifices himself to save Kenichi from the rubble, and Gohl chooses to stay behind in Boazan instead of joining his remaining sons to Earth so he can help rebuild Boazanian society, though it's implied that with the space-warp technology they used to travel to Boazan in the last arc, travel between Earth and Boazan wouldn't take long and the Voltes team can visit their father in the now peaceful Boazan anytime.

W

• Wandering Son ends with Nitori going off to college and finally saying "I am a girl" instead of "I want to be a girl". Makoto gets an ambiguous but still positive ending and Nitori's girlfriend Anna states she doesn't mind being gay if Nitori wants to live as a woman. Deuteragonist Takatsuki gets a less happy ending. The last time we see them they're crying and they confessed their unrequited love to Nitori earlier, knowing that she would decline. Takatsuki in high school became really confused and starting doubting whether they wanted to be seen as a girl or a boy. The ending is fairly ambiguous on their part but still dark.
• Wedding Peach DX:
  • "Salvia’s Love…We’ll Fight, Even On a Luxury Liner": Clark Oasis and his World Domination plot is stopped but Salvia was forced to kill him, leaving her heartbroken.
  • '"The False Love Angels-We’ll Fight, Even On Valentine’s Day'": Momoko, Yuri and Hinagiku get their bodies back, the stolen chocolate is returned and the Love Angels give their chocolate gifts to their boyfriends. The only downside is that Dr. Belphegor got away.
• The Wind Rises: Jiro finally fulfilled his dream of designing the perfect aircraft in his mind, and he is married to the woman he loves, Naoko. However, his designs are also used as war machines that brought death and destruction, first to the enemy and then to Japan itself. Jiro also neglects his dying wife in order to finish the design, and when she senses that she has little time left, she secretly returns to the sanatorium and dies away from Jiro, choosing to leave only happy memories behind. Jiro also states that none of the planes he designed ever returned home from the war. Additionally, it's implied that Jiro, much like Caproni before him, has lived past his engineering prime and will never surpass the limits of what they have already accomplished. Having resigned to these truths, Jiro agrees to relax with Caproni in their dream world.
• Witchblade anime has Heroic Sacrifice variant. And that's right after Masane has Relationship Upgrade, her interaction with Witchblade sort of enhanced (though not without side effects) and she finally knows that Witchblade-induced transformation does not disturb Rihoko in the least. All the nice "Sisters" we saw are dead, others are ticking. Still, rogue X-Cons are wiped out, I-weapons are annihilated and Takayama is exonerated from blame, became hero and his rival isn't a threat anymore, so Rihoko is left in better world and good care.
• By the end of Wolf Guy - Wolfen Crest, Haguro has been defeated by Inugami... at the expense of Inugami's life, as it is first implied that he died from his injuries. Aoshika is now in deep depression from the trauma she endured from being held captive by Haguro and over guilt for feeling responsible for Inugami's death. Luckily, through much counseling from Jin and Inugami's aunt, Aoshika finally find the strength to move on from the tragedies in her life by relocating to Alaska and living in seclusion with the wolf pack that raised Inugami. However, it's revealed in the last pages that Inugami is not dead and is really being kept alive as a test subject in some laboratory. The story ends with Inugami waking up from a coma and vowing to be reunited with Aoshika.
• The ending of Wolf's Rain features the protagonists finally making their way to their destination of Paradise only to be systematically killed one by one by the now deranged Big Bad, Lord Darcia. After he's finally killed, only Kiba, and Cheza, the girl he was trying to protect, remain, both of whom are slowly dying as well. She proceeds to attempt to use her powers to recreate Paradise, only for the world to be corrupted by the presence of Darcia's severed eyeball. We are then treated to an ambiguous Distant Finale where we see all the wolves have apparently been reincarnated in our modern world, when we suddenly cut to black. The implication is that Blue, the humans, and all the another life seen in the series probably didn't even get reincarnated because of not being pure wolves. Seen by some as an outright Shoot the Shaggy Dog ending.
• The anime adaptation of WorldEnd: What Do You Do at the End of the World? Are You Busy? Will You Save Us? ends with one combined with Gainax Ending since it stops itself at the third of the five volume light novel series, which also ended on a bittersweet note. The ship Willem and the Leprechauns escort manages to successfully get back home safely, but the overwhelming amount of Timere that attacked them in the area they were exploring had killed off more than half the ship's crew, and, despite everyone's protests and pleads due to her continuously deteriorating mental state, Chtholly still goes off to fight the Timere anyway to protect a heavily injured Willem and Nephren and dies in the process, taking all the Timere in the area with her, and afterwards, tearfully thanking Willem for the happy life he'd given her, despite her tragic fate.
• The end of The World God Only Knows: Goddesses Arc qualifies as this. Keima succeeded in reviving five of the Goddesses residing within his previous capture targets, and with their help has thwarted a plot to revive Old Hell. But the last scenes show him crying on a bench since he had to break someone else's heart to revive the last Goddess.
• World Trigger: The Large Scale Invasion Arc ends this way. Thanks to the combined effort of Border, not a single civilian casualty was suffered and the Neighbors are forced to leave the planet without taking Chika. However, six operators died when Enedra broke into Border HQ, 32 C-Rank agents were successfully kidnapped, 90 civilians were still injured, Osamu is critically wounded, and, due to being heavily damaged in the fight, Replica can't escape the Neighbor's ship and sacrifices himself to ensure they retreat. Besides failing to steal Chika, the Neighbors' achieve every goal they set out to accomplish during the invasion, including killing Enedra and ditching Hyuse. As Jin points out, this was the second- or third-best outcome the heroes could have achieved.

Y

• Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou ends with the two main robots living together, tending to the coffee shop. But the main human couple has moved away to form a family, and it can be deduced that every human Alpha knows has already died by the time of the epilogue chapter.
• You Are Umasou: While the volcano eruption doesn't harm anyone, Heart can't stay with his mother and siblings. He continues to live with Umasou, mostly alone.
• Your Lie in April: Kousei successfully manages to overcome the mental trauma he gets from playing piano and proceeds to improve further as a pianist as a result. However, Kaori ends up dying from complications during the high-risk surgery and Kousei receives a letter from Kaori posthumously via her parents, thanking him for introducing her to music, for bringing color to her world and admitting that it wasn't Watari she loved but Kousei. Tsubaki tries to comfort Kousei by reasserting her feelings for him and determination to never abandon him. Despite his reaction being muted, it's clear that he realizes now that he isn't alone, even if Kaori isn't around anymore. The next shot is Kousei lamenting the idea of a spring without Kaori.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh!, the finale ends with the pharaoh gets to learn his real name and going to the afterlife, but he must leave the friends he made here.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! also has several spinoffs/sequels that have their own shares of bittersweet endings:
  • GX: Graduation day has come and everyone must leave to fulfill their dreams. Judai doesn't attend the graduation party. As he's about to leave the school, Winged Kuriboh leads him to the area where Yugi's deck is and finds Yugi himself there. Yugi sends Judai back in time to duel a past version of himself that still has the Millennium Puzzle and Yami Yugi. It is through this duel that Judai regains his love for dueling.
  • 5D's: Zone is defeated and sacrifices himself to stop the Ark Cradle, taking Yusei's place instead. However Bruno was killed in a earlier duel against Yusei. A couple of months later all of Yusei's friends gets great opportunities for each of them but they all share the same problem, in order to enter these opportunities they will have to leave Neo Domino City and not be with each other anymore. After a duel between Yusei and Jack to settle the scores between them, everyone decides to go their separate ways except for Yusei who stays behind in Neo Domino City with the belief that everyone will return once they fulfilled their dreams.
  • ZEXAL: Don Thousand is destroyed and everyone who was sacrificed to the Barian World is revived with the exception of Kaito and the Seven Barian Emperors. Yuma and Astral have a duel against each other with Yuma winning and using the Numeron Code to revive Kaito and the Barians who are now reborn as humans. However Astral must return home to the Astral World as a result. But a new threat emerges in the Astral World and Yuma and his friends head there to stop it.
  • ARC-V: Yuya defeats Reiji and becomes a pro duelist. This causes Reira to smile, purfiying Zarc's soul in the process, though she still remains a baby. Also Ray is revived as Yuzu with all her counterparts merged with her just like Yuya.
    • In addition, Shun Kurosaki has to live on knowing that he will never see the faces of his best friend, Yuto, or his sister, Ruri, ever again.
  • The Dark Side of Dimensions: Kaiba travels to the afterlife, a process that is suggested to endanger his life, just so he can fight the Pharaoh one more time.
  • VRAINS: Ai is defeated which frees all the consciousness data of the people he defeated. But with his death the Ignis are no more. Three months later everyone returns to their normal lives. Jin has recovered and is working with his brother, Akira is the CEO of SOL Technologies, Go is back as a pro duelist, Ghost Girl and Blood Shepard are working together, and The Knights of Hanoi are monitoring the network to atone for their crimes. Playmaker has disappeared, having left on a journey though everyone believes he will return one day. Ai is revealed to still be alive waking up in an unknown location.
  • SEVENS: Otes is defeated but Yuga has gone missing after the duel and is presumed dead. Two years have passed and everyone has moved on to peaceful lives. However Yuga is still alive and he has returned to earth and with his return also brings back Rush Duels.

Z

• Zambot 3: The series ultimately ends with many innocents killed, much of Japan completely wrecked, and several members of Kappei's family dead, including his teammates - but also with Gaizok's assessment that Humans Are Bastards proven wrong, as a crowd of people flock to Kappei to finally cheer him as a hero.
• Zatch Bell!: Zatch becomes king but has to return to the mamodo world, which is closed off for another thousand years,and all the teams will never see each other again. Additionally, Kiyo learns that Suzy and all of his friends are going to different schools, making it much more difficult to be with them. Furthermore, Zatch has to struggle with balancing his kingly duties and how it cuts into time with his friends. However, Zatch manages to send Kiyo a letter promising that they will meet again.
• Zombie Land Saga:
  • Episode 3 ends with the girl's first performance as Franchouchou a flop, save for one enthusiastic young girl who Saki promises a better show for. Ai and Junko though both decide to stick with the others and see where the Zombie Land Saga project goes.
  • Episode 8 ends with Lily and Takeo not being able to properly reunite and reconcile, given that Lily's a zombie and can't be outed to even her loved ones. But Lily's performance helps give Takeo some closure to her death and allows him to begin moving on with his life. The last scene has him tuning in to more of Lily's performances on TV, finally able to rekindle his love for television.

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