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Kenshiro shows that even the ultimate Bad Ass can have a sensitive side.
The pretty and sweet manner of it forced
Those waters from me which I would have stopp'd;
But I had not so much of man in me,
And all my mother came into mine eyes
And gave me up to tears. — William Shakespeare, Henry V
"Do my tears...surprise you? Strong men also cry, Mr. Lebowski. Strong men... also... cry." — The Big Lebowski, The Big Lebowski
Somewhere down the line, it became the "norm" that boys don't cry. It doesn't matter the scenario; shedding any tears is the ultimate no-no in terms of what you can and can't do as a man (at least in the West, anyway). But there comes a time when a man's emotions do get the better of him, and they pour forth - prerequisite impassioned speech may or may not be present - by cascading down his cheeks. These are what we like to call Manly Tears.
Just like it may or may not involve a Rousing Speech, they may or may not be someone's crowning moment, be it awesome, heartwarming, tear jerking or otherwise. Tears may be Due To The Dead, and so feature at a Meaningful Funeral or during To Absent Friends. Attempts to comfort may provoke Dont You Dare Pity Me.
(Pain is, of course, right out. No matter how brutal the beating or how cruel the torture, the hero may scream in pain, but crying for it is Unmanly. As is fear. Crying because you're scared shitless is also Unmanly.)
This can also be a common audience response to particularly emotional moments in the more Hot Blooded shows.
Contemptible characters may attempt to characterize these tears as Water Works; the effect is to make them even more contemptible. The crying character may also apologize for them as a sign of weakness.
When the feelings overwhelm even a thing physically incapable of tears, Tears From A Stone result.
Contrast Sand In My Eyes, where the man denies to the end that he is crying.
Contrast Tender Tears, where the character weeps easily because of an especially tender heart; Tears Of Respect for your enemies; Tears Of Remorse when a character laments his own wrong-doing (which may overlap with Manly Tears).
See also Berserker Tears, for when the tears cried are those of rage.
Examples:
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- An American anti-littering ad featured a (fake) Native American viewing the littered landscape and finally a single tear escapes him
 . Thus creating the trope Crying Indian.
- An episode of The Simpsons parodied this - after shedding a tear from Homer Simpson's dropping an empty chip bag, another Native American goes up to him and tells him not to turn around: Springfield has been turned into a rubbish dump.
- Made funnier by the Big No right after the fade to black, which is followed up by "I told you not to turn around."
- Also parodied in one of Wayne's World 2.
- Also parodied by Futurama.
- Guy-sensei from Naruto, and of course, his student, Rock Lee. They manage to be comical parodies and moving straight examples of this, depending on the circumstances
- Naruto himself exemplifies the trope.
- Shikamaru also lets some out when Asuma dies.
- As does his team mate Chouji. Chouji's one of the weepier ninja: it also happens in Part 1 after the Jirobo fight, and in Shippuuden, when Chouji breaks down in tears after discovering Chouza (his father) took a hit for him, and again when Tsunade reveals that Chouza is actually alive.
- What about when Naruto breaks down crying after Gaara apparently dies and he says, "I couldn't save Sasuke...I couldn't save Gaara...I trained for three years and nothing's changed..."
- He also is seen sitting with a broken expression on his face with tears running down his face after Jiraiya's death.
- The ridiculously huge Raikage lets out quite a lot when he thinks his brother, the host for the Eight-Tails Beast, has been kidnapped and is trying to convince the team he's sending to quit bickering, and they join in. Of course, this is right before we find out he WASN'T actually kidnapped, but rather use an attempted kidnapping as a way to ditch the village.
- Gaara sheds a single tear after failing to convince Sasuke to abandon his revenge.
- Even Sasuke tears up when Madara tells him about how Itachi was actually a good guy, right after he killed him.
- Vash the Stampede from Trigun. He frequently gets like this when donuts are involved.
- Though some (including characters from the show — heck, even including little kids) would debate whether Vash's tears are manly or not. Wolfwood (during his death scene in both the anime and the manga) and Knives (yes, he cries at one point in the manga, if you look closely: when he embraces then crushes a dead plant, vowing to kill Vash and saying "Farewell, dear brother") would be better examples.
- Vash's seiyū, Onosaka Masaya, also voices the Cloudcuckoolander thief Isaac of Baccano!, also prone to tears most manly.
- Jounichi/Joey from Yu-Gi-Oh had these as well, after Yugi Muto promised to give the prize money from his Duelist Kingdom victory to Joey to pay for his sister's eye surgery. He cries again when Yugi attempts an Heroic Sacrifice for him after Yugi wins against a Jounouchi who was Brainwashed And Crazy *and* with their friend Anzu taken as a hostage.
- Why no YYH? Yusuke cries manly tears when Genkai dies, Kuwabara fakes his own death, and probably on several other occassions that escape this troper's memory. Oh, and Kuwabara does it too, when Yusuke dies.
- Simon, in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, has the full works: A Rousing Speech is given, Manly Tears are dramatically shaken away, and all set to a Theme Music Powerup. Awesome? You bet.
- Kamina plays this straight when he finds his father's skeleton in the desert, and for comedic purposes a couple more times.
- Let's not forget that in the beginning of episode 26 when he crushes one of the faces on the Anti-Spiral ships after Kittan's manly death he's shown crying blood.
- Jean-Pierre Polnareff of Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure is the master of Manly Tears. He usually likes to throw a thumbs up along with it as well. Usually anyone who provokes him into doing it is going to a get a massive asskicking afterwards.
- Fist Of The North Star is famous for this (especially in the case of Kenshiro, pictured above). However, a common misconception that this is the only way men cry created in this franchise is created homophobic and sexually insecure anime fans who can't handle the fact that Men Dont Cry is total nonsense. In actual fact, the main type of tears shed in Fist Of The North Star is actually Tender Tears from soft-hearted, sensitive and kind men rather than this macho variety.
- Guy Shishioh in Gao Gai Gar FINAL has this when confronting a replica Mamoru, when his enemy destroyed his allies Goldymarg and Choryujin (though it's later revealed to be one Disney Death). It's immediately followed by uttering the legendary line "Have you forgotten, Mamoru? Victory goes to... ... THOSE WITH COURAAAAGGEEEE!!!!!!"" and complete ass kicking to the replica.
- Roy Mustang in the Fullmetal Alchemist manga cries manfully at the funeral of his best friend Maes Hughes, insisting that "it's raining" although the sky is clear.
- While it's still a Manly Tears moment, I think it refers more to his powers being useless, not a cheap way of hiding his tears.
- Similarly, Ed hardly ever cries but only does so in a manly way (although one might argue it makes him look like a little kid). Alphonse is a more blurry case.
- And let's not forget Hohenheim in the manga, when he suddenly opens the valves on his one and only family picture. Boy, does he look desperate.
- And when Ed passes on Trisha's last words to him.
- Heck, one could even make a point about Izumi in the manga, when she cries after learning the baby she transmuted wasn't quite human. These are motherly tears, but even so she still looks so Badass.
- Armstrong is the definition of this trope, both as a parody and a straight example.
- Ling manages to cry... while punching people in the face.
- Fuji Shuusuke cries in The Prince Of Tennis anime when he loses in an official match against Kuranosuke Shiraishi.
- Kikumaru Eiji also cries when he loses his beloved partner Shuuichirou Oishi after the injured Oishi gives up his spot in the regulars to not be a burden on the team.
- And in the previews for the next OAVs, Oishi is seen screaming and crying his heart out, VERY possibly for Tezuka after the animated version of the Tezuka v/s Sanada match.
- Kouji Kabuto from Mazinger Z has three VERY memorable tears moments. One is in the beginning, when his grandfather dies in his arms. The other two are in the "Mazinkaiser v/s the General of Darkness", with Dr. Morimori's Heroic Sacrifice, and when he finally defeats ALL the Mikene Empiure and tearfully screams "My dead friends... I AVENGED YOU ALL!"
- Souichi from The Tyrant Falls In Love breaks down into tears after a long, impassioned rant to Morinaga on how he does have feelings and was hurt by Morinaga's attempt to disappear from his life, and also after saving Morinaga who managed to get himself trapped underneath an altar in a burning house, while berating him on not thinking about how'd he'd feel again (though he makes the excuse of splashing himself with water as a safety precaution).
- Tough guy Tsume mourning woobie Toboe in Wolf's Rain. (Actually the tears are only part of his human illusion because he's a wolf, but they're necessary to show his emotions.)
- Domon Kasshu cries manly tears at least thrice in G Gundam. When he's reunited with Master Asia in Shinjuku, when he's forced to free his brother from the Devil Gundam by killing him, and when Master Asia dies.
- Kaiji: "He stayed quiet all the way down!"
- One Piece deserves mention here, as each and every one of the male protagonists, up to and including the skeleton who specifically said he was physically incapable of crying, has at least one instance of Manly Tears to their name.
- Some especially good examples are when Iceberg finds out that Franky survived being run over by the Sea Train, when Sanji leaves the Baratie and Luffy and Usopp after their duel.
- Of course, Franky deserves special mention, being brought to tears rather easily (and always being in denial of it).
- Upon successfully escaping Impel Down, the entire getaway crew shed Manly Tears for Bon Clay, after he stayed behind in secret to trick the guards into opening the Gates of Justice. As did this troper.
- Essentially every kickass male in Gash Bell cries manly tears sooner or later. It's usually really awesome.
- The Count in Gankutsuou cries quite a few times but still manages to look Badass most of the time when he does so.
- In one of the more emotional scenes in the series, Vegeta of Dragonball Z explains his life and motivations as Goku readies to fight Frieza, telling Goku that Frieza destroyed their entire race. Then, he breaks down in tears when he reveals that Frieza promised to spare his father if he (Vegeta) joined him, and then, when Vegeta complied, he killed him anyway.
- Of course, Vegeta's story about the promise to spare his father and subsequent rationalizing of how he became such an evil person doesn't exist in the manga or Japanese version of the anime. Instead, he tells Goku that even though the Saiyans served Freeza loyally, he killed them because he feared that they would become too strong to control.
- Gohan at the start usually has Water Works whenever things go bad, only to trigger an Unstoppable Rage. But his first instance of Manly Tears is when Cell took him to the breaking point, which unlocked Super Saiyan 2. In this case, the fact that he is crying only makes it that much more badass.
- Guts at the end of Berserk. Of course this is to be expected in that nearly all of his allies have been devoured by horrific demons, his former best friend, now demonic Dark Messiah, is brutally raping his love interest in front of him, he just finished hacking one of his arms off with a broken sword, and his life just sucks in general.
- Jeremiah aka Orange-kun cries when he pulls his Heel Face Turn in Code Geass. And before that, he cries when he talks to Viletta in the Picture Dramas.
- Lelouch himself does this more than once especially when a woman important to him, be it Euphie or Shirley, dies. He definitely puts the "hero" part back into Anti Hero...
- Don't forget Suzaku crying his heart out when he tragically loses Euphie. And then crying again when he, as Zero, kills Lelouch
- When Lockon dies in Gundam 00, not only does the audience cry, but so do do the Gundam Meisters (especially Tieria).
- Saint Seiya uses this trope SEVERAL times. Specially in death or big revelation scenes. Like when Ikki comes back to the group after his first death, when Shiryu loses his sight (twice, if we count Seiya collapsing in tears when told by the doctors there's nothing to do for Shiryu), when Cassius pulls an Heroic Sacrifice to de-brainwash Aiolia and save Seiya, when Ikki defeats Shaka through Taking You With Me, when everyone thinks Shiryu is gone for good...
- Manly tears are shed often in Eyeshield 21, mostly by Sakuraba Haruto. Used much more often, however, are pathetic tears shed by guys like benchwarmer Yukimitsu (who can't start no matter how much he tries), ace quarterback Harao (who knows he's just an average player who depends entirely on the defensive line), and the hard-boiled Habashira (who put forth a Herculean effort in the Fall tournament, only to find his teammates couldn't muster his level of enthusiasm.) And don't forget Poseidons' towering tough guy lineman Ohira, who is usually seen with streams of tears down his cheeks with no explanation.
- Averted in Slam Dunk when Mitsui breaks down after the gym fight, and when Sakuragi cries after the loss against Kainan. Played straight when Shoyo loses and Fujima calmly but tearfully accepts his loss, and when Sakuragi remembers his Disappeared Dad.
- The titular character of Inu Yasha sheds manly tears when his estranged former love Kikyou permanently dies in his arms. Also when his poisoned and dying Nakama are cured at the last minute after he had lost all hope for them. No, I'm not spoiler-tagging that; the episode is called "Inuyasha Shows His Tears For The First Time".
- When Makoto first links to Ifurita in the El Hazard The Magnificent World manga, he sees her memories of bring about The End Of The World As We Know It. Every life she snuffed out, every country crushed, and the mind-destroying horror that made her shut down her emotions. He cries in sympathy for her, who had burned out her tears. The manga was made after the anime, and this scene is a definite improvement, where he had originally just shrugged it off as "weird."
- The men of the Kuroda family in Gokusen are all very sentimental when it comes to family matters. Of course, this is meant to be humorous, as it doesn't jive with their intense tough-guy image at all.
- In Hellsing badass vampire Alucard breaks down after killing Father Alexander Anderson, who had turned himself into a monster to try to stop Alucard.
- After coming in fourth in the first Choujin Olympics, Ramenman tearfully begs Kinnikuman to defeat win the tournament and make the battle they had fought something he could be proud of. In the manga, he cried Tears Of Blood.
- Yuki in Gravitation does this at one point. Played rather amusingly when he has to lie down afterwords because he hasn't cried in so long that it doing so gives him a headache.
- Pegas in the Tekkaman Blade finale.
- At several points in Saikano, multiple male characters, especially Shuji, are reduced to tears for various reasons.
- Tamiya and Ohtaki both shed Manly Tears whenever they're around when Keiichi does much of anything significant. Or when they're praised by the former club president.
- After the death of fellow warrior Nuriko in Fushigi Yuugi, Tasuki is seen slumped by himself with tears pouring silently down his face. Tamahome himself breaks down in tears (and into a Heroic BSOD for that matter) when Suboshi avenged his brother's apparent death by killing Tamahome's entire family.
- Despite not being particularly manly, Watanuki from xxxHOLiC doesn't cry often, even when his life starts veering into Deus Angst Machina territory. When he does, it's usually a Tear Jerker for the readers. It helps that whenever something awful happens to him, he always puts up with it without complaining, and only cries when the bad stuff happens to others.
- In another CLAMP example, Xiaolang in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle cries (and then passes out) when he is treated to an extremely vivid replay of Kurogane's tragic past. It's doubly shocking since he's rather stoic for a Kid Hero.
- In the final episode of Death Note, Matsuda goes absolutely berserk and shoots Light four times after it's revealed he is Kira, all with tears running down his face.
- Parodied extensively in Ranma 1/2, usually when a character pulls off some sort of (unwilling!) sacrifice and the others gather over his unconscious body to thank him for it, to his immense annoyance.
- Battler does this a lot from the first arc on. It's pretty hard to blame him, and part of the draw of the series is watching him be tortured way past the point he should have gone nuts and yet always in the end manage to pull himself together and keep going.
- Skewered brutally (as Lighter And Softer tropes tend to be) in Black Lagoon, where the neo-Nazis break down and start blubbering like infants at their leader's cheesy speech.
- Tenma in Monster, mostly as a result of seeing his friends murdered and such.
- Still no Bleach? What about Renji, when Ichigo beats the crap out of him and breaks his sword in Soul Society ark, and he crying, grabs Ichigo and begs him to save Rukia?
- Also contains unique example of Womanly Manly Tears when Rukia leaves half-dead Ichigo with Byakuya and Renji or kills infected Kaien-dono. This Troper thinks that Rukia is quite capable of making Manly Tears every times she cries.
- Lots of this in the manga of Riki-Oh. One big moment of manly tears when Nachi puts a gladiator out of his misery and Riki-Oh calls him out on it.
- Basically, the whole manga's about the debate of euthanasia.
Comic Books
- Happens quite a lot in ElfQuest. In fact it may hold some kind of record for it.
- Captain America in the final issue of Marvel's Civil War. A lot of readers were crying at that point, too, though for vastly different reasons.
- Tony later produces a manly tear at Cap's funeral, and has a full-on sobbing fit over the body in The Confession.
- DC's The Ray foolishly caused his father to go into respiratory arrest and saved him with mouth-to-mouth. The father immediately berated him for his stupidity, but Ray ignored him in his relief that he was alive, which was so great that he started to cry. His father realized it, stopped the scolding, and tried to put his arm about him. Ray angrily shrugged it off. (A second attempt was more successful.)
- A recurring trope in the limited series Pride and Joy. The teenage slacker son often sheds tears of frustration during arguments with his tough guy father. Tough guy father never cries until the final scene where he's dying and his son has made him proud.
- Gambit during the last moments of Rogue's life during X-Men: The End.
- Rorschach, that red-headed stepchild of the Heroic Sociopath set, has one of these moments in his last scene. You'd cry too, if you'd failed to avert the deaths of millions and were about to die, unloved and futile, in the middle of freaking Antarctica.
- The Vision, when he's accepted into The Avengers. In a story called "Even An Android Can Cry".
- Invoked in Light And Dark The Adventures Of Dark Yagami with the titular character. "HE started crying with happy but then stopped and man cried instead which was more manly."
- Tiberium Wars has these shed by Commander Karrde when the survivors of the 4th Recon Battalion unanimously volunteer to help serve as recon troops for the armored attack on the White House, after having suffered fifty percent casualties under his command just a day earlier.
- Averted in the movie of The Princess Bride, when Westley gets tortured.
- The book, however, goes at length to establish that Westley simply does not ever cry before he eventually breaks out into tears on the Machine.
- "I'm Spartacus!"
- On Her Majesty's Secret Service: after Blofeld and his crony kill James Bond's wife. There were two takes of the scene: the one without actual tears was chosen.
- Aragorn from Lord Of The Rings, after seeing how Merry and Pippin were apparently caught up in the Rohirrim's slaughter of Uruk-Hai, furiously kicks a helm, and collapses in tears after seeing how his friends were apparently killed. Viggo Mortensen broke two toes when he kicked the helm and actually collapsed in pain, but used it; Peter Jackson thought it looked appropriate. (He does cry in the book (and the extended edition) immediately after Boromir's death. Most Middle-earth societies don't have such a taboo against men crying, and there are many instances of manly men weeping.)
- John McClane bitterly wept when he failed to save a plane of innocents from being murdered in Die Hard 2, and the audience wept with him.
- When Gabe failed to save his best friend's girlfriend in Cliffhanger.
- In Gladiator, Maximus races home desperately...to find his farm burned and his wife and son crucified. He collapses in front of them, tears flowing.
- And spittle! Lots of discomfort-inducing spittle and mucus. The plan was for him to do a normal discreet-few-tears-down-each-cheek dignified cry... but he and Ridley Scott agreed that what Maximus was seeing demanded (as Russell Crowe put it) a full blown snot-fest.
- A kind of sick reference; in Once Upon a Time in Mexico Sands after he's been blinded strongly resembles this trope in the silent, still body but with streams flowing down each cheek aspect, only instead of tears, it's blood.
- The whole 'manly tears' thing is skillfully averted in Reservoir Dogs; when we see the wounded Mr Orange and later Mr White in tears, it's decidedly unmacho, undignified and all the more effective for it.
- The title character in The Big Lebowski is seen crying in solitude after the ransom note arrives for his wife. It turns out that it was all a ruse, and he was glad.
- Spock weeps for V'Ger in Star Trek The Motion Picture. Kirk cries at Spock's funeral in Star Trek II The Wrath Of Khan.
- John Rambo's final breakdown in First Blood is perhaps the one moment in movie history that defines this trope.
- Field of Dreams: "Hey Dad. You Wanna Have a Catch?"
- Nathan Algran in The Last Samurai does this twice towards the end of the movie. Of course, he was very much justified in doing so (and any members of the audience with at least one functioning tear gland were probably already way ahead of him).
- Saving Private Ryan good lord, the ending not only had the Titular Ryan crying at the Cemetery decades later asking his wife if he was a good and decent man, echoing the captain's comments to earn this, but it makes an audience of veterans break down every time.
- the whole movie was a sobfest, and one of the few movies that is ok for men to watch and weep bitterly. The parts that got this troper were: Mrs. Ryan finding out that 4 of her sons were killed in action at the same time, Irwin Wade's death where he lays bleeding to death in the arms of his squad mates crying out for his mother, and Private Mellish's death when he is slowly stabbed through the chest by a German soldier that comforts him as he is killing him.... ouch...
- Gloriously averted in Equilibrium where upon witnessing Mary's death Preston calmly leaves the building and collapses into completely undignified heap of sobs on the steps.
- The Emperor in Hero is the historical Qin Shi Huang, who unified China and built a great big chunk of what would become the great wall by being a really, really nasty guy. He sheds a single, extremely manly tear when he realizes the man who most understands him is his most hated enemy.
- Theo in Children Of Men, a while after Julian is killed. It's really convincing.
- Averted by Conan The Barbarian, who is too tough (being a Cimmerian and all) to shed tears over Valeria's demise, so his loyal sidekick Subotai cries on his behalf.
- H.G Wells' War of the Worlds: It is acceptable to shed Manly Tears at the sacrifice of the battleship Thunder Child to allow the civilian ships escape to France.
- Harry Potter: Manly Tears are shed by Harry and Ron during Dumbledore's funeral in Half Blood Prince, and by Harry in front of the graves of his parents, in Deathly Hallows.
- Dumbledore sheds a single tear when he explains Harry his mistakes at the end of Order of the Phoenix, and sheds a couple more in Half Blood Prince when Harry says he told Minister Scrimgeour he is "Dumbledore's man through and through."
- Hagrid is also prone to this.
- CS Lewis's The Last Battle: Tirian asserts it would be more unmanly not to weep for The End Of The World As We Know It and joins Lucy in her tearful mourning for Narnia.
- In one of the last chapters of Moby Dick Captain Ahab sheds a single tear, which "was worth more than all the water in the ocean".
- In John Barnes's One For The Morning Glory, Prince Amatus weeps at Gorlias's death.
Then he wept, passionately and deeply, the way that men weep because they are men.
- Sandor 'the Hound' Clegane has several emotional breakdowns but his crying doesn't seem to affect his status among fans as their favorite Badass in A Song of Ice and Fire. In fact the fangirls seem to like it.
- In Dan Abnett's Warhammer 40000: Gaunt's Ghosts novel Sabbat Martyr, when the Saint appears, Gaunt realizes that he is weeping, and that he does not care.
- At the end of The Armour of Contempt, when the Drill Sergeant Nasty salutes the troopers whom he has been abusing to make Guardsmen out of them, Dalin Criid realizes that he's a lot older than he had first thought, and feels himself tearing up. The sergeant pronounces them "proper bloody Guardsman''
- In Only In Death, after Varl describes how Gaunt had cut ropes that were holding him and their enemies to the wall and fallen, he shows them his sword, and tears were running down his face.
- Again in Only In Death, Hark cries when he finds Soric — and describes himself as years of sorrow bursting through.
- In John C Wright's Fugitives of Chaos, after Amelia explains to Colin that a certain picture shows his loving parents being forced to give him up at birth as a hostage, and Colin contemplates how he has lived his entire childhood in the care of hostile strangers, Colin cries.
- Invoked in Flashman at the Charge. Flash bawls his eyes out with shock, fear and self-pity after the prince he was minding gets killed. A brother officer remarks "The most heartbreaking thing I have seen today was Flashman, the bravest of your soldiers, weeping at that dear boy's death. He would have given his own life a thousand times, I know, to bring him back." The moral, according to Flashman, is "It's all right to blubber with funk and self-pity as long as there's a gullible idiot around who'll mistake it for manly grief."
- In Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book Mowgli weeps on leaving the jungle.
Then something began to hurt Mowgli inside him, as he had never been hurt in his life before, and he caught his breath and sobbed, and the tears ran down his face.
"What is it? What is it?" he said. "I do not wish to leave the jungle, and I do not know what this is. Am I dying, Bagheera?"
"No, Little Brother. That is only tears such as men use," said Bagheera. "Now I know thou art a man, and a man's cub no longer. The jungle is shut indeed to thee henceforward. Let them fall, Mowgli. They are only tears." So Mowgli sat and cried as though his heart would break; and he had never cried in all his life before.
- While we don't actually see him cry, Cyrano's tearstains are found by Christian on a letter to Roxane in Cyrano De Bergerac.
- In JRR Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings, when Legolas and Gimli find Aragorn after Boromir's death, he is weeping, and they are afraid he is mortally injured himself.
- When Faramir is brought in from the field in The Return Of The King, men weep in the street in distress.
- All in all, in most Middle-earth societies crying is acceptable, and there are many instances of manly men weeping.
- In Graham Mc Neill's Warhammer 40000 novel Storm of Iron, Leonid cries at Vauban's funeral, not so much for the death as for the spontaneous attendance of his men. Vauban had said his men did not love him, but now he knows that to be false.
- In Graham Mc Neill's Warhammer 40000 Horus Heresy novel False Gods, when Horus mortally wounds Temba, Temba recovers from the Chaos taint, realizes the scale of his betrayal, and sobs. His grief is so obvious and enormous that Horus immediately kneels by him and comforts him.. Then Horus weeps. When his Mornivale persuade him to leave, Horus makes it back, and collapses. Abaddon weeps in his distress.
- In Dan Abnett's Warhammer 40000 novel Brothers of the Snake, the Iron Snakes come from an ocean world and bring flasks of salt water with them on undertakings to perform rituals with. But when Priad returns to Ithaka:
Salt-water ran from his eye corners. The Rite had begun. Removing his glove, Priad wiped the tears from his eye and marked the emblem of the Iron Snakes on the bulkhead. His men watched him do it.
Sometimes the Rite was special. Sometimes, you didn't need the flask.
- In Graham Mc Neill's Warhammer 40000 Ultramarines novel The Killing Ground, the gravely wounded Lord of the Unfleshed weeps with horror at the killing he and the other Unfleshed did while their minds were controlled; Uriel comforts him before the Mercy Kill. Then, at the end, Uriel and Pasanius both have tears streaming down their faces at the sight of their home.
- In James Swallow's Warhammer 40000 Blood Angels novel Deus Encarmine, Arkio, delineating his plans, is accused of indifference toward the men who had died. Tears stream down his face.
- In Deus Sanguinius, when open conflict broke out in the chapter, Arkio weeps again, and insists that the geneseed from the other side be harvested, as they might have stood beside him had they had the choice. Later, when Arkio is dying, having regained himself, he puts a hand to Rafen's face, and is grateful to find it wet; he says he is surely condemned but begs Rafen's forgiveness.
- In Edgar Rice Burroughs's Gods of Mars, when Contrived Coincidence has finally let one young man know that his companion is John Carter — his father.
With a cry of pleasure he sprang toward me and threw his arms about my neck, and for a brief moment as I held my boy close to me the tears welled to my eyes and I was like to have choked after the manner of some maudlin fool—but I do not regret it, nor am I ashamed. A long life has taught me that a man may seem weak where women and children are concerned and yet be anything but a weakling in the sterner avenues of life.
- Near the end of Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident, the title character has his father shot with a blood capsule into Russian waters to get rid of the Mafia holding him, then sinks to his knees crying when he finds out his father has been saved.
- The James Bond novels Casino Royale, Live And Let Die, Dr No, and especially On Her Majesty's Secret Service show Bond crying after a nasty incident or in a cathartic moment:
- In "The Nutmeg of Consolation," the thirteenth Aubrey-Maturin novel, Jack Aubrey weeps when Stephen informs him that Midshipman Reade has lost an arm.
- In fact, Jack weeps several times throughout the series, especially at funerals of his crew. It is established in one book that he sees it as a manly act.
- Invoked on an epic scale in the Old French Chanson de Roland, in which, on discovering the eponymous hero's death, among the French everyone weeps, Charlemagne sheds tears and tears his beard, and twenty thousand faint away for sorrow.
Live Action TV
- Dean Winchester in Supernatural cries a hell of a lot for someone with such hatred of chick-flick moments. Unlike Sam, however, it always manages to look pretty (with the exception of All Hell Breaks Loose). He also dissolves into tears when his pre-burned mother tells him she just wants her children to grow up normal and when he's begging her not to get out of bed of November 2. 1983. And he had every right to do so.
- To say that Jared Padalecki (Sam) cries messily is a massive understatement. Go watch Heart and No Rest For The Wicked if you want to cry a little yourself.
- Jack Bauer has a big manly cry at the end of Season 3 of 24, although this troper does not remember seeing a single tear in the whole sequence.
- The Doctor of Doctor Who, aside from being fairly Hot Blooded, expresses either amusement, indignation or rage more than any other emotion, which makes the flow of tears in the second and third season finale of the new series incredibly potent.
- Wilfred Mott is good for these moments in the fourth season, especially in "Turn Left" and especially in "Journey's End". He usually accompanies his tears with a manly salute to add that extra kick.
- One of the characters in Family of Blood is a boy about to serve in World War I. At the end, the Doctor and Martha offer to take him with them, but he declines, saying a war is coming, and that he must take part (He saw the future from a bit of Phlebotinum). The Doctor and Martha's next stop is in modern day, where the boy is one of the last living soldiers of the Great War, as a memorial is held. Both the speech and the sight of that terrible and wonderful Doctor moves him to some well deserved manly tears.
- In the Eighth Doctor novel Halflife, the Doctor cries because, due to a situation that blurred the line between Freaky Friday and Freaky Thursday, he experienced firsthand just how scary it is to be one of his companions, following around an incredibly brave Walking Disaster Area. He really doesn't cry often at all - it's mentioned at the beginning of the same book that no one ever saw him crying when his daughter died. He mourned, all right, but was never seen to shed so much as a single tear.
- Sam Tyler, Life on Mars, almost every single episode of the first series. So much that you're left wondering what the hell happened if he doesn't burst into tears at least once per episode. In the second series, John Simm put a moritorium on crying until the final episode, at which point it was more effective.
- John Crichton lampshades the trope at the end of The Peacekeeper Wars, telling his newborn son that Crichtons don't cry... "Often. Or for very long." In truth, he and Bad Ass Action Girl Aeryn Sun probably shed the same amount of Manly Tears over the series, which is not very much, given what they go through.
- On Sliders, the Ethnic Scrappy Rembrandt used to make a whole career out of being able to cry real tears on command and took pride in the title "Crying Man."
- Dr. Cox from Scrubs. He loses two patients due to a risky and quickly-made decision to transplant organs that turned out to be infected, but keeps it together. Then, he loses a third patient who he liked and could have waited a month for an extra kidney. He loses it. Cue the manly tears.
- Played with in the finale of Arrested Development. Michael has been accused of being a "robot" for his inability to cry, mainly by his brother GOB, who cries in a decidedly unmanly, blubbering fashion when any of his family demonstrates actual affection for him. Then when Michael is making a speech about how the past couple of years of trying to save the Bluth company have paid off, he sheds a few Manly Tears...which everyone present finds disturbing and pathetic. GOB mocks him for it.
- While House's eyes have welled up more times than this troper can count, he's only really cried twice. Once when he was apologizing to his hallucination/shooter in No Reason and the other time was when he found out what was wrong with Amber in Wilson's Heart. And as with the Dr. Cox example above: House crying equals the audience suddenly having allergies.
- As if House crying out of all his guilt in Wilson's Heart wasn't bad enough, we get Wilson breaking down in tears about ten minutes later. For the love of God, writers, do you want to me to dehydrate myself?
- A female example on NCIS, when Gibbs gets blown up and is comatose. While every member of the team is moping, Action Girl Ziva nearly gets into a Cat Fight with Abby after making a bad joke. Later on, they cut to her just staring into the bathroom mirror, stone-faced, as Abby and Ducky's recriminations play in voice over and tears roll down her face.
- The Super Sentai Cross Over special Deka VS. Aba saw this, with Abare-Black combining these with a Rousing Speech before joining Abare-Red and Deka-Red in battle (early in the show, way before the big combined henshin scene later on).
- I can't remember if Xander or Giles did, but Spike wept pretty hard at the season five finale of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
- The Daily Show's first episode after 9/11. Bring Kleenex.
Jon: Luckily we can edit this.
- Star Trek The Next Generation had Picard, a Badass Bookworm if ever there was one, shedding a few many tears here and there. Two of the most memorable came consecutively in season four. After being cybernetically body-snatched by the Borg, a scene shows them continuing to upgrade and alter his body while a single tear rolls down his otherwise impassive face, revealing that he's still Fighting From The Inside. In the next episode, he breaks down completely into ground-punching, blubbering tears when he tells his brother about what happened. With any other actor, it might've come across as Narm: with Patrick Stewart, it's one of the most powerful Tear Jerker moments in the franchise.
- Parodied/juxtaposed in the Seinfeld season 9 episode "The Serenity Now," when Jerry finds himself surprised at the fact that he is crying over the end of another short-lived relationship.
Jerry: What—what is this salty discharge?
Elaine: Oh my God. You're crying.
Jerry: This is horrible! I care!
- In Torchwood, Jack is seen crying when having memories of Grey forced on him by Adam, when putting away Owen and Tosh's things after both have died, when holding a dying Ianto in his arms, and when killing his grandson to save the world. Looking at what Jack has gone through, it's a miracle he doesn't spend half his time bawling.
- He also seems quite red-eyed throughout the last quarter of an hour in "Captain Jack Harkness", and he's actually crying when kissing/dancing with the Other Jack.
- Ianto is seen crying throughout "Cyberwoman" (in which his girlfriend has been partially cyber-converted and thus has a completely perverted conception of "love", and while she goes around trying to kill Torchwood, they go around trying to kill her; oh, and have I mentioned that Jack gives Ianto this ultimatum: either Ianto kills Lisa, or Jack kills Ianto), when he thinks Jack is dead and breathes in the scent of his coat, and when he's dying in Jack's arms. Yeah, Jack and Ianto have an interesting relationship.
- Kintaros, one of the main Imagin characters in Kamen Rider Den-O. Period. His catchphrase is "You'll cry!", and he tends to shed said tears whenever Ryoutarou (or anyone else, for that matter) displays any kind of notable strength or determination.
- The West Wing has a few examples — Sam, Toby, I'm pretty sure Josh — but most of the most heartwrenching involve Bartlet or Leo or both. Okay, we all know Bartlet's a sensitive soul, but as he puts it in "Bartlet for America": "Leo's made out of leather. His face has a map of the world on it. Leo comes back." And their friendship is one of the show's great constants. So watching Bartlet tear up over Leo finding out about his MS at the same time as he was going public about his alcoholism and drug addiction, or seeing Leo break down entirely at the end of "B4A" after... excuse me, I have something in my eye... setting himself up for more public revelations about his substance abuse in the course of defending Bartlet to Congress for having covered up his MS... [sniffle].
- Battlestar Galactica. Tough veterans Bill Adama and Saul Tigh weep on several tearjerker occasions.
- Shakespeare's heroes, when they cry, always apologize for the way their emotions overcame them. (To be sure, the character does have to say something to let the watchers know he's supposed to be crying.)
- One of the better-known (if not well-known) of these is the scene in MacBeth where MacDuff receives the news of his wife's murder.
Video Games
- Acro in Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All starts crying when Phoenix finds him guilty. And Godot in Trials and Tribulations combines this with Tears Of Blood to make a Tear Jerker moment.
- The ultimate in manly, Big Boss does this at the very end of Metal Gear Solid 3. And he has every god damn right to. For reference, this troper was crying like a little girl.
- This troper was saluting and crying.
- To take it a step back, Otacon, by Metal Gear Solid 2, had grown quite a bit. Some would even consider him a relatively manly geek. But certain events drive him to tears, and, well, no one sees him as a wimp anymore for it.
- While he doesn't cry (at least, on camera), during the final scene of Metal Gear Solid 4, Snake's eyes well up with tears as Big Boss is about to die.
- And in Metal Gear Solid 1, Sniper Wolf.
- Zack in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII after he's forced to kill Angeal. Certainly a sniffle-worthy moment... and then Zack started sobbing, and Aeris hugged him from behind, which caused this troper to flat out start bawling.
- Of course, it hurts even more when you remember the guy's gonna die in the future.
- Hell, the tagline for the game is 'Men cry not for themselves, but for their comrades.'
- In the ending of Final Fantasy VIII, apparently as a last attack from Ultimecia, Squall is shown several ilusions, ending with a shot of Rinoa dying that breaks him and a fast shot shows a tear falling from his eye.
- Dan Hibiki from Street Fighter Alpha goes to Manly Tears at the thought of his dear, departed father. OYAJI!
- He sheds them most epically in his "Fight Your Rival" section with Sakura.
- Averted in the radio ad for a movie in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City:
Action Hero: "Hoshi! Nooooo! ...I'll cry when I'm done killing.
- In the newest addition to the Super Robot Wars series, Rand's mech, the Gunleon, transforms into what can only be described as Gao Gai Gar slammed straight into a construction weapon. He proceeds to absolutely beat the asshole right off of whatever he's fighting at the time, complete with splitting it in half with his wrench. And then? The GUNLEON ITSELF cries manly tears for its fallen foe, and screams into the sky, firing a laser into the heavens for its death. [[ I can't make this sort of shit up.]] And it is absolutely awesome.
- SANGER ZONVOLT, of all people, has done this at the end of Alpha Gaiden. Considering the circumstances, I cried along with him, because he tried his best to avert the reason for said tears, but he just couldn't. This scene does not detract from his Badass, it merely exemplifies his humanity and possibly his Determinator.
- Dante in Devil May Cry 3 does this in the ending claiming it's "just the rain" while the weather is completely fine.
- Ayane in ''Dead Or Alive 3'', at the funeral pyre of her adoptive father Genra, seen here.
- Beat from The World Ends With You is arguably the most masculine character in the game, and yet (thus?) he is the only character that really cries—and he does so multiple times, with a few nervous breakdowns thrown in. He's justifiably weepy for much of the game, because he was responsible for the death of the only person he ever cared about. Twice.
Western Animation
Real Life
- Soccer players, such as John Terry after Chelsea lost the 2008 Champions League Final on penalties and almost the entirety of the England team when they lost (rather unfairly) to Portugal in the 2006 World Cup.
- England lost fair and square. Apparently in addition to being weeping sissies, they're sore losers as well.
- What made it worse for JT (as Chelsea fans call him) was that it was his penalty which would have given Chelsea their first ever UEFA Champions League Trophy in their first ever final...and he slipped as he took it.
- Gazza.
- Dick Vermeil and Brett Favre have both had several... emotional press conferences.
- In the Monday Night Football game immediately following his father's death, undeniably the Crowning Moment Of Awesome of his career, Brett Favre broke down in the manliest of Manly Tears on the sidelines when the game ended. Manly Tears were in abundance on the sidelines among players and staff and even opponents and spectators despite Favre's routing of the home team 41-7. Undoubtedly many manly-man sports fans across the country shed Manly Tears at the end of the broadcast of that game.
- Roger Federer - both after having won and lost grand slam finals (Australian Open). Win or lose, a wrenching experience going five sets for the world championship.
- On a similar note, Andy Murray recently played this trope (although the manliness is debatable) during the 2009 Wimbledon semi-finals. He was definitely approaching tears when the camera was on him after he lost to Roddick. To be fair, though, he did pretty much have the hopes and expectations of most of Britain on his shoulders.
- Male figure skaters don't seem to mind tearing up at more monumental victories or defeats; even more "manly" ones like Brian Joubert and Evan Lysacek got choked up when they won the World title. One imagines that if they can ignore the cries of sissyhood from their peers in their youth, a few tears of happiness on national television after doing well isn't something they're ashamed of.
- Watch veterans attending ceremonies about the wars they fought on: you will see them shedding tears.
- Another surprising press conference outburst: Scott Boras has a reputation as the most vile, greedy agent in all of baseball, one who only cares about getting his clients the most money possible (and, by extension, maximizing the value of his cut, but when the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim held a press conference following the tragic death of pitcher Nick Adenhart, a Boras client, Boras was the only one who was openly sobbing on the podium.
- Troper Tales for CMOH. If you'll excuse me, I have to clean off my glasses.
- It was completely acceptable for any member of the Red Sox Nation, no matter how manly, to cry when they won the World Series in 2004.
- Kurt Angle's win at the 1996 Olympics. Made light of during his WWE career, but fitting for the moment. Note: skip to 12:15 for the moment.
- Oddly enough, also a Crowning Momentof Funny, in that his opponent believed fully that he'd won, going so far as to try raising his own hand in victory when the Ref was about to announce who won.
- This article from "The Art of Manliness", outlines when it is okay for a man to cry and when it isn't okay.
- After winning the 1992 Indianapolis 500 by what remains the closest finish in race history, racing journalist Jack Arute asked Al Unser, Jr. in victory lane if those were tears in Unser's steadily-breaking voice. After Al's reply, "...you just don't know what Indy means!", he wasn't the only one with them.
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