Tear Jerker / Angel Beats!

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Brotonashi working his magic.

...It's written by Jun Maeda... what did you expect?

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• This series has quite a few Tear Jerker moments, considering everyone's already dead and they all had shit pasts when they were alive, but the disappearances of BOTH main vocalists of Girls Dead Monster in episodes 3 and 10 get special mention out of a million. Episode 10 especially because it gets you out of nowhere with Hinata accepting Yui's proposal, the explanation of how he'll marry her, the visuals of the would-be love story and Yui's disappearance, all too beautiful-but-tearjerking song by Yui.
  • The parts of Episode 3 that focuses on Iwasawa. And her disappearance.
  • Episode 10. With an emotional song to go along with it, after Hinata proposes to Yui there is a montage of their imagined life falling in love. It ends with a shot of Yui's baseball helmet and bat. On the ground. Yui is gone.
• The end of episode 6, with Otonashi giving Naoi a Cooldown Hug.
  Otonashi: Your life was real too!
• Also, the end of episode 12.
  • Yurippe resists accepting her past and disappearing, but then we get this little gem from her siblings. It does NOT help that the depressing ending theme (which, going by the lyrics, is also Yuri's theme song) plays over this exchange.
    Yurippe's siblings: It's okay. You've done enough. You don't have to suffer by yourself anymore. Thank you for thinking about us for so long, Onee-san!
  • Following this, Yuri breaks down in to tears while the ending theme continues to play over the credits, where we see every SSS Battlefront member, even ones who moved on like Iwasawa and Yui, slowly appear at Yuri's side.
  • Unless you're a Yuri hater, her origin story in the second episode. It's especially bad if you have younger siblings.
  • Otonashi's origin story also qualifies, especially the part that is told in Episode 9.
  • The start of Day 3 of the cave in, when Otonashi tries in vain to save one of the more badly injured passengers. Otonashi curses his own helplessness, and realizes that for all his efforts, this is the second time he's had to watch someone die.
  • The scene in Episode 9 when Otonashi fills out his organ donor card. The way he still keeps going, even though he's pretty much already gone.
• In episode 13, when Naoi says he was leaving first and took off his hat revealing his teary face.
  Naoi: I don't want to see any Womanly Tears!
• The very end, Yuzuru confesses his love to Kanade. She sadly had to tell Otonashi to confess his feelings again so that she'd disappear. He eventually does it, and she disappears. He breaks down into tears.
  • The final episode is by far the worst. The graduation scene was sad enough, with everyone leaving and quite likely never going to see each other again. But then, Kanade and Otonashi stay behind and go outside, where Otonashi confesses that he loves Kanade, and asks her to stay with him to help whoever enters the world after all of them. Unfortunately for everyone, she declines (though she does reciprocate the feeling), and reveals that her last regret is not being able to thank the donor of the heart transplant she received - and that donor happens to be Otonashi. They embrace, and there is an ensuing combination of Kanade thanking Otonashi over and over again and Otonashi screaming "KANADE! PLEASE DON'T DISAPPEAR! KANADE——!". The accompanying music doesn't help in the slightest. (The after-the-credits scene of them meeting in a next life helps a bit (depending on your definition of "help" - it might make you cry more); but it's almost like the producers were watching the final product and realised that that was just too much, and threw together something at the last minute to mitigate the pain.) The worst punch comes right after she disappears and Otonashi spends a few seconds desperately clawing at the air where she just was walking away before finally ending on a Skyward Scream of Kanade's name.
  • The other epilogue has Otonashi actually stay behind in "Purgatory" to help other souls move on. Alone. Even worse, it seems that he's waiting for someone... The scene where he sits alone in the council room was especially moving, especially if you see the pictures pinned on the board.
  • Not even the voice actors were immune to the sadness of this series. Emily Neves-Love, the voice actress of Angel, was crying her eyes out while she was recording the very dialogue she was speaking.
  • Ichiban no Takaramono, the insert song played during two of the saddest scenes in the whole show. Which is saying something.
    Even if I'm alone, I'll go on, even if I want to die/I can hear your voice, saying, "You mustn't die"/Even if it's tough, even if I cry in loneliness/Deep in my heart, I feel warmth/Cycling and flowing, the times change/I can't recall what happened anymore/But if I try closing my eyes, there's someone's laughter/Somehow that's my most precious treasure
• The Finale Credits. If you have somehow kept a dry eye through all of Episode 13, this will be the final nail in your coffin. In most of the credits sequences we see the SSS members appear on screen, one by one. In the finale, the credits start with everyone already there, including, for the first time, Angel. But this time, they fade. It goes down the line and ends with Naoi, then Yuri, then Hinata...and then, just about the time the viewer realizes that Otonashi and Angel are smiling at each other...Angel fades...and finally, Otonashi. Bravo, Key.
• That moment when you realize what has been staring you in the face all along: "My Soul, Your Beats." That's right, the OPENING is a foreshadowing Tear Jerker.
  • And then realize the commercial break eyecatch is a heartbeat monitor.
  • Or that the title refers to Kanade's beating heart, which was once Otonashi's and would most likely be "Angel's Beats" if rendered in proper English.
• Minor, compared to what the rest of the series has on offer, but the ending of Episode 5 strikes a rather sombre tone (especially considering that the rest of the episode is mostly wacky hijinx). The SSS successfully sabotages Angel's exams, resulting in her getting removed as Student Council President. The SSS puts on another attempt at Operation Tornado but, to everyone's surprise, Angel ignores them and doesn't try to stop them, instead making her way to the cafeteria and buying a ticket for mapo doufu. Before she can use it on a meal, the wind from the concert blows the ticket out of her hands and she can do nothing except helplessly watch it fly away. The waterworks start when Otonashi realises that mapo doufu is Angel's Trademark Favorite Food - after suffering through an awful day at SSS's hands, the poor girl was just trying to enjoy some comfort food and they robbed her of even that. It's even worse when you realise Angel was trying to help the SSS (and everyone else in the school) the whole time.

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