Tear Jerker / Martian Successor Nadesico

• "I've waited a long time to see you again, mister."
• The third episode of Nadesico. Gai Daigoji is introduced in the first episode as a lively, comical mecha otaku with a Super Robot protagonist's personality, despite the show being Real Robot. And indeed, the tone of the first three episodes is quite Super Robot... until the closing minutes when Gai is, out of nowhere, suddenly shot dead
  • Even more tragic is the nature of Gai's death. In your standard Super Robot show, someone like Gai would've at least earned themselves a badass Heroic Sacrifice, and indeed a situation arises just before where he comes close to achieving it. But then he survives just long enough to get shot in the back and die like a putz. The show even juxtaposes a character dying in Gekigengar in a more suitable fashion with Gai's death just to highlight how unfair it is.
• The story behind the Nadesico having such a well stocked galley is rather sad. Years prior, Howmei received a last request from a dying soldier to make paella just like his mother made it, but due to lack of spices she couldn't do it. (Bonus tearjerker: this soldier was also heavily implied to be her fiancee.) With that failure, she swore never to lack in serving soldiers ever again.
• The entire sequence on Mars where Yurika needs to make the choice of activating the Distortion Field and kill the Martians they came to save, or let the Nadesico get destroyed.
• The death of Tsukumo Shiratori as well as his girlfriend Minato being badly broken by that.
• The young pilot brought in to replace Akito in the Christmas episode is killed when she tries to fight a Jovian robot that engages a boson jump. Her death is tragic, and just as quickly forgotten. Its later revealed in the Sega Saturn video game, The Blank of 3 Years, she survived and the boson jump actually transported her to the past.