Tear Jerker / Senran Kagura

• Just about all of the girls' backstories count, but special mention goes to Hikage. Especially since up until this point she's been portrayed as an emotionless loner, (And the anime made her look like a psycho) her surprisingly sad background really comes out of nowhere.
• Katsuragi's story. All of this time she has been looking for her parents who were also ninjas as well and they are are alive. Until in Shinovi Versus, she had to defeat Yozakura or her parents will be killed, however Yozakura would only accept defeat if Katsuragi killed her. She takes the risk of sacrificing her parents, her loved ones who she had been looking for since she was a child and had the opportunity to see them again, because she knew that her parents would not want her to make such a decision. Honestly, you can't help but want to give the harassing blonde a hug.
  • Also counts as heartwarming, after Yokazura realizes that Katsuragi's parents are the same shinobi she and the Gessen Girls' begged to not kill Kurokage. She not only realizes Katsuragi's pain, but how Kurokage would feel if she died, and finally accepts defeat.
  • The way the anime shows Katsuragi's story is hard to watch: It shows her as a little as she can do nothing as her parents are taken away, leaving her on the rainy grass, unable to anything other than bawling her eyes out. It's even part of the OP.
• Really? No mention of the climax of Skirting Shadows with the end of Crimson Homura's final boss fight. Whenever you finish a mission as Asuka, it always ends with her jumping with joy, doing a short twirl and end off with a playful salute along with the congratulatory music. ....None of that happens here. She is completely still; her face is contorted with sorrow with no sound other than the wind.
  • Same thing with Crimson Girls on the other side with the end of the final boss fight against Ultimate Asuka. Whenever you normally finish a mission as Homura, it always ends with a Badass Armfold after sheathing her katanas before a smug smile along with the congratulatory music. No such thing here, just Crimson Homura clenching her fist as she looks at the blood-red sky, the wind blowing as sorrow overtakes her before being consumed into Orochi's body, begging Asuka, her friend and rival to free her and her Hebijo friends. Thankfully, they all get better.
• The deaths of everyone in the other schools in the Hebijo route of Shinovi Versus. All of their last words involve them either pitifully begging for their lives, tearfully apologizing to their fallen comrades, or desperately insisting they can still fight even as they bleed out. We've been following these girls for almost a dozen games, and now they're gone, all because of Miyabi's single minded obsession with restoring Hebijo's honor.
  • Ikaruga's death deserves a special mention. She actually manages to survive her battle with Murasaki long enough to warn Yomi about Murasaki's power before collapsing from her wounds, her last words before finally bleeding out tearfully telling Yomi that she believes in her. Murasaki's casually mocking her for surviving only to show up and saw a few words before dropping dead does not help.
• Pretty much any scene between Ryobi and her temporarily resurrected sister Ryoki. That she told Ryoki that she wished Ryoki would die on-mission shortly before she actually did die on mission has lead her to no small amount of grief.
• Also from Estival Versus, the Gessen girls and their final farewells with Kurokage and Miyabi's final meeting and parting with her mother. The entire last 1/4 of the story mode is full of these moments.
• Ikaruga's Angst during the Hanzo scenario in Peach Beach Splash. The thought of graduating and leaving everyone behind at Hanzo Academy has left her very depressed.
• The endings from Reflexions that reveal the girls had been so weighed down by their desires for a non-shinobi life that they ended up trapped inside a shinobi barrier created by their own subconscious. When the player helps free them, they have to return to being shinobi and leave. Asuka's is especially poignant because she's the only one who does not promise the player she might see them again in a distant future.
• The ending of the first episode of the anime's second season. Asuka is ambushed by Gekko and Senko, who reveal they've taken the rest of her Hanzo team hostage, and proceed to utterly demolish her in battle. The episode ends with a thoroughly defeated Asuka crumbling to the ground and crying broken tears.