WARNING: Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies to Tearjerker pages. All spoilers will be unmarked.
Even with the premise being as ridiculous as it sounds, there are still plenty of sad moments to go around.
- Though it was mostly Played for Laughs in the first chapter, it's shown in Chapter 85 and the Volume 1 bonus contents that Rentarou getting constantly rejected really did get to him at one point, and remembering it brings him to tears:Rentarou: Ever since that day, I've had my heart broken over and over and over again... so I made the effort to improve myself and read tons of books on love... but despite all of my hard work... my love never blossomed...Rentarou: Nobody loved me nor did they need me... "I don't need you", "You're not the one", they said... it felt as if my entire existence had been denied.Rentarou: Yeah, if this is how it's gonna be... then would it be better if I just... never had these feelings that made me fall in love with others... or a heart begging to be loved... that was what I thought...
- The poignant follow-on to the above is that both times it's emphasized that as much as Rentarou has helped his girlfriends, they've also helped him, pulling him out of the darkness he was in. He is needed, and he is loved.
- Shizuka's heartbreak at seeing Rentarou with Hakari and Karane after meeting him for the first time, which causes her to reflect on her backstory.
- Kusuri's fantastical drugs made the other members of the chemistry club quit. And when one of her latest turns the girls into zombies, she tearfully swears to stop making them.
- Hakari being forced by her mother to break up with Rentarou under the threat of sending him somewhere far away where nobody will find him, and his scream of impotence as he realizes he doesn't have what he needs to counter Hahari's power.
- When Rentarou tries to rescue her from her mother, Hakari considers herself such a burden to him that she tries to jump out her bedroom window.
- Particularly notable in that it proves there is some truth to the clause that a girlfriend will die if she loses her soulmate.
- Hahari reflects on the boy she fell in love with at age thirteen, and believes that she is being unfaithful to his memory by falling in love with Rentarou.
- She has a beauty mark under her left eye, which in Japan is meant to imply her as a tragic character, someone who has a lot of deep internal sadness, as the beauty mark represents a tear.
- Kurumi's nearly constant state of hunger caused her to lash out at people regardless of their actions, leading her to think she has no good traits about herself.
- Mei's backstory, to the point where it was moved to a bonus chapter due to clashing too heavily with the rest of the manga. Her parents were indebted to loan sharks, and after a period of abuse, they eventually threw her out into the snow. This destroyed any sense of self-worth Mei probably ever had. And she says that this was the rough outline because she didn't want to disturb the readers too much.
- In Chapter 89, she mentions that the Buddhist food she is currently eating (It Makes Sense in Context) would have been a feast before she met Hahari. The implication is clear - her parents routinely starved her to the point where such a meagre meal would have seemed like an excess to her.
- Iku's trauma about injuring a spectator after hitting a home run, causing her to freeze up whenever she steps up to bat.
- After drinking the "tsundere unmaker" drug, Karane is so upset at the thought of the person she used to be that she actually starts crying.
- In Chapter 59, Chiyo briefly remembers her mom and starts crying.
- In her childhood, Naddy was trained by her family to be a proper Yamato Nadeshiko, something she never had sort of interest in, and was harshly scolded and punished for failing lessons. She was locked in her family's warehouse for having trouble with playing the koto
, and the sight of her makeover following a newfound interest in American culture caused her parents to ban her from their home altogether. Her disassociation from her heritage and identity as a Fauxreigner brings her shame up even currently.- The Extras chapter expands on Naddy's later childhood. Upon receiving perfect scores in her Japanese assessment, her parents tell her this meets with expectations and to return to her room. They express no congratulations or acknowledgement of this as an achievement and are still so emotionally-absent from their child's life that they're not even illustrated.
- As a young girl, Yamame was so traumatized about accidentally stepping on an insect that her father had to hypnotize her to help her out of her guilt-ridden state.
- In Chapter 81 it's disheartening and sad to see Kishika go from this responsible senpai to almost an infant-like state because she never got the chance to be a little kid. Especially since she felt the need to make up two parents, because of her dad not being in the picture and her mom being unable to care for her and her siblings. As noted in her character folder, Rentarou's probably the first positive male interaction she's had that wasn't either a Kouhai or a teacher/student relationship.
- And what’s worse is that her mother secretly wants to be able to pamper her but thinks that Kishika would refuse to let her do so.
- In Chapter 84, the girls still retain their outlandish quirks and habits as babies... except Naddy. Or rather Nadeshiko. Rentarou notices that she's not playing with the other girls. She's by herself looking as depressed as she did in her backstory. It takes Rentarou playing horsey with her to make her happy.
- Baby!Chiyo catching a glimpse of her glasses. She's reminded of her actual mother and starts crying for her. Even Grown-up!Kusuri isn't able to calm her down.
- This eventually makes the other baby!girlfriends start crying for their mothers as well. As well as Rentarou, just from seeing them cry and being unable to stop it. Even if it's slightly bogged down by him wishing he was their mother, the art of Rentarou in tears is hard to watch.
- Ahko is heavily implied to have lived a lonely life due to a medical condition, as the Hyper Aware Rentarou was apparently the first person to look past her perpetual smile and seemingly inappropriate reactions and see her actual feelings.
- When Ahko and Karane run into Ahko's old friends, Karane notices that she's forcing herself to pretend like nothing happened between them. It turns out Ahko blames herself and her condition for the collapse of her relationship with them, and Karane is quick to realize that that wasn't the case, it was that her old friends were assholes who wrote her off without consideration of her feelings and let her blame herself for what happened. That is to say, it wasn't just Ahko's condition that isolated her, but also that other people used it as justification for their shitty treatment of her.
- It's also heavily implied that Ahko knows what Suu's going through with her self-hatred because she's been through it herself.
- Kurumi's low self-esteem returns in Chapter 102. She remembers saying that she had no intentions of getting close to the family and wants to take it back after all this time. She even admits to thinking at times that Mei actually hates her and is keeping it behind her smile.
- Rin is mortified when her true self slips out in front of Rentarou. She's spent several years hiding that side of her and she notes that it's been hard to do so.
- The Volume 14 extras reveal that her father put the lid on anything violent around her when he noticed that she enjoyed it. He notes that as her father, he loves those smiles as much as her others... but he also knows that society as a whole won't see it that way. He'd be thrilled if she were to find people who accept her as she is, but she'd endure a lot of heartbreak until she did.
- Tama's job as an office lady depressed her so much that she had contemplated killing herself in an attempt to reincarnate as a cat. The only reason she didn't go through with it was because she believed her bad luck would follow her to her next life.
- She eventually gets taken in by Hahari, which many readers expected would happen due to the latter’s wealth and lust for cute things. Despite initially enjoying the lifestyle, it doesn’t take long for Tama to become racked with guilt over being pampered while the other girls are working or studying and feeling like she’s powerless to improve herself. Hahari suffers a My God, What Have I Done? moment and abandons Tama on a roadside, clearly fighting her own perverted urges as she leaves the area.
