YMMV / Saikano

• Awesome Music: While the soundtrack is often not something mentioned, Tenkei - Chi No Ikari (translated roughly as "Heavenly Punishment - Wrath of the Earth") remains perhaps the most easily recognizable theme, being a chaotic and fittingly named theme for the end of the world.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: The show lends itself to Christian interpretations.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Many fans pretend the anime ended at episode 10, with Shuuji and Chise running away, rather than the additional Angst the series would later get bombarded with. Readers of the manga pretend it ended at the middle of volume 2 for similar reasons. The middle of the second volume...out of seven. Hilariously, even some Fan Subs and scanlations encourage this, with this message in particular appearing immediately after episode 10 ends.
  "This is the end of happiness in ''Saikano''. If you would prefer the anime to have a happy ending, consider stopping here and pretending there are no more episodes. Continuing will only bring misery and pain. You have been warned."
• Mainstream Obscurity: Not many ever get around to watching it.
• Memetic Mutation: The manga's reputation as the saddest thing ever made.
• Narm:
  • Many scenes where Chise cries, but the sex scene between her (or better said, a re-built/re-born version of her) and Shuuji tops it all.
  • The reveal of what happened to the kittens comes off a little too Yank the Dog's Chain.
  • The character designs make it that instead of two high school students falling it love, it seems like a middle school student and her teacher. Not to mention the constant going Off-Model in the manga.
• Nightmare Fuel: See: And I Must Scream. Also a massive Tear Jerker.
• Paranoia Fuel: Watching or reading this while sufficiently cynical about current geopolitics can make one worry that World War III will break out at any moment, especially in The New '20s.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Both the anime and manga have some sort of infamous reputation of being the "saddest thing ever made", since no matter what they do, all the characters seem doomed to a tragic fate. The 3 final episodes in particular are so bleak, depressing and hopeless that some viewers prefer to consider episode 10 as the "true" ending of the series.
• Squick: The character designs are just one aspect of this.

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