History TragicKeepsake / AnimeAndManga

* In ''Manga/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess2016'', Link is shown to keep a black cloak from his days as a wanderer after the loss of his home.

*** In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDFreedom'', Lacus was revealed to have kept Mr. Red, [[BodyDouble Meer Campbell]]'s red Haro, after [[spoiler:Meer sacrificed herself to protect Lacus [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny two years ago]]]]. Mr. Red became part of Lacus's Haro collection.

* ''Anime/{{Albegas}}'': Before her death, Kiriko entrusted Professor Mizuki with her wedding ring to give to their daughter Hotaru in case she ever got married.

* Nagi in ''Manga/DeadmanWonderland'' wears a scarf [[spoiler: that belonged to his dead wife]], as well as a locket. [[spoiler: He believes it contains a picture of his infant son, but in actuality there is nothing inside the locket; his child was cut out of his wife's belly and the body preserved in a jar. He went insane for a while, and his current stability only comes from repressing the awful truth.]]

* ''Manga/HaouAiren'': A jade jewel that Hakuron's MissingMom gave him when he was a child [[spoiler: and they were running away from their family]]. [[spoiler: It's thanks to said jewel that Hakuron is taken in by TheTriadsAndTheTongs.]]
* In ''Manga/{{Trigun}}'', Vash The Stampede's red BadassLongcoat was made by Rem, a woman [[spoiler: who's killed by Knives,]] in the floating SEED colony, and when it's mostly destroyed during the Auguste incident, another girl in the same colony makes him a new one. However, the red color of it is a reference to Rem's favorite flower; a flower whose name means 'determination'.
* Jing from ''Manga/KingOfBanditJing'' carries his mother's soul in a crystal, making it the SoulJar variety.

* After his little sister Aya is hit by a car and left in a coma on her birthday, Ran Fujimiya in ''Anime/KnightHunters'' not only starts wearing an earring from the pair he'd bought for her present, he also starts using her name.
* The seashell in ''Manga/ElfenLied'' given to Kohta by his dead little sister eight years before the series. When Nyu sees it in the first episode, she deliberately crushes it, thinking it was making Kohta sad.
* ''Manga/FinalFantasyLostStranger'': When people die in the fantasy world, their body produces a crystal representing their life essence. While this is usually buried with the person, some family members instead take it as a keepsake to remember them by. [[spoiler:Sharuru places Yuko's life crystal in a pendant for Shogo to wear so he can literally keep her close to his heart.]]

* ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'' has Negi's staff. He got it from his father, who had been [[DisappearedDad missing and presumed dead]] since before Negi was born. The time when Negi received the staff is the one time he met his father, who disappeared again immediately afterwards. This all happened after a large-scale [[TakenForGranite petrification]] of the village he grew up in; [[SnowMeansDeath it was snowing]].
** One interesting case for [[spoiler:[[AntiVillain Fate Averruncus]] (Tertium)]] is [[spoiler:[[TrademarkFavoriteFood coffee]]. Shiori's sister made him some apparently good coffee, he went back to work and had some terrible coffee and then when visiting her again found her ''gravely'' wounded alongside an also injured Shiori. She got [[RetGone Rewritten out of reality]], he avenged her and noted that [[TearJerker he won't be able to drink it anymore]].]]

** Hayate's Schwertkreuz]], which was all that remained of [[spoiler:the first Reinforce]] after her HeroicSacrifice. A bonus chapter in ''[=ViVid=]'' reveals that the Yagami family uses it as a ShrineToTheFallen (when Hayate isn't on duty anyways, since it also serves as her EmpathicWeapon).

* Mai Mizushima from ''Manga/PurpleEyesInTheDark'' has a fang pendant. Unbeknownst to her, the fang is actually one of the fangs of her disappeared mother's beast form.

* Slightly subverted in ''Manga/{{Bleach}}''. Orihime's brother Sora gave her hairclips that she thought were too childish, and after a fight, Sora leaves without [[NeverGotToSayGoodbye Orihime saying goodbye]]. After he dies that day in a tragic accident, Orihime wears the hairclips every single day... and they become a sort-of MacGuffin that allows her to channel her powers when they awake.
* Part of the title character's face in ''Manga/BlackJack'' is a darker color than the rest. This was because it was a skin graft from his closest friend, who was mixed-race. His friend moved away afterwards, but eventually Black Jack found that he was an environmental activist. When his friend was killed during a protest, Black Jack decided to never replace the skin graft, so that he could remember his friend every time he looked in a mirror.
* Depending on the slightly different characterization in the manga, it's movie adaptation, and the anime series, the Major from ''Franchise/GhostInTheShell'' is either a cold blooded special forces team leader, or an emotionless cyborg about to lose her last bit of humanity to become a machine in mind as well as in body. Almost all of her body is military hardware and therefore government property, as are the neural implants that hold most of her memories. While the series occasionally shows two of her friends from the manga and her relaxing a bit after work, it also establishes that she has no surviving family and while her safe houses are very luxurious, they are considered completely expendable. The only thing she really owns is a small and almost fragile watch with a thin silver armband, that contradicts about everything of her personalty. However, she doesn't say where she got it and why she keeps it.
** In the anime she got it after resizing into her final body after a childhood spent in over half a dozen different ones. Batou knows this and goes out of his way to retrieve it while [[spoiler:being hunted by the government during the climax of season one.]]
* A variation in ''Manga/TsubasaReservoirChronicle''; Fai [[spoiler:isn't actually his real name. Turns out that Fai was actually his dead twin brother's name, and since he's trying to being said brother back from the dead, he's taken to using his name to remind himself.]] Thank you, Clamp, for making him more confusing than he already is.
** Also, his surname comes from the stone "fluorite" (CLAMP probably romanized it wrong, they haven't shown to be too good with English). [[spoiler:King Ashura put a fluorite crystal beside the other twin's dead body as a good luck charm and gave Fay that name for the same purpose.]]
* In ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'', there’s a sequence of tragic keepsakes being passed down among a family, Kanae Kocho is a cheerful demon slayer that had her haori (coat) passed down to her young sister Shinobu, and had her butterfly hairpin passed down to her youngest adoptive sister Kanao Tsuyuri; later on Shinobu herself dies in battle, Kanao avenges her and takes Shinobu’s butterfly hairpin after the one Kanao had gets destroyed in battle.

* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'':
** Lady Tsunade kept a necklace that was given to her by the First Hokage (her grandfather). She later gave it to her younger brother Nawaki, who died. After that, she gave it to her lover Dan, who also died. After all that, she eventually gives it to Naruto after he wins a bet with her.
** Kakashi kept his father's [[http://www.samurai-swords-for-sale.com/store/images/P/japanese-swords-samurai-swords-tanto-cold-steel.jpg tanto]] after Sakumo [[spoiler: committed {{seppuku}}.]] His Sharingan was given to him by Obito Uchiha, his best friend who died saving him from getting crushed under a rock. It gets even more tragic when he learns [[spoiler:that Obito is not only still alive, but [[FaceHeelTurn not the same person he was before]]]].
** Naruto keeps the scratched headband Sasuke left behind for a good while. [[spoiler:He gives it back when Sasuke returns in the penultimate chapter.]]
** [[spoiler: Kabuto]]'s glasses turn out to be this, [[spoiler: since they belonged to his deceased ([[SelfMadeOrphan by his own hand]]) ParentalSubstitute, the CombatMedic Nonon.]]
** After [[spoiler:Asuma]] dies, his student [[spoiler:Shikamaru]] carries multiple tragic keepsakes. [[spoiler:Specifically, Asuma's pair of chakra-chaneling trench knives, his cigarette lighter and his last pack of cigarettes. Shikamaru temporarily takes up smoking those cigarettes until he achieves vengeance on Asuma's killer, using a lit cigarette to set off the trap that [[AndIMustScream condemns the killer to a fate worse than death]]. Afterward he stops smoking and places the lighter on Asuma's grave, but continues using the knives until a decade later when he passes them down to his own student, [[SomeoneToRememberHimBy Asuma's posthumous daughter]].]]
* ''Anime/YuGiOh'': Amelda/[[DubNameChange Alister]]'s mother and little brother Mikey were killed by tanks. He carries a locket with his mothers picture and Mikey's favorite, now burnt, Dyna Dude action figure.
* ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'':
** [[spoiler: Jack carries around Carly's glasses after her death, [[DeusExMachina until]] she gets better.]]
** Later, in a similar manner, [[spoiler: Yusei keeps Bruno's CoolShades after Bruno is killed. Bruno ''doesn't'' get better.]]
* Suzaku from ''Anime/CodeGeass'' hangs onto his late father's pocketwatch throughout most of the first season. At first blush it seems to be a standard keepsake, but as the season progresses and we learn that [[spoiler:Suzaku killed his father during a massive fight, which was the direct cause of Japan's surrender]], so the watch represents his own ties to the past and his attempts to make up for that incident. At the very end of the season, he leaves the watch with what will become another symbol of his being shackled to the past: [[spoiler:the corpse of Euphemia, the woman he loved]].
* In ''Literature/KyoKaraMaoh'', when Yuuri first arrives in Shin Makoku, Conrad gives him a pendant. A flashback reveals that Conrad's close friend Julia first gave it to him years ago, before she died, and that Conrad's been wearing it ever since. [[spoiler: His passing it on to Yuuri is especially significant, since he knows (and we later find out) that Yuuri is Julia's reincarnation.]]

* In the ComicBookAdaptation of ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIV'', Fou-lu explicitly keeps Mami's bells around [[spoiler:after Mami was used as the literal [[HumanResources warhead]] in a FantasticNuke in TheEmpire's attempt to kill him. It's literally all he has left of one of exactly ''three'' people who show him decency, and Mami's bells falling from the sky is the clue that she was used as the warhead (and what quite blatantly turns him into a full-blown WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds).]]
** This is in turn based on material from the official artbook in which Fou-lu (after he's gone into a RoaringRampageOfRevenge that has literally [[OffWithHisHead decapitated the government of the Fou Empire]] and destroyed much of it) is shown on his throne with his shishi/foo-dogs and Mami's bells.
** Mami's bells end up as a TragicKeepsake (and in fact a legitimate Tragic MementoMacGuffin) a second time during the BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind (that incorporates the "bad end" of the game). [[spoiler:Ryu confronts Fou-lu with Mami's bells, noting she's ''the'' counterexample to Fou-lu's arguments that HumansAreBastards--even going so far as to explicitly point out that Mami's bells are Fou-lu's "most treasured possession". This triggers a failure of the SplitPersonalityMerge (which leads up to the manga's rendering of the "good end" of ''IV'').]]
* [[spoiler: Tsubaki]] from ''Manga/FutureDiary'' once had a toy ball given to her by her deceased mother. [[spoiler:Becomes a ChekhovsGun when Yukiteru finds it and uses it to distract Tsubaki and kill her.]]
* The title character from ''Manga/KimbaTheWhiteLion'' has his father's pelt.
* ''Manga/Cyborg009'': Albert Heinrich has the ring that belonged to his [[DeathByOriginStory tragically lost fiancee Hilda]] on a chain around his neck. Eventually, it comes in handy when [[spoiler: he uses it while nearly completely paralyzed to shoot down Cyborg 0011.]]
* [[spoiler: Madoka's hair ribbons]] in ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'' become this for [[spoiler: Homura, who wears them instead of her trademark black headband after Madoka ascends to godhood.]] In ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagicaTheMovieRebellion'' [[spoiler: Homura returns them when Madoka comes back.]] [[note]]'Comes back' here means '[[spoiler:was forced back into human form at the cost of her freedom]].' One reason Homura gives the ribbons back is because, [[spoiler:having been responsible for the above]], she doesn't feel worthy of them.[[/note]]
** In a nod to the main series, ''The Different Story'' SpinOff manga has [[spoiler:Kyouko removing her hair ribbon, as per the series' ninth episode, but this time giving it to Mami; Kyouko dies fighting Oktavia immediately after, and Mami is seen clutching the ribbon after [[DrivenToSuicide she destroys her own Soul Gem in the final chapter]]]].
* In the series finale of ''Anime/SonicX'' Tails receives [[spoiler:what's left of Cosmo in the form of a seed from Sonic after both he and Super Shadow attempted to save her with their Chaos Regeneration. Tails later cultivates this seed in a plant pot inside his workshop where at the very end of the episode it is seen sprouting.]]
* [[spoiler: A piece of Baron's headband]] in ''Anime/GenesisOfAquarion''.
* Guts from ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' wears [[spoiler: a throwing knife strap]] after The Eclipse in memory of [[spoiler: Judeau and all the other members of the Hawks who perished.]]
** Deconstructed with Casca, who is a living tragic keepsake. She was the only other survivor of the Eclipse, but went through, much, MUCH worse and had [[GoMadFromTheRevelation her minded fragmented]] as a result. Guts wants to avenge her the most, since [[StarCrossedLovers their intimate relationship was crushed]] because of the events that their former-friend Griffith caused onto them, but currently he's [[FindTheCure on a quest to cure her]] of her insanity. However, Guts was [[ThePowerOfHate seething with so much intense hatred]] that his EnemyWithin began to take form as the [[{{Hellhound}} hellhound-like]] [[TheHeartless Beast]], which constantly goads Guts into believing that he only keeps Casca around to serve as a reminder of how much he hates Griffith and that he can't really love her anymore - in between trying to get Guts to [[spoiler: rape and kill her just so he can get back to hunting down Griffith.]]
*** But it also reconstructed in that Guts knows that Casca is the only person that he has of value in the world, and [[MoralityChain without her presence]], he would have gone off the deep end long ago. That, and Casca is the only living testament of the very few good and pleasant things that have happened in [[DarkAndTroubledPast Guts' life]]. And with the possibility of seeing her cured of her insanity, Casca is really the last window of optimism that Guts has left to see in this world.
* ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'': [[spoiler: Kamina found his signature BadassCape worn by his father's corpse.]] In ''[[TheMovie Lagann-hen]]'', [[spoiler: Simon wears Nia's wedding ring as a necklace after her death.]]
* In ''Anime/PantyAndStockingWithGarterbelt'' Stocking kept her engagement ring after the Ghost she fell in love with passed on due to finally loving Stocking back.
* ''Anime/{{Shelter|2016}}'': The teddy bear that sits in a corner in Rin's room was a birthday present from her father, and the sole keepsake that accompanied her onto the spaceship.
* Several in ''Manga/DearBrother'', particularly [[spoiler: Rei's gold bracelet and porcelain doll]]. The second becomes [[spoiler: Nanako]]'s own TragicKeepsake after [[spoiler: Rei dies]]. (Alongside [[spoiler: some unused cigarettes]], in the anime.)
* In ''Manga/{{Kurosagi}}'', Kurosaki keeps a photo of his family and a newspaper clipping about their [[MurderSuicide murder]].
* In ''Anime/GenesisClimberMospeada'', Stig Bernard has a holo locket given to him by his girlfriend. He keeps it throughout the war, finally tossing it out of his Legioss in the last seconds of the series.
* In ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'', there's an episode where America decides to clear out a storeroom of his full of keepsakes from his past, mostly things he got from [[ParentalSubstitute Eng]][[BigBrotherMentor land]]. One thing there classifies as tragic, though: the musket that he used during the [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution Revolutionary War.]]
* In ''Literature/SundayWithoutGod'', Ai's most important possession is her gravekeeper's shovel, which once belonged to her deceased mother.
* In ''Manga/YonaOfTheDawn'', an interesting case occurs where Yona deliberately went out of her way to keep the hairpin that Soo-won gave her during her birthday party ... the same night she witnessed Soo-won murdering her father and she was forced to go on the run. It was most likely kept to remind her of that night.
** A more traditional example is [[spoiler: the dragon medallion on Zeno's headband; it was given to him by King Hiryuu, once the king realized that Zeno was immortal and would have to watch his friends die.]]
* ''Manga/SailorMoon'' has Minako/Sailor Venus provide a couple of strange examples:
** The ribbon. In [[Manga/CodenameSailorV her origin story]], Minako first wore a ribbon in her hair because the sempai she had a crush on told her she would look good with it, ''before'' knowing he was [[MonsterOfTheWeek a youma]]. After the reveal he became her first kill, the following day we see her putting the ribbon in her hair again... [[SubvertedTrope And quipping that the ribbon]] ''[[SubvertedTrope does]]'' [[SubvertedTrope look good on her]].
** The main series provides a rather stealthy example, thanks to ''Codename: Sailor V'' being published saltuarily during the run of ''Sailor Moon''. In the early manga we have a Sailor V poster in which our heroine poses with an ace of hearts. It's a way for her to pay respect to Ace, her first and probable true love [[spoiler: who she had to kill because he worked for the Dark Kingdom]], who had a playing cards motif and often wielded an ace of hearts (not ''the same'' as Minako's, as his deck was destroyed by the attack that killed him)... But the chapter with Ace's debut wouldn't be published until the ''Death Busters'' story arc, well after that poster appeared in the main series.
* In ''Anime/ProjectK'', [[HeterosexualLifePartners Mikoto wears Tatara's earing]] after he is killed.
* Several of them in ''Manga/CandyCandy'', particularly the music box given to Candy from [[spoiler: Stear]], shortly before [[spoiler: he is killed in WWI]], and the toy puppet given to [[spoiler: his girlfriend Patty]] by his parents [[spoiler: after his funeral.]]
* ''Franchise/DragonBall'':
** The Four-Star Dragon Ball and the Power Pole to Goku. Both items were given to him by his grandfather before he died. The Four-Star Dragon also doubles as a OrphansPlotTrinket.
** In the series finale of ''Anime/DragonBallGT'', Pan kept Goku's uniform after he vanished for a hundred years. She later passed it on to her grandson Goku Jr.
* Aladdin from ''Manga/MagiLabyrinthOfMagic'' kept Baba's staff after she died and later after the staff was destroyed, he wielded [[spoiler: Mogamett]]'s staff.
* In the end of ''Manga/YourLieInApril'', Kousei keeps one [[spoiler: from Kaori. It's an old photo from before Kousei gave his first performance, featuring Kaori, her friends and Kousei walking by behind them, making it the first and only photo Kaori has with him]].
* In ''Manga/CaseClosed'', several of these show up in the series:
** Ai Haibara/Shiho Miyano has the cassette tapes that her mother Elena (a member of the Black Organization who was ''very'' well-aware of how she wouldn't live enough to see Ai grow up) left her shortly before her death, some of which contain serious messages and others contain more lighthearted ones, like remembering her birthdays.
** The black notepad and a ring he carries around serve as this for Wataru Takagi, both of them once belonged to [[spoiler: his close friend and mentor, Wataru Date.]] The second one also has a plot point: [[spoiler: Date wanted to give the ring to his girlfriend Natalie Kuruma so he can propose to her and get married.]]
** In the "Distinguished Family's Consecutive Accidental Death" case, Miyuki Hyuga has her burned fountain pen. It belonged to her parents, [[spoiler: who died in a fire when she was little,]] in which she used it to [[spoiler: stab Mitsuaki's hand when he fell to his death.]] Moreover, that pen actually belonged to [[spoiler: her mom, since Chairman Nagato gave it to her when they were kids, and she was his first love.]]
** In the [[spoiler: "Sakura Love" and "Kobayashi-sensei's Love"]] cases, both [[spoiler: Kikuna Kagitani and Nami Kasakura's rings]] are implied to be this for them, [[spoiler: as they once belonged to their dead mothers.]] [[spoiler: When Nami's boyfriend gave the ring to another woman, Nami snapped and killed him; Kikuna had pawned hers to a JerkAss pawn shop owner who claimed it as hers rather than letting her get it back, so when the shop owner appeared dead, Kikuna was one of the suspects. (She didn't do it, but she ''wished'' she had done the bitch in.)]]
* In ''Anime/DragonBallZBardockTheFatherOfGoku'', after Bardock's friend Torra is killed by Dodoria and his gang, he uses his armband which becomes soaked in his blood as a headband to remember him.
* In ''Anime/HeatGuyJ'', after Ian and Mitchal are killed, Clair keeps their respective trinkets: Ian's class ring, and Mitchal's lucky dice.
* Yuri Mihairokoh from ''Manga/{{Planetes}}'', for a short time, carried a compass from his wife. In fact, retrieving said compass was the whole reason he came to the debris team in the first place. [[spoiler:Later, he lets Kyutaro Hoshino (Hachimaki's brother and amateur rocket builder) shoot the thing in a rocket.]]
* [[spoiler:Izuru]] is revealed to have kept [[spoiler:Chiaki's hairpin]] after her torturous death at the hands of Junko in ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool''. The GrandFinale, [[TheMourningAfter which occurs years after the event]], reveals that he still carries it around and looks at it frequently.
** Also done in an odd way with [[spoiler:Makoto]]. After [[spoiler:Kyoko]] dies, he wipes the blood off her face tenderly with one hand. For the remainder of the anime he can be seen staring at said hand, even after the blood's gone. [[spoiler:Turns out to be not-so-tragic, though, when she's revealed to be NotQuiteDead and they have a happy reunion.]]
* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'':
** After [[spoiler:Baron Zeppeli]] dies, [[spoiler:Speedwagon]] wears his [[spoiler:trademark hat]] for the rest of the ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventurePhantomBlood Phantom Blood]]'' arc.
** Joseph Joestar of ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureBattleTendency Battle Tendency]]'' wears [[spoiler:Caesar's headband]] after the latter's [[HonorBeforeReason tragic death]]. It later saves his life in the fight against [[spoiler:[[NobleDemon Wham]]]].
** After the deaths of [[spoiler:three]] of the Stardust Crusaders, [[StoicWoobie Jotaro]] is shown to have a picture of the whole group on his person at all times in future appearances.
** In a twisted and borderline example, in ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders Stardust Crusaders]]'', [[spoiler:[[NotQuiteDead DIO]] has his head affixed to Jonathan's body since his own body is gone. It counts as a keepsake because DIO is implied to have [[VillainRespect respected]] and loved Jonathan]].
* In ''Literature/SwordArtOnline'', main character Kirito ends up keeping [[spoiler:the Blue Rose Sword]] after [[spoiler:Eugeo]] is killed.
* In ''Anime/GreatPretender,'' Laurent has [[spoiler: his deceased lover Dorothy's ring,]] which he wears on a necklace around his neck. At the end of the series, [[spoiler: after her murder is avenged, he chucks it into the sea to symbolize that he can finally move on.]]
* ''Manga/BlueRamun'': Guard Captain Eagle still wears his wife Yuma's earring several years after her murder. Tradition in the Silkdeep Empire dictates that a widow or widower only needs to wear their spouse's earring for the year-long mourning period following their death. Eagle refuses to remove the earring (or to consider pursuing other romantic partners) out of devotion to his late wife, and out of a sense of guilt over not being able to prevent her death.
* In ''Manga/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess2016'', Link is shown to keep a black cloak from his days as a wanderer after the loss of his home.

* ''Anime/{{Shelter2016}}'': The teddy bear that sits in a corner in Rin's room was a birthday present from her father, and the sole keepsake that accompanied her onto the spaceship.