Manly Tears / Western Animation

He might be an asshole at times, but he does show genuine emotion.

Manly Tears in western animation TV.

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• Avatar: The Last Airbender: This show repeatedly goes out of its way to avoid portraying this trope, instead portraying it as completely acceptable for males to weep and being portrayed as neither weak or as manly, but as people with emotions.
  • This is far from the only instance in this series, which is not remotely shy about permitting male characters to weep in moments of intense emotion. Probably because most of the male members of the audience are too.
  • When Iroh returns to Ba Sing Se and makes a Shrine to the Fallen on his dead son's birthday, it actually makes him one of the possibly greatest examples of true manliness.
    • Double points of manly tears seeing as that episode was the last episode that Mako ever recorded due to his untimely death. As if people weren't crying hard enough, we were presented with an "In Memory of" dedicated to Mako. Needless to say, people were crying without abandon. To this day it still brings a small case of Manly Tears to many fans' eyes
  • Also in Ba Sing Se, he sheds a tear when Zuko knocks tea out of his hand, not really out of personal offense but at the waste of tea. "I know you shouldn't cry over spilled tea but...it's just so sad."
  • Sokka has tears in his eyes when he confronts Azula about his imprisoned girlfriend Suki, but he also has that look that means he's about to kick someone's ass hard.
  • When Sokka and his father are reunited in The Boiling Rock, Hakoda has tears in his eyes.
  • When Iroh and Zuko are finally reunited in the series finale, Sozin's Comet, they both shed several Manly Tears.
• Beast Wars: Ratrap sheds Manly Ocular Fluid during Dinobot's death, which only adds to the sequence's power.
• 'Ben 10: Alien Force'': Despite going through a lot in the series, particularly during Season 3, the only moment Kevin cries onscreen is after he loses all the money he won by selling weapons for the opposite armies of a planet in “Simple”. Thinking that Kevin is sad because Ben was unable to finish the war, Gwen embraces him.
  Gwen: Kevin? Are you... crying? Oh, you do have a heart.
  Kevin: “Yeah, that’s what poor people have instead of money.
  
• Biker Mice from Mars: Modo, the Gentle Giant of the Biker Mice. He sheds a few after a child tells him how her orphanage was destroyed.
• Multiple times in Castlevania but ironically not from the human characters, Dracula and his son Alucard are the ones who shed Manly Tears.
  • Dracula first cries bloody tears◊ when he discovers his beloved wife Lisa has been taken, her house burned down and she herself has been burned at the stake for being accused of witchcraft. Drac's tears shift to Berserker Tears as he goes on Roaring Rampage of Revenge and the Corrupt Church quickly realizes they screwed up big time.
  • Alucard cries softly when thinking about deceased mother Lisa and how he has to fight his father but wipes the tears away when Trevor and Sypha show up. If that were't enough after Alucard is forced to kill Dracula and his True Companions leave him alone in his big empty castle. Alucard sits down thinks about his childhood and then bursts into a sobbing mess before credits roll, Alucard from the games looks full of joy by comparison.
• Chowder has no qualms about openly weeping when he feels truly moved.
• Code Lyoko was completely unabashed about having the 3 male protagonists in tears whenever the situation called for it. Exactly how this is displayed depends on the character (The more emotionally repressed Ulrich usually is restricted to a Single Tear while the other 2 cry more apparently) but there is never shame in displaying sorrow.
• DuckTales (1987): The heroes were not above crying if the situation called for it:
  • "Scroogerello": Scroogerello cries after Princess Goldie is kidnapped by his wicked stepfamily. As the tears run down, he promises that he will find her.
  • "Top Duck": A version crossed with Tears of Joy when a few tears run down Launchpad's face after his family finally succeeds in getting across that they're not ashamed of, and are in fact, very proud of him.
  • "Hero for Hire": Scrooge, believing that he drove Launchpad into a life of crime and having just (apparently) watched him die, sobs as he hugs the pilot's Webbed Wonder costume.
  • "The Golden Goose": Scrooge breaks down in tears when he comes downstairs and finds Huey, Dewey, and Louie, who have been turned to gold by the Beagle Boys during a robbery.
• Futurama's Bender is not only manly, but a manly robot. Yet he cries (while denying it) when he see the poor turles suffering during a heat wave.
  • Fry The Hero cries many many times, special mentions go to "The Luck of the Fryrish" when he learns his brother named his nephew◊ after him. "Game of Tones" Fry cries mutiple times being reunited with his family in his dreams and moreso when he has no more memories of his mother that he can relive and breaks down in front of the whole Planet Express Crew. "Jurassic Bark" the whole episode invokes this for Fry and the audience.
  • In "Future Stock", even The Stoic Almighty Janitor Scruffy sheds a few tears about his dedication and loyalty when explaining why he has invested so much stock in Planet Express.
  • Lrrr (Ruler of Omicron Persei 8!) does these when he prevents a Bigfoot hunter from chopping the foot of the legendary creature, realizing that in his pursuit for Fry's "lower horn" as an aphrodisiac, he's no different from the hunter. Ndnd is warmed by her's husband's Hidden Heart of Gold, that they make love on the spot...stated to be dangerous to anyone standing within 500 meters.
  • Professor Farnsworth breaks down at Fry funeral in "The Sting" but It Was All A Dream so it was fine.
  • From a meta standpoint, Futurama is one of the foremost providers of Manly Tears, as anyone who's ever loved a pet, a sibling, a parent, or a dear friend can tell you...
• In the Goofy cartoon "How to Play Football," the entire Taxidermy Tech team sheds tears after star player Swivel-Hips Smith is tackled and has to be carried to the sidelines in a stretcher. "Tough break for the team," indeed.

• Lucius on Jimmy Two-Shoes sheds these as he's about to get the cake he never got in childhood. Jimmy then accidentally ruins it for him by bursting out of the cake, causing him to fly into an intense rage.
• There are a couple moments in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited where the entire team breaks down, the classic was when Superman "returns from the dead" and despite her name implying something, Hawkgirl's character doesn't show emotion well, so it is significant when she broke down in Manly Tears at Grundy's Death. Green Lantern keeping the film Old Yeller for just such a reason is a recurring gag through out the entire series.
• Hank Hill of King of the Hill, who's known for his traditional nature (including the "Boys Don't Cry" belief) cried rather manly tears during a touching movie.
• Korgoth from Korgoth of Barbaria sheds manly tears when his love/sex interest has her head blown up by an evil wizard. This of course leads to Korgoth impaling the wizard's eyesockets with a two-pronged candle stick holder.
• Mister T episode, Mystery of the Stranger. Just before the usual live action lecture by Mr T. After Spike is rescued from kidnappers, Mr. T kneels down and embraces him, tears falling from his closed eyes.
• Molly of Denali: In "Grandpa's Drum," Grandpa Nat sheds manly tears when his songs return to him and he takes up the drum again.
• From My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Big Mac cries in the episode "The Last Roundup" when he hears that Applejack will not be returning to Ponyville.
    • And again in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" when Apple Bloom gets her cutie mark.
  • Shining Armor shed liquid pride when Twilight Sparkle was made a princess. And he always cries at weddings. As his name may hint, he's Captain of the Royal Guard, his purpose in life is protecting others and his whole character is that plus being a sweet natured nerd. The way he cries at the wedding in "Slice of Life", however...
• The Penguins of Madagascar's Skipper cries one "very small, very MANLY" tear when he realizes just how much of his life he's wasted —er, spent— with Julien.
• The Powerpuff Girls:
  • "Twisted Sister" ends with the girls' fourth sister, Bunny, dying in an explosion due to her being unstable and being broken down into her original ingredients. As the girls mourn Bunny's death, the narrator is considerably inconsolable as he is forced to sign off on such a sad note. Likewise, a very depressing version of the background music for the end shot plays as the narrator bursts into tears.
  • Invoked by the Mayor^note Who is by no means "manly" in "Something's A Ms.". when he says, "Are you surprised at my tears, Girls? Strong men also cry. Strong men ... also cry."
  • Mojo Jojo cries these in "The Powerpuff Girls Rule!" after being forced to stop attempting to take over the world.
  • Professor Utonium did this in "Knock It Off" during the Girls' Disney Deaths. In fact, his manly tears are what bring them back to life.
• Rugrats (1991): Although none of the father figures (save for Grandpa Lou and, to a lesser extent, Grandpa Boris) are conventionally manly, they have their fair share of griefs, and no one mocks them for it:
  • Stu in "Momma Trauma" is sobbing as he recounts how Drew would repeatedly pick on him.
    • And let's not forget "Angelica Breaks a Leg," where he breaks into Tears of Joy upon finding out that Angelica was faking a broken leg, because of all the hell he has been put through due to Angelica's increasingly bratty demands.
  • In "Reptar on Ice," Grandpa Lou is clearly moved to tears by Reptar's romance with the female reporter.
  • In "Angelica's Birthday," Drew also cries as he reads his mother-in-law's birthday card to Angelica, knowing that his dear daughter is starting to become a young lady. Of course, Angelica, missing the point, is just miffed because there's no money in the card.
  • The episode "Let Them Eat Cake" takes place at a wedding, during which Chas is weeping. Stu tells him to "get ahold of [himself]". One could argue that these are Tender Tears given how sensitive Chas is, but given his Papa Wolf and Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass moments, they also qualify as manly. In hindsight, it's also possible that Chas was upset because the wedding reminded him of his deceased wife Melinda.
    • Chas also sheds a Single Tear in the episode "The Smell of Success" when the doctor reveals that the effects of her latest machine, designed to unplug a stuffy nose, are only temporary, which means that, since Chuckie has affected by the machine, he will soon be just as stuffed-up as he was before.

• He-Man shed a lone tear at the end of She-Ra: Princess of Powers' "The Secret of the Sword" while he was saying goodbye to She-Ra.
• In the 2018 reboot, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Hordak's eyes fill with tears when he learns that Entrapta did not betray him, but was instead exiled to Beast Island by Catra. Grief-stricken, he throws himself into a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Catra.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) did this once, when he failed to keep his Uncle Chuck's personality active. Sega said "no more" after that.
• Star Wars: The Bad Batch has Wrecker, a Boisterous Bruiser who literally tears up at the thought of making things go boom.
• Superman in Part 2 of the 'Apokolips..NOW!' episode (Superman: The Animated Series) after the burial of Dan Turpin.
• Brock Samson from The Venture Brothers when he is forced to destroy his Cool Car.
• Wakfu has a heart-wrenching example with Nox the Big Bad who wants to use Time Travel to go back 200 years to see his beloved family again who was killed because of his obsession with the Eliacube. Nox is determined to go back and right his wrong with the excuse that all his crimes won't happen if he fixes history, however, going back in time is said to be impossible but Nox manages to do so by draining the life force of the tree of life and killing an entire race in the process. Tragically however Nox only manages to go back 20 minutes, Nox lying on the ruin and genocide he's caused, lets a single tear fall from undeath his mask◊ at how unfair his fate is, truly a Tragic Villain.
• We Bare Bears
  • Ice Bear in "Captain Craboo" while he's saying goodbye to Craboo.
  • Ice Bear does this twice in "Yuri And The Bear", first when he gets kicked out, and again when Yuri saves him and separates himself from Ice Bear to save him from poachers.
• It is not the first time we see one of the Specialists crying, but in Winx Club Season 4's episode 25 we see Riven crying after Nabu died in the previous episode.

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