Snow Means Death / Anime & Manga

Spoilers are off. You have been warned.

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• In 07-Ghost, the first scene involves two hands (we are to assume they're Teito's) holding snow. Just as the line The snow was so beautiful...and so merciless appears, the snow immediately turns into blood. We later learn that this was foreshadowing to Teito's foster father's death.
• Alluded to in 5 Centimeters per Second, though it's the death of a relationship rather than a person. In the first part, heavy snowfall delays Takaki's trip to see Akari at Tochigi. Their relationship reaches its peak when they kiss that night in the snow, but it's all downhill from there. Their Long-Distance Relationship subsequently unravels to the point that she has undergone Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder, if not outright forgotten about Takaki, by the time they see each other (maybe) a long time later. In the third act, it's also in the snowing winter that Takaki's then-girlfriend Risa breaks up with him.
• In 7 Seeds, Mitsuru dies when she wears her old dancing kimono and dances "The Evening Crane" in the snow and ends up freezing to death.
• Angel Beats! but on a smaller scale. Yuzuru Otonashi's sister Hatsune expires after her battle with an unknown illness on Christmas Eve.
• It snows in Bokurano during the deaths of Youko Machi (in the anime) and Kanji Yoshikawa (in the manga). The latter even comments on it.
  "Sure is chilly. I didn't realize it was so cold out here. (notices a snowflake) Hey... snow? Even at a time like this, it's still possible to feel lucky and glad. How 'bout that? Ushiro…"
• Barely averted in Candy♡Candy. When Susanna crosses the Despair Event Horizon after the accident that took away both her leg and her dreams of being an actress, she goes to the rooftop of a building in the middle of a snowstorm and attempts to throw herself from it. Candy catches on her intentions, however, and she decides otherwise.
• Cells at Work! has a rather dark two-part story where the body goes into hypovolemic shock due to cranial trauma and blood loss, and the body's temperature dropping is represented by a massive blizzard kicking up.
• In Children Who Chase Lost Voices, Asuna's father died during the winter. Morisaki is also shown standing over his wife's grave in the falling snow.
• CLANNAD, an anime by Key/Visual Arts, makes use of this trope on several occasions. As a young child, Nagisa nearly dies in the snow, thus foreshadowing events years later in ~After Story~. She dies soon after giving birth to Ushio; not only is it snowing at the time, but the snow-clogged streets bring about her death in that they made it impossible to get her to the hospital or to get a doctor to her in time. A few episodes later, when Ushio dies, it is not because of the snow (most likely) — she's been ill for a long time — but the scene does take place in the snow, and immediately afterwards her stricken father Tomoya dies of grief. In addition, in the Illusionary World, the little girl (who is Ushio after her death, minus all her memories of the real world) essentially freezes herself to death in the snow.
• The entire Northern Campaign in Claymore ends this way. Most emotional was when Jean dies after helping and reassuring Clare.
• Episode 13 of Cowboy Bebop, as Gren's ship crashes in a snowy field. He doesn't die there, but he starts coughing up blood and is clearly a goner.
• A Dog of Flanders (1975): Nello and Patrasche freeze to death in the snow while looking at the beautiful painting, until angels carry them both to heaven, with Nello being pulled in a cart by Patrasche to join his mother and grandfather.
• The Death Note anime has this one. It starts snowing just as Naomi lets down her guard enough to reveal her real name to Light, who sentences her to suicide. The snow continues as she walks to her fate. Also doubles as a massive amount of luck on Light's part, as the snow makes Kira Investigation member Aizawa get out his umbrella, obscuring his vision. The guy literally walks right past Light and Naomi without noticing either of them, because if he did see the two of them, Light's little reign would've ended then and there.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Tanjiro and Nezuko's family are all slain on a snowy mountain. Nezuko survives, but is turned into a demon.
• As Case Closed is a series where people fall dead in almost every episode, there are many murder cases that happen in the snow, and where footprints and other signals happen to be totally vital as clues to reveal who killed the victim of the week:
  • One of the most emblematic cases is The Ski Lodge Mystery, where a Hot Teacher organizes a ski trip with her workmates... to murder two of them, in punishment for having killed one of their students for knowing too much about their dirty deals. Both murders happen during a snowy night... And then Conan finds out and unmasks her through Ran. (Poor, poor little Ran.)
  • Also weaponized in a filler case, where the envious Body Double of a famous actress kills her boss via drugging her, putting her in a simple white kimono that offers no protection against the cold and burying her in the snow, thus causing her to die of hypothermia. The killer then impersonates her boss until it's time to discover the woman's body in the snow, trying to make everyone believe that she was Driven to Suicide... Until Conan (through Kogoro) discovered her trick.
    • Even more meaningfully, said actress's Star-Making Role was the one of... a Yuki-Onna, who throws herself off a cliff. We even get to see bits of the movie at the start of the episode
  • Invoked again when Officer Takagi, while he's visiting an old friend's grave in the very snowy Hokkaido prefecture, is captured and put in a very cruel Death Trap inside a construction site — where he will either freeze to death, be blown up by a timebomb or be strangled in a makeshift gallow. He spends almost two days like this, and while he's rescued in the nick of time, he's said to have suffered frostbite and thus had to stay in the hospital for some days. To make things even more anvilicious, when Satou, Megure and Conan arrive to rescue Takagi in an helicopter, it actually begins to snow. (And then it switches to Snow Means Love, as not only Satou is the one who rescues Takagi, but once he's saved she happily kisses him on the lips... forgetting about a certain camera...
• Claudine: Claude kills himself on a snowy night. It's still snowing when Rosemarie visits his grave.
• Daimos: Things really hit the fan when Kaya, a Baam-seijin refugee, arrives to Earth and tells Princess Erika of King Olban's true cruelty, and he is in fact brainwashing their race to be slaves. Kaya passes away in the snow, succumbing to his injuries. Later, Erika and Margarete are trying to keep the Utopia Baam populace sustained with their resources, but the winter cold limits them severely, and Erika crosses the Despair Event Horizon believing thay there's no hope left.
• The Downer Ending to The Dog Of Flanders, which can be read about here.
• In the final episode of Eureka Seven Ao, it was snowing when Renton and Eureka were burying their firstborn infant daughter.
• Shows up in episode 10 of Figure 17 Tsubasa & Hikaru which deals with Sho's sudden death. Shot of falling snowflakes against night sky is used repeatedly.
• In Fullmetal Alchemist scenes at the Tucker house are often shown with the three kids playing in snow. Nina gets turned into a human/dog chimera with her pet Alexander by her father and subsequently killed by Scar, who also kills Shou.
• In Full Moon, it's snowing once Mitsuki has learned of Eichi's death.
• Fushigi Yuugi:
  • The first Suzaku Seishi to die - and by extension the Seiryuu Seishi he did the death-battle with—does so after a bloody battle in a field of snow.
  • Also invoked when the Star-Crossed Lovers Suzuno and Tatara get Together in Death. It's snowing in both worlds as this happens, and their souls are reunited in a snowy forest.
• Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden:
  • Takiko finds Rimudo/Uruki when he (in his female form) is chained and set to die in the snow.
  • Towards the end, it's said that Hokkan will be destroyed by a a glacial era. Takiko manages to stop that by summoning Genbu and dedicating her first Wish to avert it.
• In the first episode of Galaxy Express 999, Tetsuro's mother is killed in the snow by Count Mecha.
• The death of Tsukiyono's brother in Gamble Fish.
• The Garden of Sinners: the deaths of Souren Araya and Lio Shirazumi, both villains. Narrowly averted with Shiki Ryougi, who gives up on living right after revenge-killing the latter, thinking her boyfriend was dead.
• In Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, the flashback origin story of Kuze takes place in the Korean winter. Let's just say it sufficiently explains how he became the terrorist leader.
• Toube from Ginga Densetsu Weed freezes to death after fighting Kamikiri and his pack. The next day, the Ohu soldiers find him...literally frozen to death.
• Gundam:
  • The first Mobile Suit Gundam Wing intro. A city in ruins and an Empathy Doll Shot, all covered in a sheet of falling snow. The Movie Endless Waltz actually shows how it happened (Heero accidentally blew up an apartment building during a mission... and a little girl and her puppy, whom he had befriended the day before, were among the victims); as the realization sinks in, snow starts to fall.
  • Its use in After War Gundam X is quite flagrant when Carris Nautilus decides to try Suicide by Cop. When he tricks Garrod into shooting him, it's after a battle during a snowfall. Later, it starts snowing again when he leaves the infirmary to go and die of exposure. The snowfall shuts off immediately once Garrod and Tiffa have convinced him to live.
  • Stella's burial in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny. As Shinn carries her corpse around and then gently lets it sink to the bottom of a nearby lake, it's snowing.
  • In Mobile Suit Gundam AGE, as Yurin L'Ciel is dying, she shares a psychic vision of her time on Minsry with Flit. As the vision of Minsry's forest ends, the scenery changes and it starts to snow...
• Gunslinger Girl. The Final Battle between the Agency and the terrorists led by Dante takes place in the Turin Nuclear Power Plant in the middle of a snowstorm. It's downplayed though as the main characters who get killed die inside the building, rather than outside in the snow like the Red Shirt characters.
• In His and Her Circumstances, the most severe beating that a tiny Soichirou Arima got from his evil mother Ryouko was during a snowy and cold day. She later threw him out of the house and the poor kid was found bleeding severely in the snow-covered streets by his father Reiji, who immediately took him to safety and then decided to Give Him a Normal Life with his older uncle and aunt.
• In the Honoo no Alpen Rose manga, Toulonchamp's goons dump the injured Jeudi and her pet bird Printemps in the middle of a snowy and abandoned place, hoping she will freeze to death since she can't walk away due to her injured foot. She does her best but ultimately gets lost and then a snowstorm rages in. A kind villager and his family find Printemps and then Jeudi just in time, taking care of her until Lundi and General Guisan come for her. As Lundi and Jeudi hug happily, the trope becomes Snow Means Love.
• The tear-jerking scene (which scarred many Latin American children in The '80s) of Nobody's Boy Remi (Ie Naki Ko, based on French novel "Sans Famille," by Hector Malot), when the performing monkey Jolie-Coeur dies of pneumonia after forcing itself to perform one last time on the snowy streets. It soon gets worse, since the already terminally ill Vitalis also dies in the snow few later, in an Heroic Sacrifice to save Remi and Cappi (the only survivor out of the animals) from perishing with him. Remi and Cappi ultimately survive since a local family finds Vitalis's lifeless body just in time before the offered protection isn't enough for them.
• The entirety of Shimeji Simulation's Chapter 45 shows the world blanketed in snow, but the snow that falls are the dream fragments of people in the simulation, showing the state of the world's utter collapse because of the Sis clone's actions during the school festival. However, the "snow" also signifies Big Sis' slow death, when she was simply found by Shijima, atoning for her past actions, while also telling her Dying Wish to her little sister: go back in time and reverse everything her clone caused, at the DIRECT expense of distancing herself from others.
• In These Words features a snowy outdoors setting when Asano wakes up from his torture session after being Left for Dead in a loosely closed coffin.
• In the 2006 version of Kanon, this trope is so prevalent that it's hard to pick out which examples fit it the best. The lyrics of the opening theme ("Last Regrets") practically announce it.
  • Yuuichi's Repressed Memories are first hinted at in how much he hates snow.
  • When Makoto dies, the illusion of a green field fades to show that the surroundings were covered in snow.
  • Snow is practically a central theme for Yuuichi's meetings and conversations with Shiori, who is terminally ill.
  • Snow is arguably the cause of the subverted Look Both Ways incident when Akiko's hit by a car that appears to be skidding out of control, and the imagery of the red strawberries thrown into the snow where it happened is painfully evocative.
  • The same symbolism is made brutally real shortly after, when Yuuichi finally remembers what happened to Ayu years ago: she fell off a tree and was left comatose. Unable to take any more, Yuuichi runs out into a snowstorm calling for Ayu; he runs past the place where they used to play without recognizing it because it's covered in snow. With the snow now falling furiously all around him (just as the deaths seem to be), he lays down and waits to die. The upbeat ending theme about someone trying to find their way home seems to contradict the trope, showing Ayu happily running through the snow - until one finds out where she's been all along.
• Kaze no Shōjo Emily: As her Cool Teacher Francis Carpenter is on his deathbed, Emily sits with him, comforts him and even reads him a poem while Dr. Burnley tends to him. When he passes away, Emily is seen visiting his grave - like other graves around it, it's covered in snow...
• In Kimi ni Todoke, Ryu's mother died when he was young after her car crashed into an electric pole in a snowstorm. It goes on snowing for pretty much the whole chapter in which this takes place.
• The Kindaichi Case Files: There's a legend in a Hokkaido village about a woman and her baby who died in the snow after failing to find shelter. She is then reborn to take revenge during harsh snowstorms.
• MangaLady": Narrowly averted when Mary steals the Lady's Key, and Lynn goes out in the snow to search for it. Lynn ends up going missing, and Mary fears that Lynn might have actually died'' while looking for it and is so ashamed she puts the key back (being a rare moment of humility for her, considering she's usually a Manipulative Bitch with a Lack of Empathy). Alexandra finds a fainted Lynn in the wild and brings her back the Marble Mansion, and Mary is never found out for causing the whole situation.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • The incident in the backstory of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, where Nanoha was unprepared for a sudden ambush. There was so much blood on her white Barrier Jacket and the snow-covered terrain, while Vita tried to keep her awake in the gently falling snow. Downplayed, since she didn't actually die (though she was almost crippled for life).
  • And then there's Reinforce's last moments in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's. It was Christmas Day.
• Subverted in Marmalade Boy: Anju Kitahara has a massive heart attack during a snowy Christmas, but she survives. (Barely).
• The winter scenes in Millennium Actress portend doom: when she first meets and falls in love with the artist he's bleeding; later during WWII she's imprisoned for helping him and he gets captured and executed; during the 50s she tries to find him in the snow fields of Hokkaido and nearly dies. During her actual death it's raining - close enough.
• My-HiME: Immediately following Alyssa Searrs' defeat, the Searrs corporation ordered the "termination" of the project Alyssa had been created for due to her failure. This involves firing missiles at most of the main characters. No one actually dies from this, but it begins snowing immediately after. What happens next, you ask? Miyu, the robot girl, flees with a weakened Alyssa, who gets shot while Miyu is fetching water for her. So Miyu takes Alyssa's body, walks into a nearby pond with it, and freezes the two of them at the bottom.
• In Naruto, the deaths of Zabuza and Haku are marked with the falling of snow. Though this is also partially because Haku's name means white, and he comes from a snowy village...
• In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, the destruction of Negi's hometown occurred over the course of one snowy night.
• One Piece:
  • It was snowing when Donquixote Rocinante, the second "Corazon" of the Donquixote Family, was shot by his older brother Donquixote Doflamingo. As he lay dying, he clung to life as long as possible to ensure the "spell" he put on Law to keep him unheard stayed so Law could escape. He finally died when the falling snow completely covered up his body, while Law's cries could finally be heard, only to be drowned out by the sounds of the battle between the Donquixote Family and the Marines.
  • The Going Merry's death at the end of the Enies Lobby arc.
• In Penguindrum, when it looks like Himari Takakura will actually be Killed Off for Real, her brother Shouma and his Love Interest Ringo quietly lean against each other in the snow.
• planetarian: In the finale, The closing scenes of the game reveal that the rain has stopped and the snow is finally falling which represents hope not only for the Junker, but for humanity.
• In Project K Mikoto kills the colorless king, and seemingly Shiro during the first snow of winter. Moments later Mikoto himself dies.
• Snow falling in summer is taken as an omen of Happosai's impending death in Ranma ½. (He recovers, though.)
• The movie sequel of Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai took place during winter and has a major arc revolving around Heroic Sacrifice, culminating in Mai's death on the day before Christmas. Even showing her blood pouring out amidst the snow when she was hit by the car from which she saved Sakuta.
• Nobodys Girl Remy: After Dolce and Zerbino are torn by Savage Wolves, Remi and Joli-Coeur find Vitalis, who's also unconscious and buried in the snow. Vitalis is able to gaze at Remi with sad eyes before succumbing to the cold, and Remi cries atop his corpse.
• In Rurouni Kenshin, Tomoe dies in the snow. More exactly, she attempts to help Kenshin during a very unfair fight but he accidentally strikes her alongside the enemy, and she dies few afterwards in the snowy fields.
• In the first Sailor Moon series, the final confrontation with the Dark Kingdom takes place at "D Point" near the North Pole, and the penultimate episode in which the Senshi all die facing the Doom and Gloom Girls is appropriately snow-covered. To fit with the theme, each one of them also happens to die on a mountain-like structure of spiked ice. Usagi herself battles the Metallia!empowered Queen Beryl while standing on a similar ice structure and defeats her, but dies as a consequence of releasing the whole potential of the Silver Crystal. They all get better when said Crystal, acting on Usagi's last wish, revives them (as well and Mamoru) but with temporal Trauma-Induced Amnesia.
• Saint Seiya:
  • At the end of the Galaxian Wars arc, it starts to snow in the mountains where Phoenix Ikki has just been defeated by the other Bronze Saints. While Seiya and the others hold off Docrates' forces, preventing them from stealing the Sagittarius Gold Cloth, a dying Ikki regards the snow as a symbol of his purification... and then gets up and brings down the mountain on himself and Docrates to save the Saints' lives, burying everything and everyone in rock and snow. Then again, he IS the Phoenix Saint.
  • The Asgard filler arc happens in a very snowy environment in the North of Europe. All but one of the Asgard Saints die in the snow. Saori herself almost kicks it too trying to sub in for the Brainwashed and Crazy Hilda, but she lives to tell.
  • Similarly, another filler has the Crystal Saint dying in the middle of a snowy and icy scenario, with Hyoga desperately beggging him to live and Yakov and Seiya sadly watch over them. Later, Camus and Hyoga's duel in the Aquarius Temple leaves the whole place covered in ice - Camus dies, Hyoga almost kicks it too but Saori heals him.
• In Sakura Gari, Sakurako dies this way, slitting her wrists open with a katana and then drowning self in a pond as the snow falls...
• In Sand Chronicles Ann's mother Miwako commits suicide and is found dead on top of a mountain in the winter when it's snowing quite badly.
• Sound of the Sky's last three episodes happen in the middle of Winter. A minor secondary character commits suicide by walking out into a snowstorm, and the truce going on since the first episode is suddenly broken and war finally comes to the small town our heroines are deployed.
• The Happy Flashback to Sara meeting her brother Ralph in the snow in Str.A.In.: Strategic Armored Infantry appears just before they prepare to fight to the death in the present.
• In the second season of Tokyo Ghoul, the major battles that open and close the series take place during snowfall. All that lovely snow, and bodies of mooks everywhere.
• Weathering With You: As bad as things get, it isn't until unseasonal snow starts falling that things rapidly race to their nadir.
• The last episode of Welcome to the NHK combines this with Snow Means Love; for various reasons, Sato and Misaki both attempt to commit suicide at a snow-covered jetty and realise they love each other.
• At the end of Winter Cicada, the doomed lovers commit seppuku in the snow.
• In Wolf's Rain there's a scene where Quent, thinking Blue is dead, lies down in the snow to die. It's a subversion because Toboe saves him by sharing his body warmth. In the final two episodes they and others end up dead anyway, and snow covers their bodies before the titular rain finally shows up.
• In Your Lie in April, the last time Kousei sees Kaori alive is on a snowy rooftop. The way glowing particles fall to the ground during their possibly-imagined final performance together strongly evokes snowfall. Later, he retrieves Kaori's letter from her parents in front of the cemetery she's buried in under the raining snow.