Tear Jerker / Mimi and the Mountain Dragon

• Mimi's village has been plagued by avalanches for years due to the Mountain Dragon's wrath. The prologue even shows a still image of villagers, including a mother and baby, staring in horror as they are engulfed by the shadow of an impending avalanche.
• Such is the extent of Mimi's shyness that, although she can actually talk, she does it so quietly that hardly anyone ever hears her so she has given up trying and only really communicates through her facial expressions and body language and her flute-playing. At one point, she tries the latter as a means of trying to get her family to notice her, it works albeit only to the extent that everyone stares at her in amazement for a moment ... but then they all start laughing at her (or at least her father and brothers do). At least her father has the decency to go over to her and pat her on the head to show that he is impressed with her flute-playing.
• The baby dragon pining for its mother while observing Mimi's mother singing her to sleep through the window and trying to make the journey itself, only to quickly become lost in the village. Luckily, that night is when Mimi decides to return it to its mother.
• Because Mimi sneaks out during the night to return the baby dragon to its mother, no one realises she's missing until the next morning and the first anyone would have seen of her is her sliding down the mountain and about to be caught up in another avalanche. This would also have been the last anyone would have seen of her before they were engulfed by the avalanche themselves.
• Mimi surviving the final avalanche, only to find the village engulfed in snow, bringing the poor girl to her knees. If the Mountain Dragon hadn't realised that Mimi was only trying to return her lost child to her and repaid her by melting all the snow, she would have lost her home, her family and everyone she knew. It turns out the villagers managed to seek refuge in the village church but they still would have been snowed in with no way out if the Mountain Dragon hadn't melted all the snow to save them.
  • Mimi herself would almost certainly have been killed in the avalanche if she hadn't been lucky enough to land on the snow-covered roof of the village church.