Anime & Manga / Woobie

Amongst all of the drama in anime and manga, there are some characters that you would really want to comfort.

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The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You:
- Shizuka more than qualifies with her backstory - she was constantly picked on by her fellow students for pointing at passages in books instead of using her voice to communicate, and physically abused and yelled at by her mother for being a Cute Mute. Then she falls in love with Rentarou, only to believe that her feelings are unrequited when she sees him with Hakari and Karane. Thankfully, things get better for her once she confesses and Rentarou confirms that he does return her feelings despite already being in a relationship with two other girls.
- Ahko didn’t have anyone she could relate to before she met Rentarou; while she had nominal friends, they dismissed her as clueless due to being a Frozen Face Perpetual Smiler, never made any attempt to try and connect with her, froze her out of their group, and let her feel responsible for the friction between them. It's not surprising that it's Suu's self-hatred that gets Ahko motivated to help her remember everyone, because that's a feeling Ahko's all too familiar with.
Belldandy from Ah! My Goddess perfectly fits this trope when she starts crying, usually because she sees Keiichi being in any way physical with another girl...
Misuzu from AIR reaches a certain level of woobie-ness in the last few episodes of the series, when she finally gets overcome by her curse and, after a lot of pain, dies beautifully in the arms of her adoptive mother.
Tetsuo from AKIRA is considered one. He largely wants revenge on the city after years of being subjected to Parental Abandonment and Kids Are Cruel, and looked down upon by everyone else in his gang including his best friend. The scenes from his backstory really make you feel for the guy, in part because he made a very cute kid.
- Kaori, Tetsuo's girlfriend also qualifies. Her Woobie status is achieved by being the only truly kind and innocent character in the entire setting, yet being mocked, ignored, almost raped and eventually crushed to death by the then-mutating Tetsuo. Granted that's all only in the movie, but in the Manga she's still made into a sex slave, develops Stockholm syndrome, and is then shot. The only consolation is that in the latter, it can be seen that Tetsuo genuinely cared about her.
Kanou Taisuke of Alive: The Final Evolution is a prime example. A happy-go-lucky individual, it turns out the reason he has superpowers is because He feels guilt over his parents' death. They died in a car accident, apparently caused by a drink can under the brakes. Before he left the car, he was drinking orange juice, left it on the divider between seats, and only saw it later in a plastic bag being taken away by police. Being a grade schooler, he attributed this to be entirely his fault.
Angel Beats! has Angel. She is nothing short of tortured by the protagonists for upholding the rules.◊ As an anonymous forum poster said:
I didn't think Angel Beats was supposed to be taken literally.
- And then you find out why she's always alone.
Misaki from Angelic Layer in episode 25 of the anime, a HUGE Tear Jerker episode, when she sees that her mom is the champion of Angelic Layer and jumps to multiple conclusions on why her mom never went to see her. She blames herself thinking that she was a bad girl and then all of her repression of her feelings from the entire show comes out and she runs away because she can't face her mom. Finally when her mom finds her she just bursts out crying and you want to scream "HUG HER ALREADY!" to her mom.
Assassination Classroom:
- All of Class E can be considered this after seeing the other students and teachers treat them like pariahs, since they are basically punching bags for the rest of the school. Luckily, Koro-sensei is there to help rebuild their confidence.
- Irina herself, during the Island arc confessing she took her first life at a young age, that of the murderer of her parents and had to share the body heat of her victim to stay alive; she embraced the world of assassination instead of fearing death, as Lovro told her the memory of the kill would never leave her. And the God of Death arc elaborates how she felt the relative normalcy of her life with the students had to be nipped before she became too engulfed in it, even if it made her happy. Leading her to betray them while trying to prove her own strength.
- Class E's previous teacher, Aguri Yukimura was a devotedly hard worker with a real love for what they did and was kind, but was pushing their efforts to a group broken enough by the system to believe that working harder will lead them nowhere. She also had an abusive fiance easily upset with her in the form of Kotarō Yanagisawa, better known to us as Shiro. She then falls in love with Koro-sensei, who she witnesses in experiments becoming less and less human (physically speaking; personality wise he was becoming human again). All this, and we know of her fate from the start.
Astro Boy from Astro Boy/Tetsuwan(Mighty) Atom may be "The Woobie" perfection. Not only is he incredibly cute, but his origin is that he only exists to replace a scientist's dead son, when he is unable to fill this void, the scientist (Dr. Tenma) simply discards him, selling him to a circus but rescued by the head of the ministry of science (Dr. Elefun) but even after that, Astro Boy goes through his entire series dealing with intense robot racism. The Woobie element is only increased in the original Manga when the Manga reveals Dr. Tenma was once married. When their son dies and Tenma replaces him with Astro, the wife is reluctant but as she begins to grow attached to him and even loving him like her own son, Tenma starts to hate Astro for not being like his dead son. Tenma starts drinking a lot and in a drunk rage selling Astro to the circus with his wife divorcing him shortly afterward. After that, the only time she gets to see him is far in the back of the circus audience until she becomes terminally ill with her last request to be seeing Astro one last time. The Ring Master not only refuses, but does not tell Astro she is dying so he won't leave so she dies alone without Astro ever knowing. Many more cruel acts follow at the circus including Astro being forced to kill other robots, and being tortured if he doesn't
Attack on Titan: Almost everybody qualifies. Eren, Mikasa, Armin, and Connie all suffer the Orphan's Ordeal and all the other soldiers either suffer a Cruel and Unusual Death, witness their comrades suffering it, or see the half eaten and/or vomited corpses of their friends. Krista seems to be the woobie champion thus far, having gone through an Orphan's Ordeal even while her parents and grandparents were alive, coupled with parental abuse from her estranged mom — and that all before her father's servants gave her mother a bad case of Slashed Throat — on his orders, while Krista watched. And her mother's last words were "I wish you were never born." And then there's the whole thing with Ymir, the closest person she had in her entire life, leaving her behind to escape with other Titan Shifters...
- Reiner may in fact take the title from Krista, as the author is going out of his way to make us feel sorry for him. Break the Cutie, "Well Done, Son" Guy, Survivor Guilt and Interrupted Suicide are just some of the tropes that apply to Reiner's story. His friends Bertolt and Annie also qualify to a lesser extent.
- Then you have Falco, who is being used/manipulated by Eren, who is trying to infiltrate Marley's military. The audience knows from the start that Falco's being used, and you end up feeling sorry for him because he's just a kid who was trying to help the nice mentally ill man send letters to his family.
- If anything, it's probably easier to list the Attack On Titan characters who aren't woobies at this stage...
Azumanga Daioh:
- Chiyo-chan most definitely qualifies. Fans don't want to admit it, but they enjoy cooing over her being tortured by Yukari's driving, getting abused relentlessly in gym class, and being teased for her youth by most of her friends. Osaka also has elements of this, though most of her distress comes from her own spaciness.
- Osaka was tricked into eating extremely spicy food by Yomi (in a moment of uncharacteristic jerkassery) after saying she couldn't handle anything spicy. Additionally if you translate Osaka's first image song into English, her woobie levels go waayyy up, since she's basically singing about how she realizes she's a Cloudcuckoolander, but is unable to do anything to fix it.
- Sakaki also counts, thanks to her social awkwardness and constant bad luck with the cats she obsesses over. The only problem in her case is that most other characters think she's an aloof and cool badass, even though she's really just shy.
- Kaorin may also count, due to her unrequited crush on Sakaki, who is totally oblivious. Then Kimura gets fixated on Kaorin, and the poor girl's life really becomes an emotional roller-coaster.
Czeslaw Meyer from Baccano!. He is tortured to death several times throughout his life, including by his trusted guardian, and Vino. He seems to suffer the most out of any character in the series, without much of a happy ending.
Almost every character whose backstory is elaborated on in Beastars is this to some degree. No one in the series has it harder than Gosha though, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a fan who would argue otherwise. He was a Komodo Dragon who was on track to be an enormously successful and beloved quasi-ruler of Japan, but he gave it all up to marry into a family of self-destructive wolves who all seem to have the general attitude of "If I want it, it's worth dying for. And if I can't have it then life isn't worth living." For starters, his wife Toki decided she was okay with dying by Komodo Dragon venom if it meant she could have a real kiss with Gosha, and to that end she removed all of the anti-venom from their apartment to make him think it was safe to kiss her. So this man's in his 20's and already he has his wife's blood on his hands through no fault of his own. But Toki left him with their infant child Leano who tried to pretend she and Gosha weren't related in public due to the stigma surrounding interspecies couples. Then, when she became an adult and started to develop more Komodo Dragon-like traits she decided she would rather kill herself than live as "less than" a beautiful, pure-blooded wolf. And she left behind her then twelve year old son Legosi, who blamed Gosha for his mother's death and cut him out his life. And it's implied at the end of the series that there is a high likelihood that one day Legosi will eat Haru and then kill himself out of guilt. Fortunately, if that happens Jack and Louis will be more than happy to help Gosha raise his great-grandchild in his old age^note.
The Berserk universe is rough on pretty much everyone.
- Guts and Casca, the Star-Crossed Lovers of the series have it especially bad. While Guts has shades of Jerkass Woobie, his lover is more of a a complete woobie. Casca was sold by her parents to a noble who wanted a new serving girl, only for her to learn that he wanted her for sex, not cooking and cleaning. She was saved from being raped only by the arrival of Griffith. The two had it relatively easy during their time with the Band of the Hawk and things take a rare, optimistic turn for them when they admit their love for each other...until the Eclipse went down, and it all went to hell. Griffith sacrificed the Hawks, leaving them to get slaughtered by countless monsters. Casca lost everyone under her command, and was ultimately raped when Griffith, who had become the fifth member of the Godhand, Femto, got his hands on her. Guts took down a multitude of demons and even chiseled off his own left arm in a furious bid to save her, but in the end, it was all for nothing. And things only got worse for them after the Eclipse, with Casca miscarrying and giving birth to a corrupted child as a result of Femto's rape tainting the child that she and Guts conceived and her traumatized post-Eclipse state in general being a source of serious heartbreak for Guts, to the point where at times one doesn't know which of the two to feel worse for. And that's not even mentioning the Superpowered Evil Side that Guts has which is now working against him and which wants Guts to kill Casca so that he can get back to his vendetta against Griffith. All in all, the Berserk universe has made it its mission to ensure that these two never find happiness, and is more than enough for someone to get all the right feelings to give these two a hug.
Bitter Virgin: Hinako Aikawa suffered excessive sexual abuse from her stepfather that had gotten her pregnant twice before the age of 15. The reader gets sucked into the manga primarily because they want to see her be happy at the end. And even then, the main characters' hyper negativity makes them skeptical that they'll be able to stay together forever, so it's hard to determine if the ending was really that happy...
Black Butler:
- Alois's maid Hannah from the second season. She has an eye gouged out by Alois...and later that night, she's right back to her maid duties, a large bandage covering half of her face. Even the "mysterious stranger" who is actually Sebastian takes what could be interpreted as pity on her. And then Alois walks in, hearing what the "mysterious stranger" said. Alois then smacks the tray out of her hands, gives her a hard slap across the face, and calls her a whore, mocking the pity given to her by the "mysterious stranger". He later chucks a costume crown at her face, causing her to bleed, and forces her to strip in front of him, Claude, and anyone who might be walking by just so he can use her dress to disguise himself. She doesn't really show any reaction to it, but she's probably used to that treatment by now.
- Snake also counts, after his character got explored a bit. Poor guy is painfully shy because most people shun him for his appearance. He is also adorable, has tea parties with his snakes (who for most of his life were his only friends), and every single "friend" he has ever made has either been using him or working for someone who was. The friends he had from the Noah's Arc circus (the first people who ever accepted him as a person) that he has been looking for since they have gone missing kidnapped children for a man they knew would murder them, got him out of the freak show he was in just so he and his snakes could act as their personal guard dogs, and are all dead and Ciel only took him in to neutralize the threat Snake posed to him since he and staff were the ones responsible for killing the Noah's Arc crew.
Garcia of Black Lagoon. Getting kidnapped is never a pleasant experience, not to mention that he lost his mother at a young age. And then he goes on to lose his father, and his favorite maid ends up shooting him. Poor kid can't catch a break.
From Blade of the Immortal there's Otono-Tachibana Makie. The only non-soul crushingly tragic things about her life is that she's the best fighter in the whole world and the World's Most Beautiful Woman to boot... Oh, no, wait, wrong of me; her being the best fighter in the whole world was precisely why her life became nothing but a series soul crushingly tragic events and the only "good" her good looks ever brought her was a successful life in prostitution.
Killy of Blame!. He goes through the entire series getting walloped with semi-nuclear weapons, various bladed weapons, and gigantic monsters; gets a great deal of his skin burned off; and never, ever complains. He just gets up, and walks onward. It's almost painful to read by the end of the series, as the massive physical trauma he has taken throughout the series is obviously beginning to take its toll (a missing leg and completely blinded eye being the most obvious injuries).
Blood+ is full of these. It seems that just about everyone, even the villains, have been hurt by someone stronger, lost loved ones, or generally suffered endlessly. Except maybe Amshel Goldsmith.
- And by everyone we mean EVERYONE. Especially Saya herself. She's lived for a century and half, most of it spent suffering emotionally while fighting off her own race for the humans' safety, her bat-shit crazy sister causing most of the events of the anime as well as raping her little brother Riku and getting her and her Chevalier Haji subjected into extreme physical abuse. To twist the knife further? The entire Diva Crisis was caused by humans themselves, specifically Joel I and Amshel.
- We mentioned Haji. And oh boy he's highlighted here for a good reason. His entire life is this trope. He was sold to Amshel and Joel I for a loaf of bread, fell of a cliff, experienced the immensely painful process of Chevalier transformation, waits every 3 decades for Saya and what do they do after that? Fight off Chiropterans. Hell, one of the Drinking Games is about the amount of times he's been physically abused.
Sabato-chan from Bludgeoning Angel Dokurochan is a parody of The Woobie in that every scene involving her usually ends with her being ridiculously destitute and suffering enormous injury (though, this is NOTHING compared to what the main character/Butt-Monkey/Chew Toy Sakura has to go through on a regular basis).
Meet Okumura Rin, the main character of Blue Exorcist. He was constantly harassed by other children when he was young, called a demon because of his temper and Super-Strength. When he's fifteen, his father reveals to him that — surprise! — Rin is actually a demon (the half-demon son of Satan and a human woman, to be specific). His powers have been mostly suppressed by being sealed in a sword called Koumaken. If he unsheathes Koumaken, Rin will lose his humanity forever. Rin flips out at his father when he finds out, which catches his dad off guard. Satan takes this opportunity to possess Rin's adoptive father and meet his son. Rin's father's body can't take the strain, and he dies. Of course, Rin has to draw Koumaken and loses his humanity shortly after. Then, at his father's funeral, a "family friend" who he was told to rely on gives him three options: Die the easy way, die the hard way, or kill the people trying to kill you. Rin takes a fourth option and chooses to become an exorcist. He goes to exorcist school, where he finds out that his younger twin brother Yukio has known about Rin's powers before Rin did and is a teacher at the school (he had been training to be an exorcist since he was seven). Said brother tells him that he should either turn himself over to headquarters "or just die, please". Even though they reconcile, it still had to hurt. As Rin slowly makes friends with exorcist classmates, he finally has something to be happy about. Then his half-brother shows up and starts curb-stomping his friends, forcing Rin to expose his true nature to them. Things get... awkward, to say the least.
- And it gets worse: Turns out he has serious Survivor Guilt about the above incident with his foster father and is a SERIOUS Type A Stepford Smiler. Even when he's about to executed and firmly believes that he is a monster who deserves to die, he will smile and fake being okay and happy, just for the sake of his friends.
- His brother Yukio isn't much better being a Child Soldier who constantly questions what his and his brother purpose is in all of this, is a Broken Ace who is secretly envious of his elder brother and even on some level hates him...but hates himself even more and, on top of that, he just might not be completely free of being a child of Satan.
Amon from The Boy Who Saw the Wind. First his family has to run away from the supposed government because of his powers. THEN he gets into a car crash which kills both of his parents. THEN it turns out the woman his parents worked with and he trusted was with the bad guys (the aforementioned supposed government). He ran away from her and eventually lived in a small seaside village with a nice family. Who promptly all get killed off a few months later, aside from one of his friends. They run away to some other place to live for a while. THEN his friend gets kidnapped. THEN so does he. THEN he's used to attempt to make something along the lines of an atomic bomb. He's rescued eventually and incites an entire city to rebel. After that, they go in and save the day, THEN he gets shot and he dies.
Cardcaptor Sakura: The Nothing Card. The second movie's Anti-Villain, it was the one card that possessed "negative energy" power, to serve as a balance between all the positive energy power of the other cards. She considered all the other cards to be her friends, and they were happy. Then Sakura unleashed the cards, and she ended up buried under a house for years without anyone knowing she was there. Then she had to sit there and realize that all of her friends were being reunited and she still was still stuck under the same house. She finally got free, and began "vanishing" landmarks and people, stealing all of the Sakura Cards over the course of the movie. Anytime someone tries to stop her, or threatens to seal her away/take her friends back, she flips out. And the climax...well.
Sakura: I will seal you away again.
Nothing: NOOOOO! [makes the steps around Sakura vanish, stranding her] I've been alone all this time! Sealed away, trapped forever in a cold, dark place...I was so lonely! And now I have all my friends back, so why are you coming between us?!
Sakura: They're not your friends the way you took them! Forcefully making someone yours isn't even close to making friends — it's not right at all! It's totally wrong!
[all the cards move away from Nothing, circling her]
Nothing: You all...why are you all abandoning me? Is it that you hate me? Am I no longer a friend to you all? Please tell me why you're doing this! [the cards return to Sakura, leaving Nothing to fall to her knees and bawl.]
Case Closed:
- The title character. Despite his energy and brains, you can't help but want to hug him every time he gets thrown out of the way of something (usually at the hands of Kogoro, but there was also at least one occasion where Heiji picked him up, and several occasions where he was caught in a bomb blast). Also, the fact that he even has an alias in the first place — he has to keep the truth hidden from so many people, including the one person who means the most to him. He's constantly frustrated by the fact that he's stuck using a voice modulator to get his agendas accomplished (and is initially frustrated about having to resort to using gadgets instead of his own abilities).
- He also fits this trope in his adult form, as Shinichi. He goes through a tremendous amount of pain every time he changes back and forth, and he never knows how much time he'll stay as a teenager. In particular, there's The Desperate Revival Arc where he actually has some time with Ran, but gets interrupted by a case, changes back at the end, and has to reappear to her as Conan
- Conversely to Shinichi's case, there's of course Ran. He leaves her alone at the end of episode 1, and it's a few days in story-time before he gets his first gadget (the voice changer), during which time she's worried sick about him. She seems to always be waiting for him somewhere, and when she comes close to discovering the truth he somehow finds a way to distract her attention.
- At the time the audience meets Ai, her parents and sister have died, leaving her alone... and on top of that, she's taken the same poison that was given to Shinichi, as a last-ditch effort to escape the Black Organization. If that wasn't enough, Professor Agasa found her laying face-down in front of the Kudo residence... in the rain. And... every time she and Conan cross paths with her former colleagues, she hunches over panicked, trying to hide herself.
Touma Kamijo from A Certain Magical Index. The entire reason Touma ever came to Academy City in the first place makes him a woobie. His right hand giving him bad luck is the entire premise for the show, but some people came to believe that being around him was enough to get affected. When he was a kid, a man blamed Touma and his right arm for his business failing and tried to stab the poor kid. To top it all off, a TV agency caught wind of this and decided to run a special program on little Touma and his arm. Adding insult to injury, they released photos of Touma without his parents' permission. And if THAT wasn't enough, you also find out that the head of Academy City orchestrated all of that to ensure that he would end up in Academy City in the first place! Talk about a Gambit Roulette.
Chrono in Chrono Crusade goes through hardship after hardship, both emotional and physical, including the death of one love interest and the impending death of his partner—thanks to a debilitating injury which leads him to have to drain away her soul to use his powers. Azmaria and/or Joshua may count as well, depending on who you ask.
Several CLAMP characters have risen to Woobie status within their own series, most notably Subaru Sumeragi of Tokyo Babylon and later X/1999, and even later Fay from Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-, who shares The Multiverse with just about every other Woobie CLAMP has created.
- Kohane of ×××HOLiC in the style of Love Martyr for her mother. Her parents split up, possibly because of her. Her mother hasn't used her name since then. Her mother won't touch her, let others touch her, cook her food or let her eat anything she thinks is 'unclean' since it might take her power away. Then she has to go on TV, exorcise spirits and because she happens to be better at it than other mediums, she's called a fake and gets some rather nasty abuse including being pushed down stairs, possibly losing an eye and having her house covered with graffiti sporting charming slogans such as EVIL, LIAR and DIE. See also: Watanuki, although quite a lot of it is his own fault or is genuinely good for him.
- Even the extremely up-beat and idealistic Cardcaptor Sakura has its Woobies. Most prominent is Yukito/Yue, the former due to the lead-up and Tomato in the Mirror reveal of the latter's existence as a Split Personality, and the latter because of how broken up he was when Clow died.
If you appear in CLANNAD and have so much as a name, you qualify for this trope. Everybody either has a tragically lost relative(s)/loved ones, health problems, social problems, broken dreams or any combination of them.
Daltanious:
- Harlin. He was orphaned at young age, separated from his adoptive father while trying to find the truth about his past, presumed dead by his immediate family after he goes missing at sea, enslaved at Planet Marios and then hunted down so he can be killed once he escapes. By the time he gets back, his only surviving family member is his son; everyone else died in the Zaal invasion and his adoptive father passed away from heart failure years earlier.
- Kloppen. The man was a monster, no doubt, but that doesn't take away from his story being a complete tragedy. Born as a clone of Harlin, he was groomed, on the Emperor's orders, to believe that he was the Zaal Empire's real Crown Prince and the one destined to bring it to glory. When the truth comes out - that he's a clone, the Emperor was just using him, and his own father figure was complicit in his grooming - he's spurned by his comrades, mutinied against by his own soldiers and reduced to a prisoner in front of the heroes. When they refuse to persecute him, Kloppen is touched and defects to their side...only to sacrifice himself later to save the life of the very man he tried to kill many times, Harlin. However, he does so with a proud smile on his face, his last words being that he wants to live through Harlin, and wishing glory to the Helios Empire.
  - Kloppen's whole childhood counts. The way Namil and Dolmen treat him disturbingly similar to how Real Life authoritative figures groom children, and Kloppen sounds so scared the whole time. Not only does Namil hide the fact that Kloppen is a clone, he also orders him to wear a mask to hide his true identity, so that no one will figure out that he's Harlin's doppelganger. Kloppen is forced to wear this mask for years, until Namil is certain the real Crown Prince of Helios is dead. By the time he's an adult, his brain runs on Blue-and-Orange Morality as a result of his upbringing.
Dr. Namil, after telling Kloppen of his designated purpose: "Kloppen. You will now live with me. I shall be your father and teacher."
Kloppen, trying to be brave: "With you, sir?"
- Dolmen. He survived through unimaginable abuse from the minute he was born, being restricted to a prison cell and punished for every flaw of Emperor Palmillion's as he was his clone. When he resisted, he was beaten and abused, and some parts of his flashbacks even imply that as a clone, he went through Mind Rape. Once the tables were turned and he had the higher ground, he went on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge and established the Zaal Empire to get back at Helios, starting by sinking the Empire and then conquering several planets en masse.
Aoi Hidaka from Dancougar Nova is quite a Woobie under her Badass Driver Fiery Redhead exterior. Heavily implied to be a test tube baby with no parents, she has believed herself to be alone and unwanted for all of her life. Her fellow Dancougar pilots (Johnny, Sakuya and Kurara) were the first true friends she ever had, after getting past their differences. And just when she has finally found a place where she can feel accepted, the evil alien computer Moon Will totals the Dragon's Hive, apparently killing everyone. Luckily, it later turns out to be a Disney Death, and she gets an happy ending after literally punching out Cthulhu...
Darker than Black earns the special distinction of having probably the only woobie character in all of fiction who Eats Babies. Yes, you read that right. Havok probably had the single highest body count of any Contractor, and her remuneration for using her incredibly violent powers was to drink children's blood. But when we meet her, she's been depowered, and whatever caused it also restored her feelings to normal instead of Contractor-ish Lack of Empathy. She's broken, despairing, hates herself for what she's done, and mostly just wants to be left alone to live in peace and help people in what few ways she can. But she willingly puts herself at a huge risk in order to help Hei and asks him to kill her if she goes back to what she was. And then November 11 kills her, just when it looked like she was going to make it out okay.
Ganta from Deadman Wonderland is quite a major woobie. Having his life turned upside down after everyone with the exception of himself killed and framed for the real perpetrator, the "Red Man," and sent to the madhouse known as Deadman Wonderland. Shiro counts too, especially in chapters 45 and 46.
Dear Brother has a lot of them, specially Nanako, Rei and Mariko. Several characters (such as Kaoru and Aya, in the anime adaptation at least) and minor characters like Junko has their woobie moments.
Although Death Note edges toward the cynical end of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, it does contain a few genuine woobies:
- The Shinigami Gelus, who fell in love with Misa, and because of this he died protecting her from a crazed stalker. And nobody even cares about his death; Rem only shows a little sympathy, and Misa herself is only interested in the fact that Shinigami can die. The fact that he's rather Ugly Cute only adds to his woobieness.
- Minoru Tanaka from the Special Chapter. At the end of the day, you can't help but feel sorry for Minoru. Yes, his meticulous plan to profit from the Death Note ended successfully and without any casualties in his path. However, it all proved futile for him, as he still ended up dead. His subsequent demise following the decree of a new law in the Death Note imposed by the Shinigami King (even though he never personally used the Death Note, unlike the other Kiras) makes everything more tragic, especially considering he's just an ordinary boy who couldn't even enjoy the fruits of his reward in the end.
Delicious in Dungeon has poor, poor Falin. As if getting eaten by the Red Dragon wasn't bad enough, no sooner has she been resurrected than the Lunatic Magician takes control of her and mutates her into a monstrous chimera, then forces her to attack her own brother and their True Companions. Poor girl just can't catch a break.
Akuto Sai from Demon King Daimao. Ever since he was told he was going to be the demon king, everything he does is interpreted as a malicious attack or an attempt to take over the world. It's hard not to feel sorry for him after it happens so many times to him.
Haraken of Den-noh Coil deserves a mention here. Before the series even starts, his childhood friend and crush Kanna is killed in a car accident, which she is blamed for because the car's navigation systems are supposedly foolproof. Convinced that the mysterious Illegals were responsible, Haraken picks up Kanna's independant research on the creatures to prove his theory and speak to her one more time. This leads to a strange disease that makes his heart beat irregularly, at least one coma and no less than three life-threatening situations that involve his soul being separated from his body.
Descendants of Darkness has enough backstory, subtext, and unnecessarily cruel plot twists to make everyone some variety of woobie, but the winners are:
- Hisoka Kurosaki — Locked away by his parents for his telepathic powers and partially to make sure he won't fall prey to a demon tormenting them; at 13 witnessed a murder, and the murderer decided to get him to keep quiet by raping him and cursing him to die a horrible death; said curse manifested itself as an incurable (and probably very painful) illness for the next three years, died and came back as a shinigami, got kidnapped by aformentioned murderer/rapist/sorcerer to use as blackmail, fell in love with a girl and had to shoot her, and had to stop his Heterosexual Life-Partner from committing suicide a few times. All whilst having a massive inferiority complex and being (at most) 16 years old.
- Princess Tsubaki — Was a Lonely Rich Kid with a heart problem, which was bad enough. She made friends with an Innocent Flower Girl called Eileen, who disapeared under mysterious circumstances, and fell in love with her doctor. She then finds out that said doctor murdered Eileen and transplanted her heart into Tsubaki, and starts to hallucinate that Eileen's ghost is possessing her, which her doctor is subtly mind-raping her into believing. And she still loves him, while being aware of how horrible he is. It's almost a relief when she pulls an I Cannot Self-Terminate and gets Hisoka to kill her.
- Even compared to those two, Tsuzuki takes the cake. Ostracized from everyone as a child because of his purple eyes (believed to be a sign of the devil), he lived practically comatose in a hospital for 6 years before finally killing himself... only to get resurrected and gain a Stalker with a Crush who constantly tries to kill/rape him. He also keeps accidentally killing people, and feels absolutely awful about it, the guilt leading him to try committing suicide again, only to fail repeatedly as he is now effecivley immortal. It doesn't help that he's this cute, hyperactive, slightly tragic, adorkable little thing that needs cuddles.
- The little girl Kazusa in the Demon's Trill arc. She is an orphan, but not only that, her own father sold her life to the devil in order to become a famous violinist. Tsuzuki, Hisoka and Hijiri go to great lengths to stop this, but she ends up dying anyway after saving Hijiri from a falling pillar.
Kurusegawa Himeko from Destiny of the Shrine Maiden would count towards this as well. After being orphaned at a young age, stuck with abusive foster parents who kicked the self esteem out of her, she's raped by her best friend and forced to kill her, even after realizing that she loves her.
D.Gray-Man:
- Allen Walker has his parents abandon him because of his freakish left arm, his adoptive father dies twice, once by his own hand, his teacher racks up debts of astronomical proportions and forces him to work to pay off said debts (keep in mind he's about elementary school age around that time); yet he still manages to stay one of the nicest characters in the entire series. And somehow it only gets worse from there.
- Lenalee's sunny disposition and the horrible psycho-conditioning they made her endure to get her into a properly Exorcist frame of mind make her another woobie.
- Lavi could possibly qualify for this. He was exposed to so much death and violence that by the age of sixteen he's emotionally barren and considers all humans to be mindless war-mongering idiots. Then after finally getting somewhat attached to the other Exorcists, his best bud Allen "dies". Then, even later, due to Mind Rape from Road, the embodiment of his sixteen-year-old self takes over Lavi's body and going on a murderous rampage to get rid of all Lavi's distractions, i.e friends.
- Also Krory. Spent years shunned by the local villagers, felt his only purpose in life was to protect his grandfathers posessions, had his teeth suddenly fall out and teeth made of Innocence instantly grow in, killed the woman he loved, found out that his loved one was an Akuma, and genuinely believed that he was a monster, but really didn't want to be. Seriously, how 'bout we label the entire Black Order as a Dysfunction Junction?
- Miranda grew up relentlessly mocked by everyone she knew, got fired from 100 jobs even though she kept trying her best, developed a severe inferiority complex, wanted nothing more than to be helpful to others but didn't think she could, got stuck in a "Groundhog Day" Loop after wishing "tomorrow would never come" in the presence of an Innocence... and even after becoming an exorcist, she's no less of a woobie. Her Innocence lets her heal any recently-inflicted wounds and repair broken objects, but as soon as she deactivates it, the damage returns... not to mention using it puts a massive strain on her. She constantly pushes herself to her limit, cries whenever she has to return somebody's injuries, and blames herself for everything that goes wrong. As if that wasn't bad enough, when she's too tired to use her full recovery power, she can feel when her comrades die.
A Dog of Flanders (1975):
- Nello is an orphan, is spurned when he enters an art contest to win money, witnesses his grandfather pass away and is framed for starting a fire by a miserly landlord. The poor child eventually dies when homeless, surrounded by his loving dog Patrasche. Hans and Alois' father cry for him and swear they're sorry for how they treated him, but by then it's too late.
- Patrasche. He was an abused dog taken in by a sweet boy who wished to save him from his owner, and did his best to help him and his grandfather. After his grandfather's death, Nello eventually turns poorer, and poorer, until they're both kicked out on the streets and left to starve. Patrasche and Nello are too weak to survive the snow and pass away.
- And what about Alois? She has to suffer from an Abusive Dad trying to separate her from seeing her best friend. She still tries to see him anyway, and their bond is so powerful that when she's sick, his presence helps her recover. A little after Christmas, she desperately tries to find Nello after he's been missing for some time, but he's already dead. At her tender age, Alois lost her best friend and the man she loved the most, and no matter how much her father tries to show he's sorry, their relationship will be irrevicobly damaged in the future.
Some fans of D.N.Angel feel this way towards Satoshi, and the series does seem to set him up this way sometimes — particularly his assertion that he can't let anyone close to him for fear that his Superpowered Evil Side will harm them.
Dropkick on My Devil:
- Pekola was an angel from Heaven initially bent on eradicating demons and witches. Upon losing her halo thus becoming stranded on Earth, Pekola lost her powers and is reduced to residing in a cardboard box. When not searching for scraps of food to eat, Pekola would work excruciating jobs to provide for herself. Much like a walking lightning rod, Pekola is always met with misfortune some instances including having her food get stolen by Jashin; losing her earnings in a scam; and nearly getting killed by her former apprentice Poporon. With no end seemingly in sight, Pekola holds the moniker as the most sympathetic character in the series.
- Medusa, a tender-hearted demon, is the closest "friend" to Jashin. As a gorgon, Medusa has the ability to turn others to stone, but what sets her aside from most examples is the guilt she expresses for it, resorting to wearing a paper bag over her head whenever she is in public. While she dotes on Jashin by providing her with money, Jashin's toxic attitude has reduced Medusa to tears on several occasions. The worst case of this is when she nearly traumatizes her by pretending to have died.
Saki from Eden of the East. From constantly being ditched by Akira (whether at the airport for five minutes or during a movie) to being told in a job interview that her opinions are not interesting because they coincide with the status quo, leading to her getting a bowl of ramen dumped on her by her prospective employer and being made fun of for it when she was in the bathroom to being so disappointed in herself not getting a job that Ryosuke, the man she loves, set up an interview for along with much more that she deals with because of Akira...every time Saki cries, you just want to give her a hug.
The Diclonii from Elfen Lied all fall under Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, but Nana, with her conviction to never kill anyone, even in self-defense, despite the horrible experiments she had to live through, is a definite woobie. Tack onto that that even in the fights she is forced into (usually trying to defend her compatriots or loyally carrying out an order from her adoptive father), she manages to lose every single one, and usually winds up a bloodied, crying (and, more often than not, naked) mess by the end of it. Not that these losses seem to dampen her eternally optimistic Determinator mindset, which just adds to the Woobieness.
Vincent Law from Ergo Proxy tends to hover between this and Butt-Monkey, depending on how seriously the situation is presented. Either way, you know his fate is gonna suck.
Excel♡Saga:
- One episode parodies this. It features a subplot about a 7-year-old girl who, after being orphaned and having various unpleasant things happen to her, was picked up by a mysterious organization and trained to be an unthinking, unfeeling assassin. In the climax of the episode, all this prompts an emotional breakdown so severe that the Great Will of the Macrocosm (a character who is literally a multi-purpose Deus ex Machina) re-writes reality itself to give her a normal, happy life.
- There's also Pedro, who died and became a ghost who was forgotten by his "sexy wife" and son, Sandora.
- Menchi. She's so adorable, yet she has to put up with all of Excel's craziness. And her attempts to EAT HER.
Unsui from Eyeshield 21 was a pretty big woobie. From the day he was born he was constantly compared to his naturally talented younger twin brother, Agon, who is a jerkass to say the least. No matter how hard he works (and boy does he work), he's only a good player while his brother is considered a once-in-a-century prodigy without even trying. Just when he thinks his efforts are finally acknowledged, it turns out people just mistake him for his younger brother. Ouch. And even after his Heroic BSoD, he still continues to work his ass off, only now it's to selflessly help his brother reach his full potential, despite the fact that Unsui has every reason to resent him. What does his younger brother do? He looks down on him, regularly insults him, and is a general ass to him.
Fullmetal Alchemist:
- Alphonse Elric lost his mother at a young age. His attempt to bring her back resulted in him losing his body, and his soul was trapped in a suit of armour. And that was just the beginning.
- His brother Edward has it just as bad, as he blames himself for their failure and Alphonse's lost body. He only gets more Woobie-ish as the series progresses.
- The Elrics' childhood friend, Winry Rockbell. She seems like a cheerful girl, despite being an orphan. Then we find out her parents' backstory. And who killed them. Her reaction doesn't help.
- Hohenheim doesn't have it easy either; he was an illiterate slave until a homunculus taught him how to be a functioning human being capable of reading; and more importantly, alchemy. Turns out it's a villain with a major God Complex who uses him unwillingly to destroy his own country Xerxes and then gives him a Fate Worse than Death by making him nearly immortal by implanting some of the people of the country within him as a sick gesture of "thanking him". This is so traumatizing that he can't bring himself to be ever truly happy, even many years later when he has a family, because he honestly believes he is a monster.
- Mrs. Bradley is the most noticeable woobie among the minor characters. At the end of the series, she had to cope with the fact that her husband and adopted son, both of whom she loved more than anything else in the world, were homunculi who were just using her to forward their plan. However, she manages to gain her adoptive son back, who no longer retains his memories as a homunculus.
- The Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) version of Wrath. Having died at birth and then offered to the Gate after his mother (Izumi Curtis) failed to revive him, he is a tortured soul filled with denial and a longing for maternal love. His naivety and innocence before he is awakened as a homunculus makes him even more pitiable.
Yukki from Future Diary could be considered this. At the start he is a shy and introverted young boy, and then he gets shoved into a duel to the death with a bunch of psychopaths. His only consistant ally is the craziest of them all, the biggest Stalker with a Crush Yandere ever, who, at one point, chians him up and imprisons him, so that no one would get in the way of their love. Poor guy.
There are plenty of woobies in Gangsta., but the most notable is Nicolas Brown, who as a child was diabetes inducing. He was also horribly mistreated due to fantastic racism. Treated like an animal by the people he was dependent on, (literally they held on to the drugs that kept him from going into withdrawal due to being a Twilight) he was constantly beaten and ridiculed, and was used as a child soldier due to his powers as a Twilight. Did I mention that he's deaf? He instinctively sits on the floor instead of in a chair or a bed, and when Worick starts teaching him how to read and use sign language, the cuteness levels skyrocket. The urge to hug is overwhelming.
Despite the general tone, Gantz actually has quite a few woobies in it.
- Takeshi is a toddler who lives with a neglectful mother and her abusive boyfriend in a rundown apartment. Said abusive boyfriend beats him to death just for eating his pudding while his mother does nothing to stop him. If that wasn't enough, he gets teleported into the Gantz room upon his death and forced to play a game of kill or be killed where people constantly die in the worst way possible by things that previously only existed in his nightmares, thus ensuring that he'll never grow up to be a normal, productive member of society.
- Kei Kishimoto and Reika both suffer a severe case of unrequited love- Kishimoto died to protect Katou and Reika gave up her chance to be free of the Gantz game in order to allow Kurono to go free.
- But it's Kurono's girlfriend Tae Kojima who romps home with the prize, especially at the parts where she dies in Kurono's arms while trying to protect him, when he was fighting to protect her, and when she's crying over the love for Kurono that she lost when her memory was reset without even knowing why. Such is the power of Tae's woobie-ness that it even rubs off on Jerkass Kurono himself!
Mamoru from GaoGaiGar. In the TV series he's a first grader that not only has a strange and unexplained power to fly as well as purify Zonder cores and turn them back into Humans, he's made a member of a secret UN organization and is given the responsibility of helping to deal with these machine monsters, if that wasn't enough, yet more powerful Zonders come, known as Primevals, which he can't detect, but his Red Planet counterpart, Kaidou, can. After feeling useless in not being able to help against the primevals, he goes to Galeon, the robot lion that took him to earth as a baby. when he touches the G-Crystal "black box" he finds out that...he's an alien, created to balance out the universe by destroying the Zonders. This goes into a Heartwarming Moment with his human parents, and him finally being able to help 3G again.
The unfortunate Joe Asakura in Gatchaman is a tough, jaded and heavily scarred version of this. Though to be fair, everyone on the team has their moments of being this, especially Ken and Jinpei. Even Katse could be seen as one given hir unfortunate fate.
Batou from the Ghost in the Shell franchise fits this trope beautifully, especially in the TV series. If there's an episode featuring him as the central character, you can bet that by the end, some aspect of his humanity will have been stomped thoroughly into the ground and you will want to give him an enormous hug. Even when he's not being actively emotionally tortured, there's still the matter of the girl he likes...
Gintama has quite a few. Notable ones are: Kagura, who's mother died, leaving her with an absentee father and psychotic brother. She constantly fights against her Yato instincts, which when awoken cause her to go nuts and start slaughtering her opponents. And Gintoki: Who was found as a child in a field of corpses stealing food off of their dead bodies. He's taken in by Yoshida Shouyou, who teaches him how to use a sword, among other things. Then his teacher is taken by the government, so Gintoki goes to war with several other students in order to save him. After years of fighting he is finally rewarded with his teacher's severed head in a bag. Shouyou was more of a father to Gintoki than a teacher, which makes it even worse.
Girlfriend, Girlfriend: Saki arguably has it the worst out of all the girls. At the start of the series, she's in a happy relationship with Naoya and very much in love with him. Then one day, completely out of the blue, Naoya approaches her with a girl named Minase and says he wants to date the both of them. After getting understandably upset by this, Saki is forced to choose between going along with the two-timing relationship or dumping Naoya and let him be with Nagisa, and is effectively peer pressured into going with the former. And then when the relationship starts and the three of them move in together, she becomes a major Insecure Love Interest over a sense of inadequacy towards Minase, to the point that she resorts to Be a Whore to Get Your Man only for Naoya, out of a sense of fairness towards Minase, to turn down her advances, causing her to briefly drop out of the relationship and go back to her house. Things get worse when Shino starts regularly interacting with Naoya, as Saki is hurt that her best friend might desire to get with Naoya too.
Goblin Slayer: Fighter, a practitioner of her late father's martial art, is a member of the first adventuring party Priestess joined and a symbol of all women and unprepared adventurers that fall into goblin clutches. As the nicest member of the party, she was ready to lay down her life to try and ensure her surviving teammates escape. Once ambushed, she witnesses Wizard - one of her party members - get stabbed with a poisoned knife and Warrior - her childhood friend and another party member - get chopped to pieces. She then tries to fend off the goblins to allow Priestess to escape with Wizard, but is overpowered by a hobgoblin and then gang-raped. Although she and Priestess do survive thanks to Goblin Slayer, poor Fighter's experience left her traumatized and unable to continue adventuring after being rescued.
Victorique from Gosick. A tiny girl, frail, cute, looking like a doll and with a harsh past. See her cry and feel the impulse to take her in your arms while saying "there, there, everything'll be all right". And enjoy the cathartic effect when it happens in-anime!
Grave of the Fireflies begins with the two main characters losing their mother in World War II and moving to their aunt's house. It only gets worse from there. Their struggles to survive during the time of war are one woobie-ish moment after the other, to the very end.
Guilty Crown: Shu Ouma, all the way. Poor kid just can't catch a break.
Mika from Gungrave. Almost every single episode she's in, she breaks down crying because a horrible and mentally scarring thing has happened. There are so many points where she just needs a hug.
- Brandon 'Beyond the Grave' Heat as well. He is broken both figuratively and literally. He grew up in an abusive orphanage and then struggled to live as a street thug with Harry and others. He then fell in love with Maria during his days as a street thug, but Maria's uncle, Jester, forbade their relationship because he was a street thug. He soon ended up surviving an event that killed everybody in his gang except him and Harry. Things got much better during his days as a mob hitman, until he became a Consummate Professional. He decided to abandon Maria, but what completely ruined him was his divided loyalty: Big Daddy or Harry. Harry murdered him when he found Brandon appeared to be more loyal to Big Daddy, which was shown by Brandon pointing his gun at Harry when he revealed his plan of killing Big Daddy. He got better-ish, as he had secretly made a contact with Doctor Tokioka. He was then revived as an undead, and currently seeking revenge on Harry while taking care of Mika, Big Daddy's and Maria's child. Things were not too bad until the last few episodes, in which the lack of treatment affected his undead body. It caused him to literally decay while conscious. For starters, his entire body cracked, his arm broke off, and then his movements grew stiff. The way he walked as he decomposed also looked like he was suffering a chronic disease, especially when he fell unconscious out of exhaustion. Near the end, his color scheme became darker while his hair became white, making him look like a walking desiccated corpse. In the finale, he was shot with an Anti-Necrolyze bullet, which caused his leg to crumble off-screen. Those were his problems only in physical sense. In emotional sense, his attempt to resolve his personal issue with Harry caused him to kill those who were once his friends, mentor, and apprentice. He also lost his companions in process and had to abandon Mika. He did succeed and reconcile with Harry; however, although the ending is ambiguous and it's up to the audience to assume whether he survives or not, Brandon's life is just tragic either way.
There aren't many pure woobies in Haikyuu!! but Kageyama qualifies with his extended backstory in chapter 378 of the manga where we learn that the abandonment by his teammates in middle school followed the death of his grandfather, which only contributed to his loneliness since he was an outcast in elementary school and had trouble getting along with his volleyball teammates in middle school for varying reasons. And after all that happened, he didn't even manage to get into Shiratorizawa, the school he always wanted to go to, because he failed its entry exams.
Happy Sugar Life: Yuuna Kobe is the estranged mother of Asahi and Shio. When she was 16-years-old, Yuuna was raped by her future husband after she had innocently bumped into him. Being forced into a marriage she didn't want, Yuuna was the subject of continuous domestic abuse by her husband's hand, and it was also heavily implied that he repeatedly violated her, being dismissive of whether she consented or not. Fearful that she would become the same monster that her husband was, Yuuna left her daughter in the streets after convincing herself that she was unfit to raise her. Returning to her abusive husband's household, she laced his sake with poison and was presumably on the run from the authorities for the murder.
Mikuru Asahina in Haruhi Suzumiya. Think about it: She gets uprooted from her friends, family and timeline, is thrown into a culture alien to her without any of the technology she's used to in the future, where she is constantly manipulated, kept out of the loop and emotionally abused by none other than her future self. Add to this the fact that before being sent back in time, she underwent mental conditioning preventing her from ever revealing anything details of her old life to any of her new friends, no matter how much she might want to. And all of this abuse came from the people she's supposed to be saving.
- Not to mention she cant form any romantic relationships with anyone from the present timeline and any friendships she makes will be short-lived as she will eventually have to go back to the future. Her adult self pretty much states that she doesn't see the SOS Brigade for years.
- Another big woobie is Yuki Nagato. Starting at and especially in The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (both the novel and movie.)
Oh, Hayate from Hayate the Combat Butler. Poor, poor Hayate... Okay, so we're usually laughing at his pain, but sometimes it's just impossible to get through the episode without developing the overwhelming urge to hug him and coo that it'll all be okay. Episode 14, for example...
Heavy Object: Staivia Nikolaschka, from Volume 6, is the youngest princess of the Legitimacy Kingdom's Volga District. While she's set to rule the district, she has to deal with her brother Dimiksy, who is trying to kill her so that he can rule instead. In the past, Staivia was friends with her bodyguards, the White Bears, in particular Yulenzak, who used to rub her head and try to cheer her up whenever she cried. However, when Dimiksy launched an attack that ended up killing the White Bears, Staivia lost hope, and began distancing herself from others in order to avoid more people dying as she approached what she saw as an inevitable fate. In the present, her maid, Mikfa, tried to take her to safety at the Amazon District. Unfortunately, they get ambushed and captured by Dimiksy’s men. After Staivia is placed inside an Object that can't defend itself in order to have an unfair advantage while piloting his Broad Sky Saber Object, Dimiksy starts a duel between him and his sister. This combined with the knowledge of Mikfa being held hostage causes Stavia to breakdown, telling herself that she doesn't want to die.
Hellsing's Seras Victoria, at least up through the seventh volume of the manga, just goes through one bad day after another. You know a girl's going to have it rough when she dies before the first chapter is even finished. By the end of the seventh volume, she's been repeatedly berated by Alucard for her weaknesses, repeatedly impaled with holy bayonets, been dismembered and blinded, was mindraped (in which she relived the murder of her parents and getting shot by the killers) and was forced to drink the blood of one of the only decent people she knew. Fortunately, that last bit had some... side effects.
Nazuna in Hidamari Sketch is an in-universe example; it has been explicitly stated that she has a Dude Magnet because she invokes the instinct to be cared of.
- Yuno can also be one when she's low on self-confidence.
- Natsume. Her painful Unrequited Love-turned-tsundere attitude makes the word "woobie" consistently potholed to "poor girl" and applied to her before the YMMV rules.
Anyone who is even remotely sympathetic in Higurashi: When They Cry. Special mentions go to:
- Satoko Houjou slides between a Bratty Half-Pint and a Woobie who is horribly abused by her uncle.
- Mion effectively becomes a woobie in Meakashi. More so in the manga though.
Hoshin Engi: Sho Ki is one of the four rulers that pledge their loyalty towards the Emperor of Yin, King Chu. However, after discovering the decadence and depravity committed by King Chu and his current wife, Dakki, he was taken as a captive for 7 years. When one of his sons, Hakuyuuko, tries to save him from Yin's clutches which resulted in Hakuyuuko getting brutally executed by Dakki and his flesh was made into hamburgers, Sho Ki was forced by Dakki to eat said hamburgers which seriously traumatized him so much that he has serious trouble ingesting food afterward and eventually dies in his older years.
Everyone from Inazuma Eleven has at least one moment of this.
- Fubuki Shirou is the most prominent example from the first series. His family was killed in an avalanche accident and because of that, he developed a Split Personality of his twin brother. He was fairly stable at first, but due to being needed more as a striker than a defender, especially after Someoka's withdrawal from the team, he slowly he loses control of himself to his other personality and he spends a long time struggling over it. He also has low self-confidence and a major fear of loud banging sounds which remind him of avalanches.
- Ichinose. So far, he got badly injured by a car when he jumped in front of it to save a puppy, which almost made him lose the game he loves, he was separated from his friends (who thought he was dead, no less) for a few years, he was on the verge of being unable to play soccer again after he discovers that the injuries from the accident hadn't healed completely and recquires another operation and he has an Abhorrent Admirer.
- Taiyou Amemyia from GO. He's terminally ill but he still loves soccer and is on the recieving end of a major Curb-Stomp Battle from Raimon.
- From GO there's also Shuu, whose litte sister got used as a Human Sacrifice thanks to losing a soccer game and blames himself for it.
Inuyasha gives almost everyone a tragic pitiful backstory:
- Inuyasha himself was bullied and tormented his whole life, he lost his mother at a young age, then when he finally found someone he loved, she betrays him.
- Shippo not only watches his family get killed, but at one point sees his father's skin worn as a wrap.
- Miroku watched his father get torn to pieces and sucked into his own hand and grew up knowing he would have the same fate.
- Sango not only has to see her father and comrades die by her brother Kohaku's hands (though against his will), and watch him being killed immediately afterwards, but her whole clan was decimated the same night. Adding insult to injury, Naraku revives Kohaku and has him under his control for most of the series, much to Sango's dismay. And if that wasn't enough, she ends up falling in love with Miroku, who basically has the magical counterpart of a terminal disease.
- Kohaku is nothing but tragic, having to deal with the blood of his family, along with countless innocents, on his hands. He also has to deal with long periods of memory loss when he doesn't know who he is. Once he gets his memory back, not only does he have to deal with the guilt of what he did, but also knowing that he has to die in order to end Naraku's reign.
Kotoko from Itazura Na Kiss, especially whenever she cries during the first season.
Jinki:Extend...Aoba Tsubaki; she's a total model mecha fan who gets thrust into piloting the actual thing by a mother who appears not to care for her at all. Of course, the final revelation that the mother actually does care, but that Aoba was the child of a rape between her and the apparent Big Bad doesn't make you less inclined to glomp Aoba.
Kaiji. Yes, you'll want to hug him, seeing him lose in a devastating manner, seeing him crying manly tears. Most likely one of the main factors that make the show so great. However, Kaiji is actually a very odd/interesting kind of woobie, as he also manages to be very badass at the same time. No, not in the "Badass with Dark and Troubled Past" way. You'll see him losing everything, crying, until he get's up in an outburst of badassness and does things like cutting off his own ear to win a manipulated game.
Kaiju Girl Caramelise has both Kuroe and Rairi. Kuroe has spent almost her entire life as an ostracized outcast, with students at her middle school viewing her as a terrifying monster due to her condition and students at her high school viewing her as a creepy loser due to her avoiding everybody, while Rairi was constantly viewed as a joke by everybody, especially the boy she used to like, due to her gorilla-like face which resulted in her having terrible self-esteem.
Karin, living a non-vampire life in a family of vampires. Her little sister is taken away from her when they believe they'll still have at least a few years. And in the end she gets her mind wiped against her will
Alice from King of Thorn. As a child she was abused by her family, developed dissociative identity disorder as a result and then had her entire family killed by Medusa, the experience causing her to literally give birth to her imaginary friend Laloo via her back. Frightened by this, she then burnt down the house killing Laloo in the process, and afterwards was taken away and used as a guinea pig in Medusa-related experiments in constructing images from a dream-world. When the experiments failed, her body was ruined in the process until only her head and a small part of her torso remained. Oh, and she's never aged during all of this, remaining a little girl, with her only companion being a large, automated white rabbit. And after all this, even surviving an army attack and Zeus' race, she doesn't get happy ending, as she burns up her life in order to help Marco survive after he comes back to life.
Nakanaka of Komi Can't Communicate turns out to be one of these. Beaneath her bluster, she turns out to be a very lonely girl who covers up her feelings by acting like a Chuunibyou.
Yunyun from KonoSuba Since childhood, she was often the object of ridicule from her peers and was obsessed with defeating Megumin, who had her own troubles to worry about. She has tried to make friends but they often take advantage from her. No wonder why she clings onto Kazuma and his party so much: they are the only ones even willing to give her the time of day. Somebody give her a hug.
Yuka/Yuuka in Kyouran Kazoku Nikki. Abused as a child? Check. Bullied by her schoolmates? Check. Emotional and physical scars? Check. Needlessly adorable, withdrawn, tries to stay strong for her family, and even rides a protective older brother-lion? Check, check, check. When driven to the brink, writes a "Farewell, cruel world" letter? Oh, check.
"I'll teach you a spell I used myself, when I was with the Himemiya and was hated by my good friend! 'I am alone anyway. I was born alone and will die alone. So I'm not lonely. Not lonely at all.' Let's do it, Teika-kun. Say it with me, and you'll simply feel better!"
Lady!!:
- Sarah. She's an Ill Girl and only had one friend in her whole life before Lynn showed up, being Arthur. George neglects her because of his workload leading her to be be bitter. As soon as Lynn shows up, she unintentionally takes away everyone's attention from her, making Sarah all the more insecure. She starts fearing that even Arthur likes Lynn more than her. Then, when the Marble Mansion is sold off, Sarah is allowed to reside at Duke Warbawn's castle...who demeans her for not being a "proper heir" because of her weak consitution and says that George should get married to Madeleine "to produce a proper heir". At one point, Sarah's health is so bad she has to be taken to a sanitorium.
- Lynn. Her mother is killed when she's a child, and she finds out when Madeleine crudely tells it to her face. Sarah rejects her because she's still coping with her own trauma of being neglected. At home, George is rarely present, and Madeleine, Mary and Thomas all terrorize her in different ways - Madeleine by being the worst Wicked Stepmother she can be, Mary by finding out what hurts Lynn mentally and using it to harm her, and Thomas by physically harming and attacking her and Edward. Thomas and Mary make Lynn cry moments after meeting them. At school, Lynn is hated because she's The Ace and a star student, making the other students that want to win the Lady's Crest jealous - as a result Vivian is always mean to her and Mary tries to blackmail her into staying out, by holding her familial debt over her head.
Misuzu was abandoned by her own parents for marrying George, never accepted by George's family, and when she finally tries to reunite with her husband, she's killed off in a car accident.
- Jerkass Woobie: Sophie from the second series is initially quite unlikeable as she always tries to wreck Lynn's already-unpopular reputation in front of Isabelle, but becomes increasingly sympathetic as the story goes on. When Sophie's alone, she's always crying because of her mother's abuse.
Anyone who can watch poor, adorable little Alvis Hamilton from Last Exile cry when so many atrocities happen to and around here without feeling the woobie effect either has had their heart turned to stone or never had one to begin with.
Lucky Star:
- Some found themselves wanting to just hug Kagami on several occasions, particularly at the end of the class trip episode.
- Same applies to Tsukasa, even more so than her sister. In fact, sometimes it seems the plot goes out of its way just to mess with her. (It doesn't help that she has big, cute, and expressive eyes unlike her sister).
Lupin III: Island of Assassins: Ellen is one of the most tragic characters in the Lupin III series — from having been sold into slavery as a child, by her own parents, to how she was eventually conscripted into the Tarantulas, by Gordeau, and coping with the loss of her brother, who'd been one of the few people to actually give a damn about her. All she ever wanted was to live a normal life and her first taste of freedom meant so much to her, that she was willing to commit suicide to keep from going back to the island. But the memory of her brother gave her a reason to go on living. All of which made the audience root for her, and is ultimately what made her death at the end so heartbreaking.
Macross Frontier:
- Ranka Lee. Even devoted fans of Sheryl in the series' Love Triangle find Ranka's many, many difficulties sad and heartbreaking.
- Sheryl got Woobified too, in a big way, especially after learning about her disease, seeing fans laughing her off (and her albums in a bargain bin), and then seeing her poster as garbage in the street...
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha: Many of the most popular Moe characters of the series are Woobies.
- Fate Testarossa. She unconditionally loves her mother who neglected and abused her for not having a personality like her dead daughter that Fate was cloned from. Also, she suffers The Final Temptation despite not being the main character of the series. Even when she's visibly angry, her voice stays huggably soft (of course, she still has to yell her attacks).
- The entirety of the Yagami family during the events of A's. Hayate is a nine-year-old paraplegic orphan who was living on her own prior to the events of the season, and is suffering from a condition that will kill her and causes her immense pain. The Wolkenritter suffered hundreds of years of abuse at the hands of masters they couldn't disobey, and had to betray Hayate's trust because she would die otherwise. Reinforce had to spend hundreds of years locked inside of a book, except for the short periods of time where she's forced to blow up planets. And unlike the others, she doesn't even get a happy ending since she performs a Heroic Sacrifice to ensure that the rest of them can live.
- And the third season give to us little Fiery Red Head Agito. A sentient Unison Device whose rude behavior is more or less the result of her having lost her original master (her kind feel despair without a master), being used as a guinea pig by scientist FOR YEARS without any kind of consideration for her, found some little happiness by finding a new master but living worried for him cause he was working for a Mad Scientist of dubious reliance, got the knowledge that her beloved master was actually a clone dying of genetic degeneration, saw him die IN FRONT OF HER EYES but the killer is an honorable Lady of War that did it in fair combat and took Agito under her wing, giving her a warm place to belong and a new purpose in life. After that Agito seems to be recovered and even her rude attitude becomes more playful and happier ...and then comes the fourth season where she saw her current master, whom she has developed really strong and heartwarming bonds with during the Time Skip, being near killed right in front of her AGAIN, suffered seeing her in recovering and is now constantly worried since her master isn't fully recovered yet and the enemy who near killed them is still free and wreaking havoc. This trope wanted to give this poor little creature a big hug several times.
Minawa from Mahoromatic is a clear Woobie with her perpetual failures for which she always feels sorry — the trademark "Gomenasai" — even though the failures were designed into her by Professor Kane. She actually goes as close as possible to the brink of Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds in a sense when she tries at the same time to kill and not kill Mahoro and Suguru. She eventually recovers from being the Woobie by gaining confidence in that she indeed has a heart.
Anyone from Maple Town. If a character has the spotlight for the episode, there's a huge chance they're gonna become the woobie.
March Comes in Like a Lion:
- Rei, due to his many personal problems the story reveals through its narrative. He struggles integrating into society, has issues with his foster siblings, and has conflicting feelings toward the very game he became a professional player in.
- Starting from Volume 4, Hina becomes one as she starts falling victim to relentless bullying.
Martian Successor Nadesico has Akito Tenkawa, ship's cook. Orphaned? Check. Doomed Hometown razed right in front of him as he was trying to rescue a little girl? Check. Press-ganged into military service and later almost-assuredly lethal test piloting? Check. BFF with The Mentor? Check. On the plus side, his sheer Woobieness apparently makes him irresistible to women.
Mazinger Z: This series had plenty of Woobies:
- Shiro Kabuto, The Hero's little brother. His parents died when he was barely a toddler. His grandfather Juuzo took them in, but he hired a maid to raise them because he was barely in home. Several years later, in one single day, Rumi — the maid; he treated her like a kind of older sister — was murdered, his grandfather was murdered (and Juuzo died right in front of his grandsons), and his older brother Kouji nearly stomps him under the foot of an Humongous Mecha. We see during the series he is sad because he don't have parents to hang with, and Koji, Boss, and Sayaka are most likely busy fighting a Mechanical Beast. He had a crush on a cute kid called Lorelei, but she died. And in one of the last episodes, Dr. Hell created a robot looked right like Kouji and Shiro's mother. She managed to convince him she was his real mother and tried to manipulate him to blow up the Jet Scrander. Later he had to shoot her, in spite of he was not sure of she was not his real mother. Have I mentioned he was only ten years old when the series began? Later, in Great Mazinger Kouji and Sayaka travel to America and he stays in Japan. Several times he complains he finds himself alone, his older brother does not write letters, and he even wishes upon a star Kouji returns soon. Jun tried to act like his Cool Big Sis because she was real sorry for him. And later in the series, he found out his father was not dead. And he had let his sons believed during years he was dead. And then, shortly after Shiro forgave him and they made up, his father Kenzo died. For real, this time. Also, in UFO Robo Grendizer Kouji Kabuto shows up, but Shiro does not, so it is fair wondering who was taking care of him. I guess the most obvious answer is Tetsuya and Jun (since they were his adoptive siblings and they were not underage) or Prof. Yumi, since he was a Parental Substitute for Kouji and Shiro in the original series. It definitely sucks to be him. Although, on the other hand, he does not constantly whine about it.
- Yuri, Sayaka's cousin, was an annnoying, cranky, demanding Bratty Half-Pint. She acted like that because her parents were too Married to the Job to take care properly of her and they never were in home. Also, she needs to use a wheelchair, and she refuses to undergo therapy to walk again because she is afraid of everyone will leave her alone again.
- Mitsuo, a child attended Shiro's school was a fat, shy kid wore glasses. Needless to say, bullies targeted him, and he hardly had friends. Shiro scared the bullies away once, but he told Mitsuo he could not help him and be his friend if he did not learn to stand up for himself. All that piled-up abuse was the reason that he pulled a Too Dumb to Live stunt.
Metamorphosis 2013: Saki Yoshida is the textbook definition of pitiable, as her life turns into a whirlwind of suffering. Throughout the story, she's blackmailed into having sex with her male classmates, then raped by her father and evicted from her house when he convinces her mom that she led him on. She gets introduced to drugs by her boyfriend, sells herself into sex work to pay off the debt he owes, then gets hit with heroin as a tranquilizer and becomes even more of a junkie as a result. This leads to her going broke from purchasing drugs and gets her evicted from her boyfriend's place, and she ends up dying of an overdose while simultaneously homeless and pregnant. The poor girl has it rough with nothing to show for it but an agonizing end, and what makes it even worse is that everything was set off by her just trying to make friends.
Mission: Yozakura Family: Nanao. His hulking appearance is a side-effect of his immunity to poisons, so he takes a drug that shrinks his body down so that he can go to school. Eventually, he starts developing an immunity to the drug, which means he'll be stuck looking like a brute, and his appearance makes him feel alienated from other, "normal" people.
Monster has a few:
- Kenzo Tenma and Nina Fortner. By the time you're halfway through the series, you're not hoping that Johan Liebert gets a bullet through his head so much as you're just praying to God that both of those two come out of it all alive, safe, and sane.
- Grimmer, the ultimate Woobie in this series, with that constant smile of his. He was subjected to the horrors of Kinderheim 511 and developed a Split Personality...but he's one of the nicest people in the series.
- Dieter's adoptive father attempts to Mind Rape him after abusing him for some time, all to find a replacement for Johan.
My Monster Secret: While Akari's fear of being an Old Maid is played for laughs at first, as time goes on, it becomes clear that it's really wearing on her. Chapter 142 shows that ever since she was a child, she's suffered emotional abuse from pretty much everyone around her because she was taller and more masculine than most of the boys, and was treated as a freak for it. Her desire for a prince charming on a white horse coming to take her away stems from the desire to be treated as a woman just once in her life.
Erstin Ho from My-Otome just can't catch a break. First, she's assaulted by a tentacle monster during swim class. Later, she's trapped in the woods as her survival equipment gives out, and then bitten by a snake with little hope of recovery... and then ends up Taking the Bullet for Arika when someone tries to kill her. It finally culminates with Erstin being revealed as a Mole for Schwarz (though she really doesn't want to hurt anyone), since it runs in the Ho family, and ultimately dying when Nina accidentally slices through her Slave.
Natsume's Book of Friends has Takashi Natsume, the boy who was passed from family to family, isolated, and bullied for most of his life, just because he "said weird things".
Negative Yuusha To Maougun Kanbu: Rene is a woobie both In-Universe and out. She is the destined hero meant to fight the demon lord, but her parents were killed by humans who blamed them because demons attacked their village looking for Rene; then the kingdom takes her in, turns her into a Child Soldier, and sets her loose on the castle of Hyudor, one of the demon army's generals. When Hyudor threatens the twelve year-old would-be hero with death, Rene's response is relief because she has no desire to actually fight. This makes Hyudor change tracks completely. He gives Rene a home in the castle and his various demon soldiers also all welcome her with open arms. Despite this warm reception, Rene's self-esteem is so shot that she questions her right to even be at the castle and refuses to use its amenities, such as a luxurious bath or delicious food, unless someone makes her, as she feels she doesn't deserve to have anything so grand.
There are a few characters in Negima! Magister Negi Magi who fall into this:
- Ako Izumi's character arc is based around it. First, as a bit of setup, she was apparently rejected by the boy she liked before the beginning of the story and is enormously self-conscious about the scar on her back. She has a minor breakdown during her first Day in the Limelight chapter, which Negi helps her recover from in the guise of Nagi, his imaginary cousin, gaining a crush on him at that time. After she and her friends accidentally get dragged into the magic world with Negi, she contracts a nasty disease, forcing her and her two friends to sell themselves into slavery to buy a cure. Nagi shows up to rescue her and unwittingly charms her to an extreme extent, making her grow extremely emotionally reliant on him. Everyone around her knows Nagi's real identity while they scramble for a way to resolve the issue, she finds out and goes through a Shower of Angst, though in the end she does a fairly decent job of accepting the truth.
- Negi himself is definitely the woobie and brings most of the girls who know him at the time to tears when they learn of his backstory where he saw his entire town get turned to stone at age 4. Following this, he grew up more or less alone, as the one living family member (his cousin Nekane) had to take care of her education. He's never known his father and isn't even sure of his mother's identity.
- Chachamaru's character arc tends to focus on whether or not she even believes she has a soul or is a person at all. Negi helps her get over it with a pactio and unlike many characters she puts this plot point behind her.
Poor Kirika from Noir: "I can kill people so easily. Why then don't I feel sad?" Awwww.
Ian from Not Simple. He's separated from his beloved older sister at a very young age when she is sent to jail for armed robbery, leaving him alone with his distant and verbally abusive father, and his alcoholic mother. When his parents divorce, his mother takes him to far away England where she takes up beating him and forcing him to do odd jobs to pay for her booze habit. When that doesn't prove to be enough money, she even pimps him out for it. When his sister is finally released from prison, they get separated again, after which he vows to Walk the Earth to find her. During this journey he discovers that his sister is his REAL mother, and all of his horrible abuse was out of the other woman's desire for revenge. To top things off he never finds his mother/sister, who dies from [AIDS after contracting it from the guy Ian was pimped out to as a child... meaning that Ian has the disease as well. Then he commits suicide when he finds out that the woman he was in love with, whom he left behind to search for his sister, has died in the interim.
Let's begin with the titular character of Ojamajo Doremi, shall we? A little sister who acts like she's the older sister, has lots of boyfriends despite not even being in elementary school yet, and is better than you at just about everything? Check. Your mom pushing you too hard in trying to teach you how to play the piano when you're a toddler? Check. Getting called out by your friends and family when you accidentally make their situation worse even though you were just trying to help? Check. Often late for school and acquire poor grades? Check. Accident prone because your're one of the show's comic relief characters? Check. Any chance you have at eating steak is cruelly snatched away? Check. Realize that upon your elementary school graduation that you and your friends are going seperate ways and you won't see them again for a long time? Check.
- Momoko had to move from Japan to America at a young age and intially had trouble fitting in. Majo Monroe offered to help her adjust to her new life and taught her how to bake until Momoko accidentally discovered Majo Monroe's true identity and turn her into a green blob. She became a witch apprentice to try turning Majo Monroe back to normal, but by the time she was a full fledged witch, Majo Monroe was on the verge of death and left her earring behind for Momoko. Momoko then had to move back to Japan leaving behind her American friends and relearn her native language and culture. On her first day of school, she was asked to take off her earring since wearing jewlery in school was against school rules even though it was her most prized possession. Fortunately, things got better for Momoko.
- Aiko was supposed to have an younger sibling who unfortunately her mother had a miscarriage resulting in her sibling's death which partially contributed to her parents divorcing and for a while assumed the divorce was her fault and often tries to persuade her parents to get back together.
- Majo Rika spends almost the entirety of the series as a magic frog, but her status as a woobie is midway through the first season when her rival Majo Ruka shows up and takes over the magic shop and being seen as a witch frog was rather difficult for her. Doremi and Lala even lampshade this. Fortunately Majo Ruka eventually gets turned into a magic frog as well and eventually turns over a new leaf.
- Seki-sensei's father died when she was a child, and the death of said father caused her to be rejected from a position as a teacher at a private school so she had to settle for a public school. Also while she loves her students and the feelins is mutual, there are times when they don't make her job easy.
Mei and Gabu from One Stormy Night, a goat and wolf, respectively, who just want to be friends and live in peace without contempt from either of their clans. Unfortunately, they end up running away from home to find a new land where they can live peacefully and it is one long journey. Not to mention, they both nearly starve to death throughout the journey.
Oruchuban Ebichu:
- Ebichu's life is an emotional roller coaster all the way through, which isn't helped by Office Lady and Kaishounachi constantly being annoyed by her all the time.
- When she isn't being a complete bitch, the Office Lady is constantly cheated on by her boyfriend, who she often goes back to despite his abusive behavior. She's also nearing the age where she becomes unmarriageable in the eyes of others and deals with Ebichu's antics on a regular basis.
Tamaki from Ouran High School Host Club. He's forced to leave France to go live with his father because his Delicate and Sickly mother is frail and needs the money. His grandmother hates him and the rest of the club. AND he gets stuck in an Arranged Marriage, though the girl ultimately calls it off. For a rich kid, he's had it pretty rough.
Mesousa from Pani Poni Dash! only exists so that bad things can happen to him. It's usually played for comedy, but sometimes you just can't help but feel sorry for him.
Gretel◊ of Fairy Musketeers spends much of the series trying to earn the respect of her "Onii-sama", hoping to regain some small shred of the loving big brother he used to be, before they were taken in by the Big Bad. This coldness reaches its peak when Hansel is ordered to kill her. She flees during a momentary resistance to the big bad's mind control. The scene where she finally breaks down crying in male lead Souta's arms is heart-wrenching despite the resulting squabbling of the two Clingy Jealous Girls standing nearby. To drive the point home, her day in the limelight episode is appropriately titled "Lonely Gretel."
Elliot Nightray from PandoraHearts. In a series filled with Woobies, Elliot deserves a special mention. As if his family being ostracized for being branded "traitors" and being the target of a mysterious headhunter wasn't enough, he also suffers from recurring nightmares. Then, it turns out that the reason why he has these dreams in the first place was because of his illegal contract with Humpty Dumpty, whose purpose involves protecting the current Glen by controlling the contractor into killing anyone who threatens his life... who just so happens to be his servant/best friend, whom his two brothers, sister and mother (who happened to be going off the deep end at that point) threatened to kill at different intervals, in front of Elliot. Which means, in effect, Elliot himself is the Headhunter. And by the time he learns this, his incuse has already reached that point in which rejecting his chain would kill him. Since the other alternatives were to get killed by either his big brother Vincent or his friend Oz, or to keep living without solving the current problem and eventually get dragged into the Abyss, he just chose to reject the chain. And the Humpty Dumpty thing would have been avoided if his father actually put his family's well-being before his family's honor enough to destroy Humpty Dumpty early on.
- Oz, from the same series. He's neither the real Oz Vessalius, nor is he an actual human. Turns out that he began his existence as a pair of rabbit dolls owned by Alice and the Will of the Abyss one hundred years ago who was wished to life, and he's actually the B-Rabbit, a powerful Chain that was used to kick off the Tragedy of Sablier against his will by a certain blonde, green-eyed guy called Jack. After Alice killed herself to save Oz from Jack's control and stop Jack's plan, Jack and Oz were somehow tangled together after being sucked into the Abyss and spent the next hundred years being reincarnated and aging backwards over and over again, until Jack's soul was too worn down to keep control of his own body. And that was when the Oz as we know him was born. It's just that ever since then, Jack's been gaining strength and repeatedly possessing Oz, until he's ready to kick off Sablier 2.0. And just when it's getting better for Oz with Gilbert reaffirming his resolve to always be with him, good ol' uncle Oscar coming to their help, Jack being subdued and Alice coming back, said beloved uncle ends up killed as they escape and the poor boy is in denial.
- Then we have Leo. Plagued with Hearing Voices and seeing lights when he shouldn't, he ended up being avoided by everyone in his village, calling himself "the weird one" and invoking Eyes Out of Sight by growing out his bangs as an attempt to block out those lights and voices. When his mother died, he was sent to the House of Fianna, where he also met Elliot by the time his being "the weird one" as a problem was long forgotten. Looking good so far, until an encounter with Humpty Dumpty caused Elliot to be stabbed right in front of his eyes, and Leo had to get him to form an Illegal Contract with the aforementioned Chain, if it meant keeping him alive. No matter how much poor Leo was assured that that incident was just a bad dream, he still had his doubts, which caused him to think himself as strange again. To make things worse, the children at the orphanage, whom he grew to care for, start dying one by one, and nobody but him remembers they even existed. Fast-forward to later chapters, Elliot is dead and Leo blames himself heavily for it. Three days later, he learns that he is the current vessel of Glen Baskerville (which isn't something to be happy about), which was the reason why he kept HearingVoices and seeing lights everywhere in the first place. One of his duties as Glen just so happened to be [[ShootTheDog getting rid of Oz, who would also be the only close friend he has left by that point. Right in the middle of his fight with Oz, who was trying to reason with him, he gets stabbed and taken over by Glen, and by the latest chapter, he's much too out of it to do anything about it. Poor kid needs a freaking break.
Pretty Cure characters have plenty of woobie characters — the Defrosting Ice Queen Karen from Yes! Pretty Cure 5, the Heel–Face Turn Cures Setsuna of Fresh Pretty Cure! and Ellen of Suite Pretty Cure ♪, Innocent Flower Girl Tsubomi and Broken Bird Yuri of Heartcatch Prettycure, and especially Cowardly Lion Hime.
Misao, Rumiya and Sasami from Pretty Sammy.
- Sasami even more in Tenchi Muyo!. Imagine going 700+ years thinking that you're not the real thing, that the real Sasami died when she was four and that all you are now is just a vessel for a powerful goddess and, if the others found out about it, they might turn against you and shun you. It's no wonder she was such a Stepford Smiler there.
The main cast of Princess Tutu has elements of this. Fakir might be the most tragic example, considering he's fated to die unable to protect Mytho, not to mention the fact that his powers lead to the accidental death of his parents, and the girl he loves is really a duck—and unable to return to her girl form at the end of the series. Rue has a dark, sad backstory as well but she's often not as popular with fans—sometimes because they thing she needs to get over it, and sometimes because she got Mytho instead of Ahiru.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Whilst we could just go blanket and say "everyone," special mention goes to Sayaka. Starts off with the best intentions, apparently succeeds... falls hard. With Kyouko, this has already happened, though she recovered. Sayaka? Not so much. Other examples:
- Mami. Badass mentor figure, has been completely alone since her parents died in the same accident that forced her to make a contract to save her life, and is doomed to fight and die unloved and unremembered. Which she does.
  - If anything, the 3rd Drama CD ups Mami's woobiedom value. She used to be Kyouko's friend as a duo of Magical Girls fighting Witches, the only friend Mami could ever have. Then... Kyouko's tragedy changed her to a cynical girl and decided to break up. Mami's attempt to make her stay was met with an ass-kicking to her, and she could only cry seeing that the only person she could get along with left her to be all alone again...
  - The PSP game ups this. So she survived the battle with Charlotte? Nice... but then Madoka-Homura made her look like getting abandoned again and depending on the choices, she continues fighting solo and grew further miserable due to loneliness... to the point that she becomes a Witch for it. "Lonely Mami is Lonely" doesn't sound so hilarious now...
- Kyouko. Unwittingly sent her preacher father insane when she used her wish to try to get him more followers after his excommunication, to the point of trying to kill her and his entire family, along with himself. As a result, she believes in only working for your own benefit. And she's one of the more well-adjusted characters.
- Homura. Probably the most heartbreaking of them all: Her wish was to go back in time to protect Madoka. Unfortunately, because of this, she's stuck in a "Groundhog Day" Loop where she has to watch Madoka and her friends die (or turn into witches) over and over again, including one heartbreaking instance where she had to Mercy Kill Madoka herself to keep her from turning into a Witch after she drained the darkness from Homura's Soul Gem. Only time will tell if she'll be able to save Madoka and Screw Destiny this time.
- Despite being an antagonist that ended up killing Mami horribly during the events of the anime, Charlotte the Witch of Desserts has virtually attained this status in the eyes of the fandom after it became known that all witches that aren't ex-familiars are former magical girls manipulated by Kyubey into crossing the Despair Event Horizon; the various subsequent speculations on the reasons behind her obsession of cheese have only served to fuel this sentiment. To wit: she's often said to have been a Littlest Cancer Patient (hence the hospital imagery in her barrier). Cancer patients often can't eat dairy products... And chances are that the other witches wouldn't be much (if any) less sympathetic, either.
  - Charlotte's actual wish is later revealed in a Guidebook and in Magica Record, and it just makes her original self, Nagisa Momoe, more of a Woobie. Turns out it was Nagisa's mother who was ill and in the hospital. Nagisa wanted to share a cake with her mother before she died, so when Kyubey came to make a contract with her that is what she wished for, a piece of Cheesecake. Her mother died soon after she became a Magical Girl, and Kyubey asked why Nagisa didn't just wish to save her mom. This pushed her past the Despair Event Horizon and turned her into Charlotte.
- And finally... Madoka. Is watching all the above take place to everyone else, trying to keep everyone together and sane, but about the only option she has to really save everyone involves selling her soul. And it's strongly implied by Homura that this will actually make things worse, since all magical girls eventually turn into witches, and Madoka turning into a witch will end the world. She does eventually find a way to end this cycle of misery, by using her wish to rewrite reality so that no magical girl, in this or any other time or world, will become a witch, though this doesn't come without a cost: becoming a goddess and ascending into a higher plane of existence.
RahXephon has a few, but the one that stands out most is Hiroko Asahina. The episode that focuses on her is some kind of deluxe Tear Jerker supreme, with a side order of Dramatic Irony.
Depending on both versions and your own opinions, any of the main teen characters from Ranma ½ fit this trope. The anime versions of the majority of the cast tend to be more sympathetic- Mousse is the only one who looks better in the manga, and whether manga-Ryoga or anime-Ryoga is more sympathetic is a matter of personal opinion. For some setting-neutral examples of reasons for Woobiedom...
- Ranma: a deep psychological trauma due to Training from Hell in early childhood that makes him afraid of a common pet, abusive parental figures (not only his mother and father, but both potential fathers-in-law, the grandmaster of his style, and his potential great-grandmother-in-law), a quartet of Clingy Jealous Girls who are perfectly fine with manipulating, deceiving and pounding him despite their proclaimed intent to marry him, a curse that earns the lecherous intentions of anyone who isn't aware of his true nature (and one opponent who knows and can't care less), and absolutely no friends whatsoever beyond his rivals and his fiancees.
- Ryoga: he literally can't go to the bathroom without getting lost, he turns into a small and delicious-looking pig, the girl he loves is not only engaged to his worst enemy but completely unaware of his feelings, said girl would also hate his guts (which he fears more than anything) if she discovers he's been masquerading as her pet, he has almost no friends except for the aforementioned girl and enemy, and one of his most powerful attacks is fueled by how unbelievably depressed he is about all of the above. The only true bright spot in the miserable darkness that is his life is a quasi-Relationship Sue who not only adores his piglet form ('cause she raises pigs in her farm), she tried to make herself hate pigs when she realized he hated his curse.
  - The reason why some argue that anime!Ryoga may be more sympathetic than manga!Ryoga? In the manga, Ryoga at least gets the aforementioned girl. In the anime, the character who Akari Unryu (the girl in question) was inspired by showed up in a filler episode... and Ryoga left her. He admitted to himself that she loved him and he loved her back, he commented that he had never felt so happy or at peace as he did while he was on her farm, he noted that he might not ever find the place or be so happy again if he left... and he still couldn't seperate himself enough from his quest to defeat Ranma Saotome or get Akane Tendo's heart to accept this relief.
- Akane: she's engaged against her will to a socially-unskilled jock who threatens her feminity both with derogatory comments and a curse that lets him change genders so he can literally be more of a girl than she is, she's gone from the most powerful and respected martial artist in her hometown to a second-string joke, her mother is dead, her father is a wimp, she's a total disaster at acting feminine, her fiancee has a trio of other girls after him who are all "sexier" and better at being "womanly" than she is, and she has no proof whether or not the fiancee she has come to be attracted to returns her feelings in any way.
- Mousse: the girl he loves and has loved since childhood has never once shown even the slightest sympathy towards his efforts at wooing her, no matter what extent he goes to.
  - In the manga she did give him a pity date, but he ruined it by bringing her to a gore filled horror flick on a date.
- Shampoo: she is constantly pursued by an obnoxious childhood friend who refuses to accept her blatant dislike for his efforts at wooing her, she never even got the chance to enjoy becoming the winner of the tournament before being disgraced, she has been effectively exiled from her homeland until she manages to get her fiance to accept their engagement, she has no friends beyond said aforementioned reluctant fiance and annoying would-be suitor.
  - All of these characters may actually be more accurately described as Jerkass Woobies, given that they are, at the same time, both pitable and deranged in a way that could make them all monsters in the real world.
  - Ryoga is the closest thing to being pure hearted of them and even he has his jerkass moments — such as his notorious attempt at trying to murder Ranma after accidentally making him/her fall in love with him (long story).
Rave Master:
- Although with the possible exception of when he has a very short breakdown in the final battle, Lucia is mostly just a homicidal maniac...but in any flashback remotely related to him you want nothing more than to rescue him from the universe that exists to screw him over. Admit it, even if he's racked up a high enough death count to rival Hitler, you still have to be upset that the government forced him to witness a massacre that included his mother's murder then threw him in a high-security prison 66 floors underground for no other reason than being the wrong guy's son WHEN HE WAS 5!
- Musica witnessed a massacre too, of everyone he was related to rather than a large group of random people, but Lucia was clearly much more traumatized by his past.
Reborn! (2004):
- Gokudera. Although he's incredibly aggressive and violent, his soft spot for his boss results in many, many touching woobie moments for him. The fact that he's willing to (and many times does) go through hell and high water for Tsuna makes many people just want to give him a big hug. Moreover, his past has been scattered with sad stories. he never knew his mom for five years since he was an illegitimate child. He ran away when he found about his parentage. He became a loner for the rest of his life, getting into gang fights frequently. His life was rough until he met Tsuna. There's no way he can't be ungrateful to the person who gives him a more peaceful life. Of course, one of his biggest and more famous woobie moments was when he's shown 10 years later, giving one of the most heart wrenching expressions when he sees Tsuna in the coffin.
- Chrome Dokuro is another example of this trope. Half her organs are missing because her mother refused to go through surgery for her, and the people she's closest to constantly belittles her. Or so she thinks...
Rent-A-Girlfriend:
- Chizuru's father abandoned her, her grandfather and mother are dead, and her grandmother is terminally ill. She's also fighting an uphill battle to become an actress, and her succeeding, much less in time for her grandmother to be alive to see it, is by no means guaranteed. While she does manage to star in a movie and show it to her grandmother before the latter's death, she still qualifies by how saddened she is over her grandmother's death.
Mizore Shirayuki of Rosario + Vampire gets forced into an Arranged Marriage, is the victim of Attempted Rape twice, had her first (human) love reject her out of fear that she'd eat him when he found out she was a snow girl, and is hopelessly in love with Tsukune with pretty much no chance of it being requited. Oh yeah, she's got plenty of this.
Oscar, Andre and Rosalie in The Rose of Versailles, though several others in the main cast and a few secondaries/bit characters fit this as well.
Suiseiseki from Rozen Maiden. The fact that she loves her sisters too much to fight them for the title of Alice makes you feel sad for her when her sisters start dying right in front of her very eyes in the second season.
- Most of the dolls hit on this at some point or another. With the exception of Barashitou/Krakashitou, who doesn't want to give one of these poor girls a hug after learning about how they were designed to fight each other to the death.
- And even Kirakishou hits this in the manga, of a far a far more lethal variety. The main reason she is considered evil is because she has been left alone inside the N-field since her creation, and by that has spend hundreds of years alone in isolation, making it hard not to feel sad for her when you consider that she has had nobody to love and in turn love back. This is part of her motivation for attacking the other sisters, out of a deranged view of wanting to be together with them, and with her dying words are "hold me more" while crying, it really casts some doubt on whether or not she truly is evil, but just very, very insane.
All of the main and supporting cast of Rurouni Kenshin make you want to alternately hug them or hit them until they get over themselves. Young Kenshin, Soujirou, and Enishi elicit the biggest Woobie reactions.
- Tomoe, Kaoru, Megumi, Tsubame and Fuji. Specially Fuji.
Maria in Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, quite deliberately. Played for laughs because she has a distinct mischievous side that only comes out when nobody is paying attention, for example pressing her foot on another girls weight scale to increase her apparent weight.
- Kobushi Abiru (initially) subverts this trope and (lately) plays it straight.
Pasifica from Scrapped Princess, not only does most of the world want her dead because she may be the Apocalypse Maiden. But she herself is not sure whether or not she should live and a couple of points asks her own brother to kill her because she feels so guilty about the people who died because of her
Sgt. Frog: Dororo. He takes a lot of abuse, especially in the early seasons of the anime anime, which just love sending him back into his Corner of Woe every chance it gets.
- Fuyuki to a lesser extent. Before Keroro came into his life, he had no friends and nobody joined him in the Paranormal club. This really shows in the Valentine's Day episode.
Akira Sakura from Shadow Star. Extremely shy and depressed as a result of being sexually abused by her father, she has nightmares while wide awake, gets bullied at school, witnesses gruesome deaths, is kidnapped and held hostage by a dangerous highschooler, gets her head messed with by creepy sociopaths... and the list goes on and on.
Minazuki Sanae in Sweet Ninja Girl Azuki. He's an orphan, he has no friends, there are mooks after his life and the bodyguard his grandfather hired, well, she might be even worse than all the above combined! Let's put it like this: he has a near-death experience every single chapter.
Kotonoha Katsura is more-or-less deemed as the only School Days character that actually deserves a bit of pity. She was cheated on by her "boyfriend" and their "Cyrano", bullied by a semi-Libby and her Girl Posse, raped by a Stalker with a Crush, coldly dumped by the "boyfriend" the day after that... and that causes her to go on a killing spree. What else do you want?
- And Sekai had it almost as bad. Whichever one you like better will probably be the Woobie for you.
The Secret Garden: The anime series gives us the Canon Foreigner Camilla. She and her mother were hated for being Roma, then her mother dies, later Lillias takes Camilla in as her lady-in-waiting and she falls for her young accountant Hawkins... and loses them both, so she has to leave the Craven's manor while being accused of killing Lillias since she got up the tree to get her a gorgeous flower as a birthday gift. She is epically broken, and it's a miracle she doesn't commit suicide or something and remains kind to Mary.
Akitsu of Sekirei is a "Scrapped Number", meaning she can't be winged. Given that almost every Sekirei views being winged as the entire reason for their existence and that it's the equivalent of marriage, poor girl is devastated. It's telling that she's willing to help anyone who shows her a bit of kindness. There's a reason so many fics have her being successfully winged by someone.
Lain of Serial Experiments Lain, who decides that the thing most wrong with the world is that she was ever born/created in the first place. She qualifies for Woobiedom primarily when she starts to have to confront different aspects of her fracturing identity. And then when she has to admit to herself that she is in fact a Goddess/Avatar, she is so alone in a world that no longer even knows she exists.
Any of the characters in Shima Shima Tora no Shimajirō- if they get put in the spotlight, there's high possibility that they're gonna become the woobie of the episode. And it's not limited to the kids, even the adult characters becoming the woobie is fair game.
Sylphiel in Slayers. When we first meet her, it's clear she's infatuated with Gourry, whose density can outmatch lead and thus doesn't notice it at all. She's also a delicate, shy young woman who seems incapable of raising her voice, in stark contrast to Lina. By the end of the series, her hometown has been wiped off the map unintentionally by the Big Bad, and her beloved father killed. She reappears in Slayers NEXT when the group returns to her hometown of Sairagg, which has been rebuilt and repopulated by the imprisoned souls of its dead population via the new Big Bad's power. She does get a brief reunion with her father, before the entire town is, again, killed off (or returned to being dead, whichever). Furthermore, any hopes of a romance with Gourry are smashed by his last second realization of love for Lina.
- There's also a bit of this attached to Amelia, though in a far more disturbing sort of way; due to the fact that she's energetic, optimistic, cute, chaste, and all around endearing, the production staff use her quite a bit in order to convince us that the villains are indeed villainous. A particularly chilling example is The Hellmaster ripping out her soul while she writhes in pain in her friend's arms. Rather than just be revolting, however, it makes you want to leap to her defense and give her a big protective hug, or that's the intention anyway. When this is done twice in three episodes, it feels a little forced.
- Zelgadiss. Apart from his curse angst, social troubles, self confidence seesaw etc., he also suffers from the Worf effect — if Zelgadiss starts BLEEDING you know you're in deep trouble.
Tails gets a few of these moments during Sonic X, not least when he spends roughly twenty minutes or so angsting about letting Sonic and Knuckles get hurt during a pretty awful attack.
- While the Sonic X ball is in play, Cosmo has to be the most woobified Sonic character to ever exist in any medium, having gone through so much (death of her entire family and destruction of her home leaving her the last remaining member of her species, spending months trying to deal with the ever complex bonds of Defeat Means Friendship in the Sonic crew, plus the fact that she later discovers she's been used as a spy for the Metarex all along and the only solution is to either kick Metarex butt — a nigh impossible task — or destroy her vision and hearing) it's no wonder she has so many tearing up scenes.
- And then, as if things couldn't possibly get any worse, Tails, who had developed an immense crush on Cosmo, is forced to kill her in order to save the world. The scene in which he struggles to pull the trigger is an infamous Tear Jerker.
  - Taken to tragic heights the franchise has rarely come close to since in the Japanese version where Tails and Cosmo are outright admitting they love each other, the resulting scene that is shown in full without cuts in localized dub is heartrending considering that Tails is the one who has to push the trigger, and the show makes sure you see how much it is DESTROYING him.
Crona from Soul Eater is practically the living definition of this trope. Has a horrific backstory (it starts with having his/her Jerkass Equippable Ally implanted in his/her body and goes on from there) and is a painfully shy, perpetually bewildered bundle of nerves. The entire fandom seems to be united in the desire to give him/her a hug and/or beat the tar out of Medusa. Not to mention half way through the anime series (and early in the manga) when s/he had befriended the main cast, Medusa re-appeared and brought back all the abuse with the added "bonus" of making hir betray hir new friends. Poor Chrona. It now looks as though Medusa is planning to send Crona against Shibusen again (she still wants Maka dead, likely amongst other things) and if Ragnarok's appearance is anything to go by, they're back taking human souls.
- Eruka Frog could also be one, considering that she is working for Medusa ONLY because of snakes inside her body, and more later on she gets captured by shibusen, and an explosive collar put on her neck to enfore her help. One is worried what will happen considering Medusa can see everything Eruka sees, and Medusa could kill her to ruin Shibusen's plans.
Space☆Dandy:
- Laika the lonely dog waiting for someone to love and play with her.
- Adélie qualifies too. Her mother never got married and she was born without a father, leading to a possible implication, then her mother died later in her life. She spent the majority of the episode finding her grandfather, only to find out someone else has moved into his apartment. Just watching her break down sobbing after she accused Dandy of abandoning her makes you just wanna hug her.
- Although he can be seen as a Butt-Monkey, Meow is encroaching into the territory, if not borderline Jerkass Woobie. He was killed several times, lost a bowl of the best ramen in the universe, sobbed his eyes out over Laika's death, had insecurities about his home planet and had his heart broken by his childhood crush. The space cat could really use a hug.
- Emo!Dandy counts as well. His name says it all.
- Poe says she's been alone for eons.
Kagura Tennouzou from Speed Grapher. In her introductory episode we learn that Kagura's mother Shinsen, the wealthiest woman in the city, starves her own daughter out of jealousy. And that's just the start...
- And the villains have this as well. Yeah, even Shinsen, whose husband left her while she was pregnant: the real reason she was starving poor Kagura. Not to mention the Big Bad himself, Suitengu, who lost his family, and Tsujido who was horribly treated by a bunch of rich puncks.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann:
- Viral is for some strange reason this due to his infamous Diminishing Villain Threat though mostly to fangirls. After the timeskip and his Heel–Face Turn he became just outright awesome. Then near the end his vision in the Lotus-Eater Machine is him playing with a wife and daughter he'll never have. He mentions before being freed that he was just "dreaming a sweet dream". Cue tears from the entire fandom.
- Nia Teppelin. Abandoned by her father and left to die for asking a goddamn question, she ends up finding the love of her life and has to fight her own father. Then, seven years later, before she and Simon can get married, she's torn away by the Anti-Spiral and forced to be his messenger. Then, right when she snaps out of it, he decides to Mind Rape/actually rape her. Then, after the battle is over, she gets to wed Simon... But dies at the altar, fading away into nothing, because she was created as an Anti-Spiral.
- Yoko Littner. Let's just say this woman's attempts at a love life are tragic as hell (especially the first time). After spending the first part of the series being in love and later part dealing with the death of said loved one, she then witnesses the death of Kittan who admits his crush on her beforehand.
- Simon arguably gets it worst of all, what with losing his parents, his best friend who was also his surrogate brother and something of a father figure, and a good chunk of his friends from Team Gurren. Along with that, he was betrayed and then character assassinated by his close friend and Well-Intentioned Extremist Rossiu, who also had him condemned to death. And to top it all off, his lover, who rescued him from a deep depression after losing aforementioned surrogate brother, and for who he literally tore apart the universe trying to save, crumbles into dust moments after they're married. Someone give this kid a hug, dammit.
Tenjou Tenge: Masataka Takayanagi is a pretty nice guy who has a crush on Aya Natsume, and is a fellow member of the very small Juken Club, making them fairly tight-knit teammates. Aya has a crush on Souichiro Nagi, the street punk protagonist. Souichiro treats Aya as an annoyance. Very early on, Souichiro picks a fight with Masataka, with Aya soon showing up to watch. Masataka, being a fairly well trained and experienced super-powered martial artist, easily knocks Souichiro around, and the latter is soon incapacitated. Aya cuts in angrily and tells Souichiro to get up, declaring that it's not befitting of her lover to lose to such a subpar martial artist. This causes Masataka to go berserk and give Souichiro a brutal beatdown. Cue woobie status and popularity for Masataka, and a part of the early foundations for the Soichiro and Aya Hatedoms.
Any sympathetic character in Texhnolyze, but the main character Ichise may be the worst though.
Barnaby from Tiger & Bunny. At first he comes across as a cold, selfish and arrogant young man, but we later learn about the Dark and Troubled Past which he has spent twenty years trying to deal with. By episode 13 things are starting to look up for him and he becomes genuinely happy and contented...but then everything falls apart again.
- Ivan counts as well, once we find out what he's like behind his flashy costume. And Kotetsu in later episodes, especially once his powers begin to fail him.
Kotone Himekawa from To Heart was introduced with a pretty sad backstory: her parents are never around, she's got Psychic Powers that cause people to avoid her, since getting close to her supposedly gives you bad luck because she can foresee any unfortunate events that would occur to anyone close to her.
To Love Ru: Yami was once a happy little girl who lived with Tearju Lunatique, her "mother". Unfortunately, when Tearju planned to run away with her, the "Eden" organization attempted to assassinate Tearju, forcing her to escape. Yami was left behind and lied to about Tearju abandoning her as Eden started training her into a Living Weapon. Following the organization's collapse, Yami lived alone in the universe before coming to Earth. However, Eden has a programming block in Yami called "Darkness" mode that will activate when she comes to accept the mere possibility of being able to live peacefully, thus ensuring she turns into a weapon of mass destruction, all so the universe will never achieve true peace.
Jonah Matsuka in Toward the Terra never catches a break. You know it's bad when the only truly happy moment the poor guy has in the entire series is when he's half-dismembered and dying because at least now he knows that Keith feels sorry for him.
Vash the Stampede from Trigun. Aside from being officially classified as a natural disaster, his name is generally feared and he's hunted for the unprecedented bounty on his head throughout much of the series. A good day for him is one on which he doesn't get shot at. And that's before we start to learn his backstory.
Umineko: When They Cry has several as well:
- Battler, what with that whole "Fate Worse than Death" issue, has a very sucky lot even compared to the characters who die all the time.
- Maria; with a household like that, is it any wonder she's disturbingly obsessed with magic and witches? Of course, Maria loses a lot of Woobie-credit in the fourth arc... and it's regained in one line: But Sakutaro won't be fixed, right? Because Mama, who created Sakutaro, won't accept him. Mama also created me and won't recognise me. So the broken Maria won't be fixed either.".
- And, of course, Ange. She had her entire family killed, was physically and verbally abused by her aunt, and was bullied to the point of absolute misery by girls at her school, and then got turned into hamburger, AKA being torn apart by red hot pliers. And then, in the human world, probably was shot by her bodyguard, the person she currently trusts most. And then Bernkastel brings her back only to reveal that the "truth" that Ange's parents were the culprits, and her mom hated her, and it was Eva who really loved her. And then she gets turned into hamburger. Again.
- Natsuhi, whose misery is so complete that the song discolor is pretty much the "Natsuhi's life is falling to pieces" theme song.
Marie Moriya, the main character of The Unforgiving Flowers Blossom in the Dead of Night, who is bullied by her classmates and sexually abused by the homeroom teacher who initially defended her against them, to the point where the poor girl wants to become a Youkai. She gets her wish after being murdered by said teacher when she tries to turn his Blackmail scheme against him.
Zero Kiryu from Vampire Knight gets the razor sharp end of a burning stick so many times that the author must seriously get huge amounts of glee from torturing him. He's one of those rare characters that has justified angst. Nearly his whole family was brutally murdered before his eyes, creating a deep resentment towards vampires within him. Then that attacker bit him, dooming him to eventually become that which he hated most. He then spends the next years of his life slowly warming up to Yuki, the female protagonist, who he has an unrequited love for. Of course, that's not bad enough, so there'll naturally be The Reveal where his twin brother survived that attack, but then willingly joined the murderer of their family out of jealousy of his brother. Oh, and Zero's also descending into madness because of his bite, so in spite of his wishes, he has to drink the blood of his murderer and Kaname, whom he also hates, to save himself. He then finds out Kaname is planning to manipulate him to free himself, and is only keeping him alive because of this and his friendship towards Yuki, basically making the guy feel even more crappy about himself. He's then imprisoned by the hunter organization for simply being a vampire, despite his service to them. His aforementioned brother then goes to him and essentially kills himself in front of him (that's all his family dying in front of him now), and shoots him so that Zero will have to eat his flesh. Then he finds out the only person he's ever come to care for is a vampire too.
Variable Geo: Life hasn't been kind to Satomi. Both her parents died years ago in a car accident, leaving her to fend for herself and her Delicate and Sickly kid brother, on her own. So she's had to manage two jobs, while still trying to finish highschool — and that's just in the game series. The OVA adds to her misfortune.
- According to Damian's background check, Satomi used to be undefeated until she met Yuka. She continued to lose each time they competed, with each loss chipping away at her confidence until she finally stopped competing altogether, out of fear that she'd never be able to defeat Yuka.
- Once The Jahana Group learns of the immensity of Satomi's untapped fighting potential, they caused her brother's condition to relapse, then had Damian offer to cover the cost of the procedure needed to treat him... on the condition that she enter the tournament, as their test subject. She submits to their terms; not knowing they intended to reduce her to a hollow shell for Miranda Jahana's disembodied spirit to inhabit, in order to steal her power. Oh, and they try to use her against her best friend too.
Vinland Saga: Thorfinn, you poor pathetic bastard. Watching your dad get murdered, having everyone who is ever kind to you butchered, losing your worst enemy/surrogate father figure, the kid just can't catch a break.
Voices of a Distant Star: Mikako in spades — she's a 15-year-old girl drafted into a war against a mysterious alien invader. Her only contact with her boyfriend Noboru is via text message on a cell phone. As she gets further away from Earth, the messages take longer to reach him. The crowning Tear Jerker moment comes on Agartha when, lonely and heartbroken, she falls apart sobbing, eight light years away from home.
- Noboru has his moments, too, though he's more of a Stoic Woobie. "It's just that... I will become someone who only waits for Mikako's mail."
Voltes V
- The Go brothers at the start of the anime, having witnessed their mother die while their father is a Disappeared Dad. Seeing them re-unite is truly heartwrenching.
- Megumi, who's usually The Pollyanna of the group, after her father dies. She is seen picking flowers for him and placing them on his grave, and Ippei feels miserable being unable to help her. Not to mention that the day her father died, she was planning to gift him a sweater she had knitted, which he never got to wear.
- Gohl. From his own family attempting to commit filicide on him due to being born hornless, to him being repeatedly degraded and abused once it was found out his horns were prosthetic. Gohl's First Love died in childbirth and he spent a long time thinking that he never knew his firstborn son...only to find out that his firstborn son is none other than the Evil Prince that has been terrorising him and his fellow slaves. And after Heinel acknowledges him as his father, he watches him die.
- Lozaria, Gohl's first wife. She was separated from the man she loved and forced to watch him become a slave, and died in childbirth. Her son grew up to be a Warrior Prince who committed several atrocities in the name of "honour", and unknowingly attacked his own father.
- Katherine, who died saving Heinel. As he held her limp body, she expressed happiness that Heinel showed he cared about her, and said she wished it could be like this forever, before dying.
- Prince Heinel. The Boazanian Empire runs on a Fantastic Caste System where those born with horns live as nobles and those born without them are sentenced to be slaves. When Prince Gohl was born, he was hornless, but his family couldn't bear to lose their son to slavery, and decided to mask it by giving him prosthetic horns. Gohl frequently witnessed the cruel treatment his fellow hornless Boazanians went through, and dreamed of one day creating a society where the horned and hornless co-existed peacefully. On the day of his coronation, his cousin Zambajil, who desired the throne, exposed his horns as prosthetics in front of the public. As a result, Gohl was forcibly enslaved and separated from his wife Lozaria. Gohl spent months working in labour camps, and one day, he found out that Lozaria had died a long time ago in childbirth. Enraged, he used his skill in science and technology to manufacture weapons for slave rebellions against the horned nobles of Boazania. Gohl led multiple slave rebellions before escaping to Earth, as it became too dangerous for him to stay there. Unbeknownst to Gohl, while Lozaria died in childbirth, she delivered a horned baby boy, Prince Heinel. Growing up, Prince Heinel was scapegoated for the actions of a father he never met, and received constant abuse and disdain from those around him. In one of his flashbacks, fellow children pelted him with sticks and stones and physically abused him, and other nobles of Boazania claimed that he would grow up to be a traitor just like his father. Only his maternal grandparents showed him genuine love. Wanting to clear his name, Heinel vowed to one day bring honour to Boazania. He graduated as the top cadet in the Boazanian Institute of Military Sciences and Warfare, and was selected by Emperor Zambajil to command the Boazanian invasion to Earth. In the series finale, he finds out that he's been fighting against his half-brothers and father, which causes him to have a My God, What Have I Done? moment. He begs Zambajil to stop the war, but when Zambajil reveals himself to be a coward and blames Heinel for the invasion, Heinel tosses his dagger at him. This makes Zambajil drop his grenade, engulfing them both in flames. Heinel saves Kenichi from the fire, and his last words are "Father!" as he tearfully looks at La Gohl.
- Mitsuyo, who begged her husband not to leave Earth, died by the time he returned, and never got to see him retake the crown of Boazania.
- Girion, Sakabe, Hamaguchi and all the other innocent lives taken by the Boazanians in their conquest of Earth.
- The puppy from Episode 23, that the Voltes team temporarily befriend, had to watch it's own mother be mauled to death by a mutated monstrous dog.
Shuuichi Nitori and Yoshino Takatsuki are the male and female protagonists of Wandering Son who wish they were the female and male protagonists of Wandering Son. Shuuichi moreso because, while both are sympathetic, Shuu is frequently hit harder by the Double Standard of a Wholesome Crossdressing boy being a deviant versus a Wholesome Crossdressing girl being a Tomboy.
The Way to Protect the Female Lead's Older Brother: Poor, poor Sierra. She's married to what basically amounts to a mob boss, lives in a Gilded Cage, is forced to see her beloved son being killed and her only remaining child, a daughter, clearly disdains her and keeps her at arm's length, while being too busy climbing the family ranks. Her only friend is an Ax-Crazy cannibal who likes to murder and dismember her servants and stitch them back together to use as her personal puppets. No wonder her mental health is deteriorating fast.
Satou from Welcome to the NHK is a bit of a Woobie. He is a good person deep down. He is just not sure what to do with his life for most of the series.
Aoshika Akiko from Wolf Guy - Wolfen Crest. DEAR. LORD. This woman needs a hug. BADLY. From her preteen years, her life sucked, having been the victim of sexual assault because of her body. She married early because she was convinced that no other man would want her, but the marriage broke apart. She's now an under-appreciated middle school teacher, but she still cares about her students, especially Inugami. However, since Inugami is a Doom Magnet, things do not get any better for Aoshika. What do we mean by that? Well, Inugami has attracted the attention of class sociopath Haguro, who tries to get Inugami's attention to no end and gets insanely jealous whenever he doesn't. After doing some truly horrific things to his right hand man for just chatting with Inugami, Haguro plans his final revenge against Inugami by having Aoshika kidnapped, molested, and then rapes her and makes Inugami watch the video of it. BUT IT DOESN'T STOP THERE because after raping Aoshika himself, he gets his Yakuza goons to gang rape her for several hellish hours. BUT IT STILL DOESN'T STOP THERE because while they're raping her, Haguro injects Aoshika with a drug that made her loopy to the point where it made her enjoy being gangraped in EVERY WAY POSSIBLE. AND he video taped it. AND he made Inugami watch the act happen live. AND he released the video on the internet to insure that Aoshika's life was over. We told you that she needs a serious hugging marathon.
Toboe in Wolf's Rain gets bullied a lot by the other wolves, particularly Tsume. This is partly because Tsume's just that way, but also because as the smallest and youngest, Toboe is the pack omega (which means he also acts realistically as peacemaker between Tsume and Kiba). Before joining Kiba's pack he befriended a young human but accidentally killed her pet bird, then dropped his human disguise, causing her to regard him as an evil monster. It is later revealed that before that he was owned by an old woman, until he accidentally killed her. In spite of all this Toboe never becomes bitter or cynical, and has his own Moment of Awesome when he manages to fight and kill a huge walrus that had defeated the other wolves (or three crowning moments, if you also count both of his attempts to save the life of Quent, the wolf hunter, the second of which failed and cost both of them their lives).
Yo-kai Watch: Nate's averageness can dog him to points where it stops being funny, depending on how ham-fisted the events can be. Fate and events always want to keep reminding him of that's he's just so ho-hum and poke fun at him for it, to the point where his own dreams don't have him on center stage.
Your Lie in April:
- Kousei Arima is a former Child Prodigy piano player who was abused by his mother into perfecting his craft and driven into further depression when she died and gave up playing the piano out of sadness. Meeting violin player Kaori Miazono, Kousei rekindles his passion for playing with her and even falls in love with the latter, though his hope for any future with her is shattered when Kaori dies during surgery done in an attempt to prolong her life to play music with him one more time.
- The aforementioned Kaori Miazono is a hopeful girl with a terminal illness. Despite her awful condition, she refuses to let life bring her down and introduces herself to her love Kousei through a friend for the chance to play music with him. As her body grows frailer, Kaori determines to undergo a dangerous medical procedure in the hopes it will buy her a little more time to play with Kousei, only to die during the surgery.
Akari from YuruYuri. Starting from about the second episode on, the show goes out of its way to make sure that the poor girl is either neglected, miserable, or both. The fact that her own friends seem to ignore her at times makes things even worse.
Mitarai Kiyoshi/Seaman from YuYu Hakusho was bullied to the point of physical and mental torture by his classmates, watched the infamous Chapter Black tape (featuring the most horrendous acts performed by humans) thanks a guy who said he was the Messiah, and then was given special powers that involved cutting himself and using his own blood to create monsters... Holy shit.
Zatch Bell!:
- Many characters from fit this trope. The title character has no memories of his previous experience in the mamodo world (Makai) and is the son of the world's previous king and has a twin brother who hates him. His partner is a genius who starts the series out disliked by everyone, although he eventually becomes a popular student. There's Sherry Belmont, who has to battle against her best friend who was brainwashed by a mamodo. And of course the lovable losers that everyone likes to root for, Parco Folgore and Kanchome. Even Folgore gets a tragic past in the manga where it's revealed that his parents disowned him and he used to be a ruffian before becoming a pop star.
- We can't forget to mention Kolulu, she was given a Jekyll & Hyde personality so that she would fight in the Mamodo war, fearing her Superpowered Evil Side she had Zatch burn her book even though it meant she'd be separated from her human partner Shiori/Lori and the two considered themselves sisters. And if that isn't Woobie enough for you this is how she first appeared on the show: standing in the streets in the rain all alone crying her eyes out and no one was doing anything about it until Lori found her. The ending of her episode was a big Tear Jerker for everyone.
  Kiyo: [with tears running down his face] Ah man, now she's got me doing it!
- The one good thing coming from Kolulu's predicament was that it was the driving force that encouraged Zatch to become a good and kind king.
Zombie Loan has its fair share of Woobies, but to this troper none stand out more than the golem girl. Rather simple-minded, and not much use in combat, she's considered a defective failure by her creator, Yoshizumi, and even abused onscreen/panel by him. After she shows affection for Shito while he's captured by Yoshizumi, he resolves to take her back with him and take care of her ...until suddenly she's shot dead by Yoshizumi's lackey, who saw her as just another monster to get rid of.

Woobie / Anime & Manga

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