Grave Of The Fireflies & 9 Other Great Anime You'll Never Watch Twice (2024)

This list contains spoilers for its respective anime series and movies. Please read at your own caution.One of the many things fans love about anime is the powerful emotions that they portray. Art styles, voice acting, and direction intersect to create exhilarating or gut-punching shows - sometimes with unbelievable twists. Unfortunately, several anime are so heartbreaking or feature twists that are so seismic that fans can't come back to the anime with the same enthusiasm as they did on their first watch.

Most of these anime tell great stories, but are impossible to repeatedly view because they're just so devastating. Even anime that aren't as sad can have further viewings tainted by knowing too much about their story and where the narrative is head. In either case, these anime are still worth seeing, but probably aren't going to become regular, repeated viewings.

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10 Tokyo Revengers Shows The Same People Continuously Dying

Tokyo Revengers is a time-travel anime that follows Takemichi Hanagaki's struggles to keep his girlfriend from dying in the present. Despite his best efforts, Hinata Tachibana and various other characters continue to lose their lives, which forces a distraught Takemichi to repeatedly revisit the past.

The amount of wanton tragedy in T okyo Revengers can occasionally get unbearable. There's also a lot of physical violence, since the show is about the Tokyo Manji gang and their aggressive rivals. Tokyo Revengers is not for the squeamish or those who are easily saddened by character deaths, since the series includes plenty of gore and many casual fatalities. Plenty of fans have decided that once is enough for this bleak show.

9 Angel Beats! Is Set In The Afterlife

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Anime about the afterlife aren't generally happy, but Angel Beats! takes its heavenly premise to new precedents of depression. All the characters in Angel Beats! are victims of unspeakable tragedies and find themselves confined to a high school-centric brand of purgatory until they can find ways to move on.

Along with everyone's heartbreaking backstory, the main love story between Yuzuru Otonashi and Kanade Tachibana ends with the two being tragically separated. Kanade's goodbye scene is particularly devastating. Fans who have seen Angel Beats! praise its great story about love and self-sacrifice, but they can't ever watch it again for fear that they'll cry for days on end.

8 Your Lie In April Shows Kaori's Last Performance

Your Lie in April begins with a boy mourning his mother's death and it only gets sadder from there. Kosei Arima loses the ability to play piano after his mom dies, but his love of music returns when he meets the lively Kaori Miyazono.

Sadly, even though the students develop feelings for each other, Kaori dies at the story's end during an experimental surgery. The two musicians play onstage together in spirit as the specter of Kaori draws her bow across her violin. At this point, Arima is well-acquainted with loss, but this fate still seems cruel and he shouldn't have to lose another person who is so important to him. Your Lie in April is a beautiful depiction of first love and the power of music, but Kaori's death is too upsetting to watch more than once.

7 Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day Deals In Grief

Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day is one of anime's best depictions of grief and its lasting effects. When the now-teenager Jinta Yadomi is haunted by the ghost of his departed friend, Menma, he reunites with his childhood friend group to help her move on.

Each of the five remaining Super Peace Busters has gone through a unique experience when it comes to their grief regarding Menma's passing. Some of the hardest parts to watch in Anohana are the moments that depict the accumulated pain that the Super Peace Busters and Menma's family have experienced since this tragedy. However, Anohana's conclusion where the friends all collectively say goodbye is too much for many viewers to bear. Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day is an exceptional anime, albeit one that most fans can't handle to revisit because of its sincere portrayal of such raw emotions.

6 I Want To Eat Your Pancreas Has An Unexpected Death

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I Want to Eat Your Pancreas is a uniquely sad anime in the sense that viewers already know that Sakura Yamauchi will perish by the film's finish. Haruki Shiga, as the protagonist, discovers that Sakura has a pancreatic disease that will kill her before she graduates from high school. Sakura, rather than lamenting her fate, takes Haruki on a journey to better help her complete her Bucket List.

Sakura and Haruki have fun on their excursions, while they make poignant comments about life and death. However, the anime movie's twist is shocking enough to crush fans' hearts. Sakura's unavoidable fate makes a strong point about living life to the fullest. That being said, once viewers are aware of these fatal circumstances, it makes subsequent viewings less rewarding. I Want to Eat Your Pancreas' sad premise and melancholy ending are easy ways to turn away more sensitive audiences.

5 Banana Fish Has Many Graphic Scenes

Not many people rewatch Banana Fish because it becomes such a grueling, melodramatic experience. Banana Fish's intense violence and assaults are enough to dissuade anyone from progressing further on their initial viewing, let alone starting the anime over from the beginning once they're done.

Ash Lynx's life hasn't been easy in Banana Fish. Ash gets sold into human trafficking and is now the personal toy of vicious mob boss, Dino F. Golzine. Ash's circumstances and the things that he does to discover the truth behind his brother's death makes fans' skin crawl. Banana Fish's blunt, brutal ending also doesn't help, as more violence and grief seep into Ash's life.

4 Grave Of The Fireflies Depicts The Realities Of War

Grave of the Fireflies is horrifying in its accuracy of the casualties of war and it remains Studio Ghibli's most devastating story. This historical tale of a brother and sister's desperate efforts to survive during World War II is so painful because it doesn't pull any punches with its depiction of reality. Seita and Setsuko Yokokawa reflect on the recent tragedies in their lives, which results in the abject terrors of war, death, and destruction.

Grave of the Fireflies' bleak setting and grief-inducing ending ensure that any viewer will be bawling their eyes out as the credits roll. Seita and Setsuko's fates seem inevitable upon reflection, but the story's devastating finale ensures that fans won't be clamoring to rewatch this anime.

3 Devilman Crybaby Depicts Demons Coming to the Surface

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Devilman Crybaby is a beautifully animated show, albeit one with a subpar story. Devilman Crybaby's narrative isn't exactly poorly written, but it's just so dark and haunting that select viewers couldn't make it to the anime's finish. Devilman Crybaby remixes Go Nagai's original Devilman as it depicts Akira Fudo's transformation into Devilman. Akira's newly powerful status goes hand-in-hand with how he helps his best friend, Ryo Asuka, release demons into the world. Devilman Crybaby sets the stage for all-out demon massacres.

Mass panic erupts, murderous mobs form, and demons wreak havoc on humankind. In Devilman Crybaby, even some of the humans can't resist the allure of betrayal as they turn on one another. Devilman Crybaby gets a lot of goodwill for its creative art direction, but the anime's premise is too bleak for fans to enjoy steady rewatches.

2 Your Name Has A Powerful Double-Twist

Your Name is a gorgeous anime movie by acclaimed director, Makoto Shinkai. It's a unique romance where two teens, Taki Tachibana and Mitsuha Miyamizu, sporadically and inadvertently switch bodies. Though these two strangers begin this tale as enemies, hate quickly turns to love. Taki and Mitsuha both reach their breaking points and decide that they must meet, which hits even harder when Taki fails to show up.

Your Name keeps its audience on their toes and the explanation behind Taki's "absence" does not disappoint. Your Name isn't as universally despondent as other anime. However, the palpable emotions between its vulnerable characters as well as the circumstances behind the big twist make it difficult for Your Name rewatches to achieve the same awe as the initial viewing.

1 Clannad

Clannad and Clannad: After Story are two of the most depressing anime of all time. There are plenty of more explicit melodramas out there, but the endings to each Clannad offering are truly hurtful on a personal level.

Nagisa Furukawa and Tomoya Okazaki have hardships growing up, but they still manage to find love with each other. Unfortunately, their relationship and subsequent family are plagued by misery. Their happily ever after gets cut short as Nagisa, Tomoya, and even their daughter all perish. This loving family are reunited in Clannad's depiction of the afterline, but the anime is too tragic to revisit due to the pain that it puts this innocent, loving family through. In Clannad, prolonged happiness truly seems impossible.