When life throws you a curveball, everything you take for granted may vanish. Things change at the speed of sound, and you’re thrust into an entirely new situation, unsure of what to do or how to handle it.
In those situations, you must stand up, fight, and adapt. What doesn’t change is the fact that certain events can turn you into a very sad person, and that sadness can change you for the rest of your life.
Anime characters, like us, face absurd situations that turn them into very sad characters: loss, a difficult family, bullying, or even transforming into something other than a human being.
Anime characters, too, deal with change, and the feeling of sadness changes them as they fight. This is a list that will tell you what happened to these ten boys as a result of various events and occurrences that made them sad.
Some of them simply couldn’t accept what was happening and struggled to deny it, while others remained passive and cried. What they all have in common is that, despite their sadness, they all fought valiantly to get back up!
10. Takashi Natsume from Natsume’s Book of Friends (Natsume Yuujinchou)
Takashi Natsume is the only character on this list who starts out in a difficult situation. He is an orphan who has moved around from family to family every year because every relative thought he was too strange to deal with.
His oddness, on the other hand, is a gift. He can see the ayakashi (spirits), but because no one else can, he usually gets himself into trouble.
We can see how sad his life is right from the start of this anime. He has no friends and no real family, and his difficult childhood years have made him appear cold. That, however, is just a ruse. Natsume is a sweet and caring person.
He simply suffers, and in order to protect himself, he has only learned to fake one or two things. He is aware of the spirits, but acts as if he is not. He wants to make friends, but he’s afraid of getting too close to other people, so he keeps his distance.
When he discovers the Book of Friends that his grandmother – who could see spirits as well – left behind after her death, the tables are turned. When he meets Madara, alias Nyanko-sensei, a powerful spirit trapped in the form of a “maneki neko,” he embarks on a journey to return the names of all the spirits whose names appear in the book.
This journey will teach him many lessons; he will gradually re-open to people and even help others, whether spirits or humans. He learns the spirits’ sadness and loneliness while returning their names, and this is what makes him feel them.
He is an orphan, and his sadness cannot be washed away; in fact, he will always remember the few happy moments he shared with his parents; however, he comes to find the upright of what has been given to him, and this will be the beginning of his rise.
9. Aoyagi Ritsuka from Loveless
Let’s move on to the ninth position, where we have another sad boy who is tormented by a variety of things. Aoyagi Ritsuka, from Loveless, comes from a troubled family, as his mother is insane and his brother, Seimei, was murdered.
The situation worsens when he meets Agatsumi Soubi, as sad as it may appear. In fact, his fated encounter with Soubi reveals the existence of a whole new world to him: a world of fighters and sacrifices, where two people with the same name fight together and the “sacrifice” protects while the “fighter” fights. Worse yet, Ritsuka discovers that Soubi knew his older brother and had fought with him in the past. Because they share the same name – Beloved – Ritsuka deduces that Soubi is likely to know more about his brother’s death.
Soubi asks Ritsuka to be his “sacrifice,” and he accepts despite the fact that they don’t have the same name (Ritsuka’s name is Loveless). He is motivated by the belief that Soubi knows more about his brother’s past, and Soubi wants to know what really happened to Seimei, so they band together in the name of Seimei’s love.
Ritsuka is a teenager who witnesses a lot of things. Finally, he begins to have conflicting feelings for Soubi. Is he in love with him? Is he enraged by him? He can’t figure it out on his own, so he just keeps going, unsure of what to do.
The sadness is irreversible, and the fights between them are always painful and dangerous. Soubi, on the other hand, appears to see something of the long-forgotten Seimei in Ritsuka. As open as the anime’s ending is, it’s clear that, despite their sadness, Ritsuka and Soubi will try to help and understand each other, despite their many difficulties.
8. Shion from No.6
Shion from No.6 is a sad boy who has the fortitude to adapt to his new circumstances. In fact, he leads a wonderful life in high society, living in a large home with all of the creature comforts he could desire, and his IQ is so high that he was accepted into the Special Course at school.
We can even speculate that he is a little spoiled. He, on the other hand, is not the type to back down from a challenge, so when Nezumi, who is covered in blood, appears under his balcony, he simply assists him.
Years later, his assistance to Nezumi had resulted in his social status being lowered. As a result, he had to say goodbye to all of his creature comforts and adjust to a completely new lifestyle. He isn’t the type to take a step back. He simply adjusts and perseveres.
When one of his coworkers dies and he is suspected of murder, the situation changes. Shion begins to lose his cool at this point. He is about to be arrested when Nezumi, who had been missing since the previous night, appears and saves him. He takes Shion outside the city walls of No.6, where he discovers the shocking truth: society’s outcasts live in poor cities alongside larger cities, struggling to survive.
Shion contracts a disease that causes his hair to turn white and leaves him with a long scar across his body. The sadness he feels as his body changes, his life is ruined, and he is separated from his mother is nothing compared to the sadness he feels when he sees how people are treated outside of No.6. It’ll be the encouraging Nezumi who will give him the courage to keep going and realize that he can accomplish something if he doesn’t look away from what’s in front of him.
7. Mikaela Hyakuya from Seraph of The End: Vampire Reign (Owari no Seraph)
Mikaela Hyakuya is a depressed character who sees his future ripped away from him. He had intended to live a happy life with his family, far away from the vampire’s clutches, but his plan backfired. On the verge of death, Kurl, Japan’s vampire queen, transforms him into a vampire. He avoided death, but he morphed into one of the creatures he despised the most.
Throughout the anime, we see him dealing with his transformation. The thought of Yuu, his only remaining family member, who is still alive and believes Mika is dead, irritates him more than anything else. Mika is unsure of Yuu’s reaction as he tries to track him down and reunite with him. He’s not sure how to deal with Yuu now that he’s a vampire, and Yuu is out for vengeance on the vampires who destroyed their future.
The meeting between him and Yuu will give him hope as his sadness grows by the minute, due to the fact that he needs more blood but refuses to take it from humans, refusing to give up his human component. That hope will not be enough to overcome sadness, but it will serve as a starting point for him to realize that the future he envisioned for himself and Yuu may still be attainable.
6. Ouma Shuu from Guilty Crown
Our 17-year-old sad protagonist is Ouma Shuu. He possesses a unique ability known as the Power of Kings, which allows him to extract weapons from the bodies of others. We can see how sluggish he is right from the start, as he tries to stay out of trouble. However, trouble arrives in the form of Inori Yuzuriha one day, forcing him to abandon his peaceful life and join the resistance against the GHQ organization, which has subjugated Japan.
The feelings he begins to have for Inori drive him, but they are insufficient to make him feel at ease in his current situation. So much more when he doesn’t understand how Inori truly feels about him.
Apart from the romantic aspect, he despises having to fight. He simply desired a peaceful life, and he finds it difficult to adapt to change. After all, he’s just a regular kid who wants to live a normal life with regular friends and build a future with his own two hands. He simply refuses to adapt because he is deprived of his dreams.
He simply cannot accept what is happening, but all he can do now is fight. So, to get over his sadness, he’ll try anything in the hopes that one day, everything he’s done will pay off, and he’ll be able to reclaim his future.
5. Haruto Tokishima from Valvrave The Liberator (Kakumeiki Valvrave)
Our fifth position is occupied by a character who lives in space, in the Module 77 division. Haruto Tokishima is a happy student, but one day, something happens that changes his life forever. He is forced to become a Valvrave pilot as a result of an invasion by the Dorrsian Military Pact Federation, but he has no idea that becoming a Valvrave pilot actually means giving up his humanity.
He realizes he is no longer a human being the moment he becomes a pilot, as he has the urge to bite people and drink their blood like a vampire. He is sad in many ways because he wants to protect Sashinami Shouko, the girl he loves and a childhood friend, but he needs to put distance between them in order to do so.
The situation becomes even worse when he assumes responsibility for everyone’s safety and begins to act accordingly. He despises how things have turned out, but he has a mission now, and he will go to any length to complete it; he will even go so far as to make the ultimate sacrifice, calmed by the knowledge that he has saved everyone.
4. Kou “Tanaka” Mabuchi from Blue Spring Ride (Ao Haru Ride)
Kou “Tanaka” Mabuchi from Blue Spring Ride is a character who appears cold or even a tease to others from the start. He had a crush on Futaba Yoshioka when they were in middle school, but one day Kou vanished from Futaba’s sight without saying anything. Futaba wondered a lot about him for the next three years until she unexpectedly runs into him at her high school one day.
Kou, now a teenager, has a completely different appearance than Futaba recalls. He was sweet and always smiling back then. The person she sees in front of her is a boy who constantly teases her but is cold and won’t let anyone get close to her.
Futaba’s feelings are still there, so she’ll dig into his past to uncover a sad truth that will leave her speechless. Kou’s parents divorced, and he moved to a different city with his mother. Later, due to a serious illness, his mother died, and he was forced to return to Tokyo to live with his older brother and father.
Kou’s method of maintaining a safe distance is merely a means of self-defense. In silence, he grieved the loss of his mother and the separation from her in a faraway city. After seeing how his father handled the situation and how his brother was always “busy” and couldn’t visit him and their mother on a regular basis, he lost faith in people.
Kou’s sadness left a huge hole in his chest, so he’s convinced that it’s best to keep his distance from others. Futaba, on the other hand, is willing to force him to open up once more. She will show him that he can cry if he needs to, and that he is no longer alone in carrying the burdens that life has placed in his path.
3. Shinichi Izumi from Parasyte – the maxim – (Kiseijuu: Sei no Kakuritsu)
Shinichi Izumi appears to be a typical high school student with a normal life and a happy family at the start of the story. So much so that he only realizes he was fortunate after a parasite infiltrates his body and replaces his right hand. He is terrified of what will happen to him, and he appears to be very human in that he does not hide his fears or desire to flee whenever his parasite, Migi, alerts him to the presence of another parasite nearby.
As his new life progresses, and he manages to deal with his new troublesome parasite “friend,” he must continue to hide what is going on from everyone.
He must protect his family and friends, and he does not want to be used as a test subject because he is the only human with a parasite that has not subjugated his brain. His situation worsens when his parents go on vacation and his mother succumbs to a parasite. He has no idea what’s going on, but he gets a strange call from his father, and his mother shows up at his house the next day.
Migi keeps reminding him that she is a parasite, not his mother. Shinichi is unable to accept the shocking truth and is powerless to defend himself. As a result, he nearly dies, but Migi saves him. He realizes what happened when he wakes up with a strange scar on his chest and realizes what happened.
He became a seemingly cold person after the accident, but he is actually in a lot of pain. He swears to protect everyone and begins acting in that manner. Following that, a series of losses and discoveries push him to the edge of a cliff, but the same sadness he feels will drive him to act bravely to protect those he cares about.
2. Ken Kaneki from Tokyo Ghoul
Ken Kaneki is a university student who has a soft spot for intelligent women. The sudden change in his life is due to that weakness. He meets Rize, who appears to be intelligent, but she turns out to be a Ghoul – a creature that feeds on humans – and he is assaulted by her. His life is safe after surgery, but he is now half ghoul and half human, thanks to Rize’s kagune (a ghoul’s weapon) being implanted in him in place of a new kidney.
His new life is extremely difficult. He discovers that he can no longer eat human food and that taming his ghoul side is difficult. However, he has someone he wishes to protect, and that is his best friend Hide.
As a result, he’ll begin acting accordingly. He joins the Anteiku cafe, a place where ghouls work under the guise of being normal humans, and attempts to deal with everything. It’s not as simple as it appears. Sad things continue to happen to him; he witnesses his little friend’s mother being murdered in front of his eyes and is powerless to intervene.
He must keep his distance from Hide, or else he will be in danger. Later, he is kidnapped, tortured, and eventually decides to abandon even his ghoul companions.
He prefers to be the one who suffers rather than seeing others suffer, but he doesn’t realize that his actions end up hurting all of the people who love him for who he is: a boy whose future has been shattered and who has nowhere to go.
The show’s conclusion is unknown because the manga is still ongoing, but Ken will find the strength to continue, despite the fact that everything he fought for will be for naught, as he will carry his best friend’s body with his own hands in the final, touching scene.
1. Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion
Here we are, in first place in this ranking, with a well-known character from a well-known show! Shinji Ikari, the protagonist of Neon Genesis Evangelion, is a regular guy. So ordinary is he that we’d say he appears plain from the start.
The Nerv organization, which owns the Evangelion – a giant robot capable of fighting the Angels – is the only hope for humanity’s salvation in the year 2015, when the world is on the verge of destruction.
Shinji’s life is turned upside down when he is forced to join the Nerv organization. His father, Gendou Ikari, selects compatible pilots for the Evangelions, and when Shinji runs into him after years, the wound in his heart is reopened. Because he was abandoned by his father, he has always felt like an unwanted child, and when Gendou finally meets his son after all these years, he is still cold towards him.
Shinji is a difficult person to deal with because he is afraid of forming bonds with others. Kaworu Nagisa, the only person he tries to let in, gets close to him only to reveal that he, too, is an angel. Shinji is speechless after learning the shocking truth, and he feels cruelly exploited.
To make matters worse, when one of Shinji’s best friends, Toji Suzuhara, is taken over by the third angel, Shinji is forced to kill both Toji and the Evangelion he is in in order to save Tokyo. As a result, he experiences a slew of bad luck, and he – who was introverted from the start – continues to suffer from low self-esteem.
He’s not your typical protagonist, to say the least. Shinji does not eagerly board the Evangelion, nor does he show any enthusiasm for the mission. On the contrary, he behaves in a way that no hero would. He makes no attempt to improve himself, and he does not believe he is capable of fulfilling his role as an Evangelion pilot.
At the same time, he makes no attempt to withdraw from the mission, fearing that the others will turn against him. As a result, he avoids human contact out of fear of being hurt while piloting the Evangelion. It’s important to note how he frequently wonders what he’s really afraid of in the last two episodes, and finally admits to himself what he’s always known but never could accept: he’s afraid of his own father. In the end, he’s just a sad little boy in a difficult situation who wants his father’s approval.
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