"It's enough to make a grown man cry. But not this man! Get back in there, tear!" [sucks his Single Tear back into his eye]
— Earl Devereaux, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2
These are the tears that fill your eyes upon contemplating something wondrous, awesome, beautiful... an exquisitely crafted work of art, a vision of the cosmos, an extremely impressive act of virtue or badassery, the beautiful poem of a wordsmith, a musical piece of pure harmony, the awesome spectacle of nature, just seeing the whole of Earth as an astronaut, seeing the face of God, a taste of an Impossibly Delicious Food, or even as simple and beautiful as seeing a double rainbow... They cry while wondering "Why am I crying?"
May be Played for Laughs if the object of awe is something most (sane) people wouldn't appreciate that much. May often manifest in the form of a Single Tear. May come together with a Nerdgasm and much Squee, or from a So Proud of You moment.
Compare Tender Tears, Tears of Joy, Tearful Smile, and Manly Tears.
Very common in Anime & Manga, though Played for Laughs and in the form of Ocular Gushers or Inelegant Blubbering more often than not.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- In Chapter 12 of Asteroid in Love (adopted as Episode 4 of the Animated Adaptation), the Earth Sciences Club's Summer Camp includes (among others) a visit to the JAXA headquarters at Tsukuba. The JAXA visit starts with an introductory video, and at the end of the video, Mikage and Mai, who belong to the geology side of the club, noticed both Mira and Ao, their astronomy-enthusiast underclassmen, are in tears (Mira is even in Ocular Gushers mode). Mikage suggests the video is not supposed to be a Tear Jerker, but after noticing Endou-sensei is also in tears while gushing about how inspirational the video was, the former realizes she and Mai are in the minority.
- The first time William cries in Moriarty the Patriot is after recovering from his coma in New York City and telling Sherlock how beautiful, colorful, and precious the world is seems now that he's free of his plan and at Sherlock's side.
- Parodied by Happosai from Ranma ½ whenever he tears up at the sight of a particularly beautiful bra.
- Soul Eater's Death The Kid has been seen crying hotly in the face of especially harmonious instances of symmetry.
- Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou: Ch. 22 revolves around Alpha traveling to a point where she can look over the Sunken City of Yokosuka, something she did once before many years earlier with her owner. She's joined by the elderly doctor called Sensei, and as night falls the entire bay lights up, including the city lights underwater. Alpha is so awestruck by the sight that she can only stare and gently cry, with Sensei affectionately holding her head with one hand.
Comic Books
- Seen on orks of all people in Deff Skwadron, where the sight of the Megabomma brings a tear to Uzgob's eye.
Fan Works
Films — Animated
- Atlantis: The Lost Empire: As Kida shows Milo the sights of Atlantis, Milo takes his glasses off to wipe some tears away, claiming he had something in his eye.
- Played with on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 when Earl sees the foodimals for the first time. He produces a Single Tear at the wonder... only to suck it right back in because he is a grown man who DOESN'T cry.
- Frozen (2013) when Kristoff, an ice professional, sees the impossible fantasy of ice sculpture that is Queen Elsa's Ice Castle, he takes the time to stop and admire it with wide eyes, mentioning that he would cry (we don't see the tears though).
- Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch: Played for laughs when Jumba watches Them! (a movie about a giant ant devouring a city in its wake). With a tear in his eye, he claims it's beautiful.
- The Prince of Egypt: When Moses meets God as the burning bush, he's briefly picked up by the holy flames as The Almighty gives him words of reassurance about his mission to come. Immediately after he's set back down, Moses wears a Tearful Smile, in complete awe of what he'd just experienced.
- Turning Red: Mei, Priya, Abby, Miriam, and Tyler end up in Inelegant Blubbering when 4*Town (their favorite band) is performing for all of Toronto.
Films — Live-Action
- Contact: Ellie Arroway sheds a few tears as she witnesses a magnificent celestial event in the transport pod.
- National Treasure: Subverted and parodied when the group is looking out at the treasure.
Abigail: Riley, are you crying?
Riley: Look... [camera pans to the escape stairs] Stairs. - Star Trek: Generations. Scotty sarcastically pretends to have done this when Captain Kirk gives the order to take the new Enterprise out of space dock.
Captain Harriman: Captain Kirk, I'd be honoured if you'd give the order to get underway.
Kirk: Thank you very much, I...
Captain Harriman: Please, sir ... Please, I insist.
Kirk: Take us out.
Scotty: Brought a tear to me eye.
Literature
- The Great Gatsby: Daisy and Nick are dumbfounded by the luxury of Gatsby's mansion, but the sight of Gatsby's wardrobe full of fine silk shirts makes Daisy burst into tears outright and bury her face in them. It's ambiguous whether it's simple materialism or a sign of Daisy's regret for marrying Tom instead of Gatsby.
Daisy: It makes me sad because I've never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.
Live-Action TV
- Angel: Upon learning that they're attending a ballet recital, Gunn bemoans the fact that it isn't a hip-hop concert. By the end of the first act, he's literally weeping because it's such a moving performance.
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: In the season 13 finale "Mac Finds His Pride", "Well Done, Son" Guy Mac, who has been the butt of gay jokes for being an extremely obvious Armoured Closet Gay for the entire series, decides to accept who he is and come out to his father via dance. His father walks out mid-performance. Frank on the other hand, who has become a friend and something of a surrogate father to Mac (and Charlie) over the years, is shown being moved to tears by Mac's performance, applauding enthusiastically and saying that he finally gets it.
It's enough to make a grown man cry. But not this man! Get back in there, tear!
- Kamen Rider Fourze: In episode 2, when Hot-Blooded delinquent Gentaro sees the Earth from the moon for the first time, he can't help but shed some Manly Tears.
- Whose Line Is It Anyway?: During a "Newsflash" segment, Colin pretends to do this after realizing the scene is clips of himself. A later "Newsflash" has clips of Ryan, who claims the same thing.
Music
- "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota" has the narrator falling to his knees and bawling at the sheer immensity of the title ball. "And that's when those security guards threw us out."
Theatre
- In Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distrutto, Giovanni de'Medici evokes this in his questioning for graduation from university, when he is asked to defend his family's actions. He says that the art that they have commissioned, the culture of openness and discovery that they have fostered in Florence, and their sponsorship of artists like Sandro Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci whose works have this effect on people — "To see beauty, to know beauty, and to be moved to tears by it" — outweighs the sinfulness of their other actions.
Video Games
- Pokémon Scarlet and Violet: Hassel has a tendency to ugly-cry when he's proud of someone, like when he's impressed by how well the player fought against him in a battle.
- Starcraft II. Tychus Findlay comments that piloting the Odin (a stupid-huge mecha of mass destruction) against Mengsk's tyrannical regime just about brought a tear to his eye.
- Uru: Ages Beyond Myst: A civilization once spanning a vast empire, the D'ni, existed in a gargantuan cavern beneath the Earth, with the power to create "linking books" to other universes. In the present era, circa late-1980s/early-1990s, the ruins of the civilization were rediscovered by amateur archaeologists and fictional philanthropist Elias Zandi. It's said that when Zandi was brought on an expedition to the cavern, he fell to his knees and wept at how vast the central cavern city of the D'ni empire actually extended.
Web Original
- The Double Rainbow! meme is a video of a man being moved to tears at the sight of two rainbows at once.
Western Animation
- Amphibia: During "Battle of the Bands", Captain Grime enters the music competition with his harp. As he plays a piece "dedicated to the serenity of nature", the crowd watches him in awe. Three hours later, tears are streaming from the audience's eyes. This is enough to name Grime the winner of the competition.
- Bob's Burgers: In "Boyz 4 Now", a few girls are seen bawling in amazement at Boyz 4 Now's musical performance.
- Futurama: Discussed in "I Dated a Robot," which opens with Fry excitedly telling everyone about "A big, floating ball that lit up with every color of the rainbow, plus some new ones that were so beautiful I fell to my knees and cried." Turns out it's a college kid in a costume, advertising for Discount Shoe Outlet.
- The intro of Maya the Bee has a scene with Maja/Maya at night sitting/lying on a lilypad in the middle of a lake, looking up at the moon with a Single Tear in her eye.
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998):
- In "Dance Pantsed", Blossom gives a speech about how Townsville needs all three Powerpuff Girls to defend the city. Buttercup is so moved by her words that she tears up a little.
- In "Custody Battle", Mojo Jojo and Him shed a stream of tears of admiration, after a long Eviler than Thou argument, upon learning the Rowdyruff Boys' ultimate goal of simply destroying the Powerpuff Girls.
Mojo: "Why, that's the evilest thing I can imagine!"
- Skull Island (2023): Cap shed a single tear when he first witnessed a glowing marine Titan in his flashback, and he's moved to tears again when he has one of his first Skull Island encounters with a creature (the Aloe Turtle).
- Spongebob Squarepants:
- In "Artist Unknown", Squidward, upon looking at Spongebob's impressive sculpture that was done in a single carve, got teary-eyed and remarked that it was beautiful.
- In "A Day Without Tears", Squidward attempts to invoke this trope by taking SpongeBob to see a sunset. Though SpongeBob is normally Prone to Tears, he manages to keep it in.
- Wander over Yonder: "The Epic Quest of Unfathomable Difficulty" has a moment where Wander in the middle of the quest has swelling music, a glorious sunrise, and Wander shedding a tear as the narrator says "discover the truth was inside you all along."
