A serious Tear Jerker moment comes when Chii is pseudo-killed near the end of the series.
The Backstory of Takako Shimizu the teacher whose husband became enamored with their persocom, driving her into the arms of one of her students.
The Backstory of Ueda, the owner of the Tirol bakery, who fell in love with a persocom, married her, watched her degrade due to irreparable memory loss, and finally saw her die while saving his life in one last moment of mental clarity. This has a particular pang when you realise that it's not far from watching a spouse suffer from dementia.
As Ueda describes it, the only thing that Yumi could say in her last days was, "Hello, how are you doing today?" Yet a part of her must have remembered Ueda when that car nearly ran him over. Yumi pushed Ueda out of the way, and her last words were asking how he was.
The misunderstanding between him and Yumi nearly scuttled an otherwise loving relationship.
There was the story about Minoru's elder sister and Yuzuki.
Kaede's death is even sadder if you remember her from Angelic Layer. When Minoru is talking to Yuzuki about the last time he saw Kaede, you can see characters from that series in Kaede's hospital room. Kaede's best friend, Sai, is devastated, while Oujirou gives Misaki a Cooldown Hug.
Minoru gets to experience the ordeal all over again when Yuzuki went into a coma over the failed hacking. Thankfully, she woke up.
Chi's "most precious thing" speech to Hideki when he found her in Dragonfly's lair.
Ningyo-hime. The song itself is sad, but it has even greater impact when paired with the above example of Ueda and his wife. Even worse, this song can be taken as Chii's song to Hideki, or Freya's song to her dad, who she had feelings for, in which case the tearjerker factor is taken up to eleven.
The title itself is poignant as ningyo translates to 'human fish', an allusion to persocoms whom are human-like yet are not fully human either
Episode 27, yes the recap episode, which puts the final bow on the series and ends with Ms Hibiya talking to her late husband and telling him that Chi is finally happy. It cuts to the credits and switches back to the cheerful Raison D'etre. After all the emotion of those final episodes puts you through, the song seems much deeper and more poignant.
The plot of the episode in general is one for the series. We end up getting small updates on a lot of the cast showing that they've all been doing pretty well for themselves in the year that's passed since episode 26. Hideki ends up passing his entrance exams and making it into college after spending the entire series struggling with his learning and the episode ends on a shot of Hideki and Chi happily joining all of their friends to celebrate before fading into a framed picture of Elda and Freya as Hibiya narrates. Earn Your Happy Ending incarnate.
The story of Freya and Elda, including:
Chitose crying while she tells Hideki everything.
The revelation that Chitose was Chii's 'mother', and that she's been living next door to her former daughter the whole time without being able to say a word.
Freya's love for her 'father', Ichirou, her confession to him, and his response that while he loves her very much, he already has a someone just for him: his wife Chitose.
Freya's heartbreak being so intense to where she begins to shut down that Elda offers to take Freya's heart and memories into her own body so Freya wouldn't feel any more pain, and so Freya could continue existing in Elda's memories.
Elda "dying" in her parents' arms, begging them to take her outside and leave her somewhere so she can start over because she doesn't want to choose them as her 'special person' if she stays with them.
Elda: I'll find...someone who loves me even if I'm not your daughter. Someone who will love me because I am me. Someone I will love because he is him. That kind of love. 'Someone just for me'.
What the disk Chii dropped when Hideki first picked her up is revealed to have contained all of Elda's memories, which Chitose complied in the situation if Elda could not find her special person in hopes they could restart as a family. The loss of the disk ensures Elda is gone forever, but Chitose calmly accepts this fact may be for the better.
