Aki: "The fifth (spirit wave) was a little girl dying in a hospital emergency room. l retrieved the sample in time, but she... l told her everything had a spirit: Dogs, cats, trees, little girls. Even the Earth. l told her she wasn't dying, but returning to the Earth's spirit... ...to Gaia. She told me that she was ready to die. She said l didn't have to make up stories to make her feel better. Only seven years old and ready to die..."
The fall of Barrier City 42, New York City. You are dead inside if you don't wear the same expression as the Deep Eyes after listening to the desperate screams and death cries of the people in the shuttle and rooftop scene. It is Nightmare Fuel that will shake you every time you watch.
The whole scene where the Deep Eyes perish.
Including Neil and Jane's shocked faces when Neil gets killed by a phantom and then when Jane realizes she can't escape either. Considering how Jane always picked on Neil, it was especially touching how she reacted when he died. When she realized she was trapped, she made sure her body fell next to him in death. Pass the tissue.
And the Big "NO!" scene where Grey screams out Ryan's name just after he dies.
Kind of hard not to feel something when Aki is mourning over the loss of the Deep Eyes and New York City.
The ending. Grey sacrifices himself to destroy the Phantoms. In front of his love. After his squad of True Companions died trying to get Aki and Dr. Sid out of New New York.
"You've been trying to tell me death isn't the end. Don't back out on me now that I finally believe."
Upon their arrival at the old battlefield, Ryan says softly, "My father's down there somewhere." Becomes hard to look at that field and not start thinking that each of those suits was once a father, a husband, a brother, a son...
Learning the history of the Phantoms. Untold ages ago, the creatures that became the Phantoms were engaged in a war that spread across the entire planet, eventually destroying it. A large meteor from the planet crashed onto Earth and the Phantoms, trapped between life and death, begin eating the spirits of those they come across in the hope it will help them pass on to the afterlife.
Aki: "We have always assumed that the meteor was intended as a form of transportation. Perhaps not. The meteor is a chunk of their planet that got thrown into space when they destroyed their world.
Neil: "But how could they survive the trip across outer space?"
Aki: "They didn't."
Grey: "I think that explains why we never had a chance. All our strategies are based on one assumption: That we were fighting alien invaders.
Aki: "Think of the dream, Grey. How they died. Since then, all they've known is suffering. They're not an invading army. They're ghosts."
