Tear Jerker / GeGeGe no Kitarō

---

• In episode 6 of the 2018 series, a Sunekosuri is forced to part ways with an old woman it lived with as it found out that it was draining the old woman's energy, which she earlier dismissed as a cold.
  • Even worse, the Sunekosuri gets injured and ends up bleeding his lifeforce while protecting the woman, and still sends her away by pretending to have been using her all along, departing deep in the wood, away from human life. Kitarō looks saddened in his direction, but the yōkai antenna, his ability to perceive yōkai life-force doesn't activate hinting the Sunekokusuri succumbed, or was slowly succumbing to his wounds refusing to harm another human being to replace his depleted lifeforce.
    • Fortunately, Sunekosuri makes a cameo in episode 8, living in Gegege forest.
    • Also in the second ending Sunekosuri is shown cared by Neko Musume.
• Episode 14 of the 2018 series has a strong subplot about the consequences of Kitarō's upbringing: due to his status as the last heir of the Yurei Tribe, protector of mankind and ghouldom, an orphan briefly cared by a human being and his diminutive ghastly father, Kitarō had no real childhood, knowing nothing but the endless battle against injustice. As such he never had any childish dream, nor desired for anything but performing his duties, greatly saddening Medama Oyaji that keeps feeling he could have taken his burden away.
  • Kitarō repays Medama Oyaji with a tear jerker of the good kind, telling him that while he had to take over his intended roles, he never stopped being grateful because he still had a kind father caring for him.
  • The yokai of this episode, the girl with the dream bell, also has a tragic backstory; she was an ordinary little girl that was a Human Sacrifice to stop a flood.
• In episode 23, it crosses with Heartwarming when Natsumi remembers her yokai friends from her youth, who tells her that she was never alone after both her mother and grandfather had died, she starts bawling and is comforted by Rokuro-Kubi who she hugs.
  • A bit earlier in the episode, Natsumi's fiance Hiro reveals he was only using her to get the lease to the tenement building. He even tells her "sad, lonely girls are the easiest to trick." It's especially hard since this is after the recent death of her grandfather, who raised her.
• Episode 47: Mana seemingly kills Neko-san accidentally with the fire seal. And just like that, Nanashi's plan is complete.
  • It even gets worse in episode 48: Kitaro himself, angered at Neko's death, asks the other yōkai to stop their revenge plan until he speaks with Mana. Then blatantly blames her for killing Neko-Musume, accuses her to having lied to him and his "family" from the day they met about her powers (who Nanashi himself gave or unlocked in her...) and twists every single word she says to prove she already wanted to kill Neko-Musume. The whole while Mana's mother was lying injured in an hospital bed and Nanashi himself had just let Mana to believe she had passed away some moments before. No wonder Medama Oyaji blames Kitarō's anger when everything goes downhill.
• Episode 49: We find out Nanashi's origins. Hundreds of years ago, Mana's ancestor and a yokai fell in love and the girl soon became pregnant. Unfortunately, both families found out and in their hate, they killed the lovers. The blood of both lovers mixed and Nanashi was born. All the new yokai knew was hate and he started his plan to destroy everything, yokai and humans alike.
• Episode 78 is a perfect example of Why Can't I Hate You? in the form of a poor deceased woman and the photographer who let her drowned.
• Episode 83 has the Hoko, which is basically a massive tearjerker as it show how incompatible yokai and human living together can be, with the Hoko final attack seems to be Suicide by Cop and the one who accidentally caused it all, looking as if he fall to despair...
• The final episode has Mana sacrifice all her memories of her youkai friends in order to resurrect Kitaro. And as the years pass, everyone in the world slowly forgets the youkai and the youkai themselves fade into mythology, something they decide that's probably for the best. However, Mana does get her memories back when she has a chance encounter with Kitaro.

---