Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
If you thought a series about hamsters wouldn't have sad moments... you'd be shocked.
- In "Boss is a Mom!" Boss finds a lost, injured kitten and raised it, but had to give it back to its owner when she was found...
- The ending
credits song can cause tears, mainly due to nostalgia.- The second Japanese credits takes things up to eleven by actually sounding a little bittersweet. If can also cause nostalgia if you’ve played "The Ham-Ham Games".
- The second Japanese credits
- In "Penelope Makes a Friend", Penelope crushes on Kylie's little cousin, and is heartbroken when she sees him with Mimi.
- Another Penelope example would be in "Watching Over Cute Penelope", where Pashimina tells Penelope that she's going away for a while. But Penelope begs her not to leave and starts crying. Pashmina tried to calm her down and tells her that everything will be alright with her. She starts crying once Pashmina leaves the clubhouse. Hamtaro and the rest of the Ham-Hams try calming her down, but she constantly runs away from the group since they aren't like Pashmina.
- "Mimi's Dream Park!" has the Ham-Hams trying to build a mini entertainment park to cheer up Mimi, but a storm destroys it. Made worse because of the reason why they're doing it: Mimi is very depressed and scared because her baby sister takes up her parent's time and she fears she's about to become The Unfavorite.
- In "Farewell Bijou," Bijou thinks she's moving away.
- Speaking of Bijou, in "Bijou's Favorite Ribbon," Bijou wakes up from her nap and notices that one of her other ribbons is missing and starts crying hysterically. Meanwhile, Hamtaro and the other Ham-Hams are playing Blind Man's Bluff and Bijou sees her ribbon being used as a blindfold by Hamtaro (who received it from Cappy). She quickly removes the ribbon from Hamtaro and starts getting very upset with him when he says he didn't realize it was hers (the reason she loved her ribbons was because she felt Hamtaro really notices her in them). She gets so upset, that she runs into Boss's room and starts crying. She stays in that same room through the majority of the episode. Hamtaro starts to feel very guilty and the Ham-Hams are about to go on a trip to gather acorns. Hamtaro tries ask Bijou to come along, but she replies by saying "I don't want to go!" and continues crying. Near the end of the episode, Bijou calms down after Snoozer comforts her by saying "Hamtaro gets a little excited sometimes, but he's never mean or unkind." Hearing this, she decides to go look for him and the other Ham-Hams. Meanwhile, Hamtaro suddenly sprains his foot, and can hardly walk. In the nick of time, Bijou finds him and starts wrapping his foot with her ribbon and tells him to be more careful. But Maxwell and the other Ham-Hams tell her that Hamtaro didn't get hurt fooling around and that he was trying to gather acorns for her to make up for earlier. Once Bijou hears this and remembers what Snoozer said, she begins crying again. The episode ends with them walking together after forgiving each other.
- In one of the OVAs, Hamtaro goes on a quest to meet his mother. After a long, tough journey, he thinks he has reached his destination... and it's not her. It's a random hamster who happens to look similar to Hamtaro's mother, who's revealed to have passed.
- Made even more of a tearjerker when said hamster claims that his mother is "far away in the sky", and then a silhouette of his mother appears when the clouds form in the orange sunset sky after Hamtaro, Oxnard, Boss and Jingle prepare to leave.
- Pretty much all of the episode "I'm Parting, Clubhouse!": it seems that Hamtaro and Laura are moving away, much to the dismay of all of their friends. Boss, who is equally as upset, suddenly sees this as an opportunity to win over Bijou. Instead, he unintentionally ends up making her more upset, by telling her Hamtaro will be fine without her. However, it turns out that Hamtaro and Laura are not moving away after all, but later that night, Boss cries in remorse over his own actions while Hamtaro is left oblivious to what he had done. Then, with some advice from Snoozer, he eventually decides to leave the Clubhouse to go on a self-finding trip. When Hamtaro and the others return the next day, they find Boss's goodbye letter and start setting off to look for him. However, upon Maxwell's convincing, they decide that if they truly trust Boss, they should wait for him to return and proceed to seal up the Clubhouse until he returns. You REALLY just want to give poor Boss a hug, which makes his reunion with the others all the more heartwarming in "Here I Am, Clubhouse!".
- The video game Rainbow Rescue has the music for Rainbow Land.
- In the second movie, the Princess completely forgets about marrying Hamtaro when her fiancé is revealed to still be alive. Hamtaro is heartbroken about this.
- In "Hamtaro, Please Come Home!", Laura watches as Hamtaro is taken away by a transport truck after he attempts to reclaim a ribbon she dropped. Her parents try to comfort her as she cries.
- Pretty much all of "Lapis and Lazuli are Upset!" is this. It starts when Lapis slapping away a berry that Lazuli got from a tree as a gift that Lazuli got to mend for a earlier argument which then causes Lazuli to run away sobbing. Then Lapis realizes what she was uncalled for and goes to try to fix things. However, the Ham-Hams return to realize that Lazuli won't even speak to Lapis. So the Ham-Hams decide to help Lapis find a flower Lazuli wanted. They get the flower and the sisters apologize. All should be well right? Sadly no since Lapis goes off on her sister for making another mess and they start fighting again as the Ham-Hams watch. And that's how the episode ends.
- The ending of the first movie. Hamtaro falls out of the flying ferris wheel as the Ham-Hams prepare to go home past 8:06, not wanting to leave Ham-Ham Land until he gets to talk to Laura. The fairy tells him that once he remains in Ham-Ham Land past the intended time, everyone will lose their memories of the place as well as Hamtaro himself. This causes him to go into an emotional breakdown, and the dragon-like hamster Ryu-kun; now reformed and guilty of his own actions, transforms into his dragon form just so he can get Hamtaro back to the Ham-Hams, with success. Hamtaro is then suddenly transported back into the real world, finding himself in a snow-covered playground before happily reuniting with his owner, Laura.
- "Setting Off, Spring’s Breeze." Travis’ dad has gotten a new job in London and has to move away. Laura is, of course, heartbroken by this news. It gets so the Ham-Hams try their best to delay his trip to still be with Laura, but to no avail.
- Kana’s little cousin, Mimi, has a fairly sad-seeming home life as seen in the episodes “Midnight Celebration” and “Mimi’s Dream Park!” that can hit a bit close to home for some viewers. Her parents are busy with her new baby sister, often inadvertently neglecting her in the process, her brothers aren’t very nice to her, and Mimi’s encouraged to be more independent now that she’s a big sister, despite being just a toddler.
