Warning: per wiki policy, Tear Jerker pages are Spoilers Off.
While In This Corner of the World may be a Slice of Life story, it still takes place in Japan during World War II, so expect some major heartbreaking moments.
- While waiting to purchase train tickets, Keiko entrusts Suzu to take Harumi to the hospital so they could visit Entaro. On the way back, a major air raid hits Kure, forcing Suzu and Harumi to take cover in a public bomb shelter. When the raid ceases and all appears to be safe, a time-delayed bomb abruptly goes off, killing Harumi and taking Suzu's right hand. The story only gets bleaker from there.
- Keiko's reaction to her daughter's death is downright painful. Blinded by tears, she calls Suzu a murderer for failing to protect Harumi and desperately begs to bring her back. Harumi's broken bloodstained bag is all Keiko has left of her now. It doesn't help that the reason they wanted to take the train was so Keiko could entrust Harumi to her in-laws in Shimonoseki so her daughter would be safe from the air raids on Kure (which was already a blow to Keiko's pride, since her in-laws had previously taken custody of her son Hisao as the heir to their family).
- When Suzu's sister Sumi visits Suzu after the loss of her hand and sees how heavily Kure has been bombed, she invites Suzu to come back home to Hiroshima for their annual festival, since "the bombings aren't as bad there". A major case of Dramatic Irony, considering what happens to Hiroshima later on.
- When Suzu is eating white rice with her in-laws, a ghostly hand appears over Suzu and rubs her head in a comforting way. The hand is implied to be Harumi's and also in the film, there is a scene where Harumi makes flower crowns by herself. The place where Harumi makes them looks like heaven.
- Suzu grieving about the loss of her drawing hand. Remembering all the times when she heard the phrase "I'm glad" used by the people around her, she looks down at the stub where her hand used to be and remarks, "I don't know what I should be glad about."Suzu: Yesterday, I found out that my right hand was gone. My right hand that held Harumi's hand in June. My right hand that drew Shusaku's face in May. My right hand that held Teru's lip rouge in April. My right hand that held my brother's brain in February...
- Seeing Suzu go from a smiling, happy-go-lucky girl who tries to make the best out of a bad situation, to a stone-faced, emotional wreck who can no longer find happiness is heartbreaking in itself. Thankfully, she gets better by the end.
- Suzu's emotional breakdown after finding out that Japan has lost the war. Every trial that she and her family had to endure, every death that she had to deal with, they all culminated to nothing.
- After the bombing of Hiroshima, a badly wounded man is seen sitting outside of the local community center in Suzu's neighborhood. The next day, it's mentioned that he managed to make to all the way from Hiroshima, only to die sitting up. Towards the end of the story, Suzu accompanies her fellow housewife Mrs. Kariya to trade some clothing for various goods; when Suzu asks if it was really okay to give away all that good clothing, Mrs. Kariya reveals that it belonged to her son, who she recently learned was the man who died outside the community center.Mrs. Kariya: My own son, and I didn't even recognize him.
- By the end of the story, nearly all of Suzu's immediate family is dead. Her brother is killed in action, her mother goes missing after the bombing of Hiroshima, and her father succumbs to radiation exposure after searching for his wife in the aftermath. While her sister Sumi is still alive, she ends up ill from the radiation, and it's left ambiguous as to whether she'll survive or not.
- We get a brief glimpse of what happened to the young orphan girl before she was taken in by Suzu and Shusaku: when Hiroshima was bombed, her mother, riddled with large shrapnel wounds and quickly bleeding to death, weakly took her daughter by the hand and brought them both to safety, before finally expiring with the girl by her side. As her mother's corpse started to decay (to the point where maggots started emerging from her body), the girl was forced to leave her behind to rot in the ruins of Hiroshima, wandering off and scavenging for food by herself before eventually meeting with her future adoptive parents.
- Also the fact that she felt safe enough with Suzu, because her mother lost the same hand from the shrapnel.
