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Songs
- The Dark And Troubled Pasts of the characters and how it affects their lives and gain eye powers because of those traumas.
- Ayano's suicide and Shintaro's reaction to it. Toumei Answer
was heartbreaking enough, but when you find out in Ayano's Theory of Happiness that the poor girl had bonded with most of the cast of the series and they loved her so very much, it becomes outright soul-crushing.- Not to mention the fact that Word of God states that Toumei Answer was composed in-universe by Shintaro...and Ene deleted it...
- Oh, it's much worse than that. Ayano committed suicide because she wanted to gain an eye ability in order to protect Kido, Kano and Seto from her father, who had been possessed by the Snake of Clearing Eyes and killed Haruka and Takane in an attempt to grant his wish and bring Ayano's mother back to life.
- Followed up immediately by Episode 11 of the anime, which expands on Ayano's suicide and implies that it was a Senseless Sacrifice, since Takane and Haruka ended up dying anyway.
- And then Additional Memory rolls by, and oh boy does it make everything hurt even more. Whether you believe Ayano's suicide was genuinely a purely selfless sacrifice or that she would've done it even without the outside motivators pressuring her, the peek into her thoughts and regrets as she fell is... sobering, to say the least.
- The "Groundhog Day" Loop Hibiya and Hiyori are forced to live in Heat-Haze Days. Poor Hibiya is forced to watch Hiyori die in increasingly horrible ways, no matter how much he tries to prevent it. In order to break the loop once and for all, he goes back to the first death and sacrifices himself so the girl could live. And it was a Senseless Sacrifice, as Hiyori sacrifices herself so Hibiya can live and break the loop once and for all.
- Anything involving Konoha/Haruka Kokonose. An ill boy who wished to have a strong body. It is granted...but he goes through Unwilling Roboticisation and Identity Amnesia so this could happen. Be Careful What You Wish For, indeed.
- Also poor Ene/Takane Enomoto, his closest friend and classmate. She had a really big crush on Haruka, but due to her Tsundere personality (that was caused by her disorder) she never really got to express those feelings in other ways than pouts and fists. Then, during a test, Haruka got his final attack and died. This went unnoticed for Takane, who had turned her headphones on while facing the other way, for 20 minutes. When Kenjirou then lied to the heartbroken Takane, telling her that he survived, she finally, with the help of Ayano, managed to get her resolve up and tell Haruka her true feelings - only to be murdered before she could get to the hospital. Two years later, in the form of the computer program Ene, Takane met the brought-back-to-life-through-robotization Haruka again, but it turns out he had gotten an Identity Amnesia and didn't remember her.
- "Yuukei Yesterday" is a suitably adorable song about their relationship, right up until the very last chorus comes up and shows Takane running during sunset with tears in her eyes. The music doesn't quite match the lyrics here, but it's clear that it's supposed to represent the Race for Your Love moment mentioned above, which only makes that particular scene more tragic.
Hurry, before the sun sets...Oh God, please do something - Also, the gorgons, suffering through Fantastic Racism by the humans.
- All the hell poor Marry has gone through in Outer Science.
- And Azami has it just as bad, watching everything go straight to hell just because she wanted to be with her family.
- Ene's reaction to Shintaro deleting her in Jinzou Enemy. Despite trying to become a Manic Pixie Dream Girl for his sake and in an attempt for trying to fulfill the role Ayano couldn't do, he still sees Ene as nothing but a shallow program for talking to and deletes her.
- Not to mention just how upsetting Lost Time Memory was. In both routes, Shintaro struggles to find himself and move on from her death by keeping the memories of her with him forever. In one timeline, he succeeds. In the other... not so much.
- Made even worse when you see Jin's comment in the description. 'I still loved you today too...'
- The lyrics in the final chorus: The Shintaro that sacrificed himself accepts Ayano's death while the Shintaro that killed himself begs her not to leave him.
- Fireworks in The Summer End is just devastating. The literal translation of the songs name, At the End of a Forgotten Summer doesn't make it any better whatsoever.
- The connecting monologue, Goodbye Summer Wars makes it even worse.
Light Novel
- Kano's overall backstory literally left the fandom in ruins. We knew it was sad... but not HEARTBREAKING.
- Kano is too self-conscious to actually laugh or smile around other people, so he uses his powers to fake it.
- Kano's powers are deactivated by pain. This is not an intrinsic part of his powers, but because Kano identifies himself so closely with pain.
- Kano's breakdown in the last chapter is pretty heartbreaking, especially since, until this point, we've basically only seen him smile and joke around.
- Konoha sacrificing his life to save Shintaro: "Because we're friends..."
- In the third novel, Shintaro reflects on how quickly he's adapting to life in the Blindfold Gang. While it's sweet to see him connect with others, it leads Shintaro to realize how unhappy he really was as a NEET.
- This image. It takes place right after Haruka tells Shintaro that he only has a month left to live.
- In the seventh novel, Ene says that she stayed with Shintaro because she was afraid that he might kill himself if nobody did anything. Shintaro privately admits that she was probably right.
- The final novel is full of these moments.
- The way Seto deals with his guilt. This whole time, he was portrayed as this kind and cheerful guy, so seeing him grieve by forgetting all about his friends and continously telling himself that it's all for Marry's sake is just..upsetting.
- His panic attack at the festival is pretty upsetting to see as well. After seeing the names of his fallen comrades on a leaderboard, he (understandably) panics, causing his eye ability to go out of control and show him terrible thoughts directed at him. All he does during this sequence is run away while begging for it to all stop.
- As if that wasn't bad enough, it turns out that he found out about the "Groundhog Day" Loop on the day he met Marry and read her mind. In fact, he wanted to break out of it more than anyone.
- And God, it just gets even worse. He desperately hides this, believing that it'd only get worse if someone found out. As such, on the night Kano broke down, Seto was also on the verge of breaking, but kept himself under control so the truth wouldn't get out.
- The ending. Despite finally reaching the end of a long, long summer, the survivors all agree to reset the timeline once more and forget everything in hopes of saving the rest of the dan. It all ends with Seto and Marry watching the fireworks, the latter hoping that they can meet again in the next world.
Anime
- The anime's ending theme, coupled with the visuals, can be quite heartbreaking.
- The PV for the full version isn't much better.
- The PV
- Episode 10 of the anime, which might as well be titled "being medusa is suffering".
- According to an interview done after the last episode of the anime, Konoha was Killed Off for Real, and Shintaro misses him.
