Tear Jerker / Kaiju No. 8

• Kafka and Mina's situations at the start of the manga. Due to Kafka being unable to make it through the entrance exams with Mina, both of them are clearly unhappy, Mina feeling betrayed and Kafka struggling to convince himself that he's fine with his current lot in life.
• Kikoru's got serious Daddy Issues. In spite of proving herself as a Child Prodigy time and time again, her father never once acknowledges her accomplishments, dismissing them as mundane achievements and likely instilling some kind of egocentric impostor's syndrome in her by implying the only reason why she managed is because of everyone else's inferiority to her. When she's wounded and brought to her knees during recruitment, she's pretty much resigned herself to her fate as she tearfully apologizes to her father for not being perfect.
  • To drive it further, one of her flashbacks show the other passing middle school examinees getting rewarded by their loved ones. Kikoru only watched as each child received the love, praise, and rewards they deserved while getting none of her own. Instead, her father told her to move forward with a new goal.
• Hoshina's backstory is a pretty depressing one, with him constantly being told by others, including his own family, that he should give up his dream of joining the Defense Force, due to him being unable to muster enough suit power to use the higher caliber weapons needed to kill giant Kaiju and Crippling Over-specialization in the use of handheld bladed weapons, which are inadvisable to use against colossal foes. It's not until Mina comes along that he hears anything different, earning the Third Unit's Captain her future Vice-Captain's unwavering loyalty.
• Kafka's monster form is revealed in front of everyone in Chapter 31. In the following chapter, Mina can only point her gun at him and take him into custody.
  • 33 only compounds on this as Kafka feels like he betrayed everyone's trust. Thankfully, it turns into a happy Tear Jerker towards the end when it's revealed that no one thinks of him as a threat at all and are working to prove he's a human, including Mina.
• Chapter 37's ending gets a bit sadder after Chapter 38, since it reveals Kafka was likely going to crush his own core if he didn't manage to break free in time, to die as a human.
  Kafka: The Kaiju, the ones who made Mina cry this much... I thought they were all irredeemable. That's why I decided... If I was going to turn into a Kaiju in both mind and body, I'd rather die as a human.

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