Tear Jerker / Kamen Rider Gaim

You betrayed everyone all for the single person you failed to protect anyway. There is nowhere else to go. This is the end.

Really, the entire show can be considered one, as things get increasingly depressing with every episode. Especially upon rewatch. And considering who's writing it, it's to be expected. Get ready for the waterworks, because you're in for one of the most emotionally draining Kamen Rider experiences in your entire life.

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

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TV Episodes

General

• Kouta goes through a series-spanning breaking, which culminates in him making the ultimate sacrifice to save his friends, family, and the rest of the world.
• It's hard to fault Mai for her frustration with Kouta at the start of the series, given that he straight-up walked away from her and Team Gaim in search of proper work. This, after being together long enough to become True Companions at minimum. Thankfully, their relationship improves as the series goes on.
• Kaito's reasons for wanting to be strong. His father once had a company, but it was bought out by Yggdrasil, which threw him and his family's lives into turmoil.

Episode 4: Birth! The Third Rider Is Grapes!

• Kouta's Heroic BSoD after Kamen Rider Zangetsu nearly kills him in the forest and the seriousness of what's going on hits him all at once. In any other Rider series, a defeat at the hands of the villain would leave the hero swearing vengeance and resolving to get stronger. Here? Poor Kouta is practically crapping himself at an unknown Rider nearly killing him without remorse, and since this was all in Helheim, no-one would've known his final fate if the worst came to the worst. It's here that we learn for the first time that this series isn't going to be quite like any other.

Episode 9: The Monster Inves Capture Battle!

• The look on Micchy's face when he sees Zangetsu and recognizes the belt as the same one his brother was hiding in an earlier episode. It's almost heartbreaking to see Micchy's face as it dawns on him just how little he really knew about his older brother. Not to mention the realization that it was Takatora who attacked Kouta in Helheim Forest. It's so bad that Micchy freezes up, and Kouta has to pull him away.

Episode 12: New Generation Of Riders Appear!

• The aftermath of Ryoji losing to Kaito. With his belt already destroyed, he loses his Lockseed and stage to Team Baron. His teammates then desert him, and Jonouchi merely stands by and lets it happen, coldly saying that he’ll find himself "a new doormat". Poor guy...

Episode 13: Gaim & Baron, Tag Of Friendship

• The people of Zawame City turning against the Beat Riders, due to some sort of virus leaking off of the Inves, making people sick and causing Helheim plants to grow from their bodies. It's really sad to see the people turn against the ones who have been bringing them joy for what has to have been years.
• The fact that the people of Zawame would cheer for Bravo beating up a kid and possibly seriously injuring another of them is truly ugly to see. All doubling nicely as Nightmare Fuel, too.

Episode 14: The Secret Of Helheim's Fruits

• Kouta's reaction to Hase's transformation into an Inves. From trying to reason with him and getting smacked aside, to faltering in delivering the final blow when he engages him while he was terrorizing innocent civilians. Poor Kouta desperately wants to save the human he knows is in there...
• The expression on Kouta's face when Sid mercilessly executes Hase after Kouta continually begs Sid not to do it. As far as Kouta is concerned, Sid just brutally murdered another human being, which Sid coldly brushes off as him being "heroic" by "killing a monster attacking citizens". The whole thing is just unrelentingly tragic.
• The first Inves that Kouta fought in the first episode? Was also a transformed human who ate one of Helheim's fruits. And that human was Yuya. Kouta unflinchingly murdered his missing friend and had no idea what he was doing.
  • To properly illustrate the above tearjerker: Kamen Rider for the most part, more specifically the Heisei Era series, focuses on monsters in human guises. We're usually either introduced to the monster before their human identity, or introduced to their human identity first, only to have it revealed to us that they were a monster all along. Here, we are introduced to Hase first, and he's not a monster at all. And in the time it takes from his debut to his death, we see more and more of who he is. The tragedy comes from him, a long-term character who was part of the secondary cast, becoming the monster and losing himself in the process, not just the fact that he died. And then Sid casually offs him like any other monster in the series. Very few Kamen Rider shows pull off anything even close to what this one episode does.

Episode 15: The Man Who Developed The Belts

• Micchy keeping Kouta from finding out about Yuya's fate, not wanting his friend to fall into despair because of the mess that he unwittingly made. It's hard to blame Micchy at this point.
• It's slightly mitigated by the fact that they ditched him in the first place, but seeing the Raid Wild Riders wondering about the whereabouts of the (unbeknownst to them) deceased Hase is both really tragic and dramatic.

Episode 16: The New Arms! Jimber Lemon Is Born!

• Seeing Mai on the verge of tears. What makes this so sad is that it's very rare to see Mai in this sort of helplessly sad position.
• Whatever Takatora showed Micchy has to be one of these. Just the mere sight of it brings Micchy to his knees and breaks him badly enough for him to change sides on the spot. Even Micchy's traumatized reaction to the sight is one by itself.

Episode 18: Farewell, Beat Riders

• Things haven't gotten better for our heroes. After Kouta beats some Inves, he goes over to make sure that the people the Inves were harassing were OK. They flee from him like he was one of them. Ouch.

Episode 19: The Gifted Secret Weapon

• It's plain to see that Mai is about to cry when Kouta tells her that he won't stay with Team Gaim.

Episode 20: The Invasion Begins With The End Of The World

• All of the Inves were people and animals at one point. All of them.
• Kouta's face as he looks at the ruins of the city within Helheim. Never before have we seen his resolve shatter so heavily and so quickly. It only gets worse when Takatora tells Kouta that all of the Inves were once people. Kouta must have been thinking of Hase the whole time...
• The information we're given regarding Helheim makes Micchy's actions vis-a-vis trying to make Kouta and Mai happy the past few episodes even more poignant. The same goes for him saying that he'll betray anyone to achieve joy. Wouldn'you do that if you were one of the select few who were told that the world will end in ten years?
• Though it has been made obvious before, this is the episode where it becomes crystal clear that Takatora is merely an Unwitting Pawn to the other Yggdrasill Riders, who are all Ax-Crazy Social Darwinists. It's truly tragic to see how Takatora cares for them so much and actually tries to do the right thing while they merely use him so that Helheim can kill the weak.

Episode 21: Yggdrasill's Secret

• The heartbroken look on Micchy's face when he finds out that Kouta's flame of hatred towards Yggdrasill has been relit. It's only inevitable that he'll have to reveal his ties with Yggdrasil sooner or later, something that clearly pains him.

Episode 22: The Truth of 1-7th

• The dreaded moment fans were waiting for finally happens. Takatora personally shows Kouta the video file of Yuya's last moments, including his death by Kouta's hands. And Kouta's face when he sees this is just... broken. Vacant, even. Once more, the Urobutcher makes his leads take on an inhuman amount of suffering.
• Micchy leading Team Gaim to a safety bunker in case an Inves manages to emerge from the public crack has an odd air of sadness to it.

Episode 24: The New Formidable Enemy: Over Lord

• Kouta and Micchy's infighting. It really shows how badly fractured their friendship has become with all of the tragedy flying around.

Episode 25: Gridon And Bravo, The Strongest Tag

• For all of his jerkassery, Jonouchi's Character Development in this episode makes him quite sympathetic; he knows that he's hugely-disliked, he's been left behind by his friends and because of all of this, he greatly envies both Oren and Kouta. Hell, he even regrets leaving Hase to the wolves. Even if his hard work and misfortunes are more funny than anything, this is still a new level of Hidden Depths for the guy.
• The look on Kouta's face when Jonouchi wonders how Hase is doing tells all. The fact that Kouta is obviously extremely hesitant to tell him only makes it worse. The only thing lifting the mood at all is the light-hearted music.
• Kouta's face when Mai demands answers from him about Yuya. He looks heartbroken because he knows how unpleasant what he's going to reveal is. But the worst part is, he knows how badly Micchy will take him giving up the secret, but now he has no choice.

Episode 26: Baron's Genesis Transformation!

• The scene between Kouta and Mai at the beginning of the episode, where Kouta simply can't keep the secret about Yuya anymore. Both Mai and Kouta's reactions as Kouta chokes out the gory details about what happened to Yuya are incredibly painful. But despite it all, it leads to a heartwarming moment where Mai is incredibly understanding despite her pain, and tells Kouta that he shouldn't have to bear the burden alone, ending with Mai hugging Kouta as the pair shed tears.
• Micchy viciously chiding Kouta for breaking their promise to keep Yuya's death a secret. All of his effort to keep the secret has gone up in smoke. But the worst part is when Mai slaps Micchy for not caring about how Kouta feels. It's clear that with that slap, any remaining shred of Micchy's Nice Guy persona is gone. His Face–Heel Turn is officially complete.

Episode 26: When You Know The Truth...

• Micchy shot Kouta in the back in the last episode right before he went Kachidoki Arms, disabling him on the spot. And in this episode, he was this close to killing Kouta. Their friendship is more or less in tatters, and poor Kouta has absolutely no idea.

Episode 28: The Betrayal Of Zangetsu

• Takatora being betrayed by the other Yggdrasill Riders. We knew it was coming, but to see a good man like Takatora go down the way he did was still hard to swallow. Especially since his last moment was him begging Micchy to protect the world. And he has no idea that Micchy is now on Ryoma's side.
• Kouta watches on as Zangetsu Shin (actually Micchy) fights Kaito. He still believes that the guy in the suit is Takatora, who just last episode formed an alliance with him. And now it looks as if Takatora has just stabbed everyone in the back for no reason. The look on his face as he tries to stop them is just awful.

Episode 29: The Overlord King

• Hearing Roshuo talking about the downfall of his world. Like Takatora, he'd believed he was making a better world. The two clearly have a lot of parallels. But all Roshuo accomplished was creating a world where the strong hunted down the weak and then destroyed one another, leaving him with nothing but the ruins of his home and a handful of Ax-Crazy psychopaths and the hordes of monsters that used to be his world's people for company.

Episode 31: Whereabouts Of The Forbidden Fruit

• Now Takatora isn't the only one with an Overlord counterpart. Kaito and Demushu both think that the weak are prey for the strong, while both Micchy and Redyue are schemers who'd rather use others to achieve their own ends. The tearjerker in it all is that Kaito at least seems aware of this and still holds onto something that at least vaguely resembles a moral compass. Right now, the only difference between Micchy and Redyue is the fact that one jangles when they move about.

Episode 32: The Strongest Power! Kiwami Arms

• Demushu is officially dead. While the psycho deserved it, one can only imagine how it must feel for Roshuo to have one of the few remaining members of his species die.
• The look on Micchy's face when he sees Sid's hat (effectively all that's left of him). Considering how he'd allied with Sid in the previous episodes, he could well have been the only friend/ally that Micchy had left. Plus, the mere fact that Micchy has fallen so far from grace that he'd considered Sid a friend.
• Kouta struggling to take the Kiwami Lockseed. Mai protests like hell and Sagara all but admits he's playing Kouta for his own ends the whole while. Despite all of the above, Kouta can't bring himself to abandon his friends. His sheer desperation is truly hard to watch.

Episode 33: Beat Riders' Great Gathering

• Micchy's psychotic laugh at the end of the episode. It's not a laugh of joy, or satisfaction. It's a laugh of a madman, a man who's utterly drunk on his own power, who sees his best friend as his worst enemy, and is willing to have humanity enslaved simply because of his feelings towards one girl. And the worst part is that he thinks he's in the right.

Episode 35: Micchy's Ark

• Kouta finally finds out about Micchy's betrayal in a physically AND emotionally painful way as Micchy beats the crap out of Kouta and is clearly attempting to kill him.
• Takatora hiding in the background as he watches Micchy beating Kouta up. He also learns that his own brother has stolen his identity as Zangetsu Shin. Remember how he had high hopes for his brother to save humanity, and eventually acknowledged Micchy's friendship with Kouta in the past? Imagine how crushed he must have felt when he saw just how twisted his little brother had become.
  • What makes all of above so much worse is that the revelation of Micchy's Face–Heel Turn came completely out of nowhere for both men. Micchy had done such a good job of keeping his villainous tendencies a secret that neither of them ever suspected that he was capable of acting so monstrously.

Episode 36: Brothers' End! Zangetsu vs. Zangetsu Shin!

• Takatora losing to Micchy. Despite him knowing that Micchy is now a threat to humanity, he hesitates for a fleeting moment because deep inside, he wanted to believe that his little brother hadn't turned from the Nice Guy he was so long ago to a total monster. Unfortunately for Takatora, Micchy seizes the moment and hits a crushing blow that knocks him into the sea and knocks off his Sengoku Driver, leaving him to sink into the lake of Zawame City. Micchy just coldly committed fratricide without a care in the world.

Episode 39: The Do-Or-Die Tower Break-In Strategy!

• The Rider Alliance being forced to leave Oren and Jonouchi to face a large horde of Inves all by themselves. And this horde is made up of both the Elementary AND Berserker variants. Granted, both of them told the others to go on without them, but still...
  • Kouta angrily denying their deaths when Ryoma says that they probably didn't survive dead makes it even worse.

Episode 40: Awakening The Over Lord

• Kouta's dilemma in the episode. Forced into a dream world by Redyue, he finds that HE'S become the Byakko Inves and Yuya has become Gaim, with the latter relentlessly hunting him down, along with Zack and Yoko - two of his new allies - trying to murder him as well. And the people he fought so hard to protect now run away screaming at the sight of him. He comes very close to joining the Inves due to Redyue's manipulations.
• Kouta is slowly becoming an Overlord. When he detransforms, multiple Helhelm vines spread out with him at the center. Now, no matter what happens, Kouta can never go back to his normal human life ever again. Worse is that in the scene prior, Kouta has proven willing to accept this if it means the safety of humankind, even if it means that no-one else is on his side or believes in his cause.
  • Mai's situation. Her city and her world are almost completely gone, one of her friends has turned evil and put her right next to the man responsible for the world's state. And then she finds out that her friend/crush will have to choose between a pair of sadistic choices as the price for his power - a choice that she already knows the answer to, and is already feeling the pain of.

Episode 41: Clash! The Over Lord King

• The final shot of Roshuo lying dead on the ground when Sagara and the spirit of the Overlord Queen stop by. After all he went through to revive his queen, he ended up being stabbed in the back and brutally murdered by one of his own kind. A murder for the Forbidden Fruit that he no longer had. And the queen's coffin was revealed to be empty. While it's somewhat ambiguous whether it's the queen's ghost, or if she really was revived as a Woman of the Beginning, the empty coffin shows that whatever Roshuo was trying likely wouldn't have worked anyway. Such a pointless waste of life...

Episode 42: Mitsuzane! The Final Transformation!

• Micchy gets an oddly tragic moment in this episode when he breaks down crying over Mai's unconscious body while begging her to smile like she used to, because he's forgotten what her smile looks like. It's tragic seeing him realize that every horrific, depraved thing that he's done up until now has been for nothing. He doesn't even scream at his hallucination of Takatora this time, he just quietly asks it to shut up.
• The fact that Micchy now no longer values his own life is a bit tragic in itself. The one who was once a cheerful and friendly person is now a husk who doesn't care if he lives or dies. Even worse is the reason that he's using the Yomotsuheguri Lockseed in the first place: Ryoma tricked him into thinking that Kouta wants Mai to become the Woman of the Beginning and lose her humanity. He's literally throwing his life away because of a lie. In the end, he's going through with this for no reason at all.
  • The above is made even worse when you think about what the Takatora hallucination probably is. It's most likely Micchy's repressed guilt and self-loathing speaking back to him. The hallucination tells Micchy that his sacrifice is for nothing because his life isn't worth enough to save Mai. This means deep down, Micchy knows he's throwing his life away, but refuses to admit it.

Episode 43: Baron's Ultimate Transformation

• When Mai accepts being the Woman of the Beginning, she tries to stop all of the series' tragedies from ever happening. And it completely and utterly fails. Nobody listens. And fate remains unchanged. Why? Because she's prevented from saying exactly what she wants to, and is only able to give the Vagueness Is Coming warnings from past episodes. Her endeavour was doomed from the start.
• We also get to see the fate Mai warned them about in the past, and it's not pretty. It turns out to be the battlefield that we saw right at the very beginning of the series. The world has been ruined by Helheim, and Kouta and Kaito are now locked in a war with armies of Inves.
• Kouta pulls a combination of a Thanatos Gambit and Suicide by Cop to stop Micchy's life from being drained by the Yomotsuheguri Lockseed. He succeeds, and though he comes back one episode later, the scene of him laying dying as he forgives Micchy, and encourages him to forgive himself for all of his horrible actions is truly tragic, especially since Micchy finally realises that his hatred of Kouta was completely irrational.
• Micchy runs back to Mai after his battle with Kouta, only to find that Ryoma has dissected her, taken the Golden Fruit (which had fused with her heart), and left her to die, moments after Micchy had promised to ensure that Kouta's sacrifice was not in vain. After Kaito finds Micchy, he's been reduced to a screaming, insane wreck for almost the rest of the episode.
• Kaito, on the ropes from Ryoma's beating and desperate from the spreading Helheim infection in his body, resorts to eating a Helheim Fruit, completely forgoing his humanity and becoming an Overlord Inves with the clear goal of destroying the world. Kaito was so desperate that he'd risk turning into a mindless Inves to beat Ryoma.

Episode 44: Two People Aiming At The Future

• Sagara tells the others that Mai can be saved, since she didn't die, but instead has been transformed and gotten herself stuck in another time. While Kaito is more than willing to do it and even states that the world can burn for all he cares, Micchy, the person who dedicated so much of his life to saving Mai and protecting her smile, just up and says that he doesn't care, since Mai is no longer human and he's completely failed in his quest to protect her.

Episode 45: The Fated Two's Final Battle!

• Yoko's Heroic Sacrifice to save Kaito, followed by dying in his arms. Their dialogue afterwards indicates that Kaito saw Yoko as far more than a mere ally, and after she passes, he squeezes her hand and is seen carefully carrying her body down the road, presumably to lay her to rest.
  Yoko: Hey... if I had received the Fruit of Knowledge... would you have sought me too?
  Kaito: You're Yoko... and the fruit is the fruit.
  Yoko: [Smiles] You're... so awkward...
• Akira and Kouta's little talk, as they discuss Kouta no longer being human. This is demonstrated when it's shown that the only thing that Kouta still wants to eat is Helhelm fruit. And when he does eat one... nothing changes, sealing the fact that he's not human anymore despite looking like one.
  Kouta: I'm sorry, sis... I... can't eat your cooking anymore...
  • Keep in mind that Akira didn't know that Kouta had lost his humanity at that point. To her it must have looked like her little brother had been driven crazy by despair and was committing suicide.

Episode 46: Fate's Victor

• Kaito's death. Despite fighting his hardest, he falls to Kouta's strength, dying in the latter's arms. Kouta even cries Manly Tears over Kaito's death, while Kaito goes out giving the highest praise he can possibly give.

  Kaito: You... truly are strong.

• Later, we see a massive wall of missing person posters. And we see Jonouchi making his own addition to the wall. The missing person he adds? Hase. The poor guy still has no idea...
  • The fact that there's a wall completely covered in missing person posters alone is a tearjerker crossed over with Nightmare Fuel. There's a good chance that the majority, if not all of those people were killed by Inves, didn't survive being drained by Redyue's machine, or ate Helheim's fruit and became Inves themselves. Ignoring the reminder of the sheer volume of casualties that piled up over the series, it's also a reminder that their loved ones may never find closure.
• At the end, Kouta and Mai leave Earth forever. Even if they have each other, they'll never get to see their family and friends again.
• Kouta's admission that in the end, Kaito was fighting for the right reasons, just in the wrong ways. In a sense, that's the tragedy of Kaito's character; he wants exactly what Kouta does, but is so cynical that power is the only way he can think of to secure it.
• Despite all of the pain he's put them through, Zack is still willing to forgive Micchy and invite him to dance with everyone else. Micchy sadly trudges away, believing that he's officially nuked the bridges between them with his monstrous actions.

Episode 47: Transform! And To The Future

• The flashback at the beginning is both a heartwarming moment as well as a tearjerker. Kouta and Micchy are goofing around like brothers, but we end up remembering that Kouta is officially gone after becoming the Man of the Beginning and Micchy is wallowing in regret from the results of his Face–Heel Turn.
• Takatora's intention to go to America. Mitsuzane, who is obviously still hurting from his actions, says that he'll be alright. Takatora is obviously not buying it...
• Jonouchi finally finds out about Hase's fate upon asking Takatora about him. Jonouchi quickly blames himself and decides to take the last Sengoku Driver to atone.

Miscellaneous

Ressha Sentai ToQger VS Kamen Rider Gaim Spring Vacation Combining Special

• Although this crossover was a generally happy-go-lucky episode, there is a sad part where the situation becomes so bad that Kouta was willing to send Mai away on the Rainbow Line, happy to never see her again knowing that she's safe.

Kamen Rider Gaim: Great Soccer Battle! Golden Fruits Cup!

• The destruction of the alternate world due to Lapis' death. Hase and Sid die once more, Micchy goes back to his monstrous ways and Kaito is left on the verge of death again.
• When Kouta returns to his world, he sees the remains of Lapis, his Rider weapon, and his bracelet as one final memory of him.

Kamen Rider Gaim Gaiden: Kamen Rider Zangetsu

• In a moment that foreshadows their eventual confrontation, the final scene features a conversation between Takatora and Micchy taking place after Takatora has just defeated Touka.
  Takatora: If someone you were close to opposed you, could you defeat them?
  Micchy: I think I could. If it was for something important, then no matter who I'd have to face, I would think I'd be prepared to do anything. If I'm not, I can't protect anything.
• As a sort of parallel to Kouta and Mai's conversation from episode 26, Touka tells Takatora that he shouldn't bear the weight of a burden on his own. It's sad in that Takatora doesn't really have somebody like Mai to help him with these things.

Kamen Rider Gaim Gaiden: Kamen Rider Baron

• Kaito's backstory gets some more gory details revealed here. It shows how he started becoming the Social Darwinist that he is in the present day. After his father lost his company and the family began to struggle financially, he became an abusive alcoholic as he couldn't stand the pain of his loss, taking his pain out on his wife and son. Eventually he dies by hanging himself and his wife dies by poisoning herself, leaving Kaito as an orphan determined to become as strong as possible. An orphan who sees his father as weak for not able to stay strong despite the setbacks, and an orphan who hates Yggdrasill with a burning passion for destroying his life.

Kamen Rider Gaim Gaiden: Kamen Rider Gridon Vs. Kamen Rider Bravo

• At one point, Jonouchi is driven to try and eat a Helheim fruit to gain enough power to beat the berserk Oren. It's a case that mirror's Kaito's, as Jonouchi is so desperate for power by any means necessary that he'd so readily throw his humanity away and become a rampaging Inves.
  • However, this then turns into a happy tearjerker. The moment that Jonouchi is about to bite into it, a hand grabs his wrist and stops him... and he lifts his head to see what is heavily implied to be Hase's ghost, who not only stops Jonouchi from making the same mistake that he did, but also transforms the Helheim fruit into the Lychee Lockseed. Not only is Hase still so important to Jonouchi that he continues to treasure Hase's memory after all this time, but despite Jonouchi's scheming being part of what cost Hase his life Hase has forgiven him.

Others

• During the final stage show, Gaku Sano (Kouta) performs "Rise Up Your Flag", but during the second verse, he struggles to continue and starts breaking down in tears onstage, knowing that this may be the final time he sees his fellow cast members. Though it's also a happy tearjerker to see how close the cast grew during all of their time filming.