Tear Jerker / Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt

• One of the absolute most heartbreaking ones involves a Zeon soldier. He is drinking and crying, when his fellow soldier takes away his bottle and pours it out. The soldier tells us why he is so broken. He shows pictures of his wife and 6-month old son. They were both bystanders in a battle. His wife survived. That 6-month old baby did not.
• Part of Io Fleming wanted to let loose on life and get away from burden the others put on him. Seeing Claudia, his own best friend (and love interest), cursing him in the face on top of his father's suicide and what he become after the Battle of Moore is just plain tragic.
  • The lead-up to Claudia's scolding in the anime. Io goes to confront her about why the hell is she sending inexperienced child pilots to the battlefield, only to find her dosing on crapton of drugs trying to forget everything.
• The Federation child pilots. They really don't know what they've gotten into. And they will never get back home again. Io said as much before they're heading out: they are all disposable. There's no way he can save them all like this.
  • And for that, one of the Spartan pilot remembers Io as disgusting officer who uses children as human shields. Ouch.
• Daryl thanking Karla inside Psycho Zaku's cockpit for giving him 'new' legs and arms... y'know, the WAR machine. Goes to show how war can twist a good man into a monster, even if they don't realize it.
• "I want to laugh from my heart." By the time Daryl gets to her, Prof.Karla ends up unable to do anything but laugh like a baby.
  • Karla later receive rehabilitation, on the condition that Daryl pilot the renewed Psycho Zaku. Karla is practically a hostage. Mistaking him for her late father is just rubbing salt in the wound.
• "The Dreaming Girl in Me", the song which plays while Daryl tests out the Psycho Reuse Device. He flashes back to his childhood, intercut with how he lost his legs as a Zeon foot soldier and the resulting trauma.
• Claudia's murder. Throughout her command her XO constantly belittled and undermined her. And while she's actively trying to save his life, he decides that killing her and gloating about it is more important than even trying to survive.
• Even the extras get their moments in volume 6. Soldiers from both the Federation and Zeon who were having good times of their own just a day ago suddenly get killed off by the dozens. Lieutenant Bull, in particular, cares after his captain and gets out of his way to rescue him despite being told to stay in command of his submarine, and then he meet Io...
  • Bianca Carlyle has several squad tattoos all over her back and arm. One can suspect that they serves as mementos of the comrades she lost in the war.
• The South Seas Alliance itself, even though their morality is highly questionable. These are the people not allied with the Federation or Zeon who suffered needlessly during the conflict(s) and just want the rest of the world to quit the bullcrap.