On top of being one of the most disturbing animanga series ever, Narutaru also has no end of gutwrenching Tear Jerker moments.
- To start with, there's Hiro-chan's arc. Watching her break down just after the test tube incident, unable to cope with any more suffering hurts. So does Hoshimaru being forced to kill Hiro-chan to save Shiina's father, traumatising Shiina in the process, which the anime version manages to make even sadder by having Hiro-chan shed one more tear just as she dies. Actually, the whole arc is pretty harrowing. Poor, poor Hiro-chan.
- The chapter about Shiina's first day of middle school manages to be really sad, but in a semi-heartwarming way. When Shiina fills up the tub and asks her dad if they can take a bath together, like they used to, and he says that they can't, it's already sad enough. Cue next page, with Shiina crying and telling him that she wants to be his "little Shiina" one last time.
- The last three volumes have too many tearjerker moments to count, but one of the most memorable and scarring is Shiina's death near the end of volume 10. Seeing the beloved character literally cut in half by Vulcan rounds just after the insinuation that she might not be the main character after all is all but guaranteed to leave an impression, even on readers who aren't the crying type. That death scene and the words Returning Home in a Bag may well permanently burn themselves into your mind.
- And from the same volume, one certainly can't forget Norio's death. While the way it happens is more likely to bring out tears of pure horror than anything else, Norio's singleminded determination to protect Takeo no matter what HE himself is being put through, as well as his eventual regret that not only can he no longer protect his friend, but he can also never tell him his true feelings bring everything together to make the scene genuinely sad. Those last words, along with that ironic smile, are painful.
- Volume 11 begins with an extremely miserable chapter - which, as it so happens, is directly related to the above two moments. You know the rest of the volume isn't going to be much happier when, not too long afterwards, Takeo of all people starts crying.
- Perhaps one of the hardest-hitting moments of all comes in chapter 65, just two chapters short of the end, which has Shiina going into a severe state of denial over the death of her father, to the point where she says that she'd like to go home and have dinner with her dad and Akira, and perhaps invite Hiro-chan too. When you remember that Hiro-chan died six volumes ago, it's absolutely heartbreaking to read. Right after that Akira, wounded and in tears herself, begs Shiina to come to her senses and make peace with her mother, the last family Shiina has remaining... and finally, just to twist the knife even further, a few pages later there's final images of deceased characters like Hiro-chan and Norio. God. Damn. You. Kitoh.
- And of course, the manga ending is incredibly depressing.
- Shiina started out so cheerful and naive, and by the end, after watching everyone she ever loved die horribly and finding out that people want her DEAD, Shiina has Sheol eradicate humanity so Earth can start over with a clean slate.
- Shiina walking around the destruction of the town as we see flashbacks of what exactly happened there.
- Shiina's house. Shiina's mother was killed by a shotgun after an angry mob rammed her car, right in front of Shiina no less. And that's after Shiina and her mother had mended their relationship, with Mrs. Tamai's last words telling Shiina to run... and it cuts to the current Shina looking at an impaled wrecked car with a broken windshield in the driver's sight
- We are shown Akira resting in a hospital bed, before it suddenly cuts to Akira falling backwards off of a roof, with the implication that an angry mob threw her. Shiina looks at the ground where Akira fell.
- An abandoned building. Tatsumi Miyako is minding his own business when a young man and a woman walk up to him and stab him, with the girl saying that this is revenge for their father who died, possibly as a result of the dragons or something else Miyako was responsible for.
- Where Shiina walked in on an angry mob (the same men who raped Mamiko) having just murdered Takeo, with Hoshimaru attempting to fuse with Takeo only to die with him. Mamiko shows up and has Sheol protect Shiina from gunfire before commenting that Shiina now knows what it's like to be "free" before having Sheol wipe out humanity. Shiina looks at a completely demolished building.
- While trying to encourage Shiina to rebuild the world, Mamiko shows Shiina the picture of her family that she drew for her in the first chapter. When Shiina still seems unmotivated, Mamiko rips the picture in half and says that it's okay if she doesn't want to rebuild and offers to have Sheol end the world permanently.
- Shiina and Mamiko return to the shore where Shiina's grandparents lived, and there, Mamiko tells Shiina that they can continue to live and rebuild the world, but if Shiina wants, she can have Sheol end the world again permanently. Shiina seems to opt to rebuild.
- The last definite shot of Shiina and Mamiko are of them overlooking the shore with the iconic sunken torii as they send out young shadow dragons to repopulate the world. The one right in front of them has an appendage that looks like two flowers.
- The eroding rocks and the gradually sinking torii after Shiina and Mamiko send out the shadow dragons imply that the two or four characters in the last two shots are not Shiina and Mamiko, but rather Shiina's daughter and Mamiko's son. Given that there's only two of the kids in each shot, it shows that they've got a long and incestual way to go if they want to rebuild the world. Shiina and Mamiko are also not shown in these Distant Finale shots. The literal reason is probably because they were giving the kids privacy (or worst case scenario, they're gone), but the symbolic meaning is clear: their (as in, both their own and the Earth's) future is uncertain.
- This little bit of internal monologue Akira has after being gravely injured by shrapnel. Especially sad given what happens to her in the following chapter.In the end, I was never able to fly again.
