Berserk/Tear Jerker

""We're so warped you and me...""
 * The Eclipse. Pretty much the entire thing. A rare example that manages to seamlessly weave Tear Jerker with Nightmare Fuel.
 * A good one is at the very moment
 * Pippin's Heroic Sacrifice, made all the sadder because it only bought Casca a few minutes at most. Even worse, it's also the first and last time he ever speaks or opens his eyes in the series. Casca can only watch helplessly as Pippin is slowly but surely overwhelmed by Apostles. To add insult to injury, the Count plays with Pippin's hollowed out corpse just to torment Guts. Guts' cruelty towards the Count when they meet again becomes a lot more understandable.
 * death, while declaring his love for.
 * Made all the more tragic in the manga, where he isn't even able to tell her. Instead of telling her, he ends up saying "I'm glad to see you cry...", much to his regret.
 * Bawling.
 * Gaston's death was pretty sad too when you look back on it. He was Guts' second in command and Gaston looked up to Guts, and Guts clearly cared for Gaston as a friend, since he held Gaston as he lay dying. We forget that Gaston was also the last of the Hawks to die - and in such a gruesome way!
 * After  You know what happens next....
 * ... Because at this point,  Now it's time for the real waterworks to begin. Get your tissue as well as your palate cleanser or Security Blanket ready (this troper has to hold her cat whenever she watches this scene).
 * Particularly heartbreaking is
 * It makes your eyes water even more when you truly start to feel what Guts is feeling during those horrific moments:
 * Keep in mind:  Just...WOW!
 * And after  you see an aerial of the scene where the two are lying on the ground. They were only feet apart during the whole ordeal   and yet, that was when they were split apart.
 * Post-Eclipse, seeing Guts in such emotional despair after feeling the true weight of its aftermath, especially after seeing how broken Casca was and the realization that they could never have the intimate relationship that they had planned on before everything turned to crap. Poor Guts.
 * Also, the events on the hill where.
 * When.
 * Oh God! That bit affected me worse than any other death in the series! Even though  I completely cracked up when   answered "But...I'll be...lonely" with tears streaming down her face. It may not be particularly eloquent or heroic, but it's without a doubt one of the most honest reactions to the death of a loved one I've ever read. And   being such a Moe Shrinking Violet with No Social Skills at the best of times only made it worse, as she has just lost the only person she is truly comfortable with, and (at the time) sees little hope of having that sort of companionship ever again.
 * Not to mention the fact that her next thoughts are of how  has burnt up.
 * Also when Guts meets  again, and   said that he met Guts to see if he'd feel anything, but realized that nothing would sway his heart, and Guts yells   What makes this even worse is the whole scene takes place at  . OUCH.
 * Not to mention poor Rickert would have brought  up there having no clue what he had done and was overjoyed to tears at his return only to have to watch as Guts appears and tries to kill   in confusion and try to stop the fight only to be told of the Hawks fate by Guts afterwords.
 * Additionally, that's not actually the first time they met . It's pretty easy to forget, since for just about everyone the story only really starts with the several-volumes-long flashback to Guts' youth, but if you go back to the very beginning of the story, you'll remember that Guts met the entire God Hand again after he nearly killed the Count. It's not as jarring as it could be at first, since at that point you're not entirely aware of who exactly they are and what the relationship between Femto and Guts is, but if you go ahead and re-read the series, seeing the way Femto speaks to and of Guts is quite sad; This is, chronologically speaking, the first time we hear
 * Worst of all for me was the grimly inevitable death of  -- an imaginative little girl runs away from her abusive father, seeking the fairies she's always dreamed of, eventually selling her soul in an attempt to find happiness, only to be cut and shot to pieces in the bloodiest, most brutal fashion possible. And the real kicker?.
 * No...I'd say the real kicker is thinking back to the first few volumes and remembering that.
 * That's less of a kicker than a.
 * The especially heartbreaking part about was
 * Poor Griffith after At this point, stuff like this happened regularly, such as  and  Despite all the stuff he's done after, sometimes one can still feel sympathy for the poor sucker.
 * Let's face it, after what he went through, what he became is completely understandable. Which only makes it EVEN WORSE.
 * Good thing you added that last part, considering how you can take Griffith's predicament.
 * Farnese's story.
 * Let's face it, after what he went through, what he became is completely understandable. Which only makes it EVEN WORSE.
 * Good thing you added that last part, considering how you can take Griffith's predicament.
 * Farnese's story.

"Guts: "Why...? Why'd he sell me out to that pig bastard...?""
 * Serpico's backstory, to elaborate
 * itself may not be that sad, depending on whether the reader feels he has redeemed himself somewhat, but  reaction is heartbreaking, being the final event in a Trauma Conga Line that has managed to be fully completed within a few hours! Just for added tragic irony, don't forget that she told Puck that   Be Careful What You Wish For hit her really hard, emphasised by her "Just take me back to my room. Just take me back to my room. Just take me back to my room".
 * Just the thought of what might happen to this girl is heartbreaking enough. Even though her father was a Complete Monster (Morality Pet notwithstanding), he was the only person that she had in this shitty world, and in reality, was the only one protecting her. It just goes to show that it takes a monster to protect the ones you love against other monsters. It also just makes you want to turn around and say to Guts, "what the HELL hero?!?"
 * If we were to interject with the non-canonical 2000 Dreamcast game Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage
 * In the PlayStation 2 video game, there is a scene where the Band of the Hawk is re-animated by the Big Bad of the game (I can't be really precise since there's a lack of translations circulating). Guts has to fight all of them, including Casca as she was before she went insane, and once each of them is defeated, they fade away while making their own, what I think would be, emotional departure. Casca's scene is especially emotional from what I can tell, as she is dying/disappearing in Guts' arms. They share some words, and as she tenderly strokes Guts' cheek, she disappears. After seeing both scenes from both video games, I sense a lot of Died in Your Arms Tonight motifs with Guts and Casca. Doesn't make it any less sad.
 * Guts' breakdown in volume 9, when memories of his tragic childhood reduces him to a babbling and crying wreck for a few pages. And this was before the Eclipse.

"Guts: "When was the last time she smiled?""
 * Breaks me up each time I read that line.
 * Fortunately he then finds out women just can't resist a good, honest woobie and his life briefly becomes a lot better.


 * As if the Lost Love Montages that Guts had before he set out to rescue Casca were heartbreaking enough, the ones that come after the crappy events in volume 23 just twists a rusty knife into your heart. In fact, the entire love between Guts and Casca is one big Tear Jerker. The two of them finally found love with each, healing emotional wounds that the both of them had, only for them to be cruelly torn apart from one another mere days after admitting their feelings. Though he failed Casca once and she can't love him back now, Guts tries to make the most of their situation, but it seems that he can't even do the simple task of making her smile anymore, a small thing that would do so much for Guts' current emotional state. And now, all Guts has to keep his grip on things are the few memories of the happier times that he and Casca spent together. Oh, Guts!
 * Before the Eclipse, on the plains near the Midland border, Corkus has a pretty heartaching breakdown in front of the Hawks. It's hard to imagine that the resident Smug Snake has this kind of side to him.
 * She's hardly ever talked about, being the Disposable Woman of Berserk, but Sys' brief story is sad with a little bittersweetness added to the mix. A woman who lost her child and almost goes insane with grief is spared that fate by finding baby Guts and raising him as her own child (even going back that far is a little heartbreaking, since Guts started his life as an innocent baby just like everyone else). We don't actually see how Sys raised him during those three years, but during her death scene you can't help but get a feeling of sadness and happiness, since she died holding Guts' hand when he went to her side fearlessly despite that she was dying of the plague. Sys might have died horribly, but she died happily. This moment made me realize that even though Guts didn't really talk about Sys, he did love her as mother and he knew that she loved him back, so maybe he didn't feel the need to talk about her for that reason (unlike his relationship with his adoptive father).