Fullmetal Alchemist (anime)/Tear Jerker

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Ed's utter howl of misery at the end, both for the original Japanese and the English dub... just KILLS me.
    • How the chimera keeps asking Al if they can play. Each time it asks it gets worse.
  • In the first anime when Tucker uses Al's Philosopher's Stone body to try to bring Nina back. Seeing him having completely snapped got to this troper.
    • A bit of Fridge Horror made this even worse. Because her father promised Nina to play with her the next day, it all might have made perfect sense to her. She and her dog sitting in circles drawn with chalk, her Dad being all excited... Bloody Hell, she probably thought her father would be showing magic tricks to her till the very end.
    • The Mercy Kill. Y'see, in Brotherhood, we meet Chimeras who, while rather unhappy with their lot, are relatively well-adjusted and even looking into ways to restore themselves. If there was anything, anything at all, that could've been done to help Nina in the slightest, well... That door was slammed shut.
  • Oh God, Roy's flashback in episode 13. If the lighting, the hesitation of both characters, and "Regret" playing in the background wasn't enough, then Roy's shadow on the wall flaring up as Roy incinerates the poor boy absolutely killed me.
  • Episode 27, near the end. Izumi has just beaten the living crap out of Ed and Al after they finally confessed to attempting to bring their mother back. She stands before them, angry and disappointed. Then she walks over and holds them close to her. Cue a piano rendition of "Brothers." Both Ed and Al begin to cry. Gaaaah. Such a simply crafted scene, but easily one of the most powerful and beautiful in the entire series.
  • More or less anything to do with the first anime. Wrath, who is not so much evil as deeply, deeply unhinged for understandable reasons. The demise of his surrogate-mother Sloth itself fairly teary, is a particularly good example of this, with Wrath inadvertently helping Ed to kill her and breaking down into full, honest-to-god tears afterwards. Imagine a horribly twisted 12-year old bawling his eyes out as his "mother" slowly dies in front of him/in him.
  • Don't forget "Reunion of the Fallen". Half Tear Jerker, half Nightmare Fuel.
  • One that really got to me was Greed's death, especially because of how much it comes across as essentially suicide, particularly with his inspirational speech of the dire need to stop his fellow Homunculi. It's also amazing to see Ed try and succeed in killing him one second and then start crying and screaming for him to wake up when he realizes the full import of what's happened.
  • Lets not forget, the human transmutation scene
    • You think that dub scene was bad... episode 8 anyone? This plays out in a shorter form after the Nina revelation in the manga and Brotherhood, but the first anime is a whole lot more powerful as this was after a near death experience.

Ed: When I was certain he was going to kill me, my mind went blank, and I didn't have any hope anymore. And the only thing I could do was scream my lungs out. I felt so helpless, I couldn't even bring myself to believe someone might save me. Then you showed up, Al. And I realized that if we don't take care of each other, then no one else will. So I'll do anything in my power to get our bodies back, even if it means being the military's lapdog. And we'll just have to hope our powers are good enough to help us rise above our own limits. [cries into his hands] 'Cause we're not gods. We're humans. Tiny, insignificant humans...who couldn't even save a little girl...

  • Heck, the last minute or so of the second-to-last episode of the first anime was a combination of sadness and "What just happened" due to the rapid series of events. One heart-wrenching word: EDWAAAAAAARD!
    • When that episode first aired in English, this troper along with her sister and younger cousin watched the episode. The moment Edward was killed sent the troper into tears even though she knew he was going to die anyway. And then her cousin brought up that he wasn't real and not worth crying over...
  • No mention of the episode we see Ed and Al's past? The song Bratja at the end really hits it home, even if you don't know Russian.
  • While in Lab 5, the Slicer Brothers beg Ed to kill them, but he refuses, since denying they were human would mean Al was no longer human either. As this exchange is going on, Barry is convincing Al he's not human, only a product of false memories. If Ed's heartfelt speech isn't enough, the background song, Bratya really pushes it over the edge.
  • And don't forget Maes' funeral. Everyone's sad enough, including the viewers, even if we hadn't seen the funeral scene, to top it all off, his three year old daughter, who doesn't understand the concept of death and cries, asking why they're burying her daddy.
    • Fridge Horror when you realize that they accidentally broke Hughes' family the same way Hohenhiem did to their family.
    • The biggest tear-jerker being when Mustang puts his hat on, stares up at the clear sky and proclaims: "It's going to rain today." Even after a dozen times it still manages to tug on this Troper's heartstrings.
      • Not to forget, that the words of Elicia even make the mega-badass Alex Louis Armstrong cry... Which is probably not so unexpected, because he had a mental breakdown, seeing the horrors of the Ishval extermination war, making him unfit to continue. And he tends to be especially touched by those kind of displays of affection, although it was mostly Played for Laughs before that.
  • Lust's death. She starts out as a monster. But seeing her go completely soul-crushingly depressed after Scar's death (which I'd love to nominate too) was just too much. After his death she never even smiles after that. She solemnly agrees with everyone after that. Even the Elrics that say they can kill her. And then when she teams up to kill Sloth she looks so sympathetic, and to top it off, as Wrath kills her she agrees with him on some level. It was so disturbing and seeing her downward spiral from a composed villian to a level of depression that deep was awful to This Troper.
  • The opening theme of Conqueror of Shambala, it may be one of the few good things about the movie, but the opening theme play a somewhat melancholy, yet upbeat song and show clips on what happen through out some of the 51 episodes. It also includes some of the most very sad moments like Hughes's death or Chimera Nina or Scar shedding a tear. Just check it out
    • Anything about Izumi in the movie. Her dying is a shocker, especially in hindsight for manga fans. But her being reunited with her son in death..Sob.
    • The airplane scene broke my heart with Edward slowly making his resolve, turning away, then his heartwrenching calm voice as he explains himself to his brother, the way his face quivers for a moment... and THEN Al starts screaming and crying. And I cried with him and was inconsolable for several days (thanks to my notebook breaking down exactly at that point, rendering me unable to continue watching. ... yep, that's right. Even my notebook was moved.).
      • And then the cut to Winry who calmly states that Edward now never again will let her wait - and then her face quivers. This broke my heart the second time.
    • Alfons. Anything about Alfons. Starting with his life, continuing with his relationship to Edward who only sees a shadow of Al in him and not even notices how much he hurts him that way ending with his Heroicsacrifice. That man deserves a seat of honor here.
  • Rick and Rio's scenario. One of them hates their mother for "forsaking" them, when it turns out she was basically blind and went out to see them but ended up dying looking for them.].
  • Selim's death. In this version, he's not Pride, but an innocent kid. And killed by his own FATHER at that. And then there's Roy Mustang carrying the little body away from the house after going on a fiery revenge.
  • Rose. Being raped, manipulated, made mute, and generally all the crap she went through. She didn't have it good in her first appearance either.
  • Although it's something that everyone saw coming Trisha's death scene was quite painful to watch too. Just seeing the light fade from her eyes was enough to have this troper being reduced to a tearful mess...
  • There's something bittersweet about episode 4. Majhal was so in love with a woman who died that he tried to bring her back to life, and obviously failed. He essentially murdered several woman in attempts to bind their souls to mannequins that resemble his lost love but they never bind correctly. At the end of the episode it turns out "Lebi", a woman who often visited Majhal, was his supposedly dead lover - Karin. Majhal refused to believe that [[spoiler:the woman was Karin -as she was now older than before and no longer "beautiful" to him - and tried to attack her but he accidentally became impaled by his own sword. Even while dying Majhal refused to acknowledge that Lebi was Karin, and that she was alive.
  • A recap of "Mother", itself a serious Tear Jerker, set to Bratja with full subtitles? Let it begin.
  • The Russian version is actually a bad schmaltzy piece of junk with stylistically questionable Russian.
  • There's also the last episode where Al sacrifices himself to resurrect Ed, and restore his body. Afterwards, Ed sacrifices his new arm and leg to save Al from death.

Al: Goodbye brother. I'll miss you.

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