"Gentle Goodbye" emphasizes that, no matter what we do, death takes all of our loved ones. If you spend that time mourning, however or finding ways to cheat death or find a shortcut, you will become unhappy. Or worse, you may take the living for granted. Rika has nightmares about her father dying, but doesn't think to spend time with him until the end of the story.
"Bullied" has the anvil that bullies, simply put it, do not change, especially when they do not truly comprehend the consequences of their actions. Sure they can reform and make amends, but any stressors can make them snap back to their previous cruelty.
Ito Junji no Neko Nikki has one in the chapters: you never know what new family members will change you for the better. J-kun has long admitted that he is a dog person, and thinks cats are creepy. In fact, Yon scares him at first with how weird he looks. Then he actually sees Yon and Mu playing with A-ko and her mother, and he realizes something: cats are not evil. They're just cats. It gets to the point where Yon, after being standoffish for most of their time together, comes to sit in J-kun's lap when the latter is stressed out from a deadline.
Courtesy of "The Groaning Drain," Is your sink or tub drain making funny noises? Best not to put a hand down there, in case you get dragged and crunched into the pipes by the person who was stalking you.
Do you have a song stuck in your head, one that you can't remove? Maybe you will hear it so many times that it will block out other songs and impede your studies, or even your basic thoughts. The only doctor who can help is ethically dodgy, that straps you to a table and plays frequencies in the hopes of dispelling the melody.
If you have a stalkerish ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend, be warned of how they may act. They may not leave you alone, taking dramatic actions that will traumatize you.
Very rarely will you feel sympathetic towards ANY of the antagonists, but you have to feel sorry for the dad in "Heart of a Father" at the end.
There is something sad about how Tomie dies every time in her story's many chapters. She starts as a teenage girl, certainly ordinary enough but nowhere near the monster that she becomes later. It's implied that because her first death was plain unfair, she regenerated and has been losing more of her humanity. Only one man resists her, saying that she's not his type and is too young to him for boot, and for this her worshippers kidnap him.
All Kyoko wanted to do in Sensor was go mountain-climbing and explore some natural wonders of the mountains. Through no fault of her own, she ends up trapped in the past, and forced to absorb the knowledge of the universe, with the added benefit of volcanic glass hair when the powers return her to the present. It ensures that she can never get her life back, and it takes months alone for her to regain use of her mind. When the journalist hears about her treatment from a doctor that was from the same village, he notes that if this story is true, Kyoko has a very good reason for wanting no one to find her.
How "Hanging Balloons" starts. The main character Kazuko's best friend, a celebrity named Terumi, hangs herself. Her fans proceed to harass her boyfriend, blaming him for the suicide while he looks more haggard by the day. Kazuko has to tell them off, saying that it was no one's fault and how dare they accuse him. When it seems that Terumi was spotted at the park, he calls Kazuko and asks her to come, to make sure that it's not just him seeing this. Shiroishi then climbs a tree when he thinks he sees Termi. Kazuko spots something else and shouts at him to stop...because he's about to jump into a noose. Shiroishi hangs himself by accident, and all Kazuko can do is scream.
"Bullied" is a story about child abuse, plain and simple. The main character is a young woman that used to play nasty pranks on a neighboring kid that worshipped her. When the family moved away after the boy got mauled by a dog, she felt guilty enough to reform. Said kid grows up, tracks her down when she's an adult, and asks her out on a date. He says he's forgiven her, and she falls for him. They get married, have a child...and he vanishes one day. The police can't find him. Cue a few years passing, and the mother snaps. She realizes their son looks like her husband as a boy, dresses up like her childhood self, and drags the poor kid to the park at night, as he begs her not to pull his ears again. In this state, she theorizes his revenge was breaking her heart and leaving her a single mother. What's worse is there is no supernatural horror, no spirals or monsters. This ugliness is realistic. One can hope, however, that someone will spot her erratic behavior at the park and call the cops if not child services, considering how dangerous her pranks as a kid were.