The Woobie/Anime and Manga: Difference between revisions

* Tetsuo from ''[[Akira]]'' is considered one. He largely wants revenge on the city after years of being subjected to [[Parental Abandonment]] and [[Kids Are Cruel]], and looked down upon by everyone else in his gang including his best friend. The scenes from his backstory really make you feel for the guy, in part because he made a ''very cute'' kid.

* Kanou Taisuke of ''[[Alive the Final Evolution]]'' is a prime example. A happy-go-lucky individual, it turns out the reason he has superpowers is because {{spoiler|He feels guilt over his parents' death. They died in a car accident, apparently caused by a drink can under the brakes. Before he left the car, he was drinking orange juice, left it on the divider between seats, and only saw it later in a plastic bag being taken away by police. Being a grade schooler, he attributed this to be entirely his fault.}}

{{quote|I didn't think Angel Beats was supposed to be taken literally. }}

** [[Tear Jerker|And then you find out why she's always alone.]]

** Sakaki also counts, thanks to her social awkwardness and constant bad luck with the cats she obsesses over. The only problem in her case is that most other characters think she's an aloof and cool badass, even though she's really just shy.

** Kaorin may also count, due to her unrequited crush on Sakaki, who is totally oblivious. Then [[Dirty Old Man|Kimura]] gets fixated on ''Kaorin'', and the poor girl's life ''really'' becomes an emotional roller-coaster.

* The ''[[Berserk]]'' universe is rough on pretty much everyone.

** Guts and Casca, the [[Star-Crossed Lovers]] of the series have it especially bad. While Guts has shades of [[Jerkass Woobie]], his lover is more of a [[The Woobie|a complete woobie.]] Casca was sold by her parents to a noble who wanted a new serving girl, only for her to learn that he wanted her for sex, not cooking and cleaning. She was saved from being raped only by the arrival of Griffith. The two had it relatively easy during their time with the Band of the Hawk and things take a rare, optimistic turn for them when they admit their love for each other...[[It Got Worse|until the Eclipse went down, and it all went to hell.]] {{spoiler|Griffith sacrificed the Hawks, leaving them to get slaughtered by countless monsters. Casca lost everyone under her command, and was ultimately raped when Griffith, who had become the fifth member of the Godhand, Femto, [[I Have You Now, My Pretty|got his hands on her]]. Guts took down a multitude of demons and even chiseled off his own left arm in a furious bid to save her, but in the end, [[Senseless Sacrifice|it was all for nothing]]}}. And things only got worse for them after the Eclipse, with Casca {{spoiler|miscarrying and giving birth to a corrupted child as a result of Femto's rape tainting the child that she and Guts conceived}} and her [[Go Mad From the Revelation|traumatized post-Eclipse state in general]] being a source of [[Heartbroken Badass|serious heartbreak]] for Guts, to the point where at times one doesn't know which of the two to feel worse for. And that's not even mentioning the [[Super-Powered Evil Side]] that Guts has which is now working against him and which wants Guts to kill Casca so that he can get back to his vendetta against Griffith. All in all, the Berserk universe has made it its mission to ensure that these two ''never'' find happiness.

** Miranda grew up [[All of the Other Reindeer|relentlessly mocked by everyone she knew]], got fired from 100 jobs even though she kept trying her best, developed a severe inferiority complex, wanted nothing more than to be helpful to others but didn't think she could, got stuck in a [[Groundhog Day Loop]] after [[Be Careful What You Wish For|wishing "tomorrow would never come" in the presence of an Innocence]]... and even after becoming an exorcist, she's no less of a woobie. Her Innocence lets her heal any recently-inflicted wounds and repair broken objects, but as soon as she deactivates it, the damage returns... not to mention using it puts a massive strain on her. She constantly pushes herself to her limit, cries whenever she has to return somebody's injuries, and blames herself for everything that goes wrong. As if that wasn't bad enough, when she's too tired to use her full recovery power, she can ''feel when her comrades die''.

* Aoi Hidaka from ''[[Dancougar Nova]]'' is quite a Woobie under her [[Badass Driver]] [[Fiery Redhead]] exterior. Heavily implied to be {{spoiler|a test tube baby with no parents}}, she has believed herself to be alone and unwanted for all of her life. Her fellow Dancougar pilots (Johnny, Sakuya and Kurara) were the first true friends she ever had, after getting past their differences. {{spoiler|And just when she has finally found a place where she can feel accepted, the evil alien computer Moon Will totals the Dragon's Hive, apparently killing everyone. Luckily, it later turns out to be a [[Disney Death]], and she gets an happy ending after literally [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|punching out Cthulhu]]...}}

* Although ''[[Death Note]]'' edges toward the cynical end of the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]], it does contain a few genuine woobies:

** The entire Yagami family of suffers from Light's actions. Ryuk even ''says'' at one point that they are the unluckiest family in the world - and yet their whole purpose was to add a little innocence into what is otherwise a dark, mayhem-and-murder-filled series. In the [[Live Action Adaptation]], Soichiro is made the Woobie even more in it simply by ''[[Spared by the Adaptation|surviving]]''.