Fist of the North Star/Tear Jerker

Violence and brutality be damned, Fist of the North Star is arguably the most warm-hearted and sensitive anime series of the 1980s. There IS a reason that it's the Trope Codifier for Manly Tears.

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• Any moment where a character with any shred of fundamental human decency cries Tender Tears or Manly Tears.
• When Kenshiro finally confronts Shin at the end of the first arc, the latter mocks Kenshiro, telling him that Yuria has forgotten him. After all the hell he's been through just to reach them, Kenshiro finally breaks down, tearfully whispering that he doesn't care if Yuria has forgotten him, just as long as she's safe.
  • After Shin is dealt a fatal blow by Kenshiro, he tearfully reveals that Yuria committed suicide by throwing herself from his tower out of horror of what he committed in her name. It's later revealed that Yuria actually survived, and that Shin knew this, but acted otherwise to keep her safe from Raoh. As horrible as he was, and as much as he misunderstood her, Shin genuinely loved Yuria and wanted to make her happy, but he had no chance to ever redeem himself in her eyes. Star of Martyrdom, indeed.
• The death of Mamiya's brother, Kou, during her introductory arc.
  • What makes Kou's death sadder is why he died. He went outside the protection of the village to gather wild strawberries, Mamiya's favorite food, to put on her birthday cake. Even worse is when Lin finds the strawberries that Kou picked and puts them on the cake in his stead, singing a truly gutwrenching rendition of "Happy Birthday to You" whilst doing so. By the time she gets to the last line, she's been reduced to a sobbing mess.
  • Oddly, during the same arc, the way in which the Fang Clan mourns the deaths of its members is actually quite touching.
• Kenshiro taking Taki home, shot dead just for stealing water for his adoptive mother, and her anguished cry of "He was only seven years old!" will make you want to pop the heads of Jackal and his band of child-murdering thugs yourself.
• When Bat's adoptive mother is killed by the impact of a stick of dynamite thrown away from a terrified little boy that it was tied to via Jackal. Even moreso heartbreaking in the manga when he calls her "Mommy" for the very last time as she dies with a warm smile.
• The final three days of Rei's heroic life... Oh God.
  • He gets two Crowning Moments of Awesome in before he dies, and they are very awesome.
  • Rei's death. He was already in absolute agony thanks to Raoh's attack, but then he undergoes Toki's even more painful treatment, which is so painful it turns his hair white, just so he'd have his strength back and a little more time to fight Yuda. And the reason for fighting Yuda? Just to avenge poor Mamiya's honor. Kenshiro himself says that, of all the men he's met, Rei's the only one he considered a true friend.
• If you thought a rock guitar theme cannot make you cry, you have not heard "Asunaki Tabi" yet. The most heartbreaking uses of this song were when Shu wept in a graveyard filled with children murdered by Holy Emperor Souther and when he himself was tortured and murdered by said monster of a tyrant.
• Fudoh the Mountain's last battle against Raoh had "crying time" written all over it from the start. Raoh, having felt fear when Kenshiro manifested Musou Tensei before him, concludes he needs to purge himself of all fear, and to do it, he must first face the one man to make him feel fear for the first time: Fudoh. Raoh kidnaps Fudoh's adopted children and threatens to kill them if Fudoh does not face Raoh, and Fudoh must break his vow of peace to face him. Raoh demolishes Fudoh, but Fudoh refuses to give up and actually instills fear in Raoh by showing him how hopeless it is for him to fight without love and sadness... and then Fudoh ends up shot fatally with an arrow shot by Raoh's henchmen, defying Raoh's orders. Fudoh then declares that Raoh lost to him, and that he will keep on living in fear and never defeat Kenshiro. Then he dies surrounded by his children, all crying for their loss. Excuse us for a moment...
  • This is supplemented by an awesome moment immediately afterwards, where Raoh, for the first time, displays true chivalry, declaring that he lost and should have been shot instead, before sending his entire army running for the hills.
• When Asuka, Ein's adopted daughter, was asked why she is not crying at her father's funeral, she replies "If I cry, Daddy won't be able to rest." Kenshiro hugs the brave little girl with warmth and kindness and sheds Tender Tears of sadness in her place.
• Actually, Fist of the North Star is able to combine a few of these with the raw badass of the characters to be a Manly Tear Jerker series. There are a few, generally involving the deaths of major villains. Shin, declaring his love for Yuria even as he dies from Kenshiro's techniques and throwing himself from his throne room is an early example. One of the most effective involves the impending death of one of the protagonists, however. The battle between Raoh and Toki ends as Toki, who has been dying of an illness makes a last, desperate series of attacks in order to try to kill Raoh, his older brother. As the fight goes on, Raoh realizes that Toki's dying body means that Toki has no chance to win, but continues to fight regardless, and Raoh himself begins to cry even as he continues to fight, out of love for his younger brother, and because the destiny of their style makes a tragic fate such as Toki's unavoidable. The title of the episode that ends the fight says it all: Farewell, Toki! A Man Only Cries Once!
  • There's more to it: Turns out that part of the reason this is happening is that while growing up, Raoh had made Toki promise to stop him were he to go down the wrong road, and had previously scolded Toki for crying. Raoh can't bring himself to kill Toki, and instead delivers a knockout blow.

Raoh: "Feel free to cry, Toki. I won't scold you again... Take care of your body, my little brother."

• The end credits of the 1986 movie, in which Kenshiro imagines himself walking through a beautiful forest and seeing Yuria happy, only for everything to fade back to the desolate nuclear wasteland it really is, all set to the haunting theme of "Purple Eyes".
• Somewhere around half the cast is composed of tragic heroes and villains.
• The senseless murder of Ryo, an innocent little boy, by Souther's poisoned bread in the original manga and the first Raoh Den film. Watching a massive warrior weeping with his beloved baby son limp in his arms, you'd either have to be as kind as Kenshiro or as evil as Souther if you believe the tyrant deserves any forgiveness.
• Juza the Cloud's death is particularly heartbreaking.
• The undisputed champion of tearjerking deaths in this series is Rei. His death is SO important, it's even used to signify the end of the second part of the first anime series.
• The death of Shu's son, Shiba. Kenshiro can't even find the words to describe it.
• Shu's death was made into an even greater Tear Jerker in the first Raoh Den movie, as it's accompanied by Soundtrack Dissonance with the song Where The Lights Are.
  • Kenshiro's long, echoing Say My Name cries really drove it home, and then Shu lasts just long enough to miraculously regain his eyesight and see Kenshiro as an adult. Cue Kenshiro being the most pissed off he's ever been.
• Holy Emperor Souther may be an utterly irredeemable monster, but there is one way to ignite sympathy even for him: He used to be a sweet, kind young boy who genuinely loved his master, Ogai, like no other. Unfortunately, Ogai purposely neglected to tell him that he'd have to kill him in order to become the successor to Nanto Hooken - very likely because, had Souther known, he would have rather let Ogai kill him instead. When Souther found out the hard way, after he had already fatally wounded him and only finding out after the fact on account of having been blindfolded, he tearfully declared that if love hurts so much, he had no need for it, leading him to become the brutal tyrant we all know and hate. It could just be a Freudian Excuse, but it's a pretty powerful one to see how the Crapsack World turned such a cheerful and loving boy into a vile, child-murdering tyrant. When Kenshiro beat him, all of the sudden, he felt like a child again, after commending Kenshiro over his victory, he slowly pulled himself up the side of the pyramid and crawled over to the embalmed body of his master, openly weeping and begging Ogai to comfort him again... just in time for the entire pyramid to collapse on top of him. His actions may have been unforgivable, but how he ended up that way... Damn.
  • Here is Souther's death scene as it plays out in the anime. It's truly one of Banjo Ginga's greatest performances...
• Kenshiro Den has one of the most devastating ones in the entire franchise: Yuria, dying of radiation sickness, reveals to Kenshiro that she is pregnant with Kenshiro's child. The big man himself lets the waterworks flow at the revelation.
• Jagi Gaiden can best be summed up as one long Tear Jerker after another from start to finish. From seeing Jagi as he was, his relationship with Ryuken, Anna's death and Jagi's reaction to it, Ryuken's sorrow at what Jagi has become, Jagi's final moments looking back on his miserable life, Kenshiro's anguish over having killed Jagi despite everything he did, and Jagi possibly reuniting with Anna in death. Honestly, it's hard not to weep at how thoroughly Jagi's life has been screwed by both his own actions and bitter fate.
  • The fact that this manga could make you sympathize with Jagi of all characters, one of the biggest monsters in all of Fist of the North Star, is saying something.
• Dr. Duran's death and subsequent funeral in episode 14 of the anime (A Miserable Age! The Good Die So Young!)...
  • ...and then the episode ends with a Dark Reprise of the song that Duran sang for Lin and the village's children earlier in the episode. Ouch.

Lin: "Why? Why did Dr. Duran have to die?" Kenshiro: "He sacrificed himself to save me and that young girl. Say a prayer. Say a prayer for him..."

• The flashback to when Lin watched her entire family get slaughtered by a gang of bandits combines this with Nightmare Fuel. No wonder she ended up going mute...
• The end credits. For 22 minutes, we are shown a desolate, nuclear-blasted wasteland. The credits start and they show scenes of natural beauty; mountains, waterfalls, melting ice, forests... just to remind viewers of how beautiful the world once was. Made even worse in the first season's ending, which makes it seem like Kenshiro's dream. We see a farmland ripe with wheat and an image of Yuria carrying a basket as if she is welcoming Kenshiro home.
  • The end credits song itself, Yuria... Eien Ni, does not help at all...
    • Even worse is when it's played after Shin's death in the final episode of Season 1.