It has come to my attention that a few of the anime I like are fairly depressing. Upon hearing this I decided to think it over. The conclusion, yeah, quite a few of them are. I tallied up the total, or what I believe to be the total, of anime I have completed, started, simply lying around, and other (other means I don't give enough shit to put into one of the three categories). So how many of them are there? One hundred sixteen. The scary part is that there may be more. Of those I have watched and completed eighty-five.
You may be wondering as to how the total and the total I have watched are so high. Some anime have multiple seasons and I counted one for each season. You could think of it as I counted each name change as an anime by itself. For instance, "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni" would have three seasons to it since it goes to "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai" and later it ends up as "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei." (There is a fourth season, but I haven't been able to get my hands on it.) Admittedly there are one or two that don't have true sequels or multiple seasons, but they are so few that if wouldn't make a huge dent in the number anyways. I also included movies of series to the total. For instance, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Fate/Stay Night, and Rurouni Kenshin all have their own movies which I counted one for each of them. Now that I think about it, even if I condense some of the anime down with multiple seasons, the movies would end up taking their place anyways. I might have forgotten about them or simply didn't think as to whether not they have a movie or not. Another thing is that I probably will never watch the movie and just stick with the series. Anyways let's get back to the point...
So we have established that I have no life and too much time on my hand... I mean I have seen a lot of anime. Let's see how many of those can be considered even remotely depressing. While I have come to learn that there is such a thing as "worse than death," death is a good place to start. Out of the anime I have completed, I have found that forty-seven of them involve someone dying. Whether or not I give a shit about someone dying is a different story. In Akira there was one or two significant (they had names, they weren't just nameless soldiers) people who died. It doesn't mean I really cared about them dying. So where exactly do I go from here?
Honestly I'm not sure where to go from here. I guess it is dependent on the story. Whether or not there was a good lead into the deaths and thus giving it some sort of impact. Or whether or not the events in the story could be considered depressing, tragic, or simply sad. With that I narrowed it down to fourteen anime titles that had a decent enough story to stick out in my mind. Of course this is why I am rattling on about depressing anime. If someone were to ask me for a good anime, I would rattle off a few from this bunch before I would get into some of the others from the original eighty-five. I mean, Outlaw Star, Rurouni Kenshin, Seitokai Yakuindomo, and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya are all good anime (in my opinion anyways) but I am more likely to think of Elfen Lied and Higurashi before I suggest those. That is unless you told me to think of something that you had in mind.
It might not be that I have a few anime that can be considered depressing. More like those are the ones I instantly think of. Fifty-five percent of the anime I have completed involves people dying. Sixteen percent have what can be considered a sad or tragic story. Seven percent can be considered depressing and I consider these to be the best over all. And there is a one percent that I consider flat-out depressing with no questions asked.
Well that was fun. I might have to alter some of the numbers if and when I finish the fifteen that I started. From what I've seen of them, the numbers can only decrease. I can tell you this, "Saikano" already has a spot in the top ten... that is if I had a top ten list. So far I only have five and they are taking up most of that seven percent in the last paragraph.