The enigmatic opening episode of Mars Red introduced us briefly to Misaki, a talented actress turned vampire, who dies in front of Maeda as she stays in the light after the sun rises. The saddest part is when we realize their relationship, only hinted carefully in the beginning, and how her father, Nakajima, basically sacrificed her for his experiment, aiming to turn the population into vampires. Through Maeda’s and Misaki’s backstory, we understand Maeda’s anguish, and we cry over their storyline, with no chance for redemption in sight.

This final season we got a deeper look into Kyo’s anguish and the close-up scene of Kyouko’s—Tooru’s mom—death. In one of the cruelest misunderstandings in anime, Kyo believes that Tooru’s mom blamed him for her fatal accident, her last words being “I’ll never forgive you”. Kyo saw the approaching car but didn’t push Kyouko away, fearing that he would transform into a cat. Since then, he believes with certainty that he is directly responsible, even though nobody blamed him for Kyouko’s death. It was so sad seeing how much guilt Kyo carried in him, preventing him from openly expressing his love for Tooru.

Smart and cute girls didn’t have the best fate this Spring anime season. Asahi is attacked and wounded mortally by Makoto, in an episode that aired the same week as March’s death episode in To Your Eternity.. . We were left believing Asahi was dead, and we mourned her loss. Even though Asahi survives, we can’t help but cry for the lost time between her and Sawa, even though they tried to live as a family. In the last episode, Sawa dies peacefully next to Asahi, giving in to the wound she received from Rinko, after her struggle was finally over, getting no chance for a peaceful life next to her adopted little sister.

To Your Eternity is ongoing, so we still get destroyed every week, but in Spring 2021 we experienced the heartbreaking loss of a little girl called March. A native of Ninnanah, March was selected to be the next sacrifice to forest god Oniguma. She manages to escape, meets Fushi, and despite her young age, she takes on a motherly role, teaching him how to be human. Imagine our shock when after going all the way, escaping her captors, meeting Oniguma and making it out alive, she dies protecting Parona, her dear friend who she sees as an older sister. The cutscene where she imagines life as a grownup, as a real mother, before she moves on to the afterlife, left us sobbing.