The feeling of finishing a new anime nowadays is almost always the same a weight on your chest, a lump in your throat, and that uncomfortable silence that comes after the credits. Have you noticed how this generation’s anime is increasingly sad from beginning to end? It feels like happiness is just an illusion, and when it does appear, it's only there to make the character’s fall even more painful. But why is this happening?
One of the strongest examples of this trend is without a doubt Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.
From the very beginning, the anime carries a heavy energy, with the protagonist David Martinez immersed in a city that crushes dreams and people. And just when you think he's going to change his fate, everything collapses. Nearly the entire cast dies, and the ending is nothing but pain, loss, and emptiness.
There’s no going back, no hope.
And this is not an isolated case.
Another anime that follows this path is Devilman Crybaby, where the protagonist Akira Fudo tries to fight evil in the world, but ends up watching everything he loves get destroyed. Literally. The ending is an apocalypse, where nothing is left not even the main characters. The work, based on the manga by the legendary Go Nagai, was adapted by Masaaki Yuasa, a director known for his boldness, and who wasn’t afraid to show the worst side of humanity. There's also Made in Abyss, which deceives with its cute visuals but delivers a story about pain, mutilation, and survival in a cruel world. Each descent into the Abyss is a loss. Mitty, for instance, represents one of the saddest and most desperate moments I’ve ever seen in an anime. And even with small, innocent characters, the anime doesn’t spare the viewer from suffering.
And of course, we can’t leave out Your Lie in April, where everything revolves around overcoming challenges and love only to end with the death of the protagonist Kaori, leaving Kousei alone once again. You watch the two grow closer, rooting for them, and in the end, it feels like a stab in the back.
What do all these anime have in common?
It seems the new generation of creators is far more interested in showing the fragility of life, the traumas, the losses, the mistakes you can’t take back.
These stories reflect a modern world that’s more cynical, fast-paced, and uncertain.
Unlike many anime from the 90s and early 2000s, where the protagonist could lose but would eventually win through effort and friendship, today's message is: sometimes, no matter how hard you fight, the world will crush you anyway.
And as painful as that is, maybe that’s what makes these stories so powerful.
The author of Chainsaw Man, Tatsuki Fujimoto, has said in interviews that he likes creating stories that reflect his view of the world and it's not an optimistic one. The series is filled with pure tragedy, and characters are discarded brutally. And even so, or maybe because of that, we care about them.
The truth is that modern anime no longer wants to sell you an escapist fantasy. They want you to face the pain. To feel. To cry.
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Series like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Devilman Crybaby are memorable precisely because they aren’t afraid to shatter expectations. It's not the happy endings that stay with us, but the ones that make us question everything. Maybe these anime reflect the emotional state of a generation that grew up amid crises, isolation, and rapid change. Maybe the creators are just trying to say: life doesn’t always have happy endings, and it’s okay to feel lost about that.
And even so, we keep watching. Because deep down, pain is also a form of connection.
Whether it's through the soundtrack of Eve - Kaikai Kitan in Jujutsu Kaisen, or the screams of despair at the end of Cyberpunk, the sad anime of this generation strike right where it hurts the most and leave marks that don’t fade easily.
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