Violet Evergarden isn't sad enough. It highlights how sad things can and do happen, but it gets there by highlighting how happy they needed to be for that to even be troubling in the first place.
Given Violet's own arc through the entire thing, the show overall ends up as a celebration of things that are worth fighting for, and a discomfiting reminder that nobody is guaranteed anything. Much like Violet herself, the story fights to the very end and never gives up.
If it makes anyone want to kill themselves though, they really missed the core of the show. It can also make you want to fight.
eh, plastic memories is to sad anime what Michael Bay is to explosions.
too on the nose, in your face, and not very clever with it. they beat you over the head with "look at how sad this is" the whole time and it loses its impact.
I do enjoy a good feels-anime. Your Lie and Violet are probably my top two for that.
Little Busters was one in that vein to a degree. Gotta get through the second season for the full story impact though.
Some others that aren't as sad but still feels heavy: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, A Silent Voice, Garden of Words, Bubble, Belle, Weathering With You.
i haven't seen pancreas, belle, or little busters, but I differently like everything on that list. it's funny how these shows impact people differently.
to me your lie in April is one of the less sad ones on the list. to me that show is more about acceptance and moving on. maybe it's because I've never dealt with anyone with a terminal illness like that. my nurse friend adored violet evergarden, but didn't find your lie sad to AT ALL. she simply dissociated herself from the sadness of terminal illness so she can do her job. the show was just boring to her.
I personally find a silent voice to be the saddest of those. a big part of that for me is the voice acting and the way they convey emotion, but also the way the story slowly escalates the emotional scenes from a quiet admission to a shaky angry scream or whatever. i think I also find the characters to be more believable than many anime with that large of a cast. not so much in that they act more like real people, but i find their circumstances and the ways react to them to feel... almost insightful?
I liked Silent Voice a lot for that as well. The characters were grounded in reality instead of being melodramatic caricatures or trope types. It kept in a lot of humanity and introspection. People acted normal and for the most part mature or within the bounds one would expect for their age.
Too different to compare. These are all tearjerkers for sure, but in sort of a happysad way, like "so sad that we lost it but so happy that we had it." There is something good and warm that you can identify with, and the hurt comes from it being taken away too soon.
Happy Sugar Life is obvious from the outset that there will be nothing good or warm, there is no hope or anything worth saving. The viewer knows this, but the characters don't. That's what makes it so painful (in a good way) to watch unfold.