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Exactly what it says on the tin. Have you ever watched an anime that had one particular scene that has stuck with you? Something burned into your memory either from how emotional, profound or even insane it was? Was it just so beautiful and inspirational you felt moved? Is it something that’s changed your perspective on life, even?
Anime at its core is an art medium to tell stories through, and thus, there’s no shame in the fact that it can leave marks on our memories for touching us emotionally in some way. I’d like this to be a thread where we discuss segments of anime that have remained in our thoughts one way or another. If you aren’t exactly sure why you held onto the memory of something, I urge you to hypothesize and self-reflect. Think of this thread as a way to get recommended anime while learning about each other!
Now of course, some dramatic moments in anime tend to be full of spoilers, so if you would like to talk about those, before you explain the scene I ask that you mention what anime it is, and then spoiler hide the content of your post as necessary. Keep in mind you may have to summarize your memory in a way for others to understand who have not seen the anime you’ve watched.
With that out of the way, I’d like to talk about a few of mine! (I’m sure there’s more than this, but these are a few I’ve been thinking about lately).
An anime I watched a while back was known as Vivy: A Fluorite Eye’s Song. The anime follows a dated android known as Vivy who lives in a world that has seemingly left her dated tech behind. Humanity had perfected AI by giving each AI one sole purpose, each defined for whatever role the AI is meant to fill. Vivy wants to make people happy with her singing, though reaching her dream is put on the back burner when an AI from the future contacts her with a plea— that soon AI would end humanity and Vivy was the only one who could stop it. And thus, Vivy is led by this time-traveling robot to stop cataclysmic events from happening that created the rift between AI and man. If you’ve seen anime such as Kino’s Journey, Hell Girl, Shigofumi and Violet Evergarden, you can get a feel for the flavor of this anime as it is one of those ‘observer’ types— where the main character serves as a window into the stories happening around them. This is the case for Vivy, most of the anime follows Vivy being exposed to the stories of others in her ever-changing world.
The scene in particular that’s been burned into my mind happens in the fourth episode, where Vivy is told by her robot ally from the future that she must stop a space-hotel (yes, a hotel in space. it’s the future okay.) from crashing into earth and causing the deaths of everyone on board. During her time aboard the hotel, she meets a kind AI known as Estella that watches over the hotel, who is rumored to have killed the previous owner and taken over to sabotage the hotel and cause it to crash. (Spoilers for the episode start here) This however, turns out to be far from the truth. It is revealed Estella has a younger twin sister, Elizabeth working for the organization that wishes to sabotage the hotel, who spread the rumors of Estella being malicious in order to crash the hotel successfully without the public catching on to the organization. Elizabeth was the result of a failed AI cloning experiment from Estella, and was disposed of, where she was picked up by AI separatists. Vivy gets involved in a scuffle between the sisters, trying to stop Elizabeth from sending the hotel back into the atmosphere. Sparing you the specifics, the twin sisters reconcile, but far too late, as the hotel is already crashing down. Estella makes a last ditch effort of separating the hotel into pieces, both saving the guests and sacrificing herself and her sister as the hotel will now burn up in the atmosphere.
This is the part that stuck with me most.
In order to soothe the panicked hotel inhabitants now safely away from danger, the twin sisters broadcast a song together, singing to the guests one last time to send them off for rescue happily, while the two of them are waiting to burn up with the rest of the building. I had only met these characters in the span of an episode, but that scene was so tragically sad, I remember tearing up. Something about the way the two AI spent their final moments together aside for the sake of the humans they protected in a world that treated them like products just got me. It’s a beautifully rough scene.
I’m a really big fan of any anime involving sad robots, so maybe my internal bias just hit that hard.
The other is one I’ve thought about for YEARS. One of my favorite anime growing up was called Rozen Maiden, and to be honest with you, I don’t know if this anime is as good as I remember. That aside, I still deeply love the concept, the designs, the overall aesthetic and personality of the dolls. Rozen Maiden’s plot is a bit more straightforward, a man named Rozen brought life to 7 dolls he created, casting them out into the world to participate in the Alice Game, where all the dolls must bond with a human to battle each other for the right to become human. (Are you noticing a theme with me? LOL)
I loved this anime when I was about 14, and watched all of it, including the OVAs, read all of it, and just took in everything I could. But there was one scene I still remember so vividly, so much more than the rest. It was an episode from the OVA, about the creation of the dolls. The first doll is named Suigintou, and throughout the entirety of the anime she is framed as the antagonist doll to the others, and seems to despise them— but we don’t really know why without it seeming like for the sake of being a force against the others. The OVA explores this.
We see Rozen crafting Suigintou, his passion and love for his creations being the magical force that brings them to life in the first place. Suigintou comes to life mid-production, Rozen hadn’t even finished refining her limbs or even making her dress. Suigintou cannot speak to him, so she is left admiring her father’s work in her thoughts. However, one day Suigintou is suddenly shelved, left as a work in progress, unfinished, and Rozen begins working on other dolls. This leaves Suigintou worried and confused. Why did her father not finish her? Why did he move on to other dolls? Of course we can assume that this is merely because Suiginotou was the first doll he ever made, and thus, she was surely full of flaws, and Rozen had felt she was a scrapped project not knowing she was alive. The OVA then takes a painful turn, us watching through Suigintou’s perspective as one by one her sisters are completed, sat in their pristine dresses and craftsmanship. Suigintou continues to hold onto hope her father loves her, and he will return to working on her, the entire display is reminiscent of the story of the dog Hachiko.
Unfortunately for Suigintou that day never comes. After selling every doll but one (besides Suigintou), Rozen packs his things and closes his store to move elsewhere, leaving Suigintou alone and abandoned within his workshop. Suigintou in anguish and disbelief her father would just leave her, drags herself off the shelf and manages to piece herself (somewhat) together, and takes a scrapped dress left on a chair to outfit herself in with the new goal of reuniting with her other sisters, if nothing else— and to eventually find her father. I don’t know if it was just truly that long and painful of a scene, or how much of it is the moment playing out dramatically long in my memory, but this moment left child me absolutely devastated. I didn’t cry, but I do remember laying awake after just feeling incredibly sad.
It doesn’t stop there though.
Eventually, Suigintou does find her sisters, and happily greets them partially out of desperation to feel like a complete doll like the rest of them. Unfortunately, none of them were welcoming of her, and one in particular going as far as to call her a piece of junk, given her unfinished state. You can guess how Suigintou becomes bitter of the others enough to become the villain from here.
I know villains with tragic backstories is a trope that is at times criticized, but Suigintou’s past was just so heartwrenching for me. She was a girl who had nothing, and all she wanted was acceptance and love, something she would never be given due to the circumstances of her birth. It just felt truly awful to watch her mental decay as the world was so unjustly cruel to her because she was not a perfect doll. Like I said, I saw this anime when I was 14 or so. (Maybe even younger? It’s been so long.) But that entire OVA episode just felt like so much to stomach. I’m not sure how well it’s stood the test of time,
or if my attachment to the series as a whole made that scene feel much worse than it was, but god, it’s never going to leave my thoughts. You’re always there Suigintou, LOL. Part of me wonders if it stuck with me because I felt some of myself in Suigintou, with how bad my bullying was in middle school and yet I still tried to remain kind, only to become embittered later, but it’s definitely not a connection I made right away back then.
I have some other burned-in moments, but I’d like to hear some of yours first!
Anime at its core is an art medium to tell stories through, and thus, there’s no shame in the fact that it can leave marks on our memories for touching us emotionally in some way. I’d like this to be a thread where we discuss segments of anime that have remained in our thoughts one way or another. If you aren’t exactly sure why you held onto the memory of something, I urge you to hypothesize and self-reflect. Think of this thread as a way to get recommended anime while learning about each other!
Now of course, some dramatic moments in anime tend to be full of spoilers, so if you would like to talk about those, before you explain the scene I ask that you mention what anime it is, and then spoiler hide the content of your post as necessary. Keep in mind you may have to summarize your memory in a way for others to understand who have not seen the anime you’ve watched.
With that out of the way, I’d like to talk about a few of mine! (I’m sure there’s more than this, but these are a few I’ve been thinking about lately).
An anime I watched a while back was known as Vivy: A Fluorite Eye’s Song. The anime follows a dated android known as Vivy who lives in a world that has seemingly left her dated tech behind. Humanity had perfected AI by giving each AI one sole purpose, each defined for whatever role the AI is meant to fill. Vivy wants to make people happy with her singing, though reaching her dream is put on the back burner when an AI from the future contacts her with a plea— that soon AI would end humanity and Vivy was the only one who could stop it. And thus, Vivy is led by this time-traveling robot to stop cataclysmic events from happening that created the rift between AI and man. If you’ve seen anime such as Kino’s Journey, Hell Girl, Shigofumi and Violet Evergarden, you can get a feel for the flavor of this anime as it is one of those ‘observer’ types— where the main character serves as a window into the stories happening around them. This is the case for Vivy, most of the anime follows Vivy being exposed to the stories of others in her ever-changing world.
The scene in particular that’s been burned into my mind happens in the fourth episode, where Vivy is told by her robot ally from the future that she must stop a space-hotel (yes, a hotel in space. it’s the future okay.) from crashing into earth and causing the deaths of everyone on board. During her time aboard the hotel, she meets a kind AI known as Estella that watches over the hotel, who is rumored to have killed the previous owner and taken over to sabotage the hotel and cause it to crash. (Spoilers for the episode start here) This however, turns out to be far from the truth. It is revealed Estella has a younger twin sister, Elizabeth working for the organization that wishes to sabotage the hotel, who spread the rumors of Estella being malicious in order to crash the hotel successfully without the public catching on to the organization. Elizabeth was the result of a failed AI cloning experiment from Estella, and was disposed of, where she was picked up by AI separatists. Vivy gets involved in a scuffle between the sisters, trying to stop Elizabeth from sending the hotel back into the atmosphere. Sparing you the specifics, the twin sisters reconcile, but far too late, as the hotel is already crashing down. Estella makes a last ditch effort of separating the hotel into pieces, both saving the guests and sacrificing herself and her sister as the hotel will now burn up in the atmosphere.
This is the part that stuck with me most.
In order to soothe the panicked hotel inhabitants now safely away from danger, the twin sisters broadcast a song together, singing to the guests one last time to send them off for rescue happily, while the two of them are waiting to burn up with the rest of the building. I had only met these characters in the span of an episode, but that scene was so tragically sad, I remember tearing up. Something about the way the two AI spent their final moments together aside for the sake of the humans they protected in a world that treated them like products just got me. It’s a beautifully rough scene.
I’m a really big fan of any anime involving sad robots, so maybe my internal bias just hit that hard.
The other is one I’ve thought about for YEARS. One of my favorite anime growing up was called Rozen Maiden, and to be honest with you, I don’t know if this anime is as good as I remember. That aside, I still deeply love the concept, the designs, the overall aesthetic and personality of the dolls. Rozen Maiden’s plot is a bit more straightforward, a man named Rozen brought life to 7 dolls he created, casting them out into the world to participate in the Alice Game, where all the dolls must bond with a human to battle each other for the right to become human. (Are you noticing a theme with me? LOL)
I loved this anime when I was about 14, and watched all of it, including the OVAs, read all of it, and just took in everything I could. But there was one scene I still remember so vividly, so much more than the rest. It was an episode from the OVA, about the creation of the dolls. The first doll is named Suigintou, and throughout the entirety of the anime she is framed as the antagonist doll to the others, and seems to despise them— but we don’t really know why without it seeming like for the sake of being a force against the others. The OVA explores this.
We see Rozen crafting Suigintou, his passion and love for his creations being the magical force that brings them to life in the first place. Suigintou comes to life mid-production, Rozen hadn’t even finished refining her limbs or even making her dress. Suigintou cannot speak to him, so she is left admiring her father’s work in her thoughts. However, one day Suigintou is suddenly shelved, left as a work in progress, unfinished, and Rozen begins working on other dolls. This leaves Suigintou worried and confused. Why did her father not finish her? Why did he move on to other dolls? Of course we can assume that this is merely because Suiginotou was the first doll he ever made, and thus, she was surely full of flaws, and Rozen had felt she was a scrapped project not knowing she was alive. The OVA then takes a painful turn, us watching through Suigintou’s perspective as one by one her sisters are completed, sat in their pristine dresses and craftsmanship. Suigintou continues to hold onto hope her father loves her, and he will return to working on her, the entire display is reminiscent of the story of the dog Hachiko.
Unfortunately for Suigintou that day never comes. After selling every doll but one (besides Suigintou), Rozen packs his things and closes his store to move elsewhere, leaving Suigintou alone and abandoned within his workshop. Suigintou in anguish and disbelief her father would just leave her, drags herself off the shelf and manages to piece herself (somewhat) together, and takes a scrapped dress left on a chair to outfit herself in with the new goal of reuniting with her other sisters, if nothing else— and to eventually find her father. I don’t know if it was just truly that long and painful of a scene, or how much of it is the moment playing out dramatically long in my memory, but this moment left child me absolutely devastated. I didn’t cry, but I do remember laying awake after just feeling incredibly sad.
It doesn’t stop there though.
Eventually, Suigintou does find her sisters, and happily greets them partially out of desperation to feel like a complete doll like the rest of them. Unfortunately, none of them were welcoming of her, and one in particular going as far as to call her a piece of junk, given her unfinished state. You can guess how Suigintou becomes bitter of the others enough to become the villain from here.
I know villains with tragic backstories is a trope that is at times criticized, but Suigintou’s past was just so heartwrenching for me. She was a girl who had nothing, and all she wanted was acceptance and love, something she would never be given due to the circumstances of her birth. It just felt truly awful to watch her mental decay as the world was so unjustly cruel to her because she was not a perfect doll. Like I said, I saw this anime when I was 14 or so. (Maybe even younger? It’s been so long.) But that entire OVA episode just felt like so much to stomach. I’m not sure how well it’s stood the test of time,
or if my attachment to the series as a whole made that scene feel much worse than it was, but god, it’s never going to leave my thoughts. You’re always there Suigintou, LOL. Part of me wonders if it stuck with me because I felt some of myself in Suigintou, with how bad my bullying was in middle school and yet I still tried to remain kind, only to become embittered later, but it’s definitely not a connection I made right away back then.
I have some other burned-in moments, but I’d like to hear some of yours first!
