10 Anime where characters suffer from depression 

The world suffers (Image via Shinsekai Yori Anime)
The world suffers (Image via Shinsekai Yori Anime)

The Anime world can prove to be horrid in many ways. A number of anime characters suffer from various mental illnesses, and the state of their mental health is often brought out by the plotlines of a number of episodes. Thus, it's not surprising to find anime characters suffering from depression continually.

More often than not, the manifestation of a character's degrading mental health is not directly apparent, yet if one follows closely, the unmissable aspects of one's mental illness come to the fore.


10 anime with depressed characters, including Nagi no Asukara

1) Myself Yourself

The depression is seen throughout every episode (Image via Myself Yourself)
The depression is seen throughout every episode (Image via Myself Yourself)

Myself Yourself is an anime about a boy forced to move away from his quaint hometown. He leaves all of his friends behind and must start anew. Years later, he moves back to enroll at the local high school and discovers that his old friends have changed.

The undertone of growing depression can be felt throughout the episodes when the protagonist's friends desert him or when continual iterations of suicide are made.


2) Kiznaiver

Kiznaiver is an anime that details a variety of experiments conducted by a set of teenagers.

Katsuhira was genetically modified to the point of feeling nothing, both emotionally and physically. Furthermore, the scientists kidnap other teenagers and alter them so that if anyone gets injured, they're all injured. In addition to this, if they feel overwhelming emotions, the thoughts will be experienced by all of them.


3) Your Lie in April

Kousei was heralded as a piano prodigy. However, he abandoned this title after his mother passed away. He suffered from severe depression and was determined to let his dreams die with his mother until a certain violinist came into his life.

However, the violinist is doomed to die too. This soul-crushing reality does not deter, even when one can feel her demise drawing soon.


4) Vampire Knight

He killed a newborn unintentionally (Image via Vampire Knight Manga)
He killed a newborn unintentionally (Image via Vampire Knight Manga)

Kaname is one of the main characters in Vampire Knight who continually suffers from depression. An ancestor of the Kuran bloodline, he was unaware of worldly thoughts and wandered the earth as a vagabond until someone found him and gave him a name since he forgot his first one.

He was awoken by his descendant, who sacrificed a newborn to his desiccated body. Because of this, he suffered for many years over the guilt of devouring the baby.


5) Naruto

Sasuke Uchiha suffered from depression as a result of his entire family being slain. Due to this, he hid away from the world and closed off his emotions. He does not function like an average human and is easily annoyed by human interaction.

He is utterly consumed by his obsession with killing his brother, the perpetrator of the crime. He spirals down a problematic path and betrays friends and foes alike. It has also been hinted throughout the manga that Naruto suffers from depression as well.


6) Orange

Orange is an anime centered around preventing Kakeru's death, as he dies by suicide. Naho received letters from her future self that ordered her to save him by detailing various instructions. Orange is one of the few anime that addresses depression and the effect a supportive circle of people can have on the person suffering from it.


7) Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei

His paranoia drives the show (Image via Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei)
His paranoia drives the show (Image via Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei)

Nozumo is a teacher who experiences deep bouts of depression, with the littlest incidents triggering him. His eccentricities cause many hilarious scenarios to ensue and cause a couple of contradictory scenarios.

In this show, no one is safe from him, nor his students, as they follow their own set of morals like their lives depend on it.


8) Jujutsu Kaisen

Jujutsu Kaisen is generally considered to be a depressing series over all, but mangaka Gege Akutami makes several allusions to many of his characters being depressed. None more so, perhaps, than his protagonist Yuji Itadori.

However, characters like Megumi Fishuguro, Yuta Okkotsu, and Suguru Geto show signs of depression as well, with the lattermost suffering a mental breakdown at teh end of his career as a Jujutsu Sorcerer.


9) Nagi no Asukara

Nagi no Asukara is about a group of mermaid-like students who were forced to attend lessons on land. The first half of the plot revolved around them struggling to adjust to human life while one of them fell in love with a human.

In the second half, most of the characters were forced to hibernate in the ocean to weather through a natural disaster. The depression experienced by the characters was palpable.


10) Shinsekai Yori

Shinsekai Yori is an anime about five friends who live in a small village that holds dark secrets. The depression that the characters experience doesn't become apparent until a couple of episodes in, yet one can feel the tension slowly climbing towards its peak.

In the second half, the foreboding nature of the show is palpable, yet they, and the creatures that wish to make a change in that world, are determined not to give up.

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Edited by Sayati Das
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