If you are looking for a list of sad anime girls, you’ve come to the right post!
Many of these characters have tragic backstories or life circumstances.
Without further ado, let’s get into it!
1. Mamimi Samejima – FLCL
Mamimi is one of the lead characters from the weird anime FLCL.
She is Tasuku’s girlfriend and a pyromaniacal girl with confidence problems.
Mamimi has a hard time making friends because of her low self-esteem.
She does not have a family that can support her and sometimes people bully her.
Later in the story, she leaves town to become a photographer.
2. Victorique de Blois – Gosick
This is the first tsundere girl on this list and hopefully not the last one.
Victorique is a foul-mouthed girl with a tough attitude and a lot of charisma.
Because of this charisma, she can manipulate almost anybody in this anime.
Despite that, she is a girl who is not easily entertained and is unmoved by everyday life.
3. Seras Victoria – Hellsing
Seras is the lead female protagonist from the devilish Hellsing.
She is a girl with a horrific past that led the overpowered Alucard to save her from a bullet wound by turning her into a vampire.
Seras is a stubborn girl with a brave, strong and sarcastic personality who can also be a little bit childish sometimes.
4. Moeka Kiryu – Steins;Gate
Moeka is a shy and introverted girl who produced one of the most groundbreaking scenes in anime history.
She is a girl who experienced a lot of bullying and emotional abuse in the past and hides that suffering behind an emotionless face.
Later in the story, she finds a place where good people accept her.
5. LaLa-Ru – Now and Then, Here and There
This is a hard anime to watch because of its haunting and dystopian history that shows the more tragic side of war.
Lala-Ru is a girl who is used as a tool because of her water powers, which has made her depressed.
After meeting Shu, she smiles more and says her favorite moment is watching the sunset alone.
6. Annie Leonhart – Attack on Titan
Annie is the Female Titan and one of the most dangerous characters in Attack on Titan.
She is a lonely girl with a complicated past that made her the way she is.
She is a depressed-looking girl with a cold and asocial personality.
Despite being part of a squad, she prefers to work alone and has skills in both Muay Thai and sword fighting.
7. Tsubaki – Future Diary
Tsubaki is part of the battle royale created by Deus and holds the Clairvoyance Diary.
This diary allows her to read what her followers see, which granted her the nickname “Sacred Eye.”
Tsubaki is both the priestess and the leader of the Omekata cult and has suffered many kinds of abuses.
This is why she has developed a vengeful personality.
8. Tomoko Kuroki – No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular!
This is the ultimate cringe protagonist.
Tomoko may be the saddest anime girl ever.
But she has a comedic side.
She is socially awkward and always has difficulty talking with somebody she does not know.
Despite all this, she is an extremely intelligent girl with an abnormally high IQ.
9. Yukari Yukino – The Garden of Words
This is the female protagonist of the critically acclaimed Garden of Words.
Yukari is a depressed teacher who takes no comfort in her beauty.
And she actually avoids work.
This is because a student’s boyfriend asked her out, and despite rejecting him, the students make fun of her for it.
10. Violet – Violet Evergarden
Violet is the titular protagonist of the anime Violet Evergarden.
She is a ghostwriter who previously was a human war machine.
Violet is a girl who doesn’t know what a normal life is and tries to discover it and the meaning of love too.
She is a shy, lonely, and awkward girl who wants to be human again.
11. Yuuko Kanoe – Dusk Maiden of Amnesia
Dusk Maiden of Amnesia is one of the best anime I have ever watched.
This is mainly because of how well-written it is.
Its female protagonist, Yuuko, is a girl who died inside the school and now haunts the old building.
She was a very depressed and pessimistic ghost girl before the protagonist Teiichi finds her.
12. Erza Scarlet – Fairy Tail
Erza is one of the most popular and beautiful girls in Fairy Tail and is sometimes referred to as the most powerful female character in the series.
She is a magical girl with a strong sense of justice.
But despite her ferocity and bravery, she is a depressed girl with a tragic past that has followed her since the beginning of the series.
13. Hanabi Sakuraoka – Scum’s Wish
Of course, the female lead of one of the most emotionally depressing anime of all time is also a depressed girl.
Hanabi is a schoolgirl who is in love with her music teacher.
But he cannot reciprocate her feelings because of his job, his age, and because he is in love with another teacher.
Scum’s Wish is a dark and gloomy anime about unrequited love.
14. Iwakura Lain – Serial Experiments Lain
Iwakura Lain is an enigmatic and mysterious girl.
And she probably should be a mystery because she is the protagonist of Serial Experiments Lain, one of the most mysterious anime ever made.
Lain is an emotionless, shy, and a depressed-looking girl who is dealing with many existential issues and starts looking for the meaning of everything on the internet.
15. Rei Ayanami – Neon Genesis Evangelion
Rei Ayanami is by far the most popular character in Neon Genesis Evangelion and one of the most well-known anime characters ever created.
She is the pilot of the mecha Evangelion Unit 00 and the “First Child.”
Rei is a beautiful girl with a stoic face and an emotionless demeanor.
She cries from time to time and develops a more human side later.
16. Sakura Matou – Fate/Stay Night
Sakura is a beautiful girl with a very traumatic and dark past.
She has probably the darkest past of any character in all of Fate.
She is the adopted daughter of Byakuya Matou, the adopted sister of Shinji Matou, the biological sister of Rin Tohsaka, and the real master of Rider.
Sakura is a timid and very friendly girl who sometimes can be a very resentful person.
17. Haruka Kotoura – Kotoura San
Haruka is a girl who was born with mind-reading abilities which caused a lot of trouble in her childhood.
After her mother rejects her and her schoolmates bully her, she starts to become more solitary and cold, leading her to be a friendless girl.
But then she meets Yoshihisa Manabe and starts to change.
18. Misuzu Kamio – Air
You know it will be a tear-jerking anime when Key created it, the same ones who created Clannad.
Well, this girl Misuzu is the reincarnation of a Japanese God called Kannabi-no-Mikoto.
Being a reincarnation, Misuzu can experience Kanna’s sad and tragic memories which can make her cry by just remembering them.
19. Enma Ai – Hell Girl
Enma is the female protagonist of the haunting Hell Girl series.
She sports long black hair and red eyes, and she is a spiritual entity with a broken past.
Her main task is to take vengeance on behalf of her clients.
She is usually emotionless.
So it is weird to see her emotionally touched by something and not talk much.
20. Hayami Kohinata – H2O: Footprints in the Sand
The town hates this girl because of her family’s greed.
Hayami is a girl who was part of a wealthy family, and after losing everything, she was forced to live as an outcast on an abandoned bus.
She is a cold and abused girl who later shows both a kind and tsundere side after meeting Takuma.
Despite having a tragic past, she is not hopeless at all.
21. Nico Robin – One Piece
Robin is the second female member of Luffy’s crew, The Straw Hat Pirates, and one of the most intelligent characters in all of One Piece.
She is currently the only person alive who can read Poneglyphs and a survivor of the destruction of Ohara island.
Because of her sad past plagued with endless tragedies, Robin battled with depression until meeting her new friends.
22. Rukia Kuchiki – Bleach
Rukia is one of the most popular characters in the Bleach series.
She is a girl who shows a lone and cool behavior because she wants to hide a depressed and sad side underneath that coolness.
Rukia was abandoned as a baby until Renji found her, and later, Byakuya adopted her.
She never opens up, which makes it difficult for her to make friends.
Also, she likes rabbits.
23. Shouko Nishimiya – A Silent Voice
Shouko is the protagonist of A Silent Voice.
She is a deaf girl who was bullied throughout her life because of her deafness.
The saddest thing about the bullying is that even after suffering a lot, she still wears a smile and even wants to befriend those who bullied her.
Shouko is a girl with an optimistic and friendly nature.
24. Kikyo – Inuyasha
Kikyo is one of the leading characters in Inuyasha.
She was Inuyasha’s first love 50 years before the main events of the series and also the one responsible for binding Inuyasha himself to the Sacred Tree.
She used to be a cheerful and loving girl, but after dying and coming back to life, she turned into a depressed and sad girl.
25. Hotaru Tomoe – Sailor Room
Sailor Saturn is the alter ego of Hotaru Tomoe, who was reborn as a baby taken by the Guardians.
Hotaru is a very shy, lonely, and kind-hearted girl who can sometimes reveal a depressive personality.
She is a girl who also believed that she doesn’t have friends until she met Rini, her best friend in the world.
26. Shirahoshi – One Piece
Better known as the “Mermaid Princess,” Shirahoshi is a kind-hearted, friendly, intelligent, and compassionate girl who is the princess of the Ryugu Kingdom and King Neptune’s youngest child.
Despite being a good girl, she has a fragile personality and knows almost nothing about the outside world.
27. Yuki Nagato – The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Yuki is one of the secondary protagonists of the Haruhi series and the main protagonist of the spin-off, The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan.
But Yuki is not a normal girl.
She is an alien girl with a very shy personality and has difficulty expressing herself.
She is also an otaku who loves playing eroge games, reading manga, and cosplaying.
28. Mizore Shirayuki – Rosario + Vampire
Rosario + Vampire was one of the first anime I ever watched.
And one of the best girls in this anime is Mizore.
Mizore is a “yuki-onna” (snow woman) constantly stalking Tsukune.
She is like that because she is lonely, shy, and has an awkward personality that makes it hard for her to befriend others.
Despite that, she starts showing her emotions later in the story.
29. Mei Misaki – Another
Another changed everything when it was released, and Mei is one of the most best characters in it.
Misaki is a girl who is totally ignored in school.
Almost everybody there pretends that she doesn’t exist.
She is a very lonely and cold girl who doesn’t have friends until Kouchi appears.
She is eccentric, gloomy, and mysterious.
30. Touka Kirishima – Tokyo Ghoul
Touka is the main female character in the Tokyo Ghoul series.
She is beautiful with a calculating, cold personality.
Touka is normally pessimistic until Kaneki is around, he feels more optimistic with him by her side.
She is, in reality, an emotionless, quiet, and withdrawn girl who is normally scared of life.
31. Lucy – Elfen Lied
It is hard to feel empathy for a cold-blooded killer.
But in Lucy’s case, you must feel empathy for her and her backstory.
Lucy is not a normal girl, she is a Diclonius.
This means she has horns in her head and telekinetic abilities.
She suffered a lot under experimentations and because of that she developed two personalities.
In reality, she is a troubled and broken girl.
32. Izumi Takanashi – Working!!
Imagine a person who gets muscle aches by just grabbing a pen.
Well, that is Izumi for you.
Izumi is a depressed girl with a very frustrating life who is living in fear of dying at any moment.
Her dream job is to be a romance novel writer, but because of her weakness, she can’t do that.
She is a fragile girl with emotional problems.
33. Miku Nakano – The Quintessential Quintuplets
The favorite Nakano sister, Miku, is a beautiful girl with a shy, reserved personality and very low confidence in herself and life.
Despite all of this, Miku has a very good heart.
She is always there to help others, and after Fuutarou comes into their lives, Miku becomes much happier.
34. Furude Rika – Higurashi When They Cry
Rika is the true protagonist of the Higurashi series and the one who suffered the most.
Despite her childish and cute behavior in front of her friends, Rika’s true personality is more cynical, cold, and mature.
She is heavily traumatized by the endless time loops she has experienced and the endless deaths she has witnessed.
35. Homura Akemi – Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Originally perceived as the main antagonist of the anime, Homura later becomes the anime’s main protagonist alongside Madoka.
She has the power to time travel and has watched how the world was destroyed and how her friends died many times.
She is perceived as very shy, timid, and fragile.
However, she later becomes cold, brave, and fierce.
Sad Anime Girls: Conclusion
I hope this article has give you some great examples of sad anime girls!
And I hope you liked all the original art in this article too!
Did we leave out your favorite sad anime girl?
If so, let us know in the comments and we will see if we can add her (and some original art too)!
