March is the season of graduations in Japan, and many graduations are tearful affairs as students bid farewell to their school, their teachers, and their friends. In anime series, graduations are often as emotional as in real life, and we take a look at four anime graduations that might make you tear up, but before that, we will warn you that there are SPOILERS ahead, and without further ado, we will start with:

K-On!

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K-On! made us want to sing, made us want to dance, and made us laugh out loud. However, the musical anime’s final episode made a lot of people cry, as Yui, Mio, Mugi, and Ritsu all said their goodbyes and graduated from high school. It was an emotional episode which opened up a lot of questions about the future of the girls, and the uncertainty most graduates face in real life also came into play beautifully. But what makes K-On!’s graduation episode so emotional is that we are all too familiar with how the girls interacted with one another, how deep their friendship went, and how they grew as friends, and that seeing it all end brings out some very sad feelings.

Love Live!

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μ’s has won the Love Live! School Idol Competion, but the nine members face a dilemma as they did not want to face, and that is the fact that the three third year members, Nico, Eli, and Nozomi, are all graduating, and therefore must leave the group. They may not have been together as long as K-On!’s Houkago Tea Time, but through all the trials and victories, they have become close to one another, and they don’t want to break up their group or add members. μ’s always has to be the nine of them, and as the graduation period for the three third years came ever closer, they reached one very emotional conclusion – they would rather disband together with all nine members than gradually lose members every year or let anyone else join in. Well, they didn’t actually disband after the TV anime ended, with the movie and all, but those tense moments of the impeding goodbye drew tears in the eyes of many Love Livers all over the world.

School Live!

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Sure, it’s the middle of a zombie apocalypse, but the graduation ceremony for School Live! is one emotional affair for the anime’s four main cast members, who have been through a lot. The graduation may just be a “formality” for the three characters, but as the zombies invaded their safe area, and their teacher and their pet turning out to be zombies in the anime’s closing episodes, it was an emotional moment for all of them, especially Yuuki who was slowly realizing that all she was having are delusions, and that her daily life in the School Living Club was more a matter of survival than being a mere school activity. Unlike the other graduations in this list, School Live!’s had a more suspense in it, with viewers wanting them to escape the school rather than stay in it.

Angel Beats!

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After everyone has moved on, the five remaining students in the afterlife decided to hold a graduation ceremony for themselves. And while the other four anime in the list only view the lives of the characters as students, Angel Beats! featured a more emotional look at the lives (or after-life) of some problem children, who died without even enjoying their childhoods. What makes Angel Beats!’s graduation so emotional is the promise of what happens next, which is pretty much the biggest question for any graduation. Will Hinata and Yui find each other? What of the others? But one thing is for sure, tears were rolling when they graduated.

Graduating means that you are ending your school life to start a new one, and starting over is a journey into the unknown. This is all too true for many, and as seen in the series listed above, it is all too true in anime as we