Dramatic tragedies are a genre that I love in anime. Shows like WorldEnd, Planetarian, and Your Lie in April tear me up. So what would it take for me to give a tragedy a low score? Is it even possible? Or is the genre immune, similar to slice-of-life? Flying Witch two years ago proved that I could hate a mundane slice-of-life show. Lights of the Clione is very simple. It's about a perpetually sick girl who gets bullied all the time because she is constantly absent from school. Two classmates befriend her before her time is up, while everyone else is guilt-ridden. The animation looks likesomething out of the early 2000s. With plenty of introspective monologue, the friendship between the sick girl and the two classmates is heartwarming. Then tragedy strikes.

It's difficult for me to score this show so low. This show did finish its story, after all, and I don't want the score to suggest that I condone bullying in any form. But because anime is such a great medium for drama, there are countless other shows that do a dramatic tragedy better.