Departures/YMMV

• Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: When Daigo prepares the body of his father, sees the "message stone" and finally remembers his face.
  • When the encoffiners' makeup skills "bring back" the deceased one last time.
  • When the Wholesome Crossdresser's father allows his child to be prepared as a girl.
  • When Daigo's old friend, the son of the woman who ran the bath house, finally gets that Daigo's job isn't horrible but supremely compassionate.
• Nausea Fuel: Daigo's first corpse, who isn't so much a "body" as a "liquefied mass."
• So Okay It's Average / It's Populist, It Should Suck: Many were surprised Departures won considering it had zero hype and a fairly conventional story (as opposed to something very dramatic or very stylized)
• Tear Jerker: And how!
• Values Dissonance: Averted in that Western audiences would be even more sympathetic towards the lead character and disgusted at his wife and neighbors freaking out at a nice man doing a good job that seems at worst a bit creepy in the way an undertaker or coroner may be regarded.
  • His job isn't just creepy, it's unclean and contaminating, something the Burakumin - the Japanese equivalent of India's "untouchables" - do, and for a "normal" person like Daigo to do this is very Squicky for everyone (except the Cool Old Guy because he works at the crematorium).