Watching the Sunset

They don't hate watching this.

Did you notice the sunset for the first time in ages

—Alan Jackson, "Where were you when the world stopped turning"

Characters just watching a sunset. It's often for their own pleasure, based on the romantic connotations, or for a symbolic purpose. They may even be waiting for something that's supposed to happen after the sun sets.

Whenever you have people in anime Sitting on the Roof, this is bound to turn up from time to time.

A Super-Trope to Against the Setting Sun.

Compare Cue the Sun, Riding Into the Sunset, That Cloud Looks Like..., Meditating Under a Waterfall.

Contrast Melancholy Moon.

Examples of Watching the Sunset include:

Anime and Manga

• In Now and Then, Here and There, Shu and Lalaru watch the sunset as on three occasion, the first time when they first met, the second time when they escaped Hamdo's fortress and the third time Lalaru disappears from existence.
  • Also, Lalaru said that she likes watching the sunset.
• In a Bleach filler episode, Toushirou likes to hang out in a place that has the best view of the sunset because it reminds him of his childhood days spent with Momo, where they eat watermelons while watching the sky.
• Ouran High School Host Club's Tamaki has an Imagine Spot of him and Haruhi walking along the beach together and watching the sunset.
• Macross Frontier has a sunset watching scene with Sheryl in Alto's arms in flight. They watch the sun set. And also fly. Yes, that basically sums it up. Done for romantic connotations as one of the many Ship Tease moments in the series.
• Future War 198X: Wataru and Laura are on the balcony on New Year's Eve, watching the sunset and talking all about their future plans right before finding out that war has broken out in Europe due to A Nuclear Error.

Film

• Luke Skywalker watches the twin setting suns of Tatooine in A New Hope while the Skywalker Leitmotif plays in the score, establishing Luke's longing to leave and do great things but being tied down by a sense of duty to his uncle.
  • Also appears in Attack of the Clones, as Yoda, Palpatine and the rest watch the Clone Army's ships lift off against an ominous sunset—basically a visual shorthand for "It's all downhill from here".
• Aladdin
• In The Little Mermaid, when Ariel sees the sun is near setting, and her contract to be human will have failed, she decides to take some action.
• Kind of the entire point of Rohmer's La rayon vert (the "green flash", which is semi-seriously considered to confer a heightened spiritual state to the one who manages to spot it in the sunset).

Literature

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy spoofed this (big surprise).

Arthur Dent: Night's falling. Look robot, the stars are coming out.
Marvin: I know. Wretched isn't it?
Arthur Dent: But that sunset, I've never seen anything like it in my wildest dreams! The two suns... It was like mountains of fire boiling into space..!
Marvin: I've seen it, it's rubbish.

• In The Outsiders, Cherry comes to believe Ponyboy is more than just a greaser because he enjoys watching sunsets.

Live Action TV

• In Angel, the eponymous hero had a ring that made the wearer invincible. He destroyed it, but not before wearing it for a full day, finally crushing it after the sun set.
• In Babylon 5, the episode Sleeping in Light shows Sheridan making a point of Watching the Sunset after he's confirmed his time to die has come. Delenn continues the tradition started by Sheridan after he disappears when his time comes.

Newspaper Comics

• Calvin and Hobbes were watching a beautiful sunset, but only because the dad took them camping, and Calvin complained about the shows he was missing.
• Happens in a few Garfield strips. The usually cynical Garfield actually gets sentimental watching them. One time he thought he was watching the sunrise, not realizing that he had overslept. Creator Jim Davis has said he spent many evenings watching the sunset with his family as he grew up.

Video Games

• Final Fantasy X had such a scene. Made awkward by the fact that Yuna can't say Tidus's name.
• Kingdom Hearts: Sora and Kairi watch the sunset together a few hours before The Heartless attack their island. Axel and Roxas do the same thing in Kingdom Hearts II: FM+ They, along with Xion, also do it a lot in 358/2 Days. The fact that Twilight Town is in perpetual sunset definitely helps.
• In Super Mario Sunshine, in the end sequence, Mario and Peach watch the setting sun from Sirena Beach. (In the game, every time you go to Sirena Beach, the sun is setting.)

Visual Novels

• Miyako in Maji De Watashi Ni Koi Shinasai, from her favorite spot on the roof of the secret base.

Web Comics

• The Order of the Stick: Roy and Haley watch the sunset and discuss the future.
• The final strip of Rip and Teri is the titular pair, having managed to shake off the various threats that were stalking them throughout the story and escape to an anonymous life, sitting on a beach watching a beautiful sunset together. It, along with the fact that Teri is now pregnant, symbolises the end of their adventures and the start of their new life together.
• El Goonish Shive has one with Elliot and Sarah.
• In Question Duck, it's time for the duck to ask a question.

Western Animation

• As in the picture, Zuko and Mai when they had their infamous Ship Sinking kiss in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
  • Later on, Aang wanders out of a party to watch the gorgeous sunset over Ba Sing Se, before Katara shows up to NUKE THE SHIP for good.
    • For clarification: A vocal part of the fandom was almost fanatically supportive of Zuko and Katara as a couple, and at times in Season Three the show would go out of its way to sink the ship, with several Big Damn Kiss scenes between the couples mentioned above.
• On SpongeBob SquarePants, in "Dying For Pie", Squidward thought SpongeBob was going to explode at sunset, so he spent the day doing everything SpongeBob wanted to do and then watched the sunset while he waited for the explosion. The first explosion turned out to be just SpongeBob blowing bomb bubbles.
• Baljeet and his friend Mishti, at the end of the Phineas and Ferb episode "That Sinking Feeling."
  • Defied by Isabella in the "Summer Belongs to You" special: Phineas has wagered his entire worldview on getting the group around the world by the end of the day, but as the sun is almost set they've crashed on a deserted island with no apparent way off. Just as Isabella (who has a crush on him) is forlornly wishing that he would give up and just watch the sunset with her, Phineas loses all hope and falls to the ground next to her, weakly saying that they can "at least watch this beautiful sunset together." Hearing the despair in his voice makes Isabella jump up and give a rousing Do Not Go Gentle speech that winds up saving the whole enterprise.
• Whenever anyone is expecting the Gargoyles.
• At the start of the South Park episode "The Return of Chef", Stan and Kyle are seen sitting on a log at Stark's Pond, watching the sun set.