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Unwritten Anime Rule #7: Beware of the Yandere
Why This Rule?
Love can be a beautiful thing in the right form. Extending from our world into the creative world, love is everywhere. Love is kind, nurturing, and selfless in nature...but not all devotion is without its twists and turns. Sometimes those twists and turns are translated to a dangerous love.
I’m talking about the Yandere personality - characterized by their twisted, possessive love for someone else to the point that they themselves are driven to an insane justice. The love itself may not seem strange at first, but the way they crave it and how violently they treat other people that happen to be in the way is madness - thinking they are in the right, no matter the situation. Yanderes must possess an unhealthy, overtaking obsession combined with an often violent, sadistic, or extremely cold mannerism towards everyone else. Love and brutality are mixed into one package for the sole purpose of being the center of attention for the ones they love. This archetype is shown in females mostly but there are males as well. Unlike other character tropes, this is one that is can be moderate or extreme - displaying romantic passion through their strange physical dominance and power. Horror, shounen, and a mix in other genres of anime house these banshees. No two look the same either, so beware of a love that doesn’t quite seem right.
Examples and Exceptions
I can’t talk about Yandere without talking about the legendary, queen of Yandere herself: Yuno Gasai from Mirai Nikki aka Future Diary. This seemingly delicate, pink-haired school girl is by far the most deranged of all cases that I’ve seen to date. So deranged that she’s a ruthless powerhouse and manipulative wrapped in a nice pink bow. Her methods were cold and calculating, and when they weren’t something awesome to see...they were downright frightening. You haven’t seen power like hers since Majin Buu.
Other examples of Yandere characters that I’ve seen, although in much smaller proportions, would be Himiko Toga from My Hero Academia. Others like Tsukiyama Shuu from the Tokyo Ghoul series, Hummingbird aka Minatsuki Takami from Deadman Wonderland, the stalker Mika Harima from Durarara!! and even Mikasa Ackerman from Attack on Titan all fall on the spectrum of Yandere. You just might not have thought about, especially when compared to Yuno.
Exceptions include those with a romantic obsession that doesn’t involve hurting anyone that the main character cares about with the intention of having them all to themselves. So 85% of the love that isn’t twisted is usually just a crush.
Origins
The term “Yandere” can be broken into two pieces. In Japanese, “Yandeiru”, a way of saying “to be sick”, and “dere-dere” which means “to be lovestruck or lovey-dovey” are the two terms of note. (1) So when combined it means to be ill with love! This must be derived from another “-dere” archetype, the Tsundere - which acts cold at first before eventually warming up to others. Both have to do with love in different forms, but Tsundere’s aren’t “sick” like a Yandere is and they are much more common in anime. There is something truly terrifying deep down about a beautiful person that demands love and attention by any means necessary. I personally couldn’t imagine being chased by someone like that - and that lands them as the first entry for this time of the year.
Overall Judgements
Not all obsession is corrupted with violent possessiveness, but you’re sure to see the signs now. Yandere are more common than we think and they’re only becoming more popular as anime continues, but even so, they don’t make a frequent appearance. Don’t let handsome or beautiful faces fool you, you’ll know they’re Yandere when it’s too good to be true.
Likelihood that there’s a violent, possessive personality underneath that dazzling exterior:
25%
"Yandere." Wiktionary. Wiktionary, Web. 02 Oct 2018. <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yandere>.