Summary
The ‘yandere’ is probablyone of the most iconic character archetypesin anime and manga. Yandere characters are obsessed with their love interests to an unhealthy degree. They may be sweet and affectionate on the surface, but behind their cute appearance lies a dangerously obsessive and sometimes violent streak.
For the yandere, devotion knows no bounds, and they’ll go to any length - even outright murder - to make sure no one gets in the way of them and their ‘love.’ In the darkest cases, they may even resort to killing their beloved if their feelings are unreciprocated or if they face rejection.
Kaede Fuyou’s obsession with her childhood friend and protagonist Rin stems from a complicated past. She initially blamed Rin for her mother’s death and suffered overwhelming guilt after learning the truth. Since then, she has devoted herself to taking care of him to atone for her past mistreatment.
She grows fearful of Rin ignoring or abandoning her, which leads to her showing a violent streak when other girls, especially Asa, get close to him. Interestingly, Kaede’s yandere personality isabsent in the original visual novel.
As a famous pop star, Misa Amane’s adorable public image hides just how messed up she is. She falls in love with the mass murdering protagonist Light Yagami before even meeting him because he killed her parents' murderer. She is completely willing to do anything to gain Light’s affection, even threatening to kill any girl she sees with him.
While she almost never engages in direct violence, she uses her Death Note to kill criminals on Light’s behalf. Unfortunately for her, Light shows little, if any, interest in her feelings, manipulating and using her for his own gain.
School Daysand its ‘yandere love triangle’ are infamous in the anime community. While Sekai Saionji is also a yandere, it’s Kotonoha Katsura who turns out to be the more violent one. She starts off the story as a shy, insecure high-schooler who falls in love with the protagonist, Makoto, and eventually falls off a slippery slope to become dangerously possessive.
Kotonoha exemplifies the classic yandere archetype, being a sweet and lovestruck girl who eventuallydescends into violence fueled by her romantic obsession. This culminates in the anime’s notorious ending, which sees her killing her romantic rival Sekai and cradling Makoto’s severed head on a boat.
Esdeath is one of the more creepy examples of a yandere, becoming instantly infatuated with Tatsumi and deciding that he must be hers at any cost. Unlike other yandere characters, however, Esdeath is more stoic and in control over her emotions, even when torturing people.
She refuses to accept that Tatsumi doesn’t reciprocate her feelings and continues to pursue him, even after finding out that he’s a member of Night Raid. She becomesmore desperate as the series goes on, even putting Tatsumi up for execution instead of letting him be with someone else.
Karasu’s attraction to Kurama isalmost inseparable from his desire to kill him, wanting to have complete control over his fate. His obsession is less about romantic affection than a desire to dominate and eventually annihilate Kurama, which he disturbingly views as an intimate act.
What makes him especially creepy is just how calm and soft-spoken he is when expressing his ‘love’ and intentions for Kurama. Karasu is also a full-blown sadist and enjoys playing mind games with his victims, including and especially Kurama.
Himiko Toga’s Quirk involves ingesting people’s blood to transform into them, so there’s little wondershe’d turn out to be quite disturbed. Her view of love in particular is rather violent, and she believes that hurting and drawing blood from someone is a form of intimacy.
She develops particular fixations on Izuku Midoriya and Ochaco Uraraka, leading her to pursue them obsessively to ‘become’ them. Because of her tragic childhood, she has a rather warped view of love and affection, and she sees nothing wrong with her obsession with drawing her targets' blood.
Satou Matsuzaka is an especially twisted example of a yandere, given that her possessiveness is targeted toward an eight-year-old girl named Shio Kobe. Satou abducts the young girl in the name of ‘love,’ and she iswilling to do anything, even murder, to keep her dependent and isolated.
Satou desperately craves love and affection, which she believes only Shio can provide. Her vision of a ‘happy sugar life’ with Shio makes her prone to extreme actions when this dream is threatened.
Shion Sonozaki’s transformation into a yandere is particularly tragic, given the years of neglect and mistreatment she experienced by her family. She falls head-over-heels for Satoshi, because he was the first person to show her kindness. So, when Satoshi disappears, she takes it upon herself to avenge him.
She tortures and murders everyoneshe believes was involved in Satoshi’s apparent death, including children and members of her own family. Most tragically, she comes to regret her actions too late, after she’s already taken several innocent lives.
Yuno Gasai is probably the most famous yandere in all of anime and manga, just because of how intense and brutal her obsession is. Yuno vows to ‘protect’ her love interest Yukiteru Amano during Deus Ex Machina’s survival game, which, to her, means killing anyone who tries to get close to him.
Yuno’s obsession with Yukiteru is all-consuming, even stating that she has no regard for anyone other than him. She also checks all boxes of the typical yandere - a girl who is sweet, girly, and affectionate on the outside but gets dangerously possessive and obsessive when a love interest is involved.
Lucy is quite a complex example of a yandere,given her multiple personalities. Her violent tendencies don’t just emerge from an obsessive romance but rather from a blend of a traumatic childhood and her nature as a Diclonius. Her original personality as a child, Kaede, exemplifies the yandere archetype the most.
Lucy, as Kaede, falls in love with a young Kouta because he is the first person to treat her with kindness. Upon discovering that Kouta attended a festival with his female cousin Yuka, jealousy overtakes her, and she brutally kills Kouta’s sister and father using her vectors. The only thing that stopped her from killing Yuka as well was Kouta’s cries for her to stop.
