Yandere

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Yandere (ヤンデレ), derived from the Japanese words yanderu (to be sick) and dererere (to be in love), describes character archetype with an unhealthy love-releated obsession that often results in violent outbreaks triggered by unrequited love or disappointment. Another similar type of character would be Yangire, which turns violent regardless of love.

Trivia

In general, Yandere is a character that is often depicted in a state of paraphilia (sexual perversion), manic depression, or co-dependence. The term is generally only used in reference to fiction, and does not hold any actual background in psychatric diagnosis. The "crazy" state of a Yandere is also refered to as "darkening" (闇化) and "blackening" (黒化) in Japanese due to the shadow cast on their face. Fanslike the extraordinary degree of affection towards a Yandere's darling.

However, the definition of Yandere is fluid and often has different meanings depending on the context. For example, on the Japanese website New Akiba it is described as "a moe-type heroine that is suffering from mental illness", and in "Keitai Watch" it's described as "a character who is mentally ill". It is sometimes pointed out that the attributes of a Yandere character are reminiscent of borderline personality disorder.

History

It is assumed that the term "Yandere first started to spread among the mainstream media in 2005 because of the release of the visual novel "School Days" and the tv broadcast of the anime "Shuffle!". Shortly after that Yandere has become a popular character archetype in various media. However, even before the term was coined, there already were multiple characters who's attributes would fit under Yandere. According to the Japanese website "Yandere Encyclopedia", the first instance of a Yandere character would be the character Minatsu Tsukishima of the visual novel Kurutta Kajitsu from 1991. In order to monopolize the mc, she starts killing all the women in his life one after another in gruesome ways in order to make the mc commit suicide so she can stay forever with his corpse. The term Yandere itself was first coined by NekoNeko Soft to describe the side character Sasai Yuuna of their visual novel Gin'iro which appears in chapter 3.

Mathers Numakichi, the representative of the company Overflow which produced School Days, describes the Yandere boom as "a manifestation of wanting wanting to seek more more steadfastness and favor towards oneself". When asked regarding one of the heroines, Katsura Kotonoha, being labeled as Yandere, he answered, "I wasn't aiming for a Yandere character, so it's more of a lucky coincidence than something I made". He also pointed out that the visual elements of the were kind of mixed, and stated that "Both tsundere and yandere were a reflection of that time where people wanted to bring a person's inside to the outside".

In the late 00s, the term Yandere also spread among the overseas anime community, and even western games started to incoorperate this character archetype.