Yandere

Yandere (ヤンデレ) is a Japanese term for a personality that is initially loving, then combative, often brutally so. Yandere is a combination of the two words yanderu (病んでる), meaning to be sick, and deredere (デレデレ), which is defined as exhausted or lovestruck. Yandere is the antonym of tsundere where a person is initially combative and then later becomes loving and emotionally vulnerable. Much like the tsundere term, there is also the related noun yanderekko which refers to a girl with a yandere personality, much like how a meganekko is a girl with glassess.

The term is not very well-known compared to tsundere simply because it is a much newer term that has arisen in order to classify girls in recent anime, manga and visual novel video games that have this personality. Usually these girls are first presented as timid, shy and weak in varrying degrees, which are more or less traits that stereotypically describe young Japanese girls. Additionally, these yandere girls have darker aspects of their personality that, as noted above, often goes beyond simply being cold and can turn very violent, even leading to the girl committing murder. This dark side is most of the time kept to herself and is heavily influenced by the individual's past, which usually amounts to being emotionally stressful for the girl in question. Also, the yanderekko will often be paired with the male main character of the series she is in and due to events involving him in the plot, will cause her to turn violent and psychotic.

While the term is mainly in use by the anime blogging community, it is more apart of the otaku sub-culture of anime fans, which also attributes to it not being well-known even amongst savvy anime fans. However, it can be considered among certain fans a moe-inspiring character trait.

In order to keep the original definition intact, another term has arisen to describe girls who exhibit yandere traits but do not fit the true definition of what a yanderekko entails. This term, known as yangire (ヤンギレ), refers to characters who snap all a sudden out of jealousy or irritation or something similar. Yangire is a combination of the two words yanderu (病んでる), meaning to be sick, and kire or gire (切れ), meaning to cut, slice, or "to snap". This behavior is different from that of a yandere character in regards to the motivation that sparked the change in the character. The yanderekko is motivated through her love of the male protagonist, while a yangire character is motivated through other characters and will not be connected with emotions of love or attraction. Like yandere, the related noun yangirekko can be used to describe a female character with a yangire personality trait.

Examples

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Kaede Fuyou could be described as a classic example of a yanderekko.

Yandere

One of the best-known examples of the yanderekko is Kotonoha Katsura from the video game School Days. After becoming Makoto Ito's girlfriend early on in the story, Makoto is later stolen from her by Sekai Saionji, a young girl in Makoto's class. One of the bad ends in the game was with Kotonoha murdering Sekai by slicing open her throat with a saw in broad daylight. Another example in a similar situation is Kaede Fuyou from Shuffle! where, after falling in love with Rin Tsuchimi, the male protagonist, turned unexpectedly cold towards Asa Shigure who was receiving most of Rin's affections. Ultimately, she experienced a psychotic episode where she expressed the desire for Asa's death. From Higurashi no Naku Koro ni there is Shion Sonozaki. Shion turned psychotic in the Meakashi-hen story arc after having two love interests taken from her: first Satoshi Hojo and then Keiichi Maebara, the male protagonist. Shion ended up brutally murdering three of Keichi's close friends (including her own twin sister), a family friend, and even her own grandmother before attempting to kill Keichi himself; though he initially survived, the game's TIPS states he died three days later in the hospital.

Yangire

Possibly one of the better-known examples of a yangirekko is Rena Ryugu from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. First in the Onikakushi-hen story arc where she is first shown as a nice, sweet girl, but later becomes intimidating and violent towards Keiichi Maebara. In the Tsumihoroboshi-hen story arc, Rena is shown possessing a strong intent to kill several people, even managing to kill two people: one in self-defense and the other in cold blood.