However, I honestly hope it wouldn’t make us massacre an entire school because our significant other complained about it once. Yep, here we’re talking about yandere characters. All those nutjobs that won’t bat an eye when harming or killing someone if they see them as a threat to their crush. We’ll be ranking some of the best yandere characters anime has to offer, basically ranking them on our very own nutjob scale. But be warned: most yandere characters show their craziness in the late game of the show, so some spoilers are unavoidable.
35. Mizuki Himeji
Anime: Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu (Baka and Test) I want to start off with Mizuki because she does come from a comedy series, hence her yandere nature is made to be more on the funny side and less on the “I now fear intimacy and will carry a gun” side. She does get jealous quickly, bonus points if she’s drunk, and can lash out. But again, it’s mostly death glares and ominous threats vs. cutting anyone’s family jewels off. I think this does well to constitute what a yandere is… but definitely can’t hang with the big boys.
34. Konishi
Anime: Charlotte I want to put Konishi on here because man did she develop early, in all the worst ways. She’s Ayumi’s classmate, meaning that she’s only about twelve years old… and she was already prepared to attack Ayumi with a box cutter over some Chad in the making. First, I am deathly afraid to see what she would have been like if she was a teenager. Second, you have to be all kinds of messed up to look at the angel herself, Ayumi, and wish harm upon her. Low tier but if the show had a major time skip or something I could see her going fully psychotic.
33. Shuu Tsukiyama
Anime: Tokyo Ghoul The next two are definitely a bit more out there when it comes to the definition of yandere. This tissue sniffer for example is, without a doubt, obsessed with Kaneki. It seems that his sole purpose in life has become to just eat the one-eyed emo. And whenever he gets some of Kaneki’s belongings, and by proxy his smell, he just goes to town… making probably the most terrifying and unpleasing ahegao faces a person can physically make. And he’s still a ghoul. So if he decides to whittle down the competition and have Kaneki for himself, he can more or less do just that.
32. Hisoka Morow
Anime: Hunter x Hunter (2011) You can kind of already see what my reasoning is for Hisoka based on the last entry. I mean, mister clown man is really into his young meat… a bit too much if I do say so myself. I’m looking at the writers and the animators for this one. His perverse quest to make Gon as strong as possible just so that he could kill him is definitely yandere-esque. Plus, how can you not enjoy the occasional Bungee man killing spree?
31. Kurenai Rin
Anime: Big Order If you’re still reading that means you don’t mind stretching the definition of yandere a bit, and that’s good. Because with Rin it’s a similar story. She does not love Eiji. In fact, she hates his very being. But she’s very obsessive over him, meaning only she can kill him. And she has definitely tried, with lots of stabbings and some good old hostage-taking, who also got stabbed a bit. Losing her parents and blaming Eiji for it was the catalyst that simply made Rin a one-note type of a character. And that note is bloodied and crazy. Still low tier though.
30. Mikasa Ackerman
Anime: Attack on Titan Mikasa took the most badass approach when it came to yandere. She’s just this strong independent woman who’s like a one-man army and keeps her cool 99% of the time. However, there’s no doubt that she’s practically obsessed with Eren. I mean for god’s sake, I am pretty sure that if he ever actually died, Mikasa would probably single-handedly wipe out all of the titans just so she could fulfill his wish. She’s far from insane. But definitely has an unhealthy attachment there.
29. Belarus
Anime: Hetalia Axis Powers The anime did this, I’m just pointing it out okay? don’t send me to the gulags. In the show, Belarus just really wants to be with big brother Russia, yes literally be with and literally big brother. She also carries a knife around, classic yandere right there. And will break your fingers if you ask her out because no one other than Putin himself may have that privilege. She’s low tier compared to some others. I just never thought I would put down an entire country as a yandere… ah the beauty of anime.
28. Senjogahara Hitagi
Anime: Bakemonogatari Okay, I know that Senjogahara likes to call herself a tsundere and that should be a -dere type cannon confirmation right there. But there’s like no way a tsundere would go to the lengths and the school supplies that Senjogahara does. Don’t get me wrong, she’s an S-tier when it comes to waifu material. I’m just saying that she is a bit koo-koo and really likes resorting to violence. I can’t place her higher up here, because she doesn’t have a body count nor a torture cave. But I can at least throw an honorable mention to her on this list.
27. Hotogi Shirayuki
Anime: Aria The Scarlet Ammo This one is definitely a lowball. Sure she does get extremely jealous quickly. And she might threaten your life here and there. She also might be carrying weapons on her. But the thing is, the show itself is rather light-hearted. So her fits of rage are more comedic than a stranger-danger situation. And there’s a fine line between cute and scary, and Hotogi barely even dips her toes into the latter. Don’t get me wrong, I would definitely not want to make her angry. But most other characters are “live in a bunker to avoid” levels.
26. Akane Hiyama
Anime: Renai Boukun (Love Tyrant) Akane is your cookie-cutter yandere in all respects. She’s definitely a high threat, as we’ve seen that she’s willing to stab a person over and over again if she gets riled up. Even though she was stabbing the person she would eventually fall in love with. And when it comes to her obsession over said character, Seiji, it’s quite extreme. If we pass the spoiler gate we see that she would gladly go down the path of Juliet if it meant being with her loved one. No real flavor to her, but she checks all the yandere boxes.
25. Kaede Fuyou
Anime: Shuffle! I find Kaede to be down to earth. As I can understand her yandere nature, at least somewhat. I mean, she and Rin have a very tragic past of losing their parents. Which leads her to initially despise Rin and blame him for everything. She also nearly cost him an eye that one time. But further down the track she falls in love with him, as a kind of overcorrection, and is now willing to slam any chick that gets too close to her crush. So no decapitations and torture scenes here. But still psycho, although a lower tier for sure.
24. Nadeko Sengoku
Anime: Bakemonogatari As far as crazy chicks go, Nadeko is a soft mid-tier. This is because she was originally just a full-on dandere, she barely even had the courage to talk to her crush. And then in a biblical turn of events, a snake manages to mess with her head and she goes haywire. She somehow deduces that is she can’t have Araragi, she might as well kill him, and some other people while she’s at it. If she had always been like that she would have ranked higher here. But because there’s some mind-control at play she’ll have to stay right here on our list.
23. Anna Nishikinomiya
Anime: Shimoneta to Iu Gainen ga Sonzai Shinai Taikutsu na Sekai It’s wild looking back at old episodes and seeing how innocent Anna initially seemed. I feel like yandere are usually just bursting with love, or at least their version of love, to the point of no return. Anna on the other hand just seems extremely horny. I mean, the things that get this women off are truly remarkable. And the ways she goes about getting that satisfaction really border the taboo/legal line. She hasn’t killed anyone yet. But I feel like the second she discovers BDSM someone is definitely going to be on the brink of death. High tier obsessive, low tear threat, so middle-tier yandere.
22. Mika Hirama
Anime: Durarara!! I will never get how Seiji managed to have not one, but two crazy women after him. One is his sister, which is already like come on, but the other(Mika) is just insane. Then again, Seiji is also insane for falling in love with a severed head. But then Mika topped his insanity by literally getting surgery so that she could look like that severed head. And Seiji was just alright with it! I swear, for a subplot this story is really pushing some boundaries. If you’re prepared to permanently change your face for a guy to like you, that has to be somewhere on this list, right?
21. Yukako Yamagishi
Anime: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable It’s not every day that you see a reformed yandere. When she’s first introduced, she lands a date with Koichi that quickly gets out of hand when he doesn’t reciprocate her feelings. Her feelings are a pure obsession, so rather difficult to reciprocate on the first date if we’re being honest. She then kidnaps him, tries to brainwash him, and may or may not have even wanted to kill Koichi. But then he saves her from some trouble and she gets a little closer to a normal infatuation. I don’t know man, there’s a lot going on in this list already…
20. Kurumi Tokisaki
Anime: Date A Live Kurumi is at the edge of this category, in my opinion. She definitely has the danger part of yandere down to the r.i.p. as she has literally slaughtered over ten thousand people. But her reasons for the murders are usually either self-interest, in the form of turning back her clock, or because they’re animal abusers and she’s doing humanity a favor. Her relationship with our male MC can definitely get a bit yandere-y. But she isn’t as gung-ho about her love interest as most of the others on here. If she just cranked up the hormone levels I’m sure she would be near the top.
19. Touko Fukawa
Anime: Danganronpa: The Animation Split personalities show up here and there on this list, because a full out yandere is a bit harder to write, I guess. Touko is one such character, usually being very quiet and a book worm… while other times she’s just a mass murderer who goes by the name Genocider Syo. On top of her criminal coefficient, her hormones also get supercharged. And what was initially a crush turns into an obsession. All in all, since she’s nutty only half the time, but still nutty.
18. Ringo Oginome
Anime: Mawaru Penguindrum I was not going to include Ringo on here, were it not for one certain scene. To give you the short of her character, she’s devoted to becoming her sister who passed away, in order for fate to go in her favor. One aspect of her sisters she keeps trying to replicate was is sister’s crush on Tabuki. But for the most part, it was just stalking and obsessing, no threat. Then she literally pulled a Bill Cosby, or at least attempted to do so. Now that’s all kinds of messed up, somehow even more so than all the killers on this list!
17. Rolo Lamperouge
Anime: Code Geass I for one wouldn’t usually pair up the titles of assassin and yandere. But hey, that’s just me. Rolo is ruthless. He will kill anyone if he sees them as any kind of potential threat. I mean, he killed his own colleagues, in large quantities too. However in the arc where Lelouch lost his memories, Rolo becomes extremely attached to him, prepared to lay down his life for his bro. And of course, murdering anyone he thinks is a danger to Lelouch. That’s just how he Roll(o)s.
16. Megumi Shimizu
Anime: Shiki If human yanderes weren’t bad enough, now there are even zombie/vampire yandere to haunt you beyond the grave. This’s what gives Megumi that little terror boost and allows her to be higher up on this list. Plus, she definitely abides by the yandere rulebook and murders anyone that comes too close to her crush. Even people she considered friends while she was still alive. So she’s dangerous, malicious, and God himself (or herself) according to Bible verse 7-Grande, can’t keep her away from you.
15. Balder Hringhorni
Anime: Kamigami no Asobi We’re truly breaking some barriers with this one, as not only is the yandere in question a man, but he’s also a god. Your move atheists. And if yandere god doesn’t sound terrifying on its own, let’s just say that although he is a god of light, he can also be the god of destruction. So when he falls for a girl he charges on her head first, and kind of flops. Then it’s just an uphill battle as he keeps getting jealous of every other deity that breathes in her direction, completely losing his cool on a couple of occasions.
14. Mana Ouma
Anime: Guilty Crown Yandere characters are usually created in one of three ways: trauma, a split personality, or they were just born with it. With Mana we have a slight variation. She was completely normal, but then got infected with a virus that made her insane. And okay, I know brother-sister relationships are brought up fairly often in anime. But Mana really went for it. Poor (not Mighty) Gai nearly got killed just for wanting to spill the beans. So overall, a very dangerous and insane character. One that makes me glad that our world went OOM.
13. Kanato Sakamaki
Anime: Diabolik Lovers Okay sure, Kanato is a yandere. But honestly, everyone in this show is so messed up he hardly stands out. I mean, that might be an understatement. In short: hella mommy issues, Freud would be proud levels of mommy issues. She keeps getting it on with different men in front of the little Kanato, and he usually later kills them. But then when his mother dies he burns her body, laughing like a maniac the entire time, and then stuffs her ashes inside of his teddy bear… which was a gift from one of momma’s men, by the way. This show makes me sad. High tier insanity here.
12. Yuka Minase
Anime: 11eyes Yuka’s mantra seems to be “and they lived happily ever after”. And boy is she pushing for it to be a reality. And that push becomes a lot easier once she learns that her power does not nullify the power of others as she originally thought, but rather shows them their harshest memories. Or even a reality Yuka herself made up. Do you want to take a wild guess at how a yandere used such a power to get the boy she likes? A few people might have also died along the way, just saying. As far as yandere go, she’s a solid pick. Just don’t Google her name without specifying the anime.
11. Toma
Anime: Amnesia A few of the characters from this show definitely show yandere-esque behaviour. But Toma is the most on the nose when it comes to both his obsessive nature and his messed up means of getting affection from the Heroine. Firstly, he takes advantage of her amnesia and just straight out lies to her, telling her that he’s her boyfriend. Then he drugs her food so that she would sleep all day and not leave him. And the final straw that broke the Geneva camel’s back was locking her up in a cage. I mean, he doesn’t have a lot of power. But he is severely messed up.
10. Shuka Karin
Anime: Darwin’s Game Kurapika’s evil sister is an oddly pure yandere, if that makes sense. She falls in love with Sudou because he manages to beat her… FYI he was the first to ever do so, but she doesn’t get as love crazy as some of the others on this list. She definitely had wedding bells in her head. But she didn’t lock him up in her basement, which is sanity+ in this department. However, there’s no doubt in my mind that if anyone actually approached Sudou, she would chop them up into mincemeat in no time. High damage but relatively sane compared to the others here.
9. Nina Einstein
Anime: Code Geass Nina really makes you appreciate the fact that Oppenheimer was not an anime character. She puts on the typical cute shy girl act initially. But straight away we can see her dislike of men. Further down the line, she develops a girl crush that’s more of an obsession. And what happens when she loses her crush, the very person that kept her sane through some turbulent times? Well, she almost blew up Tokyo. And when she calmed down, she just made a more controllable bomb. That on its own is pretty whack. But seeing her mental breakdowns just send chills down my spine. So she is definitely high tier crazy!
8. Haruna Niekawa
Anime: Durarara!! Man… a slasher film, zombies, and a yandere, now that’s just a recipe for disaster. Niekawa was kind of obsessive from day one, as she immediately fell head over heels for her teacher and wanted to be with him forever. But when that amount of love couples with a Saika blade… a blade that’s designed to spread love through cutting people and subsequently taking control of them, all hell breaks loose. She attacks Anri out of jealousy, as the teacher obviously wanted to give her some extra classes, if you know what I mean. And even attacks her own father. So psycho girl + powerful psycho sword = high tier.
7. Minatsuki Takami
Anime: Deadman Wonderland Takami is not so much in love with anybody as she is sadistic to the point of an overwhelming perversion. I mean, she enjoyed watching her own brother suffer under the weight of thinking that he had killed their father. Not only did her brother save her life, but she also made her brother attack their father by claiming he was abusing her… and then killed the guy herself. I mean, you really can’t get messed up in the head more than that, can you? And since she still does have a Branch of Sin she’s definitely a threat to everyone around her.
6. Esdeath
Anime: Akame ga Kill Originally Esdeath was just insane. But in the traditional sense. The “butcher thousands and make them lick your feet while you smile at their face” type of insane. Then one day she basically decided to become a yandere. She was just like “I want to fall in love now”, and that is exactly what ended up happening. Being that this is probably the first human emotion she had felt in ages, she went all in and would topple a kingdom if it meant being with her new man. He was not so thrilled about it, though.
5. Lucy
Anime: Elfen Lied If you watched Elfen Lied a long time ago, like me, you probably forgot all about Lucy’s yandere nature. Not in the sense that she murders a ton, that will take some therapy to forget. But that it was at one point love-driven. Firstly she kills her classmates because they killed her dog, understandable. But she also kills Kohta’s father and sister out of jealousy. Now that’s definitely some yandere material right there. And taking into account her huge body count, she definitely fits the bill, folks!
4. Misa Amane
Anime: Death Note Honestly if Misa was a bit smarter, and Light a bit more human, these two would have made a great couple. I mean they’re both unhinged completely, and share the same passion. That passion being Light. However, Light kept to potato chips and genocide. And Misa had to settle for threatening to murder any female that ever gets close to Light. And I have never less suspected someone of bluffing. She would definitely keep her promise on that one. The fact that she has a Death note along with her insane adoration for an insane man means she belongs right here in our ranking.
3. Satou Matsuzaka
Anime: Happy Sugar Life I feel like an entire essay could be written about the mental states of the characters in this show. The prime candidate being of course Satou. It’s interesting that she’s like a high-functioning yandere, as in she will hold off from killing someone or saying something rude if she thinks it’ll lessen her time with her loved one. An amount of self-control you don’t usually see. But when she can’t control herself, she’ll murder you on the streets, tea-bag your corpse, and let crows pluck at your eyes. Her love interest Shio is always locked up in her apartment so that she can’t escape. But strangely enough, she does fall for Satou. Definitely one of the most dangerous on this list, especially in regards to her wild mental state.
2. Shion Sonozaki
Anime: Higurashi: When They Cry Both the Sonozaki twins are insane. But Shion is so far above the coocoo nest that she can barely see it. When the topic of yandere comes up, her bloodied smiling face usually pops into your head. And good lord has she done some terrible things. Be it a certain taser pitfall, or some biblical dissections of the cross. One moment she’s laughing about it, the next she’s furiously screaming blaming everyone and everything for the loss of her eye candy. Definitely God-tier yandere, especially if that God is Hades.
1. Yuno Gasai
Anime: Mirai Nikki (Future Diary) I have to put Yuno at number one because her face has basically become synonymous with the term yandere. The entire series is just Yuki this and Yuki that, while twitching bodies lay on all sides screaming in agony. She’s simply the incarnation of yandere. I think she’ll never bat an eye when murdering someone who she perceives as a threat to Yuki. And Yuki’s happiness will always be the end goal she strives for. Plus that one scene where she looks through the letterbox haunts me to this very day, and that’s barely even a joke.
