YMMV / Yandere Simulator

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A-C

• Accidental Innuendo: Of the Visual Innuendo variety; YandereDev decided to leave out Gema's silhouette◊ from the video "Osana Progress Report and Mission Mode Update" that revealed the silhouettes of the other club leaders for this reason. He's holding a handheld game system, but as a silhouette, it looks like he's holding... something else.
• Adorkable: Sota. The way he fanboyed over "Magical Girl Pretty Miyuki". He even made an awkward anime pose at one point. Also, from the way he talked about it, he seemed to be a troper.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Ayano herself gets a lot of these (see Fanon and Draco in Leather Pants below). The developer has stated that she is a monster, and the intro states that love and rage are the only emotions she can possibly experience. Note, however, that this was not the case early in development (see here for starters), and the Dev has considered giving Ayano more depth.
    • It has to be noted that, as stated by the Dev, how she is characterized in-game will depend largely in player choice and how you eliminate your rivals. You can kill them all and everyone else in your way, use manipulation and cunning, befriend them and convince them to leave Senpai alone etc. Depending on all this Ayano can go from a dangerous uncaring monster to a mentally ill girl with an unhealthy obsession but who isn't willing to hurt others to get what she wants. Of course, like the player, Ayano may choose different methods of elimination other than killing for pragmatic rather than moral reasons.
  • A lot of people have speculated that Info-chan is a lesbian, due to her official art◊ depicting her looking at a Panty Shot while blushing. This implies in addition to blackmailing Yan-chan's rivals, the pictures are also for personal use. However, YandereDev said she has no time for romance.
• Alternate Self Shipping: Some fans like to pair Yandere-Chan with her canon male counterpart Yandere-Kun. Ocasionally, you will see the female rivals being shipped with their respective male counterparts from Yandere Dev's April Fool's Day video "Yandere Simulator Male Rival Introduction Video".
• Anticlimax Boss: In current debug builds, membership in the Martial Arts Club makes any struggle a joke, as its perk is that you automatically win physical confrontations. That means the teachers and even Budo Masuta himself (the guy who taught you) can be taken out within five seconds apiece if they attack you while you're holding a small weapon.
• Anvilicious: YandereDev has repeatedly gone out of his way to show that, no, Ayano isn't a good person. She's a stalker who can and will use extreme measures to make sure no one stands in the way of her and her crush. Sure, you can play her as a good-hearted person, and it's implied you will get a Golden Ending for this in the finished game, but even at her best, Yan-chan is still a stalker who manipulates the lives of everyone around her to get what she wants. The Befriend/Betrayal^note (June 1st 2016) Update drives the point home that while Yan-chan doesn't have to be a flat-out murderous monster, and that she can have a more good-natured side, people will get hurt no matter what she does and she won't look back on it in the slightest.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Some people hate Kokona because she's a (temporary) rival, or because she's extremely busty. Others like her because over the course of eighteen months of development, she managed to become one of the most relatable characters in the game.
  • Some people hate Midori because she's dumb, annoying, and had no routine for a long time. Others love her because she's dumb, annoying, and had no routine for a long time. Either way, she's satisfying to kill, and her voice actress manages to make her adorable.
  • Osana is disliked by many fans for many reasons: she's an official rival – the first one in fact, a tsundere (voiced by Audrey's VA, no less), and she's the only ginger. Still, other fans find her endearing, and her dialogue demonstrates she's actually pretty nice to anyone other than Senpai… or the creep who's threatening her.
  • Some fans have expressed a dislike of Kizana, due to her arrogant personality, and to the assumption that her presence necessitates the removal of Kokona – whose popularity had increased a lot since her entry above was first added. Also, the fact that Kizana doesn't seem to realize the implication of calling Senpai the Romeo to her Juliet. Others like her design, and see potential in her character. Though some of them wish that she didn't have such an exaggerated personality.
    • For his part, YandereDev remarks that the game is still in development, none of the personalities are set in stone, and he is thinking of ways to make Kizana have both positive and negative traits. However, later he stated that Kizana will still have her original personality because it’s the one he likes the most.
  • Ryoba is either seen as a better protagonist than her daughter or seen as a monster who mistreats her husband and unintentionally her daughter.
  • Likewise, Jokichi is either seen as a step up from Taro or worst due to him being a pervert and somewhat of gold-digger compared to the genuine Nice Guy Taro is.
• Broken Base: As is inevitable when a game explodes in popularity and has an abnormally public development process, not everyone is happy with everything.
  • The polled question of whether the game should be open-world or limited to a set number of locations has stirred up intense debate between YandereDev's supporters. Proponents of the former argue that a more expansive, higher quality game is worth waiting for, while the latter group thinks that the game is fine as currently envisioned and in danger of succumbing to feature creep. The poll itself, which asked three questions, ended with "open world" taking a small plurality. The Dev has admitted there is a below 50% chance that the town will be in the final game, though there is a slightly larger chance of a single commercial street for non-school activities showing up in its place. More recently, he stated that the town will for sure not be added, but a street still might.
    • This happens pretty much any time he asks the fanbase about anything. His proposal for an inventory system using a screen that featured Yan-chan flashing the camera caused a massive kerfuffle (and his next idea to have Yan-chan in silhouette, while more accepted, annoyed fans who supported the original idea). So did his proposal to allow Yan-chan to murder a cute kitten in order to throw police dogs off the scent of a buried body. Both ideas were withdrawn, officially due to the mechanic details being poorly thought-out.
  • Some of the voice acting is this. In particular, Budo Masuta has a voice highly reminiscent of dubbed shonen martial arts anime. Some people like it and feels it fits his character, while others think it sounds too old for him. Word of God has addressed any criticisms with the voices by pointing out the game isn't finished yet, so any voices may change as development goes on.
  • There is a very vocal minority of the fanbase who strongly dislike Guillermo "kjech" Iglesias, the game's current lead character artist, due largely to his past drawing 18+ work and his resultant tendency to give most girls tight clothes framing an hourglass figure. Ayano in particular is often given a significant bust upgrade in his work. Of course, the majority of fans love Kjech's art and Dev himself has stated multiple times he loves working with him.
  • The 1980s mode is this. Its either seems as a Author's Saving Throw (making Ryoba have a more traditional Yandere personality than Ayano, Jokichi having a better personality than Taro, the rivals being more than just stereotypes, etc) or not worth the hype (many players saying it's much harder, Ryoba being a pacifist for the rest of the game outside of her court hearing is otherwise seen as pretty pointless, non-lethal elimination methods are often seen as All for Nothing).
• Cliché Storm: Deliberately invoked and played with. The protagonist attends an Elaborate University High filled with cherry blossoms, larger-than-life characters, romantic angst, and 'mythical' creatures who are somehow able to hide in plain sight. About a tenth of its students are all in love with the same boy – not that he notices – and more than half have unnaturally colored hair that no one comments on. In all these ways and more, Akademi is a distillation of every anime school that has ever existed.
• Crack Pairing: Shipping Ayano with anyone who isn't Senpai. Canonically, Ayano has eyes only for Senpai and nobody else.
• Creepy Awesome: Is Ayano an obsessive stalker who will manipulate and murder to get the one she wants? Of course. But is it fun to play as her? Oh yes.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • The implications of Ayano's family history would be horrifying if it wasn't so over the top.
  • This also applies to Kokona's status as the resident Butt-Monkey/Chew Toy. First it was funny, then it became tragic once driving her to suicide became a thing, but it went back to funny again when the Dev showed her getting Falcon-punched into a upper-floor window, then swerved back to being sad once her entire backstory was revealed and showed just how jerkish players had been in torturing her for a year, and then somehow got even worse when the Dev floated his concept of her as a post-game rival: stuck in a "Groundhog Day" Loop where she's forced to constantly repeat her first week of school wherein she is inevitably murdered by Ayano. Poor girl just can't catch a break.
  • The Christmas song parodies posted in December 2015 also qualify. What do you do with a game that includes murder, bullying, and voyeurism? Make happy Christmas songs about it, of course.
  • In 2016's April Fools visual novel, you play as a teenager who finds a bloody ritual knife in the Occult Club, sticks in it the skull, gets teleported to the demon realm, falls in love with one of the demons, makes a Deal with the Devil, and has an option to take over the demon realm or kill everyone at their school with fire in the good ending. Despite how disturbing that concept is, the fact that you actually get to go on a DATE with that demon, get close to him and the fact that he actually thinks that your suggestion of conquering the demon realm and burning innocent teenagers are nice ideas makes it hilarious.
  • One of the Easter Eggs is called Ebola Mode.

D-F

• Discredited Meme: dyc3, an amateur software engineer on YouTube, did a thorough source code analysis of the then-latest version of the game, showing that the game's performance problems are more of an architectural and planning fumble^note (with dyc3 noting misuse/lack of use of level of detail and lots of unneeded code reuse, generally going against often-quoted programming principles) rather than the code itself as many people claimed. One of the particular goals of his video was to put the "if-else" meme, used by detractors of the game to mock it, to rest, going so far as to change every C# if-else in the source code to the related "switch" statement (usually the better option of the two conditional statements) and noted that the subsequent performance increase was negligible enough to not be noteworthy. YandereDev was impressed enough by this video that he not only showcased it on his blog, he also started working with dyc3 to optimize the game, as noted by a pinned comment on the video.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: In the words of the dev, "Getting away with murder should not be easy." He plans to make it a huge pain in the ass to kill someone without getting bum-rushed or arrested five minutes later, yet at the same time give you a special ending for exterminating everyone except Senpai. As of August 2018 it is extremely hard without Easter Eggs or debug commands.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • People like Ayano, despite the fact that she's essentially the Big Bad in this horror movie of a game.
  • Info-chan, the one who helps Yan-chan to do bad things to students, has her fans.
  • Yui, a character who used to exist in the game and was re-introduced in 1980's mode, now qualifies for this since she had the "Evil" personality type.^note (For over a year, she was the only character in the game who had this persona, later Haruto had it, and then the persona was replaced.). Granted, her evil was limited to being turned on by death and, according to Druelbozo, teasing her friends, which is all pretty tame compared to Yan-chan or Info-chan. Still, she has her fans. See Ensemble Dark Horse.
  • There are fans who actually like Ryoba. You know, the woman who murdered a girl (and canonically killed five more, got a model student expelled, and ruined the reputation of a Nice Girl to the point in which she began to suffer from bullying), ruined a man's career and life, and kidnapped her crush, all in her teens.
  • After the Yakuza video mentioned the idea of using a member of the Yakuza to do things Info-chan didn't have the connections to do, Ayano's connection known simply as The Yakuza gained a huge fanbase in spite of the fact that he accepts human bodies as payment, can harvest the organs of the rivals, or ship them off to an Eastern European country for a fate YandereDev says is best left to the imagination. The video detailing the Yakuza's backstory and motivations only added to this.
• Evil Is Cool: Ayano and Info-chan are sometimes people's favorite characters. Yan-chan is an emotionless sociopath. Info-chan helps that sociopath, but only for her own villainous reasons.
• Fan Nickname: Plenty, for multiple characters.
  • It's common for players to refer to Saki Miyu as "Miku", due to her original hairstyle (pre-February 2016) giving her an uncanny resemblance. This has lessened somewhat since the redesign made her pigtails corkscrew.
  • Kokona Haruka, the debug builds' test rival, has many nicknames given by various YouTubers. Several of those make reference to her… assets.
    • Fans of Markiplier often use his nickname for her, "Boobs McKenzie". Other variants include "Funbags", "Boobserella", and "Big Tits McGee".
    • Nicknames that don't reference her chest include "Coconuts", "Coca-Cola", "Kokonie", "Best Friend" (for fans of LaurenzSide), and – for those who discovered the game via AzzMan – "Teto" (for the same reason Saki gets called Miku).
    • NickeyT, Russian Let's Player, dubbed her "Katrina Hurricane" for her tornado-shaped twin tails; he made up that nickname back at the times when Kokona had her original drill hair, and it got stuck.
  • In the spin-off game Kuudere Simulator, the main characters are given the imaginative nicknames of "Kuudere-chan" and "Tsundere-chan".
    • Its highly anticipated followup, Kuudere Simulator 2 introduced a new character whom the fans gave the just-as-clever nickname of "Himedere-chan".
  • When you go into "Titan Mode" and kill your classmates, what they turn into is called "Titan Meatballs". ^Explanation When Titanized students are killed, their corpses glitch out due to the ragdoll physics – iffy even during normal play – not being coded to fit the larger bodies. Their limbs contort in on themselves, resembling a giant human meatball. If they're killed outside, the corpse will take complete leave of physics and start slowly bouncing around campus leaving random blood spots. If they touch the school, they'll probably clip the wall and alert a teacher or three. They can also bounce over the school's wall and disappear from the game completely… which sadly won't keep the cops from arresting you if you fail to dispose of the weapon and bloody clothes, clean yourself off, and regain sanity.
  • Lots of people like to call the developer "Devpai".
  • Midori Gurin was nicknamed "Churuya" by fans before her name was revealed due to her basically being an Expy of Tsuruya from Haruhi Suzumiya. In fans' defense, YandereDev did introduce her by setting her dialogue to a Nyoron Churuya-san panel.
    • Midori is known as Midori Gurinuuu by fans of Jay from the Kubz Scouts, which was acknowledged by her voice actress in a music video (Mom0ki is known to be a fan of Jay's).
  • The original dozen NPC students^note (Yui [red], Yuna [yellow], Koharu [green], Mei [blue], Saki [teal], and Kokona [purple] for the girls; Haruto [red], Sota [yellow], Hayato [green], Ryusei [blue], Sora [teal], and Riku [purple] for the boys) are often called the "Rainbow Girls/Six" and "Rainbow Boys" for obvious reasons. It has become an Ascended Fan Nickname as of the release of 1980s mode, as they are refered to as such in Kaguya Wakaizumi's entry in the characters page of the official website.
  • The Occult Club is affectionately called "Zero Depth Perception Club" by some, since two-thirds of the members constantly have one of their eyes hidden, bandaged, or otherwise obscured.
  • "The Investigation Team" for characters with the Sleuth personality (Which are the members of the Photography Club), being high school-aged Seeker Archetypes that search for the truth behind a string of murders (like… well… The Investigation Team).
    • Though the Photography Club is also a blatant shoutout to Mystery Inc.
  • Youtuber Jay from the Kubz Scouts nicknames Aoi Ryugoku "One-eyed freak" because of the fact that she is 100% confirmed to be missing an eye and her gruff attitude.
  • Speaking about Jay, Kyuji Konagawa is known as "Lobster Head", because of his long red hair, thanks to him.
  • Before Raibaru Fumetsu was revealed to be Osana's best friend and a huge obstacle if you want to lethaly dispose of her, she was known as "The Mysterious Obstacle". During the time in which she was known as Rival-chan, her lack of hitbox and resultant invincibility caused fans to refer to her as "Nokia-chan".
  • Youtuber Veggie Gamer has a specific nickname for almost EVERY single character in the game, these include Trumpcackes (Musume), Cookie-kun (Shoku), Dissapointed Muffins (Ryusei)^note (altough he was removed in August of 2018), in America (Seiyo) just to name a few.
  • Before the Student Council President's name was revealed, some fans, based on her title and the game's penchant for Punny Names, liked to pretend that her name is Seito^note (note however that "-to" is a standard masculine name-suffix in Japan) Kai or some variation of the Japanese word for "Student Council".
• Fanon: Plenty, given how many people enjoy roleplaying as the characters. Some of it gets attention from the creator himself! Whether any of it will become all-out Ascended Fanon or not remains to be seen.
• Fanon Discontinuity: People like to remove the broken part of Jokichi's Stockholm Syndrome and have him be more willing towards Ryoba. Mostly so they can have a better consience over what Likable Villain Protagonist Ryoba is doing to him.
  • Despite it needing to happen or else the present game wouldn't exist, many people have made works where Ryoba ends up with Togo Atatsuma.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Despite Ayano canonically being an extreme case of Single-Target Sexuality for Senpai, pairing her with Budo is surprisingly common. YandereDev even acknowledged it on his blog by linking to a manga pairing the two. It certainly is the preferred Budo pairing, considering the possibility of Budo/Raibaru.
  • There are a number of fans who pair Ayano with Oka, even though they are rivals in the game itself. This is probably because both characters are considered "dark" and "broken". YandereDev poured fuel on the fire by saying that Oka was probably the only student to take any notice of Yan-chan her freshman year.
  • Budo/Shin is the preferred Shin pairing, even though many speculate that he'll end up being Oka's suitor and that Budo's crush is heavily implied to be Raibaru. The only reason why is because they have an Opposites Attract dynamic. And that is despite the fact that they haven't interacted at all.
  • Pairing Kokona with her best friend Saki (rather than her canon suitor Riku) is popular amongst a section of the fanbase.
  • Yui/Info-Chan is the preferred Yui pairing, even though it's semi-canon that the Rainbow Six and Rainbow Boys will end up with each other. For similar reasons, Yui/Yuna and Yui/Mei are also the preferred pairings respectively.
  • A large number of fans pair Midori with YandereDev himself, even though he always kills her. This only increased after the March 2017 video that heavily implied Midori is yandere for him, which somewhat works if we take Mai Waifu as Dev's Love Interest completely seriously.
  • As soon as Raibaru, Osana's Mysterious Obstacle, got officially revealed, fans started pairing her with Osana. Not surprising, since they have a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship that comes across as obsessive from Raibaru's side. Even some of the official art of Raibaru and Osana looks extremely shippy, with both girls holding hands at all times. Remember that both have the possibility to be paired off with a specific suitor.
  • People are much quicker to ship Ryoba with Togo (that deliquent who will introduce you to the Yakuza) than her actual husband. The fact that she can't or else the present game won't happen does almost nothing to deter fans.
• Fountain of Memes: Yandere Dev himself appears to be on his way to becoming one, as his flat, composed and calm voice in all of his development videos is regularly heard going into great detail about visceral subjects such as bullying, murder, manipulation, etc. Examples at the time of writing include:
  • WHOA TECHNOLOGY! ^ExplanationSaid by YandereDev on his mid-January 2017 video and quickly went viral through the fandom. The reason for Dev's outburst was because he was amazed that the developers of Metal Gear Solid 2 took the time to program a random bucket of ice cubes to melt in real-time, with the use of the word "technology" based on /v/ typing it in all caps to describe Developer's Foresight moments like this. Dev has understandably gotten really sick of fans repeating this one and has been known to ban people from his Twitch streams for saying it.
  • Where did that idea come from? Persona! ^ExplanationIn May 2017, Dev spent 29 minutes over two videos talking about the Persona series and how it inspired him on certain aspects of his own game. Of course, critics immediately pounced, accusing YanSim of being a wholesale ripoff of Persona, and this meme started.
  • Then I Killed Her. ^ExplanationDuring his June 2017 Midori retrospective, he repeated this phrase no less than four times while recounting her appearances in his videos. The incredibly blasé way he says it made it meme-worthy.
  • There are rumors that X; however, these rumors have never been confirmed.^ExplanationLike "Then I Killed Her" above, this one started because Dev used the phrase multiple times in his video introducing the Student Council.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • It turned out that YandereDev and the creators of Crush Crush were mutual fans of each other's work, so when Crush Crush's creator asked if Ayano could appear in their game, YanDev gladly agreed, allowing these games' fandoms to overlap. YandereDev also added costumes for Ayano of the Crush Crush characters. This partnership came to an end in 2023, after the grooming allegations against YanDev came out, with “Crush Crush” eventually turning their Ayano into an Captain Ersatz version of herself named Ayeka.
  • As result of various shoutouts and similar messages, fans of Yandere Simulator and Undertale get along quite well. It also helps that YandereDev himself seems to be a fan of Undertale.

G-I

• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Going through YandereDev's development blog, it's extremely common to see the occasional fan post in Spanish, and only slightly less common to see comments in Portuguese and French. Even though YandereDev does not speak any of those languages.
  • At the end of 2015, he wrote a blog post showing worldwide traffic data. Although a majority of hits came from the United States – no surprise there – he also got a lot of hits from Latin America and Continental Europe. This is almost certainly due to popular LP'ers hyping the game to fans in their own languages.
    • For the record, the top ten countries are, in order: USA, Mexico, Brazil, France, Argentina, UK, Spain, Canada, Chile, and Thailand. Yes, this reasonably reflects the frequency/popularity of playthroughs on YouTube.
    • What seemed to amuse YandereDev the most, however, is that some way somehow he got two dozen hits from North Korea… making him wonder if Glorious Leader was watching him. Also he had a single visit from Samoa, leading him to speculate as to who the person might be. More amusing to fans was that the blog had over a dozen visits from the Vatican.
  • A disproportionately high number of English-speaking Youtubers who play the debug builds on a regular basis are from Australia.
  • On at least three occasions, YandereDev has used his blog to give a shout-out to the game's growing fanbase in Russia, where a cosplay troupe performed a live skit about the game at an anime convention.
  • Non-English-speaking fans have begged YandereDev to translate his game into their languages. Dev, for his part, refuses to sanction any translation until the English script is finalized.
• Good Bad Bugs: Now has its own page.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Saki losing her bra could easily lead to Yan-chan kidnapping her or using her as an Unwitting Pawn, which was bad enough already. The Befriend/Betray Update made it worse by revealing how and why she lost it: She tried to help fix Kokona's money woes by selling her underwear, but panicked at the last minute and tried to throw it away.
  • Everything about Kokona, once her backstory became fully-known in June 2016. Kokona is actually a Nice Daddy's Girl who only does skeevy things to try and help her father through his debt problems; he's not abusive at all… at least not intentionally. The reason she didn't want to tell Saki anything is because she didn't want to burden anyone else.
  • This promo concept uses the Japanese folk song "Tsubasa wo Kudasai" as its music. Six months later, the same song would be used again for high school students slaughtering each other...
  • All of the jokes making fun of Yan-chan's obsession with Senpai become less funny when you watch this video and are reminded of the true nature of Yan-chan's feelings towards him.
  • The Delinquents acting like Spiteful students when you kill one of the bullies, even without damaging one's reputation, becomes less funny/harsher after we learn that they were indeed victims of the bullies before the events of the game and almost committed suicide because of them. They have all the rights to hate the bullies for what they had done to them.
  • One of YandereDev's videos has him mention that the vast number of emails he's getting from fans is eating up his time, and he asks "Do you want the game to be released in 2019, or 2022?" (the implication being that if people kept sending him time-consuming emails, the game would take much longer to finish). 2022 has now come and gone, and the game still doesn't even have a release date yet, never mind an official release.
• He Really Can Act:
  • The Journalist in the Cassette Tapes (played by Bradley Gareth) is surprisingly well acted for hidden content in an early build, especially compared to the fairly average voices of the actual Non-Playable Characters.
  • Mom0ki. Over the course of a year, she ended up cast as a majority of Akademi's female students. She plays both Midori and Oka (how's that for emotional range?), along with Kokona and Saki. While those last two are harder to differentiate – even during their rooftop conversation^note (Mom0ki's version replaced Chelsea Druce's in late-July 2016, meaning no more randomly-English Kokona) – the emotion she puts into them is impressive, particularly poor Kokona.
  • Brittany Lauda, after playing Mega Bitch Audrey and portraying Osana's Tsun moments, shows that she can sound sincerely heartfelt when Osana gives her confession to Senpai. If you manage to kill Raibaru, her reaction to seeing her best friend's dead body is also genuinely heartbreaking with how convincingly distressed she sounds.
  • Marissa Lenti as Genka in the "Delinquent Backstory Video". In explaining that backstory, she is Ms. Exposition and talks uninterrupted for almost eight minutes, without any lines from the usual Mr. Exposition, YandereDev. She proves extremely good in carrying the whole video with a pleasant voice and obvious emotion and guilt despite the character's professional demeanor. On his developmental blog where he posted the video, YandereDev even wrote, "I’ve got to take a moment to give an absolutely HUGE thanks to Marissa Lenti for providing an absolutely phenomenal voiceover for this video! She absolutely knocked it out of the park – 10/10 performance! I couldn’t be happier with her work!" Many of the comments on the video similarly praised her performance and gained new liking for the character.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • One April Fool's prank YandereDev had was announcing Kuudere Simulator, which features a Rei Ayanami Expy. Later, Rei's hairstyle was added into the game. It becomes kind of funnier now that we know that Yan-chan was an Emotionless Girl prior to meeting Senpai in the second intro. Then he added Rei herself (under the Writing Around Trademarks Punny Name "Kuu Dere") to the game, taking the joke full circle.
  • Upon Oka's introduction into the debug builds, which she was later taken out of, a common joke among the fanbase (including some Lets Players) was that because she has little interest in things that aren't paranormal, Senpai had to be supernatural for her to have a crush on him at all. When the rivals were officially introduced, it was confirmed that Oka believes her crush on Senpai is supernatural in origin.
  • YandereDev has described the premise of this game as what would happen if a background character in a Dating Sim or romance anime suddenly snapped and started wreaking havoc on the narrative. Then came Doki Doki Literature Club!, which has the major reveal of a side character who can't be romanced turning out to be both meta-aware and in love with the player, leading to her sabotaging their chances of getting with the other girls. This has come full circle with an Easter Egg that changes Ayano's hairstyle and outfit to match those of the characters of the game.
  • YouTuber LaurenZSide uploaded a sketch about the game where, among other things, Ayano decides to eliminate both Megami and Hanako by immediately framing the latter as the "dangerous person," which Megami accepts without question. While hilarious enough as-is, this gains an extra layer when a later comic states Nemesis is actually the Mission Mode's equivalent of Hanako, of all things. Lauren may have been on to something.
• Ho Yay:
  • Aside from the potential for a female Senpai and the Seduction mechanic working on girls, modeler Druelbozo^note (he designed Genka and many of the hairstyles) uploaded this image of the Rainbow Girls. When asked about the hand gesture Yui makes towards Yuna, he responded with "Getting that booty."
  • Raibaru follows Osana around everywhere, wears the same accessories as her, and until the March 22nd build update, she never talked to you while hanging out with Osana (unless you had to compete Budo's task). Also, if you kill one of them, the other reacts the same way another student would if you killed someone very close to them.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: More like "It's Hard, Now It Sucks". Expect this to pop up a lot from the Misaimed Fandom (see below) of updates progress as many often complain about people (usually teachers, the Student Council, Martial Artists, phone addicts, delinquents, Senpai, loved ones, sleuths, and club members) getting in the way of their murder spree. YandereDev actually had a Take That, Audience! moments in of the videos, representing people who complain about how hard the game is getting with a stock image of a baby on a computer.
  • Reached an all time high with the introduction of Raibaru, an invincible student who follows Osana everywhere, will apprehend you if you try to kill either of them and can only be dealt with in a very specific manner that YandereDev has no intention of revealing. People have called her out for making it way too hard to kill Osana, especially considering that she's suppose to be the tutorial rival. This has since been alleviated in a later patch, which made it possible to distract Raibaru with methods that did not involve scripted events.
• It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: A lot of people refuse to play the game due to the popularity it has gained on YouTube from big and small channels, along with its increasingly large tween Periphery Demographic.
  • This is especially the case with men from the -chans, a.k.a the original target demographic, whose incessant complaints eventually drove YandereDev to Rage Quit /v/ for good.

J-N

• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Yan-chan herself is worthy of pity, as her backstory is shown in this video. Her father frequently took her to doctors in an attempt to explain her genetic mental health problems and crippling apathy. From a young age, she knew that she was "different" and wanted to experience emotions like normal people, yet still remained frustrated that she couldn't, while her parents frequently argued about her condition. Because her father worried and kids bullied her, she soon learned how to pretend to be normal, but not truly connecting with anyone, as her father probably knew she was faking it. Whenever she talked to Ryoba about it, she'd just deliberately ignore it, downplay the situation or enable her future Yandere tendencies. It doesn't excuse anything she does, but anyone can understand why she's so desperate to have Senpai.
  • The Delinquents are worth of pity after what they've been through. They used to be normal shy boys who were victims of the Bullies and they tried to talk to Genka to help them, but she didn't do anything for them saying that she didn't have enough evidence, despite Gaku's arm making it pretty clearly. They once considered commiting suicide, which thankfully, didn't happen. After seeing how strong and badass is Osoro on her own, they started to respect her and be like her, turning into the feared delinquents that they are today. Genka actually feels bad for not helping them at the right time and now she's trying to bring them to their old selves. She even convinced Kocho to give them another chance when he was about to expel them for being delinquents.
• Memetic Badass: Multiple:
  • The teachers (and Nasu) are often compared to a T-1000 due to their speed and strength.
    • Somewhat less so as of mid-2016, once it became possible to kill them legitimately.
  • The placeholder delinquents (whose designs were repurposed for 1980s mode), due to being only partially-programmed, were able to phase through walls and defy gravity in their quest to chase Ayano down and beat her into a coma.
  • Mr. Jazzy Feet is God. Well, you do quite literally pray to her. ^note (In the debug builds from July 2016 on, praying to Mr. Jazzy Feet is how you toggle the sanity-based animations, as well as do some other actions that aren't properly coded in yet. The command that automatically cleans Yan-chan up is titled "Forgive Sins".)
  • Raibaru can also be compared with a T-800, considering her invincibility in one-on-one combat and the fact that she is as protective towards Osana as the T-800 is towards John Conner. One of the official artworks even portrayed her with glowing red eyes when about to apprehend Ayano.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • YandereDev! YandereDev! *stabbed* …Oh, Midori…
  • According to fans of Jay from Kubz Scouts, Midori's name is pronounced "Midori GURINUUUUU!" and it's preferable to end her "lifu" with a "knifu".
  • Then I Killed Her. ^ExplanationDuring his June 2017 Midori retrospective, he repeated this phrase no less than four times while recounting her appearances in his videos. The incredibly blase way he says it made it meme-worthy.
  • Senpai's terrible hearing. ^ExplanationIn the video "Making Senpai Reject A Love Confession In Yandere Simulator", Senpai responds to Osana muttering about her crush on him with variations of "What did you say?" The fandom started making a lot of jokes about him failing to hear other things or having hearing problems.
  • What is Ryuji doing here? ^Explanation April 2018 showed the introduction of the official male delinquents, all of whom look and act incredibly similar to Ryuji Sakamoto of Persona 5. Since their introduction and the fact that so much of YanSim is already inspired by the Persona series, fans have latched on to this idea.
  • Obstacles / Moving Security Cameras. ^Explanation Starting with the Student Council, and the addition of the "Phone Addict" persona introduced alongside the bullies, every single character introduced since then (including the Council), has the primary purpose of being obstacles and/or moving security cameras that, by YandereDev's own admission, heavily discourage the use of any elimination methods that involve getting up close and personal to the rival in question as they'll more often than not be within line-of-sight or earshot of someone else. This is of course not counting Raibaru, who follows Osana everywhere. This is to the point of giving some of the clubs unreasonable/implausible/unrealistic routines around the school. For example, the Gardening Club's original routine had them watering plants placed at various spots in the hallways. However, the frequency with which they watered the plants (because they were essentially "patrolling" while following the routine) would have, realistically speaking, drowned the plants. In another example, the Light Music club have absolutely no business practicing in the HALLWAY of all places, but they're put there specifically to serve as, you guessed it, mobile and/or strategically placed security cameras.
  • Want to get out of trouble? Blame the delinquents! ^ExplanationIt is possible to use Genka's guilt over being unable to help the delinquents when they were being bullied to get out of trouble, by using them as a scapegoat for your odd, disruptive, and/or rule-breaking behavior. As long as the delinquents are still present and you haven't used the excuse for the same behavior before, Genka will believe you and let you off the hook. YouTuber Bijuu Mike ran with this by humorously using "delinquents" as excuse for absolutely anything, no matter how implausible or ridiculous.
  • Incest Osana ^ExplanationA humorous nickname for Hanako Yamada given by YandereDev in a hypothetical situation where the rivals are not given unique gimmicks for each weeks, which would make them essentially feel like little more than Palette Swaps of Osana. Due to the many Incest Subtext jokes that have spawned ever since she was announced, this title has exploded in popularity as a Fan Nickname for her.
• Memetic Psychopath: Ayano, of course. Canonically, she is The Sociopath. However, you can make the argument that some fans manage to exaggerate that. Indeed, murdering anyone in her vicinity is only one of the many ways to remove the rivals, and she's at first closer to an Emotionless Girl and an Empty Shell whose only drives are her determination to get Senpai and her jealousy towards any girl who manages to get closer to him. She doesn't potentially choose murders because she likes it, but because her Lack of Empathy makes this option look just as good as any other in her eyes. Yet, she's portrayed as a murder-happy Blood Knight who kills anyone For the Evulz in some fanworks.
  • For the record, Yandere Dev has indeed posted side videos where Ayano is portrayed as an honest-to-goodness murder-happy Blood Knight, so this example is a bit more justified than many.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • As game development progresses, YandereDev insists that Yandere Simulator is a stealth game. But many fans have asked to remain able to easily kill countless numbers of students.
    • Perhaps due to the game's fanbase becoming progressively younger, more and more people have become upset with aspects of the game that have always been there – like taking panty shots of high-school-aged teens, two rivals being school faculty, the (dropped) inventory and kitten-killing mechanics, and so on. Evidently, they want YanSim to continue to be a "meme game", the very thing its developer wishes to avoid.
  • There are some people who like Midori and roleplay as her, as she's meant to portray the young fans that dev alleges are the ones mass-emailing him.
  • The infamous panty shot mechanic is frequently interpreted as straight Fanservice. However, Word of God states that it's intended to be an illustration of how sleazy Info-chan is, and how far Yan-chan will go. In other words, you're meant to feel uncomfortable. Indeed, you get harshly penalized if you're caught (especially if the one catching you is a teacher, Nasu, or Senpai), and this has been the case from day one.
  • Despite the fact that it’s been officially stated that Hanako is The Not-Love Interest, there are those who still ship her with her brother romantically.
• Moe:
  • Oka is a shy Goth with unusual interests, an odd but endearing personality, and implied abandonment issues. Word of God has even said that out of all the rivals, he finds Oka the cutest. It's also implied on the website's characters page that Senpai can fall in love with her because of this.
  • Mai was explicitly stated to be this in her Student Profile before the August 18th, 2018 update.
  • The artwork seen of Ayano as a child in "Yandere-chan's Childhood" and "A Childhood Lesson" is just adorable. Even though she's a Creepy Child, she's so wide-eyed and innocent-looking that you just want to give her a big ol' hug. Even more so When She Smiles, even if it is faked.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Ayano herself can cross it if the player goes on a love-fueled mass murder spree.
    • Some of the crueler methods of disposing of rivals, such as having them bullied into suicide, framing them for murder, or torturing and mindbreaking a girl before setting her on them, can also qualify. The torturing mechanic is most notable as it was one of the mechanics that started fans saying YanSim's development was getting "too dark". The "Yakuza" elimination is also this; it's one thing to kill your rivals or ruin their reputation. It's another to essentially sell them into full-blown human trafficking.
  • Info-chan isn't much better, knowingly aiding a (possible) murderer for Panty Shots and a news story.
  • Ryoba crossed it when she murdered a rival in high school (and canonically five more), ruined the Journalist's career, and kidnapped Jokichi and kept him in her basement until Stockholm Syndrome kicked in.
    • And then hit this again when, in her response to her child's questions about why she can't feel, she basically just tells her to wait while also guaranteeing that Ayano will be Yandere just like her.
  • Ever since her first appearance, it was clear that Musume was a cruel, insufferable girl. But, when she decides to mock Kokona and her father for being in debt, to the point where Kokona engages in Compensated Dating... well, it almost makes what happens to her afterwards feel justified.
    • Ayano herself crosses it in the same video where she goads Kokona into going through with her plan to beat up a kidnapped Musume with the intention of having all the blame pinned onto Kokona for the crime, and based on the smile on her face before Kokona murders Musume, was fully aware that Kokona would murder Musume from the very beginning.
  • Saisho Saikou crossed it by erasing his first daughter from existence to keep her from telling the public about something illegal he had done, grooming his second daughter through a harsh training program to have her take over his empire, disowning her when she refused, and putting his son through an even harsher upbringing.
  • Mr. Saikou crossed it with the reveal that he let his son Kencho know that he was just a backup for Megami in case she didn't want to take over the empire, letting him know he's The Unfavorite.
  • Any "spiteful" student can cross this by showing glee at a supposed "friend"of theirs being killed if said "friend" was being bullied, saying their "friend" deserved to die for being unpopular enough to be bullied. Case in point, Borupen will show nothing but glee if you slaughter the entire art club other than him, provided you lower all of their reputations enough for them to be bullied.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • "Investigation", the soothing results theme after a tense rush to dispose of evidence and witnesses — unless interrupted by a Game Over, which usually happens just a few seconds in. If you make it past those first few chords of suspense, you're generally safe.
  • In the "A Childhood Lesson" video, several comments are about how soothing and gentle Ryoba's voice sounds...even though she's talking about how to clean up blood so that no evidence is left behind.
• Narm:
  • The June 2015 build introduced the ability for Yan-chan to poison a classmate's food. Kokona starts to cough, then begins to dramatically choke and roll around on the ground. None of the other students notice this happening about ten feet away from them because this mechanic hasn't been implemented into the game yet.^note (They'll notice once they start to head for their classes and see her corpse nearby. Or if you choose to drag the corpse towards any of them.)
  • Since this is a game about killing, some of the deaths don't seem all that serious. Especially the Titan Easter egg deaths, where they curl up into balls and bounce around.
  • When as Slender-chan, if you get an in-game Game Over, it's funny when Yan-chan says, "n-no... wait..." because you can only see her knees because she's ten feet tall.
  • One of the potential elimination methods was scrapped for precisely this reason. The idea was that Yan-chan would be able to do something similar to unscrewing a diving board, causing the girl to fall on her face. However, when YandereDev discussed it with other people, it was criticized as being "too Looney Tunes". The current high-dive is a solid piece that cannot be tampered with.
  • When Yan-chan is apprehended by a Hero, there's now a voice clip where she cries out a Big "NO!". However, it comes off very whiny, especially in contrast to the Little "No" she makes when taken down by a group (recorded much later).
  • In the Promo Concept video, while Senpai and the rival have fairly realistic death poses, Yan-chan's looks like she's planking.
  • The reason why YandereDev has considered renaming the game is related to this. Particularly, the word "simulator" is associated with more humorous games like Goat Simulator and Surgeon Simulator 2013. So, having that word in the title might cause people to come to the conclusion that it's a joke game when it really isn't.
    • This has caused a small amount of friction with tinyBuild – they want to keep the YanSim name, as it's already proved to be a bankable property under that title; YanDev wants to change it, and has already created a secret "LoveSick" title screen.
  • The mid-June 2016 build introduced the ability to drop a bucket of dumbbells on Kokona. It seems horrifying, and it sort of is, but upon contact, Kokona simply crumples to the ground in the standard dying animation and Kyoshi immediately runs up and squats on top of her corpse. The fact there's a loud 'BONK' sound effect doesn't really help.
  • The July 24th 2016 build replaced the original Murder-Suicide animation with a new one wherein the mindslave (in this case Saki) repeatedly stabs the rival (in this case Kokona) in the torso before thrusting the weapon into her own throat. Sound horrifying? Well, it is… until Saki removes the knife from her throat and blood sprays from her neck like a firehose. The gushing water sound effect just makes it even sillier. Later builds dialed this back a lot – blood still sprays from her neck, but not nearly as far or as audibly.
  • A common criticism of the game is its heavy use of Punny Name which produces a comedic tone that clashes with the more realistic or darker elements of gameplay.
  • Some of Senpai's new animations, while more expressive, are very over the top, especially when the animation makes him clip into the fountain.
  • During Kizana's segment in the Rival Introduction Video, roses are being thrown at her. Since their stems are perfect cylinders and the petals are solid, they roll like little wheels for a long time. It looks a bit strange.
• Narm Charm: As the game plays with a lot of well-known and beloved anime stereotypes, coupled with its over-the-top nature, it's a sheer delight to many fans.

O-S

• Older Than They Think: The characters' names sometimes get flak for being too punny or sounding impossible for it to be an actual name, the chief example usually being Osana Najimi. However, a manga published in the early 2000s by the name of Doujin Work did in fact feature a character with that name as its protagonist, though it's written in Eastern order (Thus when reversed back to Western order, Doujin Work's protagonist is named "Najimi Osana").
• Overshadowed by Controversy:
  • At this point there are more videos criticizing YandereDev— with countless (very long and detailed) rant videos, which often leads to criticizing the game and its fanbase— than videos about the game itself, with Dev especially being a controversial and often memetic (for the wrong reasons) character.
  • The controversy surrounding the game's infamous Development Hell has also eclipsed discussion on the game itself. Much of the mockery stems from its lack of core gameplay features several years after development started, the feature creep it's experienced during development, and the overall poor quality of the code. This game gets often compared to other games with infamously drawn-out development periods, most notably Daikatana (which suffered from an uncannily similar set of problems during its development, yet took less time to finish).
• Paranoia Fuel: Info-chan knows everything about everyone.^note (Well, almost everything; to learn a rival's darkest secrets, you'll have to do some work on your own.) She spends the school day locked in a dark room, in front of a six-screen computer, with a CCTV camera rigged up right outside the door. For a very specific price, she will actively assist people who can and will harm you in various ways. It's also made abundantly clear she doesn't have the best intentions for those around her, and may be involved in many more things than we realize. Now imagine what someone with her capabilities could do in real life.
• Periphery Demographic: This game is not, nor has it ever been, intended for children – it will almost certainly carry an "M"-rating once it's complete. But a large chunk of the fanbase (or at least a very very vocal contingent) is under the age of 15; many are preteens. YandereDev is naturally horrified that children are fans of a game where you can kill people and engage in Video Game Perversity Potential; his response to them in the "Yandere Simulator's Biggest Problem" video is, "Little kids shouldn’t even be playing a game like Yandere Simulator!" Making the situation worse is that he has had more than a few kids – twelve years old at most – send in bad artwork, expecting to be allowed to volunteer.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: The fans have come up with a few of these for pairings they like – Ayando for Ayano/Budo, Shinoka for Shin/Oka, Sakona for Saki/Kokona, etc.
• Questionable Casting: Some players have openly questioned a few of the casting choices. YandereDev has stated that since the game is still in development, voice acting is subject to change, so whether this will remain the case or not remains to be seen.
  • Some people aren't fond of Budo's voice, believing it sounds too old for a schoolboy.
  • Early on, some expressed dislike for Oka's voice, arguing it was too nasal. Her voice has grown on most fans since then though.
  • Some of the voices of the rivals that debuted in the Rival Introduction Video are a bit divisive, with there being debate about which ones are annoying or too high-pitched.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Sota used to be one of the less popular, if not the least, among the removed Rainbow Six Boys, for being not only just as bland as the others, but also because his hairstyle is often considered too plain-looking, if not downright ugly. But he gained a boost in popularity after it's revealed that he's a fanboy of a Magical Girl show similar to Puella Magi Madoka Magica and the implication of being a troper.
  • Raibaru used to be one of the most universally hated students in the game, in small part due to her name, but in large part because she used to be invincible and ruin any attempts to kill your rival, which hurt even more when considering she broke rules other students follow just to make your life a bigger nightmare than necessary. She was also criticized for following Osana like a puppy instead of walking besides her like normal friends would. As of March 22nd 2021, she can be interacted with like a normal student, making it significantly easier to get her away from Osana. The previous criticism about Raibaru walking behind Osana instead of besides her has also been aknowledged.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Some people hate Osana and Kokona for being Yan-chan's rivals. Even though poor Kokona is just a temporary rival to test out mechanics.^note (Unless the game sells well enough to justify DLC, in which case she is one of the three prime candidates for new rivals – the others being the phantom girl and Midori.)
    • The rival girls themselves. Many of Yan-chan's fans like to be able to kill them in gruesome and inventive fashion, despite the girls being average anime-style girls. This is more pronounced in girls like Amai, Oka, or Asu. But even the snobby Kizana doesn't deserve Yan-chan's ire. Mida is the most hated for being an older teacher lusting after a teenage boy.
  • Quite a few people also hate Senpai for calling out Yan-chan for doing terrible things.
  • Many players hate the teachers, Nasu and especially Raibaru because they get in the way of people's killing sprees.
• The Scrappy: Even those who want to take the pacifist route in the game want to kill off Mida, due to her status as a serial seducer of teenage boys like Senpai. Despite being a Hate Sink, she completely avoids being the enjoyable kind.
• Self-Fanservice: Yan-chan's default appearance was deliberately designed to appear plain and average in a Generic Cuteness way. That hasn't stopped multiple artists from depicting her as being much sexier than her in-game model.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: Beating the Alphabet Killer Challenge in either the main game or 1980s mode in "Nightmare Difficulty". That is, not using any of the items in the Student Council room. You have to rely on other distractions, tasks, clubs and the school itself to get rid of your targets without any witnesses, and if you get sent to the Guidance Counselor, someone succesfully calls the police or a student flees the school, you automatically lose. You also have to worry about hiding the corpses and cleaning up any blood they left behind (though the school is full of lockers to hide the bodies in and weapons like the baseball bat or the fire extinguishers don't leave any pools of blood behind nor do they make your clothing bloody). To make things worse, the Delinquents and the Rivals will refuse to follow you even if you complete their tasks, some of the students have routines than involve patrolling many parts of the school, which increases the chance that they might catch you red-handed killing someone or trying to hide a body, all the teachers stay in their respective classrooms at all times (though they will ignore every single giggle and scream, but this unfortunately does not apply to the Gym Teacher in the Faculty Room and the Nurse in the Infirmary), and in 1980s mode, the Journalist is always by the school's entrance and Ryoba's Senpai walks around the school rather than staying in one place at all times like Ayano's Senpai does. Even when using one or two cheat items, it's still a very hard and time-consuming challenge.
• Ships That Pass in the Night:
  • Budo and Shin never interact in the game, but there are still many Yaoi Fangirls who ship them together, mostly because they're the most popular male characters and both have their crush listed as "???", despite Shin’s crush almost certainly being Oka, and Budo’s almost certainly being Raibaru.
  • Pairing the Rivals with each other is also popular, even though they can never meet, in-game at least. Megami/Osoro, Amai/Oka and Muja/Mida are the most notable examples.
  • Shipping delinquent right hand man Umeji Kizuguchi and Shrinking Violet Horuda Puresu is common, as both are victims of bullying by Musume and YandereDev has said that it's canon that the Delinquents befriend and welcome fellow outcasts with low reputations. Many fan works have the whole group taking her under their wing to defend her.
• Shocking Moments: "Retribution", the manga that reveals Nemesis' backstory. It casts the entire Mission Mode into a new light as it's an Alternate Continuity, where Yan-chan murdered Senpai as her first victim, explaining his absence. Nemesis is actually Hanako Yamada, who turned bitter and murderous out of grief and swore to destroy Ayano for killing her brother.
• Spiritual Adaptation:
  • Word of God has cited Hitman and Persona as major influences. He has also cited Bully (which YanSim more directly resembles), Yakuza, multiple dating sims, and Future Diary.
  • Considering how the premise of this game involves killing high school students, it is the closest thing that anyone can have for the video game adaptation of Heathers, only set in Japan.
• Squick:
  • Taking panty shots of high-school girls which are then sold can feel this way to a lot of people.
  • People have also claimed this about Hanako, Senpai's sister, being a rival. However, Hanako is not incestuous in the least; she is a very clingy immature girl who worries that if her big bro gets a girlfriend, that girl will monopolize his time and he'll forget about her. That said, some still feel squicked in spite of acknowledging this, due to the association with the rivals who are otherwise almost all love interests and the notoriety of Brother–Sister Incest/Incest Subtext in the sort of genre that the game parodies.

T-W

• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The April Fools' Day 2017 post ended up getting this reaction from a not insignificant chunk of the fanbase. While YandereDev has a history of posting silly videos on April Fools Day, the 2017 one ended up getting a minor backlash because it advertised a Gender Flipped option for the game. While it was obviously fake from the start of the video, many ended up lamenting the fact that it wasn't actually a feature of the game, finding the idea of male rivals – or even a male rival that Yan-chan herself had to deal with – too interesting of a plotline to waste on a simple joke.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Midori. She was designed by YandereDev to be a jab at people who he perceives are wasting his time with redundant questions when he could be programming the game. However, a few of the things she asks are actually good questions (such as why students would keep coming to school even though there's a serial killer running around). Some also find her characterization endearing, especially since her voice actress makes her adorable. Then again, she is an Audience Surrogate, so fan sympathy is somewhat expected.
  • Also add to this that Midori is usually murdered violently by Ayano (or even the Dev himself) for the unspeakably heinous crime of... asking an honest question (no matter how stupid, redundant or annoying)... it's not hard to see why fans feel bad for her sometimes.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Standing too close to Senpai and staring at him understandably creeps him out. Problem is that his irritation gets triggered if Yan-chan is in his line of sight at all, even if he runs into her and she's not even looking at him. Kinda makes one wonder what she sees in him. The second February 2018 build works to rectify this, by having Yandere-Chan act in progressively creepier ways when she's in his presence.
    • Senpai overreacts when you have blood all over you, assuming that you hurt someone else, never for a second considering the possibility that it's your own blood because you're hurt. You did hurt someone else, of course, but he really shouldn't jump to conclusions.
    • He also reacts this way if you get sprayed with blood during the Murder-Suicide, even if he witnessed the whole thing. It's a bit disconcerting to see him accuse Yan-chan of murder when he clearly saw someone else do it. Once again, makes one wonder what Yan-chan sees in him.
    • If you use the rumors elimination method against Osana, whose secret is writing bad fanfiction featuring her classmates, it leads to the entire school ruthlessly bullying Osana and both Senpai and Raibaru dumping her, which leads to her committing suicide. The fact that Senpai and Raibaru both dump Osana in a week over a rumor (especially with it being over something that most actual teenagers do) without even talking to her about it first does not paint them in a good light, especially Senpai as they were friends through childhood, yet he dumps her over a petty rumor. For some, it pushed Senpai over the Moral Event Horizon for callously abandoning his childhood friend in her time of need.
  • The teachers and Nasu also show no concern when you're covered with blood, saying that your appearance is unacceptable and completely ignoring the fact that you could be hurt or you could have hurt someone else (the latter of which, of course, you did). They also expel you for things they should probably ask explanations for first, like carrying a weapon (though this only applies to the knife or two-handed weapons) or twitching when you're insane (when you could simply be having a seizure or something). A simple dialogue change – that they intend to send you to Kocho – could easily fix this. Once Genka was fully implemented, this changed.
• The Woobie:
  • Kokona Haruka, the buxom girl with purple twintails, is the developer's go-to example for demonstrations on how to kill or otherwise get rid of your rivals. Over the course of 18 months, she has been stabbed, pushed off the roof to make her death look like a suicide, kidnapped, poisoned, drowned in the fountain, drowned in the toilet, electrocuted, shot with ice-balls, doused with a bucket of water, doused with a bucket of bloody water, thrown into a dumpster and covered with trash, gossiped about to the point that she lost all her friends and was Driven to Suicide, stabbed thirteen times in the chest by her Brainwashed and Crazy best friend in a Murder-Suicide, framed for killing Midori, expelled after being framed for cheating on a test, yandere-punched into the side of the school, chainsawed, decapitated, expelled again after being framed for multiple rule violations^note (though it should be noted that she really did sell her used panties), betrayed by her would-be savior, set on fire, and crushed via a bucketful of weights dropped on her head. And, oh yeah, being manipulated into committing murder and subsequently arrested (again with a side of betrayal).
    • It's worse when you eavesdrop on a conversation between her and Saki, where she reveals that ever since her mother died, her father has become a lush who comes into her room while drunk to vent about his monetary problems. To support him, she raises money by participating in Compensated Dating and selling her underwear. Poor girl can't get a break.
    • In September 2016, the Dev finally allowed her some peace by pairing her up with a friendly rich boy. After nearly 18 months of torture, many fans were glad to see her get a break.
    • Even then, she still gets the Butt-Monkey treatment. In the update video addressing Kokona's resemblance to Kizana, YandereDev broaches the idea of Kizana copying Kokona's hairstyle, and then forcing her to change because it's "unoriginal". As if that weren't enough, Kokona may become a DLC rival, where she's stuck reliving the same week over and over, always ending with her murder. Even if this doesn't happen, in the where she can unwittingly give Ayano the idea to kill her rivals by asking her to help out with a play the Drama Club is making (and serving as the game's tutorial).
  • Saki has her moments of this, in part because she is by far the sweetest girl in the game (only the currently missing Amai comes close).
    • Shortly before the beginning of the school year, she discovers that her best friend Kokona is having severe money problems. On the first day of the first full week of class, she loses her brassiere somewhere on school property because she wanted to help Kokona with her money woes by selling it, but panicked. Yan-chan can find it for her, which can eventually lead to Saki being kidnapped and tortured for days to the point that she becomes an Empty Shell who stabs her best friend before offing herself.
    • Later that day, Kokona sputters out half a confession that heavily implies she's being abused by her drunk father, though he actually isn't abusive (not physically or intentionally anyway). Saki clearly wants to help, but can't. Depending on how Yan-chan reacts to the situation, Saki may lose her best friend in a fake suicide or a kidnapping.
    • If Yan-chan spills the beans about Kokona's Compensated Dating, then Saki – who reacts with shock and sadness rather than hate – will be forced to watch as her best friend becomes the target of intense bullying, possibly to the point of suicide.
  • The Hero of Another Story – or Villain of Another Story from a certain character's view – Journalist from the tapes. He tried to do the right thing back in 1989 by telling the police about a yandere high school girl, and she was able to convince the entire country of her innocence. He became a national disgrace as "a lecherous journalist who stalked schoolgirls and tried to throw a girl in prison to boost his own career." He then became The Alcoholic, and his wife (who was ironically a bit of a yandere herself - "She wouldn't let me out of her sight, and got possessive if another woman so much as looked at me.") died giving birth to their only child, and his now-teenage daughter comes home with blood on her clothes. He was later forced into exile after attempting (and failing) to rectify his mistake. And the last we hear, said yandere was following him…
  • Any kidnap victim, whom you can break with 40 hours of psychological torture until they're not even a person anymore, just an Empty Shell.
  • Senpai himself is this by default. He's established as a kind-hearted introvert. This is so much so that Info-chan cannot find dirt on him because his background is clean. A violent stalker will harm women with whom he is on good terms just because she wants him all for herself. This includes his sister and his Childhood Friend. It will be possible for Senpai to become traumatized over the course of the game, as well. The second January 2017 update vid shows just what happens if you make the poor guy watch as Osana dies right in front of him. It is absolutely devastating.
  • Ayano's father Jokichi, as seen in the Basement Tapes. He was kidnapped by Ryoba some time after her acquittal because she was afraid that he would reject her due to her being accused of murder on national TV, and was told that she got rid of eleven girls (canonically killed six of them and got rid of the other five with non-lethal methods). In the present day, he's still horrified of his wife, but is unable to stand up for himself against her. He's also (understandably, given the nature of the Aishi family) worried about his daughter and what she's capable of. However, he still cares about her. Word of God says that Yandere-ism has run in the Aishi family for many generations, so countless other men have been in his position. It will also likely be the fate of poor Senpai if Ayano succeeds, especially if she doesn't go the pacifist route.
  • Midori Gurin. She was only created as an Audience Surrogate for people with misguided attempts to help YandereDev. Her current implementation is to stand on the rooftop all day with no routine in sight, waiting to get killed. The Word of Saint Paul moments of Mom0ki, her voice actress, despite not being canon and borderline speculation in some cases, only makes it more heartbreaking for those willing to accept them as Fanon.^†(Specifically, Mom0ki implies that the reason Midori had no routine for a long time was because she was accidentally left off the class roster, so there's no desk for her, but she's still legally enrolled at Akademi and must attend, so the roof is the only place she can go. Also, Midori considers Oka one of her best friends, but Oka can't stand her.(
  • Oka Ruto is a rather shy girl with unusual interests. Some of her quotes imply that she's lonely. She's also a designated Rival (she's a normal club-leading NPC in the debug builds because Osana and the other two rivals before her has yet to be completely implemented), so all of the elimination methods the debug builds allow you to use on Kokona will be usable on Oka in the future.
  • Sakura Hagiwara from the Gardening Club gets a lot of sympathy from fans for having an incurable heart disease that prevents her from living past the age of 30. Many people feel bad when they kill her.
  • Mr. Harukawa. His wife died, he and his daughter fell into poverty, he had to take out a loan from a dangerous loan shark to get his daughter into school, and is unable to pay back the loan, leaving him in a dangerous situation. It is made even worse in the situations where his daughter is killed or framed for murder, as he loses the last of his family, his taking out the loan and putting himself in the dangerous situation becomes pointless, and he still has to pay back the debt afterward anyway, which he is still unable to do. In this video, not only is his daughter arrested for killing Musume, but Mr. Rokuda, her father and the loan shark that was extorting him, will now likely murder him for Kokona killing Musume, so unless he goes to the police for help, he will likely wind up wearing Cement Shoes.

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