#the “yandere” character trait is weird in itself.

[mortemlifeness]

I saw information about Sandrone's character and died. Her character is interesting, yes, but I'm afraid she will meet Ayaka and Firefly's fate. Don't turn her into yandere for Protagonist (Aether), please no.

[dekusleftsock]

I think about this sometimes but I personally love that Horikoshi took the Yandere trope, split it in two, and gave one half to Izuku and Himiko.

Like it’s so fascinating how you can just SEE how purposeful Himiko was as a character in hindsight standing next to him.

Himiko is a really interesting subversion of her trope for two reasons:

She hurts people because she loves them, not for isolation or destruction of the competition (gore/blood is love to her, not necessarily a means to love someone)

She’s not possessive. Like at all.

I’ve seen that hc a few times and it always bothers me. Ochako is for sure a possessive character (we saw that with Hatsume around Izuku way back at the sports festival arc), but Himiko? Really?

You mean the girl who had a crush on a boy AND the girl who also had a crush on the same boy? Her?

You mean the girl who doesn’t hurt people who love who she loves, rather actively encouraging it in the first place? That one? Really?

Like it’s such an integral part to her subversion too. It’s what makes her such a weird and fascinating character. Possessiveness is supposed to be whats ugly about love itself, yet her love remains ugly without it. She is ugly because the fundamental ways in which she sees and feels about the world are considered “wrong”, “dangerous”, and “deviant”.

But Izuku… ohhhh Izuku…

He holds this trait like a badge melted to his skin. My man cannot escape these allegations. It’s to the point where it’s honestly a fundamental to his narrative. Izuku does not act nor feel the same without it.

Izuku holds a cutesy nickname that literally every other childhood friend of Katsuki’s has long left behind, saying his real name instead (this is honestly why I’m also uninterested in a scene where Izuku calls him “Katsuki” instead of “Kacchan”, Katsuki doesn’t represent the same things the name Izuku does, imo at least), izuku “give him back to me” midoriya, holds his dead body to his chest on a cover, freaked out on someone either hurting/offending Kacchan.. 3 times(?), keeping big boy ofa secrets…. The list goes on.

So it’s this main reason that I think their characters are just so. Fucking. Intertwined. I’m glad this has become a more common interpretation because there’s just so much that aligns between them.

Both of them call their “special people” with -chan endings, both by their first names, both deemed deviants/irrelevant by society. It’s no wonder Ochako fell in love with Izuku, just like she did toga, they’re fucking freaks. They’re interesting. They’re weird. They’re overly friendly and socially inept and a little beaten down by the world yet have too much passion to stay on the ground. They’re envious of the ones they love (Ochako of her freedom to be a normal girl, Katsuki for his raw power and harnessed skill), and I guess I just wanted to make this post because I adore how it’s all done.

I LOVE how the yandere trope is used as societal commentary here. Not necessarily as a way to make the main love interest jealous and feel she must protect the main character, nor for some kinky reason surrounding her character, but because the trope is built off of real, ugly feelings that can and do happen. That love can and is considered truly beautiful in all its forms, especially those of queer people.

So I especially love it because it isn’t just limited to Himiko, but Izuku as well. He may never hurt the ones he loves, but he would hurt for them.

A perfect narrative foil on queer and deviant forms of love. Big fan Horikoshi.

[phantasmiafxndom]

OKAY SO

I have a weird question but if you could choose ANY character from ANY fandom (ocs included if you have any idk) who do you think would be the best yandere for your specific tastes?

Live are they super possessive or more like the stalk you without you knowing type? Or will they murder everyone close to you or leave them be unless they hurt you?

Or would they be a more platonic yandere with more minuscule negative traits???

I wanna know!!!! 😫

Ohhhhhh boy, uhh,,, I have an unfortunately easy answer here. XD

Though I dislike the story itself for a number of reasons, Yoon Bum from a particularly well-known dark comic series is remarkably suited to my taste in characters... and I'm pretty sure he qualifies as yandere, right?

To give a more trait-based description; an obsessive, desperate, pathetic little freak who'd never be the slightest threat to me. I want them to be more afraid of me than I'd ever think to be of them, with so many issues (and trauma!!!) that any yandere behavior is more pitifully useless than potentially dangerous. :)

Because I'm VERY aroace, I also greatly enjoy the dynamic of "pathetic little freak who's violently in love with me, without the slightest hope of reciprocation". It's cute~

(Thank you for the ask!!! I LOVE this kind of chatting! :D)

[ckret2]

How are you able to write such good romantic scenes when you’re on the aro spectrum?

Gonna start with the weird answer and then explain the logic behind it:

I’m fascinated by the concept of obsession.

Like, particularly, when one person is obsessed with another person.

Typically what fascinates me most is the darker end of the “obsession” spectrum—the “I’ll die for you and/or kill for you,” the “I can’t imagine existing without you and will reinvent myself into some sort of idealized person who can support you as perfectly as possible,” the “I literally worship you like a literal actual god because you are that perfect to me,” the “I hate your guts but I can’t stop thinking about you for more than three seconds and I haven’t slept right in months because of it.” So, yandere tropes, “I’m stalking you out of love” tropes, zealous cults, unrequited love, knight & lord, all that stuff. I’m very interested in the psychology of how what ought to be a positive emotion can get twisted the wrong way into something so negative—how something protective can be twisted into something destructive, how something supporting can twist into something harmful, etc. You know, good horror shit. And so that’s something I spend a lot of time thinking about, reading about, and ultimately writing about.

Here’s the thing though. If you understand how obsession works inside and out, you’re like, 90% of the way to being able to write romance. That is, I think, fundamentally why I’m interested in writing romance in the first place. Because on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being “total indifference to a person’s existence” and 100 being “can’t go five seconds without thinking about the person and dreams about them at night,” romance clocks in at, like, 40. You’ve just gotta take Full Obsession and dial it back to a reasonable, healthy, sane level, and then paint it pink and that’s the Romance Feeling.

And then you chuck in a bunch of other positives to go along with the “can’t stop thinking about them” factor to make it a convincing romance.

The characters have gotta be friends with each other—if you can write friends, hell, turn it into “friends who call each other ‘my love’ and are making plans to spend their lives together” and you’ve got a quick and easy romance right there without any extra effort. And I understand how friendship works, I’ve got friends! Friends are a thing I can do. Lovers are friends with benefits. (The benefit is love.)

The characters probably find each other attractive in some way—if it’s physical, then you just gotta think “okay, this character finds that look attractive somehow,” and then describe their physical features in poetic language—the more you wanna emphasize the physical attraction aspect and the more it’s infatuation instead of an old steady love, the more deliriously flowery you can get with the description. If it’s attraction to their personality or other mental traits, just, do that same thing, but with mental features instead of their body. I know how to use descriptions to make things sound pretty, I can do this one too.

If there’s sexual attraction, then apply that same flowery language to generally eroticized body parts and/or body motions, and/or describe the arousal these observations cause the viewpoint character. (I’m also ace—I have never looked at someone and felt sexual attraction—but I do know what a state of arousal in and of itself feels like, and I understand on an intellectual level that people can feel it spontaneously when looking at someone they find attractive, and from there it’s really easy to combine “he looked at someone he thought was very good looking” and “he is feeling arousal, this is what arousal feels like to him” into “he looked at someone good looking and because of it he felt arousal” like it’s a pretty simple cause-and-effect there.)

The characters have gotta respect each other as, like, people, instead of idealized statues and/or dolls (as would be the case if it was obsession instead of love), which means they’ve gotta understand each other really well—so just, you know, write them comprehending each other’s quirks, recognizing each other’s oddities without needing them explained and not finding them weird, being generally familiar with each other. If you know what both your characters are like, you can write each of your characters knowing what the other one is like, too. Bam. Done.

The characters, especially if they’re only newly attracted to each other, probably feel the physical symptoms of that—rapid heartbeat, butterflies in stomach, tongue-tied nervousness, etc. I’ve never felt those things in direct connection to having a crush but I’ve felt them in connection to other things, so I can write about them too, I can intellectually imagine a “this character likes that character so much that it causes this physical reaction” cause-and-effect scenario.

And I could go on but it’s just gonna be a longer list like that.

All of the above things—feeling lowkey obsessed, being extremely close friends, looking at each other and going “ooh you are aesthetically and/or intellectually pleasing,” respecting each other, understanding each other, physically reacting to being around each other—are all things that make perfect sense in my little aro brain without having ever felt romantic attraction in my life, and they’re all things that I know come with romance because like, I see romances in movies, read them in stories, see people talking about them daily, and have several psychology courses and books under my belt that talk about the mechanisms of love along with all the other things that come in human brains. The very first movie I was ever taken to was Aladdin and I’m not sure if I was even speaking in full sentences by then—I’ve been passively absorbing research on romance practically since I was born. I’ve just gotta remember what I’ve learned and put it together in a way that sounds sensible and that matches up with what I’ve learned about how romance works and what I know about, like, how humans work.

And if a given couple’s romance differs from the above list—like, they’re totally in love but they aren’t best friends and they don’t have that deep knowledge of each other because they fell in love in two days and eloped in under a week—then that’s fine, that just necessitates amping up other factors to strengthen the love—maybe increase the obsession factor if it’s a rapid infatuation rather than a slow burn, maybe have them idealize each other more than they should which keeps them feeling attraction for each other but covers up flaws they’ll probably notice later... and when you’re writing inside their perspective you can write their romance to be as beautiful and perfect as they feel like it is, but if you recognize those flaws in their relationship you can hold onto them to use later—either to shake up the relationship and force them to grow and stabilize it, or else to make it come crashing down.

The point is, you gotta keep it realistic even when from the characters’ perspectives it’s an idyllic perfect relationship. If they’ve known each other a week, then they don’t know everything about each other. You can’t claim they do without it sounding ridiculous. They might feel like they know “everything that matters,” but it’s disingenuous to try to demonstrate No They Really Are In Love by giving them knowledge they haven’t earned yet. Show they love each other in spite of their ignorance. That goes for any other trait that a “full” “developed” romantic couple has but that they lack.

What matters, ultimately, is that at the end of the scene, it’s got to read like the characters are attracted to or in love with each other—even if it’s for dumb or shallow reasons—and not like the author put the attraction on top of them like funny hats.

And on that note?

Although being aro gives me a very obvious disadvantage writing romance that alloromantic folks don’t have—no personal experience to draw upon, even as little as knowing what it feels like to have a crush—I think it does give me one specific advantage over allo writers: I’m going to side-eye a romance plot line unless I’m convinced it works, and that applies to my own plot lines as well. And I think that being aro sorta automatically gives me stricter standards for what it takes to convince me a romance works.

Particularly in movies, it’s easy for the writers/directors/whoever to default to shorthands to “demonstrate” that characters are in love: tropes like “they argued and insulted each other for half the movie, then in a heated moment they kissed, then they were clearly attracted to each other the whole time,” that sort of thing. I can’t stand that. I know not being able to stand poorly-written hollywood romances isn’t an exclusively aro/ace thing. Plenty of allo folks complain about piss poor romantic subplots. But I have noticed a higher willing suspension of disbelief among allo folks to accept it as a given that two characters belligerently sniping at each other are doing so because they’re suppressing attraction (perhaps because there are hidden Signs Of Attraction that are invisible to me? I don’t know) while I see a much lower willing suspension of disbelief for that sort of thing among a lot of my ace- & aro-spectrum friends. I recognize I’m working off a limited data set, here, but I theorize it’s just harder to accept that two characters being assholes toward each other are better off boning than ignoring each other for the rest of their lives if the person being asked to accept this doesn’t have personal memories of Attraction™ to fall back on to fill in the gaps between the shorthand the director is using to symbolize (but not demonstrate) attraction.

So I can’t use those kinds of shorthands in my own work, because they don’t work for me. If I want the audience to feel like two characters are in love, I’ve got to bust my ass to demonstrate to myself, first and foremost, that they’re in love. That means I can’t just say they like each other, I’ve got to SHOW why they like each other. I can’t just say they’re attracted to each other, I’ve got to SHOW the audience what it is find attractive about each other—I’ve got to describe it clearly and compellingly enough that the audience can see their attractiveness too, no matter if I’m describing a robot disguised as a spider or a pile of volcanic rock in the shape of pteranodon. If they’re arguing and hate each other but are suddenly going to kiss in a moment of passion, I’m not going to trust that the audience will just Get that they were secretly attracted the whole time, I’ve got to go into their heads to demonstrate why they feel attraction in spite of their arguing and why, to them, that attraction overweighs their differences.

At no point am I able to create the skeleton of a romance and expect the audience to add the flesh and blood simply because I myself can imagine the flesh and blood based on my past experiences—because I don’t have those past experiences.

Anyway that’s what goes into how I write romance.

[lizz-revs]

Lost in Secular Love

This is more of an otome game than a visual novel. It is quite short. There are only three routes available and there are only two ends for each route.

Story

The heroine has to go to a temple to get married to a monk because her father made a mistake to support the wrong candidate for the throne. Now her family maybe calls themselves aristocrats, but they are poor, and since a monk has a lot of money, the mother chooses to marry off her eldest daughter to one. The heroine is not religious in any way though, but a glutton. However, miraculously she stills passes the test at the temple and is engaged to the monk Zhikong.  Now is the time for the player to decide, whether this relationship will last, or, if she falls in love with someone else: either Zhikong’s brother Huihai or her childhood friend Ziqing.

Characters

The Heroine

I kind of like the heroine but at the same time I don’t. What I really liked, was that she has some distinguishable personality traits like her love for food or her will to survive because she is poor. In addition, I liked her inner conflict that she is torn between following the aristocratic traditions and earning money for her family.

However, I have two major problems with her personality: Firstly, how she fell in love with her fiancé doesn’t make sense to me at all. The story goes from he kissed her and now she is obsessed with him. They just completely changed her personality, so that she is an over-caring, obsessive girlish teenager, who acts like she fell in love with a celebrity.

Her development is really abrupt in every story. She goes from “I want to eat white rice!” to “I want to be there for you and do religious things!”. It’s confusing because she was very materialistic at first, but suddenly becomes very poetical and mature (in the good endings). I feels like the person was switched out, but not like she has matured mentally.

In the bad endings, I feel like she was switched out as well. In my opinion, doesn’t suit her personality, because she is shown to be very headstrong, that she lets herself be completely destroyed. I don’t believe that even strong affections change people this much. It was like she had completely given up on life.

Nevertheless, to be honest, even with her flaws, her personality is still a change from the typical lady in distress "please hold and save me" girly-girl, which is typical for otome. Still it is very underdeveloped because her personality changes feel rather forced and rushed.

Zhikong

He is the heroine’s fiancée. He starts off being quite monotone and makes many religious quotes (, which I didn’t get…), but has a weird fetish for … strange things? (I don’t even know, how to describe the stuff he hoards, just play the game and see for yourself). What intrigued me the most about him, was his devilish, so to say yandere, side later in the game.

And, like I said, I didn’t get most of his religious quotes, so the interactions with the heroine weren’t that interesting for me and I became bored with his personality quite quickly as well. I even couldn’t understand, what choice mattered for the bad end and why. He was mostly acting the same in both ends to be honest, so I felt in the bad end the heroine was just somehow mentally unstable and it was her problem that everything escalated and not his.

Anyway, this route had a lot of potential, but it left so many things just unexplained. Zhikong’s yandere side for example: The game never explained, why he is acting like this, and what events led to it. His personality is rather confusing, not very realistic and the story had a lot of unnecessary drama.

Huihai

This is the brother of the fiancé, so it’s more like a forbidden romance.

My favorite route of the game, although I liked the bad ending slightly more than the good ending, since it was written more realistic in my opinion.

Huihai is more of a housewife than manly. He has an obsession for buying things at a cheap price, but has also a childish and flirty way of talking to the ladies. In fact, he has quite a fan base, so to say, and gets many gifts, which end up in the warehouse because he clearly doesn’t get the meaning of love yet. Yet means that, after the heroine appears and you choose his route, he does fall in love – with that girl.

This is a clearly unhappy event for both of them, since the heroine should be married off to his brother. So, they start off being just friends, but that isn’t a wise choice because at some point both of them realize that they want more.

I think this story was actually really good. It is clearly realistic, since it’s normal for two people to fall in love, if they share the same interests and the main character suits Huihai very much. There was character development – not only the heroine changed her way of thinking, but Huihai became more manly – both grew up. And last, but not least, there wasn’t unnecessary drama because the situation they were in was dramatic enough itself, and understandable so.

However, I think in the good ending towards the end things were too rushed. Before some event, it was going towards the bad ending, but suddenly everything changed and they could have a good ending. Therefore, I liked the bad ending more. Otherwise, of course I’d want the characters to be happy.

Ziqing

The shortest and the worst route of the game. It had so much potential. Childhood friends met each other after so many years, developing romantic feelings for each other, but the girl has to marry Zhikong and so on…

Well, what happened was an unlovable, almost egomaniac person, who said so many rude things that I started to wonder about why the heroine even keeps talking to him. If I was her, I’d had punched him at least a million times. And he made her cry so often with his unbelievable bad behavior – there are just things you don’t say to a person. I don’t really care, how hard you’ve had it in your life, dude, but just why do you have to make her life miserable too?

So, it’s no wonder that, when he confessed, I wasn’t the slightest happy, but utterly confused, why the heroine didn’t just say outright no, but that she had to “think about it”.

What made it even worse is that his personality just completely switched after the confession, like he started to be really caring and not being rude, but only teasing.

For me it was like a try to make a character tsundere, but not fully understanding the meaning behind tsundere, so they just made him awful instead. But, how can you love an awful character? So, after the confession they just switched his personality, so he is more lovable, without any further reason.

My opinion

Well, enough ranting about the characters. As you can see, my main problem with this novel was not the writing style, the music or the art, but the character design and the routes.

Honestly, I don’t think all of the routes besides Huihai’s are really worth playing, but I’d think Zhikong’s route is at least somehow enjoyable. Anyway, Huihai’s route is actually so good that for me it’s totally worth to buy this game for it.

It had the right amount of drama and action in it and since it wasn’t that long, it didn’t get boring or tedious to play. In addition, I really liked the chemistry between the main character and Huihai.

In conclusion, this novel is a pretty refreshing story with a rather unusual and kind of funny main character. The story idea is quite nice as well, but the actual storytelling and character development is still unpolished. With some routes like Zhikong’s the character development is rather questionable. Somehow, the characters just switch personalities. However, there is also Huihai’s route, which makes up for all the lacks the other two stories have.

If you want to read something for a few hours, which isn’t your typical romance visual novel game, but you don’t necessary want a game that is absolute astonishing and I’d call one of the best I’ve ever read, then I would say you should give this novel a try.

I’d give Huihai a 9/10 and the rest of the game about 6/10.

[ranzal]

shikimori-san is definitely my least favourite of the (name)-(honorific) anime but the ed is so so so great and cute, but it also is somewhat of a summary of why i don't like the show itself

izumi doesn't really have anything going on aside from "is very unlucky" and "likes shikimori", and shikimori doesn't really have anything going on aside from "is incredibly talented and perceptive" and "likes izumi"

izumi's kinda just an everyman, and shikimori kinda just feels like another "This anime girl was grown in a lab to be the perfect girl for selling figurines and merchandise"

pretty much: i'm getting really tired of anime with just another everyman with dark hair and very few real defining character traits, who is in love with a girl who is seen as way out of his league, and said girl loves him back and also has very little in the way of motivations/backstory which is treated seriously

komi-san was a lot closer to getting it right; tadano has a bit more personality, and also his role as the "everyman" is fully acknowledged, and komi has a communication disorder which she's trying to overcome, and she is isolated from her classmates despite being idolized by all of them

however, the trouble comes in mainly around how komi herself is handled. it's mostly played for laughs (which isn't necessarily a bad thing considering it's a comedy), but it's pretty much the same joke every time, of "she doesn't know what to say and the other person fully fills in the gaps, assuming they know what she wants to say", so it gets pretty old

it can do some cute scenes with komi really genuinely wanting to communicate and forcing herself out of her comfort zone to do so, but it's so, so bogged down by the rest of the show

not to mention the like. weird shit in it. a lot of the characters are way too gimmicky to really be funny imo, like the petplay girl, the yandere girl, the ninja guy... idk it just feels like komi-san does not work as an anime; it probably works as a manga/4-koma, but not as an anime

also, not really gonna get into it but i really don't think najimi was written to actually be respectful towards lgbt people lol. like i ofc have no problems with people relating to najimi but especially considering how tadano treats them, i really really would not ever say that najimi is supposed to be positive lgbt representation. this could definitely be something that's addressed later in the story, but as it is right now it's like. please do not say that komi-san has good lgbt rep i'm begging you

[canvaswolfdoll]

CanvasWatches: Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid

Sarcastic lead? Goofy supporting cast? Loving use of nerdity? Maid uniforms? Fantastical elements stuffed into a slice-of-life narrative? Well, that’s certainly something for me!

Also, it’s alarming how often Quetzalcoatl's been popping up in my work and entertainment. I mean, it’s not an excessive amount, to be honest, but considering my original assumption was ‘Obscure Mythological Figure improperly transplanted into an anime film’, anything more than once is notable.[1]

Perhaps this is punishment for using a mondegreen of the name as my sign off phrase…

Anyways, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid! It was spoken of highly by an anime reviewer I follow, it was on Funimation, and I need to justify that subscription beyond letting my brother watch Case Closed all the time, so…

Let’s talk about the show.

In a bit of an oddity, I’ve found the Opening and Closing sequences very absorbing. Now, I’m not one to ever skip either in a series, as it’s usually well animated, the music is catchy, and it’s a couple minutes to settle in or grab food or whatever, plus (depending on the player) it can be a chore to skip anyways. There are often neat details hidden away, too, and it’s fun to learn the context of images as you go through the series.

The OP in this case struck me by how it triggered not the ‘Ah, Anime opening song’ switch in my brain, but a ‘Ah, Visual Novel opening song’ switch, which is a weird switch to learn I have, since I haven’t actually played that many Visual Novels. Still, the music itself is upbeat, very energetic, and very “Oh yeah! Let’s get into this! Time to read a bunch, make choices, and seduce a girl!” But I have no agency in the upcoming events, Anime! Why are you trying to make me hyped? It’s working, but I don’t understand the effort.

It’s also paired with the trippiest imagery I’ve seen in awhile, with fractal dragons and people spinning like falling seedlings. Still bright and colorful, and there’s faces to meet over the course of the show, but it’s just utterly bizarre. Maybe because I don’t get exposed to purely comedic animes that often I’m not used to it, but it’s still a ride that I lack the tools to properly contextualize.

Actually, now that I think about it and listen to the song divorced from the imagery, the song reminds me of Rune Factory Frontier’s opening. Huh…

The EP, on the other hand, is a more reasonable montage of Daily Life, with a song that’s also fun. It actually strikes me as more of an OP piece. I really like the song. Considering it’s been a very recent realization for me that Music Albums are intentionally curated objects meant to be listened to straight through to convey meaning, instead of a bunch of singles thrown on a disc, I may not be the guy for musical criticism.

Music is an ineffable magic to me. I lack the tools to create or understand it, but some songs are good?

This had been a tangent. Let’s go to what I’m comfortable with: storytelling!

So let’s take a brief look at something most people take for granted: the episode titles and, in relation, names.[3]

Naming things is a hard task which I have managed to become moderately good at, a fact I derive from the time a classmate in a scriptwriting class asked with mild awe at how I came up with so many names[4] for my 10-minute comedy play. The secret, as with all artistic aspects you find difficult, is figure out a functional system and maintain it.

So I’ve developed a few methods for characters:

Start with a theme (in the case of my play, I was actually going through alphabetically as characters are mentioned) but don’t be afraid to break it if you feel like it.

Stick with one or two syllable names. The longer the name, the harder it’ll be to remember. Same with not going too archaic or foreign with the name. If your audience can’t remember the character’s name or how to pronounce it, they’ll focus more on that than the story.

  If you break rule two, it’s on you to have a nickname prepared that follows rule two. If you don’t, I’m going to call you Windy Jerk in my post RPG Session write-ups.[5]

Which is fine for characters, but then there’s titles, which I’m no good at. Titles need to be both intriguing and vague, to draw in an audience, but keep them surprised. This is compounded when you have 13-26 episodes to name. Some shows do a good job at consistently coming up with names, or at least semi-adequate puns, and others just call the episodes ‘[Episode/Chapter/Part]’ and the number in the sequence. Both of these are valid techniques.[6]

Which is why Word Salad Titles stick out so much, and why I love them yet can’t quite master using them myself. They manage being vague not by carefully revealing little information, but overloading with data so fast the audience doesn’t have time to parse it before the shows starts.

Also, they just sound funny.

What’s intriguing about Dragon Maid is that it’s not an extreme example of the Word Salad some comedy animes tend towards (Exclamatory statement! Vague plot summary), but it is a style very similar to myself.[7]

Dragon Maid’s episode titles follow the structure of exclamatory sentences, then gentle snark about the title in parenthesis. While I don’t use exclamations often, the statement followed by snark is something I do with my art work [[Maybe provide examples?]] and is even punctuated the same way, with parentheses implying an aside.

Which is also the speech style of our titular Miss Kobyashi. (Check out my sweet transition!)

Ms. Kobayashi is the first character I’ve deeply related to in a long while. Sarcastic and pretty asocial, she starts the series living alone in an one-bedroom apartment and has a single friend from work. Otherwise, Kobayashi is content with her solitude, engaging in quiet interests. It's not exactly emotionally fulfilling, but it's okay. She doesn't really feel the need for more.

Which is just the opening needed for a Manic Pixie Dream Girl! In the form of a Yandere Dragon Maid Girl.

Manic Pixie Dream Girls have received some negative press,[8] which isn't completely unwarranted, but sells the trope short. After all, when you really get down to it, they're the personification of the inciting incident. A character whose arrival kicks starts the protagonist’s journey of self improvement. Sometimes they need to be dragged kicking and screaming for the first leg, because it's funnier that way. Often times, when using a Dream Girl character, writers take a romantic angle because… that's a popular and relatable motivation I guess? The problem comes when the narrative is locked close to the protagonist, leaving not enough space to develop the Dream Girl beyond that scope.

Fortunately, since Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid is a serial narrative, and it's Tohru bringing in most of the supporting cast, our Dragon Maid doesn't fall into that pit trap.

Tohru is a fish out of water, which I really love seeing when the environment is our own. It’s a good method to work observational humor into a work, as well as odd ball humor for the alien being. Usually, there is an air of innocence to the character. Tohru, meanwhile, comes from what is implied to be a war-torn fantasy realm, and prefers to default to chaos and destruction when unsure.

It’s a good take.

Kobayashi doesn’t take too much interest in Tohru’s origins, greeting (most) new acts of magic and property damage with half-lidded neutrality or annoyance. Since the focus of the show is ‘The supernatural adjusting to the mundane,’ Kobayashi’s disinterest is important. There are many other shows you can watch if you want to see a normal person come to grips with a magic world,[9] so Kobayashi needs to act as a guide character for the normal world.

Even as these dragon interlopers force her into a parental role and build out her friend circle.

That first point is possibly one of more unique traits, as rarely do Animes present their protagonist taking on the role of adoptive parent. Or parent at all. Maybe a few world-wandering shows will have found families, but I can’t think of another example where the character’s arc is that of becoming more domestic.

Which is why I appreciate Kanna.

Kanna is the second dragon to move from The Other World to Our World, banished for playing too many pranks to get attention from her parents. However, despite this supposed impish nature, she’s the most reserved of the Dragons, content to living like she’s Kobayashi’s nine-year old daughter, with Tohru acting as sort of an older sister. I think this is kind of a lost opportunity, because we could’ve kept all that, and also have Kanna play a few small pranks from time to time out of boredom and discontent. That could’ve been a nice, additional reason for Kobayashi to enroll Kanna in school: not out of malice but to give the young dragon some engagement during the day.

Then Fafnir and Queztal ‘Lucoa’ Coatl start visiting, then moving into the neighborhood.

Fafnir is my favorite of the dragons. He’s initially introduced as your usual bloodthirsty and treasure-obsessed dragon, which is fine, but then the series uses those traits to have him comfortably slip into a NEET lifestyle, which is hilarious. He gets to enact violence in video games and collect treasures in the form of promotional items, while still staying a grump.

Lucoa is… she started as the Sane member of the Dragon cast, giving exposition on what Tohru was like before and generally just being chill. However, in moving her to the world, she signs herself up as a familiar for a young mage, and starts… creeping on him is the best I charitably describe it. Shouta has no interest in these advances, and watching it played out on screen isn’t charming. Also, I’m afraid I have to align myself as opposed to the ‘Patriarchy’ line, because it does seem out of character.[10]

About halfway through, Elma arrives, after seven episodes of being the mysterious water dragon in the opening, inspiring me to see if I couldn’t align the dragons with the Rune Factory dragons.[11]

I… like Elma, but she’s underutilized. After her introductory episode, she’s just food obsessed and does literally nothing of consequence. She doesn’t even get a human to bond with like the others. Nothing is fleshed out for her. Unfortunate, as she looks cute with her glasses.

As a part of the theme, most of the dragons[12] are given a human to who they grow close.

Tohru, obviously, has Kobayashi. Tohru is very direct with her affections, while Kobayashi has to warm up to her dragon maid, and the exact degree Kobayashi returns the affections (whether it’s platonic or romantic on her end) isn’t pinned down exactly.

In contrast, Kanna has Saikawa, who has an obvious crush on Kanna, which she hides poorly. Though Kanna acts oblivious to what she does to Saikawa, Kanno does indicates an interest in… some sort of relationship that parallels Kobayashi and Tohru.

Actually, the show seems to have a problem with putting minors into sexual situations. It’s fine with Kanna and Rika, as they are essentially the same age and Saikawa’s squeeing, though transparent, is kept at an age-appropriate level. The two only have the one moment while visiting Saikawa’s house that’s uncomfortable, and that’s initiated by Kanna.

Shouta and Lucoa are just uncomfortable.

Fanservice is a contentious subject. What is okay, and what crosses a line? What level of slapback against perverts makes it even? Why am I (seemingly) one of the few that takes no umbrage against MHA’s Mineta but dislike Lucoa’s portrayal?

I typically avoid Anime that put sexual fanservice as one of its selling points. For example, before starting on Dragon Maid, I watched the first two episodes of WorldEnd: What are you doing at the end of the world? Are you busy? Will you save us? which is an epic word salad of a title which invokes the image of some shy person trying to ask someone out on a date that’s also a world-saving quest, but doesn’t want to over step. However, it quickly became clear the focus is pretty much a rescue romance focused on a bunch of characters the narrative goes through pain to tell you are 15 at the oldest. Also, a troll that wants to eat the protagonist which, recent meme culture aside, would’ve been an interesting dynamic to watch. Too bad the rest of the introductory episodes were too skeevy.

Which is to say, I’m easily tossed when a piece of media’s centerpoint is fanservice, made worse when it’s creepy fanservice to the detriment of world and narrative.

Then there’s Mineta who, foolishly, I’m going to try and defend now? Because the subjects of Mineta’s perversions are also approximately 15 years old, as above. However, Mineta is the same age as his classmates, which flattens the power dynamic.

‘But Canvas! It’s an excuse to show the audience fanservice of 15-year olds!’ you may say.

Okay. It’s a Shonen. The target audience are young males, approximately the same age as the cast. Are you really going to say you didn’t have a couple crushes on your peers as a teenager? It’s okay to let teenagers be attracted to other teenagers. As for the adult members of the audience? Let them smile whimsically at what it was like to be that age.

And his peers do admonish and punish him for going too far. If it’s not enough punishment for you, well, that’s up to your interpretation. I give it a pass because the tone is kept light and Mineta unable to do any actual harm. And comedy works best through exaggeration. A man getting stabbed is tragic. A man getting impaled onto an oversized firework that shoots into the air and explodes is slapstick. Also, the kid’s 15, he has time to mature and get character progression.

But you know who I never hear any ill words against? Midnight. Superheroine in a skintight outfit, whose schtick is bondage, and uses flirty tones towards students. Now that’s super uncomfortable. Because she is in a position of authority, and receives zero pushback for how she acts around her students.[13] Yet, the fanbase seems to give her a pass. Why? She actually acts more predatory than Mineta, and her power literally knocks her opponents out. She is dripping with poor implications.

I could go in depth, but I think that’s enough of a baseline to continue the review. The appropriateness of Fanservice depends on the viewer, and can be fickle, so excuse me if I can’t give a bullet point list of my own policies.[14]

So, let’s return to Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, which undoubtedly has strong element of fanservice. Why does it (mostly) succeed?

Well, first off, it’s kept tongue in cheek. The adult female dragons have ridiculous proportions, which gets lampshaded heavily, but their huge tracts of land are rarely used as a value judgement on the cast. They’re magical beings, if they want to look that way, it’s on them.

Next, there’s little power imbalance in the relationships. Tohru begins the series making her intentions towards Kobayashi clear, but after a couple rejections, the lines are established and respected. Tohru loves Kobayashi, but she wants any return in affections to be gained honestly. So even with Tohru’s immense physical and magical strength, and Kobayashi being placed in the role of ‘Master’, they’re both equal in establishing boundaries and respecting them.

And tone is very important. It’s a comedy series, so actions and emotions can be big and exaggerated. So, exaggerated proportions, exaggerated yuri-teasing, exaggerated violence, and exaggerated reactions. Saikawa happily screams every time Kanna does something cute, and it works because it’s a comedic reaction.

However, Lucoa breaks these rules. She answers Shouta’s summons and becomes his familiar. However, Shouta is maybe 10 or eleven to Lucoa’s presented, let’s say, late-twenties, and Lucoa comes on to this literal child. A child who rejects the advances and explicitly tells her not to. And Lucoa can’t claim ignorance, so she’s intentionally violating boundaries. It’s unbalanced power, ignores established lines, and turns Lucoa’s physical form into a joke, which all shifts the comedic tone.

Then (and I originally wanted to avoid this topic) the dub gives her a line about changing to more conservative dress because she was growing tired of patriarchal pressure. Lucoa had spent the series to the point as the most overtly sexualized character by her own decision, even getting into legal trouble once or twice, and creeping on a child. Then the writing wants to try and shame the audience over a character placed before them. It’s a line that might’ve worked if delivered by Tohru or Elma,[15] as it would’ve continued the theme of the the world pushing back against Lucoa. It’s also winter, so passing it off as the ex-goddess caving to nature would have worked, especially since the feathered serpent is from a tropical climate, and is a giant snake, so needing to bundle up against cold works.

I should not be forming opinions about this mythology! Why are you doing this to me, anime?

So, late-run Lucoa aside, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid is a fun show with strong world building, an interesting story, and pretty good comedy. I recommend it.

If you enjoyed this review, you should check out my other writings. I like talking about things, so if you want to send me asks, I’d be happy to engage. Also, hey, I have a patreon, in case you want to support me and my various endeavours. Thanks for reading.

Kataal Lucoa.

[1] I was kind of sort of hired to write a children’s play about Quetzalcoatl once, and I was not the person to suggest it.[2] [2] It was an okay piece. There was talk of maybe developing it further, but to be honest, South American Mythology doesn’t interest me. [3] A topic I must’ve covered before, but I can’t remember where. Repeated lessons can be good, though, so tough it out. [4] To be fair, there were only two active characters on stage, one body, and three further mentioned names, for a total of six. I still take pride because I lack confidence in names. [5] I only do this when I’m a player. As a GM I try to respect player choices, but still, throw me a bone, please. [6] This is why my reviews have the formula of Canvas_____: Review Subject. [7] I am vain and like things that remind me of myself. [8] Says the never been kissed white guy… [9] I recommend Digimon! [10] However, it’s a brief throwaway line, so I’m not one to make a fuss. Just gentle tutting. [11] It falls apart very quickly. Terrable could be Lucoa, but there’s no one for Ventuswill. [12] Or ex-goddess, in the case of Lucoa. [13] Student-Teacher romances being, of course, a bugbear that’s been growing for me recently. [14] It’d probably be mostly glasses focused, anyways. [15] Who is lawfully aligned. And would’ve given her more than food to stress about.

[is-osana-here-yet]

Ayano's personality

Since Dev, made the best (absolutely the worst) choice (in my opinion) by making Ayano nothing more that a “vessel” Let’s explore the possibilities of all types of personalities that Ayano can have while maintaining the “yandere” feel to her. (It’s more like a bunch of traits then full thought out personalities, but you get the point.)

1- The calm yandere: you know they say the most dangerous people are the ones who are always quite. This trait or kind of personality to Ayano can work the best with her current (emotionless) state. Since in lots of cases, calm people could be easily accused of being emotionless once or twice. Being the calm and quite one, could make her more of a stalker personality if we added it with the yandere role we are trying to give her. It would also explain why she wouldn’t have friends because she is thought to be either emotionless or weird, to be sitting alone all the time quietly.

2- The social butterfly yandere: this one makes for the best “I’m evil itself” kind of character. She would be popular with the girls and tend to ask favors a lot, wouldn’t go with the violent actions at all, and would likely push the rivals to suicide instead of murdering them (which makes the game like hundred times more dark o-o) and with her high reputation she would have the rivals trusting her too. Since Ayano would maintain her good innocent reputation among the students. to make dialogue and expressions and voice acting that fit this personality would be a damn good recipe for an epic yandere right there.

3- the straight out aggressive yandere: this one in my personal opinion is probably the most boring and unrealistic, but it’s a possibility so we will include it. If Ayano is known for being a delinquent and beating the ones who she dislikes, her elimination methods for the rivals would be more one on one cases, as she would probably kill them by her own hands, and also that would make senpai (or Taro, I think that’s his name) dislike her, where she haves to work on him liking her while eliminating the rivals. This could be more of an extra challenge way to do the game, and would be a last mission thing to make senpai actually love u. (But again I don’t like this idea much so, meh)

4- the hacker yandere: oh boy, what if she was really good at computers and hacking? (that would be how she met info Chan.) Her emotionless personality could work good here too, since it’s known for people who spend too much time on thier computers to be more monotone like and loose thier social abilities. So keeping a good reputation would be hard here. And the main focus would be gathering information to black mail the rivals or anyone who stands in the way (maybe in if Ayano haves this personality, it would make sense to make info Chan fall in love with senpai and then she would be the final rival 0_0) the elimination in this one should be smart ad thoughtful​ like tactics. like poisoned gas in the vents, altering grades on the computer. Blackmailing the right students or maybe even teachers…

5- The teacher-pet yandere: this one I think it’s really good. Because u probably would start with a bad reputation because of the teacher pet thing. But most of your communications would be with teachers and ones with high reputation in school. And dealing with teachers to beat the rivals would probably be much more challenging than just students.she would be going around snitching to everyone about everything and your main way of elimination would be spreading the right rumor on the right rival. Means collecting information about them and using it against them. That personality would probably be more possessive kind of person u imagine, who want thier candy by telling the adults about the bad guys…

Well these are all the personalities/trades or ideas I got for Ayano. You know what’s the sad thing about this? Is that these personalities are based after the game mechanics. Means if Dev tried a little harder thinking, he would have gave himself a decent character.

What do you guys think? And which personality u liked the most? :D

you’re right there are so many kinds of yandere and dev picked the most boring type. I think a social butterfly type would be fun to play as! a more realistic version of yandere. This is a really cool concept and i like it!