For those who are unfamiliar with the term "yandere," it refers to people - typically fictional characters - who are mentally ill, and whose illness is distinctly tied to romance. This manifests as obsessive love. While not formally recognized by the DSM-5, many therapists, counselors, psychiatrists, and so on are familiar with and use the terms "obsessive love" and "obsessive lover(s)." Obsessive love, as you may have already guessed, is love that's taken a little too far for most people's tastes. Walking a tightrope between romantic and creepy, obsessive lovers come in all shapes and sizes; there are those whose love is unrequited, there are those in relationships with a lover whose feelings are more socially acceptable, and there are those who are fortunate enough to enter into a relationship with one of their own kind.
To help put it in perspective: where a normal person might spend 5% of their time thinking about their lover while away from them, an obsessive lover may think of them 20% of the time or more while apart, assuming they don't intentionally try to distract themself with other things, for the sake of their mental well-being. And while a normal person might spend 5% of their paycheck on a gift for their partner, it's not uncommon for an obsessive lover to go overboard and spend 30% or more of their latest check on the person they love. If you only took into account facts like the previous two, you might begin to wonder why so few people actively seek out such a dedicated partner. The answer is that they - like all humans - have flaws, some of which are a direct result of their intense feelings of attraction toward others. It's my understanding that most people aren't fond of clinginess, and if you're one such person, then being with an obsessive lover isn't for you. Another trait of some obsessive lovers - one which is seldom seen outside of works of fiction - is violence.
It may surprise you that someone who feels affection to such an extreme extent could attack others, but when you think about it, can't you name a few historical figures off the top of your head that have waged wars over their desire for another person? How many times have you heard of acts of violence being committed when it was discovered that a person cheated on their lover? And surely you've heard of people attempting to kill their spouses - and sometimes succeeding - due to jealousy or only the suspicion that they may have cheated. Which abruptly brings us back to the term "yandere." It is a portmanteau of the Japanese words "yanderu," meaning "sick" or "ill," and "deredere," which means "sweet (in a romantic sense)" or "lovey dovey." Generally speaking, in Japanese media, yandere characters are portrayed as obsessive lovers - as expected - but another facet that a majority of noticeably yandere characters are given is a homicidal streak.
From general Esdeath to Gasai Yuno, from Aragaki Ayase to Sakuma Mayu, from Sengoku Nadeko to Senjougahara Hitagi, there's no shortage of mentally ill characters in Japanese media whose violent tendencies are a direct result of their love for another person. In most cases, their aggression is focused toward anyone they believe to be a threat to the person they love or their relationship (even though their target may not be a threat in any way at all). Rarely, they may be hostile toward their lover, nearly always justifying it as being "for their own good" or so their lover can't leave them. For example, they may be so far gone that they'll try to kill their lover, with the intent to keep their corpse to themself and speak to it on a daily basis as if their lover is still alive, but now unable to run away from them, disagree with them, cheat on them, and so forth. In other cases, they'll imprison them and keep them alive for the same purposes. And in a much smaller number of cases, they may try to kill their lover solely because they find the thought of it romantic.
Non-violent characters who are clearly, unquestionably yandere are so uncommon compared to the ones who are violent that many people believe that violence is a required trait for a character or person to be considered a yandere. But if we look at the above paragraph, it's easy to see that those violent tendencies are a direct result of obsessive love. First, a character is an obsessive lover. Next, because of that, they act violently toward anyone they believe could threaten their relationship with the object of their affection. Never is it the other way around, because it makes no sense for a yandere - or anyone for that matter - to become enraged and attempt to murder someone because they held hands with a person they do not care about, and then develop an intense romantic attraction toward that stranger afterward for no reason whatsoever. Now that we've established this sequential order in which yanderes fall head over heels in love, and optionally afterward, murder anyone who so much as smiles at the person they love, it's not difficult to understand the cause and effect at play.
Since one must always preclude the other - if the other even happens at all - for a yandere to exist by either definition ("a yandere only needs to be an obsessive lover" or "a yandere can only truly be called a yandere if they're both an obsessive lover and homicidal), it should be obvious that the first factor - whether or not they're an obsessive lover - is a yandere's defining trait. Without obsessive love and with homicidal urges that they manage to fulfill, they are only a murderer, plain and simple. With obsessive love and without homicidal urges, a stalker is still a stalker; a yandere is still a yandere. To those who might say, "But the word 'yandere' is based on the word 'yanderu'! Therefore, all yanderes should be defined by whether or not they're mentally ill; romance has nothing to do with it!" I say, "You're focusing on only one half of the word 'yandere.' You're completely forgetting the other half, 'deredere,' which encompasses the romantic aspects of yanderes." This paragraph and the above paragraph call to mind the term "yangire," which describes a type of character who - at a glance - appears similar to many yandere characters. The "gire" portion of the term is derived from "gire," meaning "to cut" or "to snap."
While a yandere may act violently due to their extreme love for another person, a yangire simply snaps, as the term implies. Their actions and motivations have nothing to do with the romantic (deredere) feelings of a yandere. These characters are clearly mentally disturbed, but usually behave somewhat logically - often, yangire are violent because they're sadists, at least while actively behaving like a yangire. It would be a challenge to find one yangire who killed people without ever enjoying it for every three that evidently do enjoy it.
In short: all yanderes are obsessive lovers, but not all yanderes are homicidal, because their feelings of obsessive love must exist prior to the violent acts occurring in the first place, as motivation. Without obsessive love, a homicidal character is only a murderer or a yangire, not a yandere.
If you liked this article you'll also enjoy this one, which goes over why yanderes exist (and change over time.)
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