Two Critics Vs. The World

With the rise in popularity of manhwa (Korean comics) and manhua (Chinese comics), we're blessed with the opportunity of meeting far more diverse main characters. For a long time, manga has been the kingpin for fandom communities. It still is. But a majority of their female leads are passive doormats.

Korean and Chinese leads, there has been this push competence for their leads. The plots they have written heavily rely on their leads to have problem-solving skills and thanks to that, we see the characters grow to meet the demand of the plot. There are some incredibly strong female MCs in manhwa and manhua. But then like any industry, it's becoming oversaturated. People like smart girls! The thing is, we're getting to the point where low-quality stories are getting pumped out to chase a trend. We're getting "smart" MCs now. Stories that are warping and bending themselves backward to make the MC look better than what she actually is. Convoluted plot points and leaps of logic. It's more of a fault for an author trying to make a character smarter than them.

Morally evil MCs are a different subject. There are plenty of morally evil MCs but the issue is that the author refuses to acknowledge the MC as evil. It's all been "morally grey this" and "morally complex that". While a character can certainly be complex, it doesn't change the fact that the actions made are objectively evil in societal terms. A lot of authors miss the mark that a morally grey character has some good in them and it's not "UwU I had a hard life. Therefore I'm getting revenge now 0w0". It's a huge mess of wanting to make the cake and eat it too. Are there unashamedly evil MCs? Yeah! But there are a lot more evil MCs disguised as morally grey. If you count those, then we certainly got an expanded roaster!

For yanderes with a fear of love... IDK what you're asking. I'm sure there are some yanderes out there that fit that conflict but I can't think of any from the top of my head. If you're asking in a writing tip... IDK. It depends on the character, doesn't it? I think the main thing to focus on with that kind of internal conflict is the duality of desiring love while also fearing the pain love can afflict. Listen, dude. We're just here to give you the tools so you can write your stories. When Julie and I started our analysis, we didn't do it to do all the mental labor in writing people's stories. Writing is a matter of trial and error. You write and write and write until you create something you're happy with. No amount of advice can ever match the true experience of working on your own project.

These types of love are typically two-dimensional and one-note. It's not so much as characterizing the yandere but it's a tool to scare the audience. Yandere Simulator is a good example of this. Despite being the protagonist, it is undeniable that Ayano is a villain. She kills, tortures, and torments people to get close to her love interest. This game doesn't reward you for taking peaceful options or exploring a story. It rewards you for killing. Ayano is two-dimensional as a character. Yes, it is true that her backstory is intriguing, yandere dev, never does much for it. He's all about the fan service. Her backstory is just a lore justification for the events of the game. Why is Ayano like this? Because she's naturally born evil, duuuhhhhhh.

You don't need particularly complex or complicated characters for horror. Villains are simply villains. Only keep them nuanced enough to not outshine your hero. That said, for every other genre, it's important to have a nuanced message when it comes to love. It's fine to have a backstory similar to yandere stimulator, but you need to do something with it.

Love is complicated. With the yandere stimulator backstory, it enters the territory of mental illness. Personally, I suggest avoiding it if you can't make a decent dialogue about it. Writers already did plenty of damage to the mental illness community and people who have similar afflictions. It's a serious issue and mentally ill people don't need to be villainized anymore than they have.

I say the best yandere's sense of love, it's that they acknowledge that it's wrong and they're trying to fix themselves. To better themselves and their love interest.

The best comic I can compare this to is Inu x Boku SS. Inu x Boku SS and Mau-sama both share the same premise of a loli master and her obsessive servant. Both stories has supernatural elements, share a 4koma style humor, and they both try to have a semi-serious story about their relationship. But when comparing the two, Maou-sama is simply inferior to Inu X Boku SS as Boku managed to tell a compelling story with somewhat grounded characters while also giving a reasonable excuse for why the main couple had a substantial “will they, won’t they” tension. Sure, you can say Inu X Boku SS had a long serialization to have that room for growth but Maou-sama isn’t a short one-shot. It’s an 18-chapter series with each chapter containing about 23 pages. I read it in its entirety. It wasn’t a short read and I often felt that it was simply too long. Too long for telling so little.

Comparing Haru to more famous yandere rom-com leads such as Akkun or Soushi, Haru is so… astonishingly ordinary. Don’t get me wrong. Haru is a clingy guy but he isn’t remotely creepy. As we called out other male leads for just having “shoujo bullshit”, Haru falls in line for a rather typical “rom-com nonsense”. Don’t forget the fact that this is a shounen manga as well. The author spends way more time in the female lead’s perspective and moments in the manga are used to show how kawaii the female lead is. But let’s talk comparisons because other yandere rom-com leads had their yandere actions shown but Haru doesn’t do anything. At all. He’s all talk. Because of that, I almost labelled him as a 0/5 but sometimes he just says buck wild things. We’ll have long gaps of typical rom-com nonsense then suddenly Haru would say “I want to lick your toes!” then go back to normal. It’s the type of banter Julie and my other friend would have where we go “Oh my god, your so pretty. I would snap my neck in half to smell your breath” or some other nonsense. It’s just so…. You know “Rawr I’m so rand0m”.

Haru is clingy, I won’t deny that. But he’s like a kid… in fact he is a kid. The manga isn’t shy in stating that he just started going through puberty. Puberty! At the end of the manga, he and the ancient demon lord loli gets married! The lowest he could be is 14 but he looks to be 16 at best! Writing about this now, his actions make a lot more sense as a teen with a lot of hormones running through him… hell, the main thing about his character is that he thinks “dirty thoughts” about the loli. And a lot of his more outrageous actions have always been something the loli demon just enabled as they were just things a child would do but now it's considered as romantic since he's a little grown-up. Haru is like... most shounen male leads who have that sense of desperation to be in a relationship with a woman. You guys know what I mean right?

Haru is above average but he can hardly be called a true yandere because he’s all talk but no bite. I’m taking off points because of the humor undercutting Haru’s character, his lack of creepy actions, rom-com nonsense/shounen male desperation, and for leaving so much room for speculation. I recommend reading Inu x Boku SS or Akku to Kanojo if you’re looking for a yandere rom-com fix. The yandere’s there are shown in actually doing something yandere-like with much more thought. Maou-sama is an incredibly slow manga with more fanservice aimed for male audiences than female audiences. Haru is a so-so character for those looking for a quick yandere high.

Yandere scale: 1/5

Overall score: 4/10