Dubbed Yaminabe Party, the first ever yandere only doujin sales convention occured on March 21st of this year. It apparently met with success, as the official site has already announced the second iteration of the event which will occur on November 11th, 2007 in Asakusa, Tokyo. More interesting than the event itself is the premise behind it, as those of us watching the moe scene have been wondering for awhile what would follow tsundere boom. The answer increasingly appears to be, in part at least, yandere:
For those not hip to the latest moetic jargon (as I wasn’t until a few weeks ago), yandere is like tsundere only instead of alternating between lovey-dovey and callous, the heroine switches between intense affection and INSANE HOMICIDAL RAGE. This can be directed toward the protagonist (should he spurn her) and/or her rivals (should they get in the way); examples include Katsura Kotonoha from School Days and Fuyou Kaede from Shuffle!.
If the stars align correctly (probably meaning another event in the same building that I’d be attending anyway) I may stop by Yaminabe Party 2 this fall… I do hope they check cleavers at the door. (no more)
I have to say I appreciate Japan’s urge to cover their bases, character archetype wise. I also really like Yanderes, for whatever reason. Kaede’s freakout (and Asa, for totally different reasons) was the highlight of Shuffle. I was laughing from beginning to end of her insaneness and pretty much inexplicable recover.The empty saucepan was one of the highpoints of unintentional comedy in anime for me. I hope there is a long and successful future ahead for Yaminabe party.
I think on the whole scale of Yandere (which is to say, I’m barely familiar with it, but I figure something like this would be pretty high up there) Ms. Fuyou wouldn’t rank too high. I think (as in not entirely sure) that her attacking Asa is simply an anime-only development, and no such thing occurs in the game.
This isn’t to say I don’t like yandere, because I am partial to the idea. I just feel my Kaede isn’t a very good example. She’s more a doormat along the lines of Belldandy.
Actually, Kaede’s doormat status is what I found fascinating about her breakdown in the anime. It seemed like the creators were implying (unintentionally, I’m sure)that the only sort of woman who would devote herself so fully to another as Kaede does would be kind of, well, crazy. Of course, the similar doormat status of the other Shuffle girls kind of dilutes any sort of meaning one might wish to draw out. Still, I thought the juxtaposition of a sort of male ideal and obvious mental illness kind of interesting.
I’d also really like to find out what motivated the addition of Kaede’s psychosis to the anime. I had heard that she was basically Belldandy lite in the game, so I’m curious as to what gave the animators the idea to make her crazy. I imagine it went something like this: “Hmmm… we have three pretty similar characters here… What the hell, let’s make one go nuts and call it a day”.