Characters That Made My Year – Yuno Gasai (The Twelve Days of Christmas: Day Six)
Woohoo! Halfway mark – still amazed I’ve kept up (nearly forgot today if I’m honest). Anyway today I had to pick a very memorable character from the past year – everyone’s favourite pink-haired yandere, Yuno Gasai from Mirai Nikki!
One variety of female character I generally enjoy is all out psychopaths – mainly because they actually have a force of personality, even if that personality is just to be absolutely insane. Yuno was a really enjoyable character, in a show where the male lead is whimpy incarnate for the majority of the series (even if he was somewhat compelling to watch break at times), Yuno’s unadulterated stalker psychosis made her the star of the show. Yuno’s singleminded drive was what really propelled Mirai Nikki’s plot along, and she was never boring to watch.
I have a few favourite Yuno moments – that oft parodied image of her looking creepily ecstatic & saying Yuki’s name, the lethal way she cut through swarms of people with an axe to protect Yuki or the scene with her peering though Yuki’s letterbox were all quality moments vying for my #1 position. However I think the scene were Yuno & even Yuki suddenly come over all badass in black with Yuno wielding a sword with deadly efficiency gets my vote. There’s just something satisfying about seeing a little girl with pink hair cutting people down with absolutely no mercy, just because the object of her affection said to. Mirai Nikki was never boring with Yuno about, that’s for sure!
going after that annoying kid was probably my favourite moment of hers
Anyone that tries to violently murder creepy little children is automatically awesome.
I’ve always thought that Yuno was a fuller embodiment of the yandere rather than the typical candidate, Rena Ryuugu. Maybe Rena expresses hers in more disturbing ways, but compared to Yuno and especially after watching Higurashi Kira, I would say that her behavior was inconsistent.
That aside, great choice with Yuno. She was an intriguing character since the manga, and that persisted through the anime.
From Higurashi I’d say Shion was a better example of a yandere – girl was crazy! Yuno is cut from the same cloth – probably why I really liked them both.