The weird romanticization of anime girls that kill for love is, unfortunately, something I am already familiar with.
What surprised me is that a subsection of anime fans are glorifying a REAL girl, 21-year old Yuka Takaoka, who attempted to stab a man to death due to her emotional obsession with him. Some people fetishize this behavior due to her ?cute? appearance and label her a ?real life yandere?.
?Yandere is a portmanteau of two Japanese words. The first is yanderu, which means ?to be sick,? and the second is deredere, used here for ?lovestruck.? A yandere is often sweet, caring, and innocent before switching into someone who displays an extreme, often violent or psychotic, level of devotion to a love interest. Such behavior might include brutally murdering other girls out of jealousy.?
? Dictionary.com
The Instagram @yuyuyunochan / Yuka Takaoka where new ?fans? are flocking to compliment her in the comments
According to reports such as Tokyo Reporter?s and a translated twitter post of a Japanese new source by user Best Mom Eva, Yuka ?liked him so much, she wanted to kill him and then kill herself?. Although the victim survived, he is in critical condition at the moment of writing this article.
Photo of Yuka smiling after the attempted murder in the police car. According to sources on twitter she tweeted about the incident afterward, but currently, her Twitter is suspended.
Leaked images of the crime scene have surfaced on Twitter including one of her smoking a cigarette surrounded by the victim?s blood. The horrifying image has inspired some to draw disrespectful ?fan art? and memes of the scene.
An example from Twitter
It?s scary to think about how people can distance themselves from reality in order to idolize something like this. Instances of this behavior can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by simply searching ?Yuka Takaoka? or ?yuyuyunochan? in English. I am unsure of the reaction from Japan itself, but there are many re-tweets from replies on this Japanese tweet featuring a yandere character.
To clarify, a lot of responses to the incident are empathetic towards the victim in this horrendous crime and condone the romanticization. But it?s still unsettling to see it happen so frequently.
Another instance on Facebook
This is not the first situation of idolizing murderous criminals. School shooters and serial killers like Jefferey Dahmer have been and continue to be romanticized by certain niche communities on websites like Tumblr.
Occurrences like these spark the divide between liking something in fiction versus reality which can often be very controversial. But when it comes to romanticizing real criminals, the line has been crossed by a mile in my opinion.
Most importantly, these people are disrespecting the victim and their family by romanticizing and joking about this horrific incident. You can help by calling out behavior like this if you see someone you know romanticizes the incident.
