Yandere/Live-Action TV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Rhonda, the child bride of the cult leader, on Big Love. She trades shamelessly on her status as an abuse victim, right up to the point when she flips completely and flaunts her status as bride of the Prophet. She's willing to blackmail and manipulate, but she takes pains to appear as a sweet innocent to anyone she's not specifically attacking.
    • Later on, she escapes from the compound and is able to adopt fame as being an escapee from a fundamentalist compound. Sarah tries to tell Rhonda's community worker about Rhonda's dark side tendencies and is shocked to discover that the worker is well aware of them. She justifies them on the grounds that Rhonda grew up on, well, a polygamist compound and adapted them as a survival mechanism. Sarah is visibly shaken when she is told that Rhonda's attitude is more deserving of pity than scorn.
  • A female suspect in Bones was instantly attracted to Booth, claiming that she felt a special connection between them. Despite stalking the victim in the episode, she was not the murderer and seemed harmless. However, when she spotted Booth paying more attention to Brennan than her, she took out a gun to kill Brennan right then and there.
  • This happened several times in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, usually magically induced.
    • In one episode, Xander used a spell that turned every female in town (except the intended target) into someone who desperately wanted him, to the point where they would cut him to pieces. This included Unlucky Childhood Friend Willow, who at that point was a sweet, somewhat doormat-y personality, but was at the forefront of the 'chop Xander into pieces' crowd.
    • In another episode, we learn about a student who shot his teacher/lover years earlier when their ghosts re-enact their deaths, possessing various students.
    • In a third, some random student inherits a magic jacket that turns all the women again into love-crazed psychos, including Buffy, Dawn, and Willow (whose plan was to turn him into a girl).
    • Hell, normal Willow has definite Yandere tendencies. When Oz leaves her because an encounter with another werewolf makes him realise what a danger he could be in the 4th season, she almost performs a spell that would have made both and the other woman miserable for the rest of their lives (she backs out at the last minute), and later is disappointed that she didn't bewitch him into staying with her. Later, when she and Tara have a fight, Willow wipes her memory, and when Tara is killed Willow: flays Warren, her killer, alive, kills another man who had little to do with anything, is determined to kill two people who had little to do with what she wants them dead for, and is perfectly willing to kill all her friends for getting in the way.
    • To be fair, what she does to (really this needs a spoiler tag?) Warren isn't that shocking all told. Of course, she promptly goes off the deep end, but this is Whedon, so it had to happen.
    • Spike, Spike, Spike -- a thousand times Spike, his means of expressing it (which include pretending a mannequinn is Buffy, having Harmony cosplay as Buffy in a bondage game, and ultimately, paying Warren to build an android-Buffy) border on loony. And not just towards Buffy either, in "Lovers Walk" he says he wants to tie up Drusilla and torture her until she agrees to love him again.
      • In one memorable episode ("Crush", in season 5) Spike manages to subdue Buffy with Drusilla's help, but then turns on Drusilla and knocks her out, and then ties up both of them. When they come too, she offers Buffy what seems to be a Sadistic Choice - if she confesses her love for him, he'll stake Drusilla, if she does not, he'll let Drusilla loose, all but assuring she will attack Buffy. (Only a complete idiot wouldn't see the Villain Ball there.) The battle that follows not only has Buffy and Drusilla rejecting him, but Harmony as well, causing Spike to lose what little trust with any of them he has.
    • Warren, leading him to accidentally kill his ex-girlfriend. Oh, yeah, and try to turn her into his love slave. Not In That Order, mind you.
    • Riley's obsession with Buffy borders on Too Dumb to Live territory. He once picked a fight with Angel, and attacked Spike (who had been sedated with a Power Limiter and was powerless), throwing him out into sunlight and stabbing him with a plastic wood stake when he thought he was a rival for Buffy's affection. And then he "cheated" on Buffy by letting a pack of vampires feed on him to "even the score" after Buffy let Dracula bite her.
    • Angel could be considered this in the most literal definition of the term. He's usually a Nice Guy so long as Angelus remains submerged, except when it comes to anyone else that shows affection towards Buffy. He is prone to fits of jealous rage that he takes out violently on any potential rival; most every altercation between him and Spike is the result of this. Most seriously was the aforementioned fight with Riley, where he actually made Riley believe he had been rendered soulless again via intimacy with Buffy in order to scare him into yielding.
  • Wesley is one of the most thoughtful and likable characters on Angel -- except where Fred is concerned. His obsession with her in the final two seasons is downright scary. In the two-parter where Fred is mysteriously dying, Wes kills a man without hesitation, stabs one of his best friends, and gives us this mind-boggling yandere moment:

Employee: I mean, the whole company can't be working Miss Burkle's case.
Wesley: Of course.
(Wesley pulls a gun out of his desk and SHOOTS THE EMPLOYEE IN THE KNEE.)
Wesley: (to secretary) Jennifer, please send anyone else who isn't working Miss Burkle's case to me.

    • Yes, it's terrible, but given the usual treatment of employees of Wolfram and Hart....
    • Another example from the same show is Connor, Oedipus complex poster boy, who does more and more horrible things in season four out of love for what he thinks is Cordelia.
  • Ella McBride from CSI New York was portrayed as one of these for Mac Taylor. She followed him to the grocery store, gave him fake evidence so she could "help" with the case. She even slit her wrists in an attempt for him to pay attention to her. She also wrote on a card on her wall that was decorated with a picture of a crime scene "I will make him love me." Nothing has come of it so far, except that Mac visited her in a group home and she said something about an eyeball dropping into coffee which happened to Stella earlier in the episode while she was with Mac.
  • Iris Crowe from Carnivale; okay, so maybe it doesn't take that much Genre Savvy to figure out that her brother isn't going to be Mr. Nice Minister forever, but surely she's just a sweet, devoted church lady? Okay, maybe a little too devoted, but... still pretty harmless, yeah? I mean, right up until she's burning down a church full of orphans to throw suspicion on the city councilors who wanted to shut down her brother's ministry.
  • The titular villain from the Charmed episode "Dream Sorcerer".
  • Considering that Criminal Minds is about criminal psychology, it's not surprising that a number of unsubs have this tendency, both possessive and obsessive (usually obsessive - after all, the show is about serial killers).
  • Consuelo (played by actress Paola Volpato) from the Chilean night telenovela "¿Dónde está Elisa" (translation: "Where is Elisa?") is this.
    • Actually, more than 50% of the romantic antagonists in telenovelas count as yanderes to different degrees. More common in the "classical/pink school", where the most common stereotype is the "super classist/racist/bitchy/downright-monstrous!Rich Bitch who lusts after the male lead or is after his money/social prestige, then goes apeshit when The Ingenue female lead walks in and woos him for being 'so fresh and honest', and conspires with (read: her croonies/the Evil Matriarch/all the rich or pretty people around) to get 'her man' back By All Means Necessary and break the Too Dumb to Live girl by stealing her baby making her life a living Hell For the Evulz".
  • Angelique from Dark Shadows. Her obsessive attraction to Barnabas Collins lay at the back of much of the bloodshed and madness that haunted the Collins clan for 200 years, and since she was a very powerful witch, she had the power to back up her obsessions. In one of the classic scenes from the show, she tells Barnabas (in a very kind, gentle, loving way), that she loves him so much that she would kill anyone to possess him. The look on Barnbas' face is classic, as he is reminded once more than she is bonkers nuts.
  • Degrassi High gave us Claude. Caitlin left Joey for Claude, who was an activist like her. They spraypainted antinuclear slogans on a nuclear power plant, the cops caught them, and Claude left her there. She dumped him on the spot. The next year, he recited a poem about death, shot himself in the bathroom, and sent her some flowers and a note saying he forgave her. He. Forgave. HER!
    • Degrassi the Next Generation has Eli, who, among other things, intentionally crashed his car in a last-ditch effort to get Clare to stay with him. Also Fiona for Declan in Degrassi Takes Manhattan.
      • And now, as of Season 11, Eli has his own Yandere stalker/girlfriend in the form of Imogen Moreno, who appears to be off-the-wall nutty.
    • Season 3 gave us a Rare Male Example: Rick. Rick, though, simply beat his girlfriend because other guys liked her and he was afraid of losing her.
  • Desperate Housewives had Orson's ex-wife who was believed to be dead in season three. Her story arc first makes her out to be the victim of the situation before it is revealed that she disappeared and re-appeared for the sole purpose of getting revenge on Orson for not returning her love... by drugging him up and raping him. Because she wants to have his baby.
    • Don't forget George, a pharmacist, who lusted after Bree once she ended their affair together and became jealous of her husband Rex. So he tampered with Rex's prescription drugs by replacing his heart medication with placebos. He also beats up and attempts to kill other people who look like they are trying to come in between him and Bree. He also drugged Bree at one point and was seriously considering taking advantage of her. He eventually proposed to Bree and pressured her into marrying him. After the engagement he became increasingly possessive of her, and increasingly violent.
      • As of the ninth episode of the sixth season, Katherine has officially gone over into this. She started out jumping back and forth between being a Woman Scorned resorting to usual desperate housewives antics, and a Stalker with a Crush resorting to tactics that suggested signs of instability (such as scratching up Bree's car) before finally begging Mike to kill her, then stabbing herself.
      • She got better. Turns out she's much more sane in a lesbian relationship.
  • Lila from Dexter. She had Dexter ambushed in a parking lot by a man who wanted to kill him because she thought it would bring them closer. When Dexter dumped her, she obsessively tried to win him back with methods including arson and framing one of his friends for sexual assault. She also burned down her ex-boyfriend's house with him still inside. Not to mention that said arson methods weren't just used on Dexter - she put Rita's kids, essentially her competition, in serious danger as well. Basically, she makes Dexter, a sociopathic Serial Killer, look sane by comparison.
  • Myra from Family Matters. She secretly put a camera in Steve's glasses so she can see what he's doing at all times.
  • In Frasier, Niles's wife Maris reveals herself as one of these in addition to everything else. During the couple's divorce proceedings, she has second thoughts and plies Niles with gifts and love letters asking him to reconcile. Niles rejects her, citing the fact that after she has manipulated him, cheated on him, and treated him like dirt under her feet for years, she had some gall to ask him to come back to her. She goes into a Tranquil Fury and then proceeds to unleash a team of lawyers upon Niles to screw him out of every cent he has by any means necessary, legal or not, notifying him with a Valentine reading "Roses are Red / Violets are fickle / When I'm done with you / All you'll have left is this nickel."
  • Georgina Sparks from Gossip Girl is one of these for Dan.
    • Also Jenny in season 3, doing anything and everything to try to get Nate away from Serena.
  • Male Example: Henry from Harper's Island. I mean seriously, marrying someone just to get your half-sister onto the island, conspiring with your real father (John Wakefield) to kill everyone apart from Abby, killing him so Abby can live, and making it seem as if she and you died so you can start over? That is what I call obsessed. And just because when they were younger, Abby said that she wanted it just to be the two of them. And when I say younger, I mean elementary-age. Nothing that he should be getting obsessed over.
  • One episode of Honey I Shrunk the Kids had Wayne build a security system named F.R.A.N. after a burglary occurred in the house. F.R.A.N. develops a crush on her inventor and got jealous of Diane. However, once Wayne seemingly de-programmed F.R.A.N., the system decides to kill him, deeming him as a threat.
  • Barney from How I Met Your Mother says you can tell a girl is Yandere by seeing if she has "crazy eyes." He says this of a girl Marshall is going out with when he introduces her to the group. The entire episode is of Marshall wondering what Barney says is true with evidence piling up, but in the end it's revealed that it was the work of Lily, Marshall's ex-fiance. Marshall finds it endearing and they get back together. The episode ends with previous girl proving to be Yandere after all.
    • It's also worth mentioning the girl who Barney romanced in 'Ted Mosby: Architect', judging by the amazing 20-minute song on https://web.archive.org/web/20200905043540/http://www.tedmosbyisajerk.com/, which gets gradually more and more insane, yo-yoing between "You're a jerk", "I love you, we have something beautiful, come meet my parents, you're amazing", "I HATE YOU, I WANT YOU TO DIE, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU, I'VE DONE IT BEFORE". Missed the crazy eyes on that one, did you Barney?
    • Averted. As revealed in 'How I met everybody else' his previous exposition to several Yandere made Barney able to theorize a the Hot/Crazy Scale: summing up, according to the aforementioned graph, dating a Yandere is worth the risk 'as long as she's more hot than crazy'. Permanent fixtures of the Scale are Vicky Mendoza, a girl romanced by Barney who kept herself in the perfect balance between sexy and yandere tendencies before stabbing Barney with a fork, naming the 'Mendoza Diagonal' and Shelley Gallesby, the only Yandere maxing up the Yandere stat by threating Barney with a brick, naming the 'Gallesby Zone', the part of the graph where Yandere who are too dangerous to be ever romanced are kept.
  • In one episode of iCarly Spencer goes out with Carly's teacher Mrs. Ackerman, who seems perfect for him, but later turns out to be extremely mentally unstable.
    • Don't forget Nora.
  • Masato Kusaka in Kamen Rider Faiz is a rare male example of this. He replaces the "cute, delicate, and sweet" facade with one that is strong, supremely competent and handsome, but his inner obsession with Mari fits this exactly.
    • Taken to the extreme in the non-canon novel where he goes as far as to rape her.
  • After being rewired in Season 3 of Lexx, 790 transferred his affection from Xev to Kai. At first he was just a little snippy and jealous. In Season 4 he went completely over the top, so desperate to make Kai love him back that he pulled any number of cruel and psychotic tricks, including sending Stan and Xev to a secluded island where he knew they would be horribly killed in order to eliminate any possible competition and having his head grafted onto a body onto which an enormous penis had also been grafted and then forcing himself into Kai's personal space in a rather creepy way.
    • He acted much the same to Zev/Xev. It's just that, unlike Xev, Kai is dead and instead of actively holding back 790's darker it was left unchecked as the deadcan only react to what has happened and tend to ignore the little things that woul have kept 790 from getting so desperate. Even when still obsessed with Zev 790 tried repeatedly to get Stan killed or maimed, though he tended to ignore Kai as Kai had no interest in Zev.
  • One-off villain Jenny from Lost Girl. And how.
  • Ella Gaines from The Magnificent Seven tv series.
  • A somewhat unconventional example, but Old Gregg from The Mighty Boosh is yandere for Howard Moon, alternately courting and threatening him constantly and within minutes of meeting him for the first time.

Old Gregg: I'm gonna hurt you.
Howard Moon: What?
Old Gregg: I like you. What do you think of me?

  • Miss Piggy from The Muppet Show is an obvious one. Rather animesque in that, though she often randomly attacks just about everyone over any minor thing, the one who she is really most likely to Falcon Punch across the room is her "Kermie".
  • Male example in the NCIS episode "Love & War": the murder of the week turns out to have been arranged by the ex-fiancé of the victim's daughter. She had resumed their relationship after her mother died of cancer, so after she broke up with him a second time, he arranged her father's death in the hopes that the hurt/comfort scenario would repeat itself.
    • Also happens in "Terminal Leave", where a (female) officer is apparently being targeted by terrorists. The would-be killer turns out to be the neighbor with whom her husband had an affair while she was deployed.
  • Missy from Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide towards the eponymous Ned.
    • Also, Evelyn Kwong.
  • Chris Keller in Oz over Beecher. He kills every guy that Beecher sleeps with and the guy who murdered Beecher's father, has Beecher murder Schillinger unknowingly, acts overly aggressive with him at times, on two occasions has knocked him out with a blow to the head when Beecher goes against his wishes and later handcuffs him to a chair away from other people where he forces a kiss on him, and finally murders the Aryans so that they don't pose a threat to him or Beecher anymore.
    • As well as Ryan over Dr. Nathan. After she helped him through cancer, he immediately divorces his wife. Later, he forced a kiss on her, paid a fellow inmate to steal her stethoscope, and when she started ignoring him, had his brother Cyril kill her husband. After she was raped, he very quickly murdered the man that did it. It was even said outright that his love for her was more of an unhealthy obsession. However, Dr. Nathan actually falls for him in the end.
    • As well as Claire Howell.
  • Many characters from Argentine soap Padre Coraje, but mainly Norita (who murdered two people, tried to tried to kill her sister at least once a month, and stole her ex-not really husband's body), and Ana (who tried to kill her sister several times, along with many other schemes).
  • Quite a few Pushing Daisies killers fit this mold, such as Hillary Hundin from "Bitches" and Shane Trickle from "Kerplunk".
  • Rescue Me gives us Sheila Keefe. It gets especially bad in season 3, when she drugs Tommy and rapes him in his sleep, then smashes up his kitchen after finding out he went on a date with his brother's ex. Then she puts alcohol on his lips and lets him believe he fell Off the Wagon and did the damage himself. Then she does it AGAIN in a later episode, this time accidentally setting the house on fire in her rampage and nearly killing them both. She gets away with it both times.
  • Rigmor from Riget. She's thoroughly obsessed with Dr. Helmer, but as soon as she thinks he's cheating on her, she tries to kill him.
  • Effy's psychiatrist in Skins, Series 4. Attempts to kill both her love interests. Succeeds with one of them.
  • Alicia Baker from Smallville. Though she gets better sort of when she comes back only to be killed off.
  • Smart Guy did an interesting take on this trope: In order to win over another girl, Marcus, with the help of his brother TJ, hacks into the girl's on-line diary in order to find out what she sees in a guy so he can become her ideal boyfriend. It backfires when he later on reads her diary entries and learns that she has become obsessed over him to the point where she wants to quit school and start a family with him. When he tries to break it off and flirts with another girl, she attempts to run over said girl, culminating in pig masks, axes, and a chase around the house. The twist? She and her friends, including Marcus' sister, Yvette, found out his ruse and planted fake diary entries just to teach him a lesson. Though you have to wonder how much of an inversion it is for someone to think acting like an Ax Crazy to "teach someone a lesson" is funny...
  • Leslie turns into this after Billy dumps her on Soap.
  • In Sons of Anarchy ATF Agent Joshua Kohn follows Dr. Tara from Chicago to Charming and engages in increasingly disturbing Stalker with a Crush behavior culminating in an attempted rape/abduction that ends with his death.
  • Gloria Trillo from The Sopranos.
  • In the Classic Star Trek episode "The Conscience of the King," the yandere is the daughter of a semi-repentant war criminal on the lam; she travels through the universe with him, acting with him in Shakespeare plays while killing witnesses to her father's wrongdoing. She's cute. She's sweet. She's 17. She's killed almost a dozen.
    • There's also Marta the Orion from "Whom Gods Destroy," who interrupts her own intimate moment with Captain Kirk by trying to knife him. "He's my lover so I have to kill him!" she explains reasonably. Voluntary Shapeshifter Garth posing as Spock remarks that this seems to be her way of ensuring her lovers never have the chance to be unfaithful.
  • Reese in the Stargate SG-1 episode "Menace" seems like a sweet, friendly (if a little spoiled) Robot Girl, but when things don't go her way with Daniel, she creates an army of Replicators which proceed to nearly wipe out the SGC.
    • Plus a possible male example in her 'closest recreation', Fifth.
  • Callie from The Suite Life On Deck combines this with, of all things, A.I. Is a Crapshoot.
  • Virginia, from Nineties Soap Opera Sunset Beach.
  • On Supernatural, Lucifer was kicked out of Heaven for "loving God too much". After the breaking of the 66 Seals, he has returned to Earth to seek revenge. So far, he has focused on murdering the hypotenuse, and by "the hypotenuse" he means "the human race".
    • The actress playing a Yandere in the Virgin Mobile advertisements also plays Lillith, the psychotic demon who is also Yandere for Lucifer.
    • Gordon Walker becomes this over the course of his first appearance for Dean Winchester, as he repeatedly tries to distance Dean from Sam. In each subsequent appearance on the show his obsession with Dean becomes more pronounced as he kidnaps Dean repeatedly and when he's turned into a vampire, his first instinct is to find Dean and Sam so that he can kill Sam and turn Dean so that they can hunt together. Forever.
  • An episode of Tales from the Crypt had a couple getting married and sharing a perfect night of passion. Immediatly afterward, the woman murders the man to make sure time doesn't spoil their love.
  • Caroline, one of Fez's girlfriends in That '70s Show.
    • Then subverted when Donna finally just snaps and tells her Fez doesn't love her. A little heartbroken, she asks Fez, who nervously and hesitantly admits. It is, in fact, strongly implied that she had completely snapped from the event, and directly stated that she had spent most of the intervening time on psych drugs and intensive therapy.
  • Katherine Pierce from The Vampire Diaries for Stefan.
  • Lorena from True Blood. Even after Bill tells her multiple times that he hates her guts and can't stand the sight of her, she still has the nerve to ask him "When will we see each other again?"
    • Franklin Mott is turning out to be one hell of a male example of this.
    • Debbie Pelt.
  • Rose (Melanie Lynskey) stalks Charlie in Two and A Half Men and is just unbalanced enough that she could very well boil a bunny.
  • To say nothing of Mel from Flight of the Conchords. She could give Rose a run for her money.
  • Crystal (Summer Glau) in The Unit.
  • WWE has done this on more than one occasion, including one storyline when Mickie James was introduced as Trish Stratus' biggest fan. Her obsession increased until Trish couldn't take it any more. This resulted in Mickie turning on her beloved.
  • Perry Mason of all things, gives us a male example. A seemingly charming and likeable man, ends up trying to blackmail the girl, and says as his reason for doing so "because i want you, and if I can't have you, no one else will."
  • Tate for Violet on American Horror Story.
  • An episode of The Adventures of Brisco County Jr has Brisco defending his friend from a murder charge, which gets pretty tricky when it turns out his friend was having an affair with the victim's wife. It turns out the victim's secretary was obviously in love with the friend, and when he turned her down in favor of the affair, she conspired with her boss, who had a terminal disease, to frame him for the man's murder. Once the whole scheme is revealed, she tries to shoot him in the middle of the courtroom.
  • More than one of these meets their end in 1000 Ways to Die. The more obvious example is Ashley from "Smoke-stalked", who tried to break into the home that the dude she stalked shared with his wife... only to end up spending a week stuck in the chimney since they weren't even there. She slowly died of a mix of starvation, dehydration, and suffocation; the other two only found out when they tried to unclog their chimney.
  • Cheers episode "A Ditch in Time". Sam Malone gets involved with Amanda Boyer (Carol Kane), who becomes obsessed with and possessive of men she goes out with. When he tries to break up with her she implies that she'll commit suicide if he does.
  • Victorious: Trina in an open letter to Kevin Richards. If Trina doesn't get what she wants, hide.
  • 'The Walking Dead' has Shane, who not only lies to Rick's wife and kid about his death as an attempt to keep them to himself, but once Rick finally does find his family, Shane slowly goes insane, and convinces himself that Rick isn't fit for being a good enough husband or father to them, and that he's just 'getting in the way'. He even goes so Ax Crazy to the point of trying to murder him.
  • In the Black Box episode "Consequences" the jealous nurse who wants Dr. Bickman for herself sabotages Catherine causing her boss to fire her by telling him about Catherine's drug use.
  • Junior of Under The Dome to Angie. After Angie breaks up with him, he follows her around, sees her bumming a smoke off another guy, and decides to kidnap her and keep her locked up in his bomb shelter—for her own good, of course, because the dome coming down clearly scrambled her brains and made her stop loving him, so he has to keep her safe until it lifts. He also tries to Murder the Hypotenuse, only Barbie has no idea what he's talking about and easily kicks his ass.
  • Wizards of Waverly Place did this with Harper, towards Justin. Thankfully, she lost this trait before her interest in Zeke. And he conveniently doesn't seem to remember.

• Pick a Latin American soap, any Latin American soap and chances are you'll have at least one.

  • Lysa Arryn in Game of Thrones. She's loved Petyr Baelish her whole life and has always been jealous that he loved her sister more. Even after Lysa and Petyr get married, Lysa gets more than a little crazed at the thought of Petyr being involved with someone else, to the point that she physically injures her own niece, who is still a virgin and has no interest in Petyr at all.
    • Also Petyr Baelish to Catelyn Stark. He helps get her husband killed and starts a war partially to get her, despite her complete lack of interest in him. He then moves onto her daughter, when he can't have her.
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