Yandere Kanojo

Yandere Kanojo (ヤンデレ彼女), also known as Yandere Girlfriend, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Shinobi. The manga has been serialized in Monthly Gangan Joker magazine by Square Enix since May 22, 2009, with individual chapters collected into three tankōbon volumes as of May 5, 2010. Chapter 0 of the manga was first featured in the April 2009 issue of Monthly Gangan Joker, with the chapter being complied entirely of 4-koma pages with the exception of the first two pages. As of December 22, the manga was also put on Gangan Online, currently 18 chapters has been released as of July 15, 2010. A drama CD with the same title was released by Frontier Works in May 26, 2010. In this manga the "Yan" in yandere is short for "Yankee", a term used to describe a delinquent in Japan, instead of the usual meaning of "mental or emotional sickness" used in Yandere.

Plot
Tanaka Manabu is a geeky student, on the way to school he meets a girl carrying a bloody bat. That girl is Ryuuzaki Reina, leader of the school's female delinquents. It's love at first sight. A gag manga (with a combination of 4koma and normal page) about having a yandere (Yankee-dere, not Yandere) girlfriend.

Main Characters

 * Tanaka Manabu (田中学)
 * The protagonist of the story. Manabu is your typical geeky student - excellent grades, smart and wears glasses. Everything about him is ordinary, except for the fact that he confessed to the leader of the school's female delinquents and somehow they became a couple. Always calm and cool headed, Manabu is seen as an intelligent person who is also kind and caring to Reina. He always keeps a poker face, even when talking about perverted things. He never seems to show much emotion, except for the odd yell of happiness whenever he sees Reina being cute. He lives with his grandfather who is Manabu's complete opposite in personality; perverted, crude, and fond of drinking.


 * Ryuuzaki Reina (竜崎レイナ)
 * The leader of the female delinquents. Reina is not your average day girl, she is bad at studying, bad at cooking, all in all, a tomboy. Reina is witnessed to be exceptionally strong and good at fighting. She possesses a personality similar to that of a Tsundere, where while Reina has fallen in love with Manabu, she could not bear to let it be known to others at her school and wishes to maintain her image as a delinquent. She often hits other people in order to cover up her shyness or embarrassment, even with Manabu. Despite being a delinquent, she has secret wishes to be more ladylike, but in the end her true Yankee nature always shows. Her father (Kouichirou) is a Math teacher with stagefright, anxiety neurosis, and anthropophobia. Kouichirou only became a math teacher because he liked to solve math problems and take an active part in people's lives. He is a typical father; seeing his daughter as a perfect little princess, calling her 'Rei' and 'sweetie'. On the other hand, Reina's mother (Ran) is a very sweet, airheaded woman, who is very supportive of her daughter, and is very shy around her own husband. Though she possesses these traits, it is learned through a series of flashback chapters that she, like Reina, was also delinquent, known to some as 'A Human Weapon'. Ran further demonstrates this in chapter 29, when she assaults a salesman who had approached a nervous Kouichirou. Reina has clearly inherited her violent tendencies from her mother, and her tender side from her father.


 * Tsubasa Shiritori
 * A narcissist who believes that he is the smartest, most athletic, and most perfect person in the world. He seems to see Manabu as a rival, occasionally infuriating Reina whenever they butt heads. Despite being arrogant and self-centered, he wants to be friends with Manabu and is angry that Manabu didn't even know his name when they first met. Later in the series, the two become friends. Though he is popular, he is very shy with girls and wishes that they would be more modest. After a certain incident, he became rather fond of Hijiri. He used to be the smartest in the school, but of late fell down to third in the school rankings.


 * Hijiri Yoshimoto
 * A normal, sweet girl who ranked third place in the school rankings, but later rose to first after study sessions with Manabu and Reina. She is Reina's only best friend who isn't a delinquent. She used to be absolutely terrified of Reina, but later became best friends with her. She is normally very calm and modest. She is naive and rather foolish at times, but often knows what to do in tough situations. Even when locked in a gym storehouse with Tsubasa, she remained calm and positive, believing that teacher would come to find them before long (which one did, but then apprehended Tsubasa through misunderstanding of why they were locked in the storehouse). Later on, after helping Reina bake cookies in Home Ec, she thought about giving her cookies to Tsubasa, but decided against it after seeing so many girls crowd around him. During lunch, she asks if he would be happy if she gave him cookies. When he stutteringly said, "of course," she replied that she wouldn't give him any, then skipped away, leaving him completely confused. Later on, it is revealed that she does in fact have feelings for Tsubasa when she tells Reina.

Minor Characters

 * Tanaka Mayami (田中真夜美)
 * Manabu's younger sister. Mayami is revealed to be a masochist, and ever since Reina accidentally hit her, Mayami began expressing affection for Reina and wishes Reina to become her "honored sister". Though she is very cute and popular with boys, she thinks that men who hit women are scum, and will only like Reina's punches. Her personality is very blunt, optimistic, and bouncy, making her opposite of Manabu. Once Mayami explained that the only guy she could go out with should be nice, dependable, and fun to be with. Shiratori said that he would go out with her because he believed himself to be her ideal type. Mayami laughed at him with such scorn that it mentally scarred him. Whenever she's around Shiratori, her sadist/masochist personality flips and she likes to verbally torture him. The way she speaks is similar to a Valley Girl.


 * Eiko and Biko
 * Reina's friends and members of her gang. They look up to and respect Reina completely, and are unaware of her secret relationship to Manabu. Their names are puns on "A-ko" and "B-ko", signifying their side character status.

Manga
The chapters of Yandere Kanojo (ヤンデレ彼女) manga series are written and illustrated by Shinobi and have been serialized by Square Enix in the manga magazine Monthly Gangan Joker since May 2009. The manga is about the lives of an odd couple, where one is an honor student while the other is a delinquent, where each chapter consists of a combination of 4-koma and normal page illustrations often with one or two main story followed by a series of short stories similar to that of Lucky Star and AzuManga.

Chapters not yet in tankōbon format

 * 15. "Shopping and the Gym Storehouse"
 * 16. "Part 1 Of Her First Visit To Tanaka's House "
 * 17. "Part 2 Of Her First Visit To Tanaka's House "
 * 18. "Boyfriend And Girlfriend. Two People Destined For Each Other"

Drama CD
A drama CD with the same title was released by Frontier Works in May 26, 2010.