Valentine’s Day, a day considered by many to be the most romantic day of the year. But while this day may be a day of romantic love, perhaps it is more interesting to consider an even greater love. Of course I, as a Christian, believe God’s love to be the greatest love in existence; however, merely making such claims is a rather overused approach. Even though so many Christians preach it, it is something incredibly difficult to truly explain. Praising God’s love will only go so far before common sense leads us to wonder how God could possibly love us with so many apparent inconsistencies. Instead, I’d like to make a comparison, one sometimes made in jest but rarely in seriousness. That is God’s love and love of a yandere.
Let me begin by saying if you have never gone outside the manga/anime mediums, you most likely have a very skewed image of what a yandere truly entails. Sure, there have been characters who display a few yandere characteristics, and there are a few examples of more accurate yandere making their way into anime. Perhaps Yuno or Kanade come to mind, or maybe one very infamous nice boat. However, the truth is the really hardcore yandere do not exist in anime, most likely because what they do can’t actually be shown on TV. The visual novel medium, on the other hand, has its share of legitimate yandere. Not that I have read many as I tend to shy away from them myself, but I have heard some tales and they are quite extreme. Regardless, while a yandere may be incomparable to God at a literal level, the love that it holds might just be something more similar to God’s than at first glance.
First, I actually see this comparison made as a joke every now and then, that God is jealous and so are yandere, thus God is a yandere. Indeed! Christians often forget that while God is all loving, He himself is the one who stated “I am a jealous God.” God will not stand for having other gods before him. He is completely willing to, and has done so in the past, strike down false gods with full force to get you to turn back to Him. Yandere, too, are completely okay with disposing of anything or anyone who might get in the way of her love for you. Jealousy is certainly a common factor between the two, whether you make that statement as a joke or not.
Secondly, stemming from a love of extreme proportions, they make very similar claims. They will love you forever. They will protect you from any harm. And more uniquely, they will always forgive you. While the first one is a simple and basic claim, the other two are increasingly less so, especially when it comes to action. While regular lovers may want to protect each other, it is sometimes hard to put into action; however, a yandere will not hesitate in any situation to not only protect you but also eliminate all your enemies who threaten you harm (from her perspective…). God too will protect you as well as fight against your enemies for you. In fact, both are willing to die for your sake, if it means saving and protecting you from harm.
But even more interesting is the common point of always willing to forgive. For any normal love, there is going to be some breaking point that cannot be forgiven. However, for a yandere, her love will never die, so she is also always willing to forgive, no matter what you do. All you have to do is honestly ask her forgiveness and she will certainly forgive, although there might be a small price to pay. It is certainly an extreme form of love to forgive anything that a person does, and this parallels God’s love for us. The important part is not that the two will forgive you regardless of what happens but that they are willing to forgive. In both cases, there is a need for repentance and inquiry for forgiveness. A yandere is not going to show restraint in her wrath should you refuse to apologize. In the same way, if we act on the assumption that we do not need to perform this repentance because of God’s boundless love, we are terribly mistaken.
But these are perhaps rather unconvincing comparisons. While I have no penchant toward yandere (I’m more of a tsundere person), I also do not find them as bad as many haters do. What this most often comes down to is the ability, or willingness, to understand things from the yandere’s perspective and accepting their logic and thought process as reasonable, to an extent. In the end, no matter how much a yandere will love and forgive and accept you regardless of any of your seemingly faults, they just can’t stop from doing the most disturbing and insane actions. Whether that’s murdering your friends or family or locking you up in their basement or “other” things, yandere are essentially crazy girls with a murderous obsession for a particular person. However, it is also true that despite this, they are doing it with your best interests in mind. Certainly, that may be the reasoning of a lunatic, but they are nevertheless being quite honest. Because in their minds, they really are protecting you from harm, getting rid of “unnecessary distractions” and she is the only one needed to bring you absolute happiness.
If there is only one thing wrong with this logic, it is that yandere don’t actually know what is best for you. If they could see the future and actually know what would make you happiest, they would probably do it (actually they wouldn’t be able to handle the truth and would mentally break down even further, become crazier, and corrupt that fact into something completely different in order to reach a happiness acceptable to them. But for the sake of argument, let’s continue). The reason I don’t quite mind yandere is because they really do believe their actions are for your best. Their thinking is distorted but their motivation is honest and, dare I say, pure. And I think this disconnect between claims and actions presents a similar problem in Christianity. What God says and what happens to our lives often do not match up. People get frustrated with that or use that as proof that God never existed in the first place. However, it is important to realize that the logic God uses is never going to match our own. God looks at the future and your spiritual health as opposed to the present and your physical health. To make some semblance of sense, it is important to try to view things from His view, just as viewing things from a yandere’s perspective can show how honest she is being.
One very common question of Christianity is “if God is so good, then why is there suffering?” or some variant. I won’t address that exactly, and I admit I can’t. However, a more specific version might be, “if God loves me, then why is my life so bad?” particularly from Christians. I specifically address Christians because God refraining from showering non-believers with blessings and happiness is at least logically sound and acceptable. Even if I don’t believe in such an absolute, “it makes sense,” whereas the former does not.
Yandere cause their beloved great suffering using the excuse “it is for your best,” but being human, they cannot possibly know that for certain. An omniscient God would. Oftentimes there is suffering, trials, and overall unwanted things happening in our lives. Some things are not directly caused by God, but some things are. While the difference may be impossible to distinguish, the root of the question remains: “if you love me, why?” Incidentally, the common answer given by Christians (which for the record, I feel doesn’t help the ones in question at all) is something like “because God knows what’s in your best interest at the end of the hard road.” I won’t claim the logic is infallible, and I am not using this as evidence that God’s love is real. However, I will say that the answer is the same in both God’s case and a yandere’s. With little regards to your current opinion, a yandere will execute whatever is necessary to ensure what will lead to (what she believes) your greatest happiness. A yandere will make baseless excuses, whereas an all-powerful God, whether you believe in His existence or not, can certainly make good on that claim.
There is one more very interesting comparison between the two. If, in the end, you refuse to accept a yandere’s love, she will almost certainly kill you. She will use an excuse like “it’s your fault for not accepting me,” yet despite this, she really will continue to love you. The logic here appears to be nonsensical and merely a convenient plot narration to make the character seem extra insane. Strangely enough, this is the same as one seemingly paradoxical thing about Christianity. If you don’t accept Christ, God condemns you to hell, even though He loves you. If God really loves you so much, why would he send you to hell just because you didn’t believe in Him? To answer that would go into technical spiritual details beyond the scope of this post. My point here is merely that this comparison is surprisingly similar. While the logic may still not be comprehensible, yandere somehow are a very concrete and accurate representation of this paradoxical aspect of Christianity. God doesn’t want to send you to hell, but if you refuse His love, He will, but He will also be saddened by it.
So is God a yandere? Even though I’m the one making this comparison, I wouldn’t say God fits that term, and any human constructed comparisons to God break down at some point. However, God’s love is supposed to be the most amazing and incomprehensible love in existence. The normal human language is incapable of even beginning to describe that kind of love, and even many believers struggle with understanding it. Indeed, there are many things about God that do not line up with our image of what “perfect love” would be like to the point of sounding contradictory. To get a little closer to understanding what that love might be like, I think one needs an extreme form of love to compare it to, one that is beyond the common sense of society, and yandere is certainly one of the most extreme loves in fiction. It is this extreme form of love that makes yandere a more accurate representation of God’s love than the romanticized ideal love that society lauds. God may not be a yandere, but it’s because his love is an even more extreme and perfected version of it. While we may never be able to truly understand God’s love in this lifetime, perhaps comparing Him to a yandere and trying to reason through a yandere’s logic will help with understanding God’s actions and love for us.
Well, yikes. A disconcerting yet surprisingly apt comparison.
I’ve been reading on certain related topics, and one problem that stuck out with regards to “yandere love” was the tendency to brush aside the personal agency, or free will, of the target of that love. This is usually seen as a Bad Thing, and counted as a strike against the yandere character. Tying back to what you said, the common excuse is that they know what is best for their beloved, but that is another strike and further evidence of their insanity. Some call it a form of emotional abuse.
So where does the Christian God fit in with regards to free will? Well, as anyone who has taken a peek at the theological debates over that question knows, it’s complicated.
Yes, that’s an obvious major difference in the comparison and like you said, quite complicated. However, I think it’s still possible to draw some logic here. As much as God loves us, He also gives us free will, but this does not mean He is not involved. Like a yandere who goes to extreme lengths to be involved in your life, God does the same, only without overstepping the bounds of our free will. This leads to all sorts of situations, some good and some bad, but all a result of how an individual chooses to interpret God’s actions. He can’t force you to do something, but He does try to lead you toward a certain direction because He can’t leave you alone due to such a “yandere love.” Frustration from those actions is a common response to either God’s or a yandere’s “pushy” attitude. The difference of course is that God will never cross the line and restrict you while a yandere will, but up until that point, I think the nature of their actions and relationship is pretty similar.
I’d like to say that God gives us more or less Freedom of Choice, instead of Freedom of Result alongside that. We can choose to do multiple things but it won’t come out the way we want. I think a good example of this being shown was in the newest movie iteration of The Time Machine, where the inventor tries to save his wife multiple times, but no matter what, she’d always die. Why is it that she always dies no matter which choice happens? Because it was needed for him to make that Time Machine. That’s how I see it though, I’m merely talking from one believer to another, that’s all. I like your write-up on why Yandere is da bes~, I don’t like how He is compared to very human qualities and such (mainly because He is beyond human comprehension) but you did so for this comparison along with the translation of your Bible, so I can see why. This was a pretty interesting article, nice write-up man.
John 15:16 You did not choose me, but I chose you
Ephesians 1:4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love
I LOLed at this. Because it’s true.
Compared to the “love” usually represented by the color pink, all fluff & girlish giggles, and the shape that takes after our distant cousin’s behind 😀 ; the yandere love is somehow a more closer label to represent the original love.
IIRC around 2000 years ago, I think it was deep red instead of pink, disfigured torn flesh instead of chocolate, flowerless thorns instead of thornless flowers. Not 100%sure, but I think no baboon’s behind was seen, as well.
You may have your point regarding the comparisons between God’s love and Yandere’s “love”. However, despite it is the harsh expression of love like God’s love to mankind, it is still far from being accurate to represent God’s love. No matter what, Yandere is still a flawed creation who has no idea what she is doing to herself and people around her. I don’t want to be rude, she is no difference to our corrupted world who is surrendering its authority to Satan. Her love and excuse cannot justified and changed the fact she has been an abuser , a deceiver and a manipulator to her ”senpai”. She cannot even able to repair her shame by herself. She is a murderer and a destroyer who requires mental help. God is different, he is a creator and healer who usually really knows the best and provides the best in the way of breaking us and then restoring us for being better and being more like him, even if we do not understand what is in his mind, but now I can believe the good in everything he arranged in my past, present and future. Snakes are wise animals, but our human wisdom is very limited to understand their IQ because they can choose to not to cooperate with our intelligence experiments, so there are misunderstandings that snake are dumb animals. It is like an average human judging the wisdom of another human with autism.After all, God is not Yandere. Yandere is another example what a fallen human would be look like in an anime way, just like the organized crime in Godfather movies and GTA games, God allows these embodiment of death in the fictional works for his good purpose, in order to save as many human souls from the eternal death and prove that the corrupted love from the world is incomparable to His glorious promise to those who embraces Him.