Tsundere Meaning: ツンデレ, Yandere and the Other Dere Types

Tsundere meaning: ツンデレ (tsundere) in one line

A tsundere (ツンデレ) is a character who acts cold and prickly on the outside but turns sweet and lovestruck toward one person, usually as the story goes on. A yandere (ヤンデレ) is the dark mirror image: a character whose sweet love turns obsessive and dangerous.

The Japanese word is ツンデレ (tsundere, “normally being cold but at some prompt suddenly becoming lovestruck”). The open Japanese-English dictionary JMdict gives that full meaning, adds "hot-cold personality type", and marks the word as colloquial: everyday talk, not formal Japanese.

It's written with four katakana: ツ (tsu), ン (n), デ (de) and レ (re). Tap any of them to hear the sound. Say it in four even beats: tsu, n, de, re.

The word has made it into English dictionaries too. Cambridge Dictionary defines a tsundere, in anime, as "a character who seems unpleasant or unkind at first but who develops into a more pleasant or kind character".

Below: the two Japanese words hiding inside tsundere, how tsundere characters talk, where the word came from, yandere, and then kuudere, dandere and the other types, with what the dictionaries actually say about each.

Tsun tsun and dere dere: the two Japanese words inside

Tsundere is short for ツンツンデレデレ: ツンツン plus デレデレ. Both halves are ordinary Japanese words, older than the slang. They're 擬態語 (ぎたいご, gitaigo): mimetic words, which paint a manner or a mood rather than copy a sound.

Both words mean more than the slang does. ツンツン also describes a smell that stings the nose, and hair that sticks up in spikes: ツンツン (tsuntsun, “spiky (esp. of a hairstyle)”). And the first meaning of デレデレ has nothing to do with love: デレデレ (deredere, “idling”), lazing about in a slack, sloppy way.

The big Japanese dictionaries agree. Digital Daijisen defines つんつん as 無愛想にとりすましているさま: being curt and stiffly aloof. The Nihon Kokugo Daijiten describes でれでれ as slack behaviour, especially being flustered or fawning in front of someone you're attracted to. Its oldest example comes from a rakugo (comic storytelling) piece by Sanyūtei Enyū III, from 1889. So でれでれ was already in use more than a century before the slang.

The compound simply takes the first half of each word: ツン + デレ. The other -dere type names (yandere, kuudere, dandere) are built the same way: a short first part, then デレ.

What is a tsundere? The character type explained

The Japanese dictionary Digital Daijisen gives the classic picture. A woman who is usually curt and unfriendly (つんつん) turns sweet and clingy when she's alone with one particular man. It adds a looser second sense: an unfriendly woman who now and then acts sweet.

The narrow meaning and the broad one

The early slang was stricter than today's word. Japanese Wikipedia, citing essayist Yumiko Sugiura's 2008 book, says it's sometimes pointed out that it first meant a girl who already liked someone, acted cold toward them to hide her embarrassment (in Japanese, 照れ隠し (てれかくし, terekakushi)), and at some point turned openly sweet. On that view, it wasn't at first about the appeal of a gap in someone's personality.

A 2005 fan guide, Tsundere Taizen, describes how the meaning grew. The first definition came with a condition: she's sweet only "when the two of them are alone". The word turned out to be so handy that it spread to cover any character whose appeal is the contrast between tsun and dere.

The same book, as quoted by linguist Junichi Togashi (Daito Bunka University) in a 2009 conference paper, says the word now covers two shapes:

• A change over time. Cold at the start, sweet later on.
• A gap. Cold on the outside and soft on the inside, both at once.

Togashi also notes where the time shape comes from. In the earliest tsundere games, tsun was the heroine's state at the start, with no feelings for the player, and dere was in effect the goal you played to reach. Those games were ギャルゲー (gyarugē): games built around interactions with anime-style girls, as the dictionary puts it. Japanese Wikipedia says the word was first used for characters in this kind of game.

The core trait: she can't be honest

What ties all tsundere characters together is that they won't show how they feel. Togashi describes the type as someone who has special feelings for a person but can't express them plainly. The Japanese word for what a tsundere can't be is 素直 (すなお, sunao, “honest”): open and upfront about her feelings.

Classic examples

Lists of "the best tsundere" are fan opinion, so here are only the names that published sources give. Kotaku's 2013 guide to character types lists Asuka Langley Soryu from Neon Genesis Evangelion and Naru Narusegawa from Love Hina. Togashi quotes Narusegawa's lines as an example of tsundere speech. English Wikipedia names the roles of voice actress Rie Kugimiya: Louise in The Familiar of Zero, Taiga Aisaka in Toradora! and Nagi in Hayate the Combat Butler.

Boys can be tsundere too

The word isn't limited to girls. English Wikipedia gives Germany in Hetalia: Axis Powers as a male tsundere, and the essayist Yumiko Sugiura has written about the rise of male tsundere characters.

Togashi even points out how loose the label can get. If the hidden "special feelings" include friendship or a parent's love, then gruff fathers like Kaibara Yūzan in Oishinbo or Gendō Ikari in Evangelion could be called tsundere too. His point is that deciding who counts is a matter of opinion.

How a tsundere talks, and why they say baka

Japanese fans don't only recognise a tsundere by what she does. They recognise her by how she talks. Togashi's paper studies exactly this, using recordings of tsundere lines read by Rie Kugimiya. He lists the speech features fans link to the type:

• Stuttering on the first sound, then starting the word again: し、心配….
• Trailing off after から ("because"), especially in the form んだから, as if the sentence explains everything.
• 〜てあげる and 〜てもいい: "I'll do it for you" and "I don't mind if…".
• だけ, "only": as in, I'm only doing this because…
• Strong endings: in writing, a small っ or an exclamation mark.
• The endings ね and よ, small words that close a sentence: as in んだからね and あんたの前だけよ in the lines below.
• Brush-off words such as 別に (べつに, betsuni, “(not) particularly”) and the stock line 勘違いしないで ("don't get the wrong idea"), built on 勘違い (かんちがい, kanchigai, “misunderstanding”).

He also points out the pronoun あんた (anta), a casual "you", as another way for her to keep the upper hand (more on that below).

Three lines from the Tsundere Karuta

Togashi takes his examples from the 2007 Tsundere Karuta: a set of karuta cards, from あ to ん, each with a line recorded by Kugimiya. Here are three, exactly as he quotes them, with our own rough translations:

• 「し、心配なんてしてないんだからね！」: "I-I'm not worried about you or anything, OK!"
• 「ついでだからあんたも誘ってあげるわ」: "Since I'm at it anyway, I'll invite you too."
• 「す、好きでこんな格好してるわけじゃないんだからね… あんたの前だけよ… もう…バカ…」: "I-it's not like I want to dress like this… It's only in front of you… Honestly… you idiot…"

You can spot most of the features: the stutter, the んだから, the てあげる, the ね and よ endings, and あんた.

Why てあげる sounds so tsundere

Togashi's explanation is neat. With 〜てあげる, the speaker is the one doing a favour. With 〜てもいい, she's the one giving permission. Both put her in the stronger position, and Togashi sees the casual あんた as another way of keeping it. From up there, the other person can't easily point out her feelings, which is exactly what she's afraid of. As Togashi puts it: 先に素直になったほうが負け, whoever is honest first loses.

Why do tsundere say baka?

The word is ばか (baka, “idiot”). It's also written バカ in katakana, as in the karuta line above, and 馬鹿 in kanji. English Wikipedia, citing Digital Daijisen, says it is the most frequently used insult in Japanese.

In the tsundere trope, バカ is a cover. She calls him an idiot instead of saying what she feels, and the softer it's said, the more it gives her away: that's the もう…バカ… at the end of the third line. That's how the trope uses it. In real life, how harsh ばか sounds depends a lot on the tone and on where you are (more on that in the questions below).

Where the word tsundere came from

According to Togashi, ツンデレ appeared as internet slang in the second half of 2002 and reached ordinary people around 2004 to 2005. He traced the first uses in the old logs of a Japanese message board:

English Wikipedia, citing Patrick Galbraith's Otaku Encyclopedia, says the term was made popular by Rumbling Hearts.

The classic definition, quoted in Tsundere Taizen, reads: 普段はツンツン、二人っきりの時は急にしおらしくなってデレデレといちゃつく. Roughly: usually cold and prickly, but when the two are alone, she suddenly turns meek and gets all lovey-dovey.

The type is older than the word

Characters like this existed long before 2002. Japanese Wikipedia says that the heroine who likes someone but can't show it was a standard type in manga and anime, naming the manga Shiratori Reiko de Gozaimasu! as an example. English Wikipedia reports two well-known opinions: Comiket organiser Koichi Ichikawa called Lum from Urusei Yatsura "the first tsundere", and critic Jason Thompson named Madoka Ayukawa from Kimagure Orange Road as the root of the type.

One claim goes back even further. Manga writer Kazuo Koike said a line in his 1972 manga already used both words: ツンツンしてるくせにあんなイモ野郎とデレデレしやがって, roughly "acting all prickly, yet getting lovey-dovey with that country bumpkin". A 2011 Hatena News article reported the claim, but opinion is divided, because the words don't carry the same meaning there. Treat it as a fun claim, not as the origin.

From the internet to the mainstream

• Late 2005 to 2006: yearbooks of new words define it: Imidas 2006 (out in November 2005), then Gendai Yōgo no Kiso Chishiki 2007 and Chiezō 2007 (both out in November 2006).
• 2006: teen fashion magazines such as PINKY and Seventeen present the tsundere girl as an attractive type. In Akihabara, the Nagomi maid café starts holding tsundere events.
• 2006: a related word is nominated for Japan's yearly New Words and Buzzwords Award. It's sometimes said that tsundere was nominated. In fact the nominee was ツンデレラ ("tsunderella"), a word for people hooked on tsundere culture. It was number 43 of 60, and it didn't win. That year's two grand prizes went to the figure-skating move イナバウアー (inabauā) and to 品格 (ひんかく, hinkaku, “dignity”).
• January 2007: at Toy Forum 2007 in Tokyo Big Sight, Takara Tomy shows a small portable TV with a "tsundere" voice guide that gets friendlier the more you use it.
• March 2009: the Mainichi newspaper's entertainment site calls Rie Kugimiya the "Queen of Tsundere" (ツンデレの女王) when she wins best lead actress at the Seiyu Awards. It describes her roles as girls who are usually cold and aloof (ツンとすましている) but go all デレデレ when the two are alone.

Yandere meaning: ヤンデレ (yandere)

The second big dere word is ヤンデレ (yandere, “person with an unhealthy romantic obsession”). JMdict tags it as slang. It's written ヤ ン デ レ: only the first letter differs from ツンデレ.

Where the "yan" comes from

The yan comes from 病んでる, a casual, shortened way of saying 病んでいる: "being ill". The verb is 病む (やむ, yamu, “to fall ill”), and in casual speech it can also mean 病む (やむ, yamu, “to be depressed”) or to have mental health issues. Its kanji is 病, "illness".

Japanese Wikipedia defines ヤンデレ as a blend of 病んでる and デレ. In the broad sense, it's a character who is in love with someone (the dere), but whose love is so strong that she becomes mentally unwell.

The yandere character type

Cambridge Dictionary defines a yandere, in anime, as "a character who seems pleasant or kind at first but who develops into a more unpleasant, unkind, or violent character". Its examples add that yanderes are usually, but not only, female characters.

English Wikipedia describes a yandere as affectionate at first and then possessive or obsessive, often willing to go to extreme lengths to be with the person she loves. Two dictionary words sum up her feelings: 嫉妬 (しっと, shitto, “jealousy”) and 独占欲 (どくせんよく, dokusenyoku, “possessiveness”).

Where the word yandere spread from

Japanese Wikipedia, citing a 2008 special issue of the magazine Majikaru!, says the word ヤンデレ became widely known through two works from 2005: the adult visual novel School Days and the TV anime SHUFFLE! In the same magazine, the School Days producer explained the boom as fans wanting to feel a love that is 一途 (いちず, ichizu, “single-minded”): devoted to one person and nobody else.

Kotaku's 2013 guide names Yuno Gasai from Mirai Nikki (Future Diary) and Kotonoha Katsura from School Days as yandere characters. Abroad, the word is known well enough that an independent video game still in development is called Yandere Simulator, as English Wikipedia describes it.

One calm point: yandere is a fiction trope. The same behaviour in a real relationship, jealousy that turns into control or threats, isn't romantic. It's a warning sign.

Tsundere vs yandere: what's the difference?

The two words look alike, but the characters run in opposite directions.

Togashi notes that the same pattern makes other words. Swap ツンツン for クール ("cool") and you get クーデレ, kuudere, the next type below. Turn the pattern round like a mirror image and you get ヤンデレ.

In our words: the yandere shows the dere on the surface, and underneath is love that has turned unhealthy. That fits Japanese Wikipedia's definition: love so strong that she becomes mentally unwell.

Cambridge Dictionary links the two entries as well: each one tells you to compare it with the other.

Kuudere, dandere, deredere and other dere types

Once ツンデレ caught on, fans built more words the same way: a first part, then デレ. Wiktionary's Japanese entry for デレ describes it as fandom slang for a type of character defined by how they act toward the person they love. Some of these words are now in dictionaries. Many are not.

JMdict tags all three as manga slang.

Kuudere: cool on the outside

Kuudere is クール (kūru, “cool (i.e. calm and collected)”) plus デレ. The クー is the start of クール, the English word "cool" borrowed into Japanese, with the katakana long-vowel mark ー stretching the u. (See what is katakana for how that mark works.)

English Wikipedia describes a kuudere as a character who seems to have no emotions: stoic, expressionless and calm under stress. Unlike tsundere and yandere, kuudere characters usually keep the same core traits all the way through. Rei Ayanami from Neon Genesis Evangelion is thought to have done a lot to make the type popular, and Kotaku names her too.

Japanese Wikipedia adds a twist. クーデレ began as another name for 素直クール, an "honest and cool" type who shows affection plainly, without embarrassment. The 2007 edition of Gendai Yōgo no Kiso Chishiki says 素直クール was named as tsundere's opposite: honest instead of tsun, cool instead of dere. Over time the two words drifted apart, and kuudere came to mean someone who finds it hard to show feelings at all.

Dandere: the quiet one

Dandere comes from だんまり (danmari, “silence”), written 黙り in kanji, with 黙, "silent". Wiktionary explains the word as だんまり plus デレデレ, and defines a dandere as a character who stays silent and doesn't express their feelings. Kotaku describes the type as quiet and often antisocial, naming Yuki Nagato (The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya) and Hinata Hyuuga (Naruto).

One honest warning: the blog Japanese with Anime notes that dandere is very rare in Japanese, even though it's extremely common in English. It's in JMdict, but you're far more likely to meet it on an English fan list than in a Japanese conversation.

Deredere: sweet all the time

In Japanese, でれでれ is simply the everyday word you met above: lovestruck, fawning, or lazy and slack. English-speaking fans use "deredere" as a type name for a character who is openly sweet and affectionate toward their love interest all the time (Wiktionary marks this as English fandom slang). So "deredere type" is mainly an English fan label, not a standard Japanese one.

Tsundora: tsundere without the dere

ツンドラ is a pun on the word for tundra. JMdict lists the slang sense: sharp and sarcastic without ever turning lovestruck. In other words, all tsun, no dere.

Himedere and the rest

Fan lists go on and on. Wiktionary's デレ page lists 姫デレ (himedere in English fan lists) and 豪デレ among the related words, without defining them, and you'll find dozens more online. None of the dictionaries we checked defines them, so we won't pretend they have a fixed meaning. Treat them as fan coinages.

Summary: which dere words are in the dictionary?

Do Japanese people say tsundere in real life?

Yes. The word left the games a long time ago. Japanese Wikipedia, citing Sugiura, says ordinary people started using it around 2005, and by 2006 teen fashion magazines were presenting the ツンデレ girl as an attractive type.

It's used for real people as well as characters. The reference book Chiezō 2007 called the actress Kō Shibasaki a "tsundere actress", and Japanese Wikipedia notes that, as the word spread, it moved from fictional girls to real people.

Why the gap is attractive

Tsundere's appeal is sometimes explained with ギャップ萌え (ギャップもえ, gyappu moe, “gap moe”): the attraction you feel when someone's true nature turns out to be different from how they seem. Japanese Wikipedia links it to the gain-loss effect from psychology: people tend to like someone who is cold at first and warm later more than someone who is warm all along. The 萌え in it is the fan word 萌え (もえ, moe), a strong fondness for a character.

Calling someone ツンデレ

Between friends, calling someone ツンデレ is often playful teasing: you're saying they act tough but you can see they care. How it lands depends on the person and on how well you know them, so with someone you don't know well, it's safer not to label them at all.

Why it's written in katakana

ツンデレ and the other dere words are usually written in katakana: it's the first form the dictionary lists for each of them. If you can read katakana, you can read every word on this page. If not, what is katakana is the place to start.

Practise reading anime Japanese

The best way to remember these words is to read them in the wild: anime titles, character names, fan posts. Start with the titles.

New to katakana? Drill the d-row, ダ ヂ ヅ デ ド first, the row that gives you デレ, or begin with the full kana programme.

Questions about tsundere and dere types

What is tsundere vs yandere?

A tsundere is cold on the outside and soft on the inside; a yandere is sweet on the outside and obsessive underneath. Under the tsundere's coldness is love; under the yandere's sweetness is an unhealthy obsession.

What are the main dere types?

The four best-known dere types are tsundere (cold, then sweet), yandere (sweet, then obsessive), kuudere (calm and expressionless) and dandere (quiet, keeping their feelings to themselves). All four are in JMdict, but dandere is rare in Japanese itself, according to the blog Japanese with Anime.

What does yandere mean?

Yandere (ヤンデレ) means a character whose love turns obsessive and possessive. It blends 病んでる ("sick") and デレ ("lovestruck").

What does tsundere mean in Japanese?

Tsundere (ツンデレ) means someone who is usually cold but at some point turns sweet and lovestruck. It's built from ツンツン ("aloof, standoffish") and デレデレ ("lovestruck, fawning").

What does it mean if a girl is a tsundere?

It means she acts cold, rude or annoyed toward someone she actually likes. Said of a real person, it's often a light-hearted label rather than a serious judgement.

What is a male tsundere called?

A male tsundere is usually just called a tsundere: the word isn't limited to girls. English Wikipedia gives Germany in Hetalia: Axis Powers as an example.

Why do tsundere say baka?

Because calling him an idiot is easier than saying "I like you". バカ hides the embarrassment, and Togashi's sample lines show it at the softest moment: もう…バカ….

Is baka a slur in Japan?

No. Baka (ばか) means "idiot" or "fool", and it's the most common everyday insult in Japanese, not a slur against a group. How strong it sounds depends on tone and region: English Wikipedia notes that around Osaka あほ (aho, “fool”) is fairly mild and ばか can sound harsh, while around Tokyo it's the other way round.

What does dere mean?

Dere (デレ) is the second half of でれでれ: lovestruck, fawning, soppy. As the end of words like ツンデレ, it marks a type of character defined by how they act toward the person they love.

Which dere type is obsessive?

The yandere is the obsessive one. Her love turns possessive, jealous and sometimes violent.

Which dere is the quiet one?

The dandere is the quiet one, from だんまり, "silence". The kuudere is the calm one who seems to have no emotions.

What is the kindest dere?

English-speaking fans call the always-sweet type a deredere. In Japanese, でれでれ is an everyday word for acting lovestruck, not a standard type name.

What is a himedere?

Himedere is a fan coinage from 姫 plus デレ. The 姫 is 姫 (ひめ, hime), a princess or young noblewoman. No dictionary we checked defines himedere itself.

Who is the most famous tsundere?

There's no official ranking. Names that published sources give include Lum (Urusei Yatsura), whom Comiket's Koichi Ichikawa called the first tsundere, Asuka Langley Soryu (Evangelion), and the roles of Rie Kugimiya, the "Queen of Tsundere": Louise, Taiga Aisaka and Nagi.

Sources

• Readings, meanings and tags: JMdict (EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0), including its notes that ツンデレ is colloquial, ヤンデレ is slang, and クーデレ, ダンデレ, デレる and ツンドラ's second sense are manga slang.
• Togashi Junichi, ツンデレ属性と言語表現の関係 (symposium paper, Kobe University, 2009): first uses in 2002, the two shapes, the speech features, the Tsundere Karuta lines, footnotes on games, クーデレ and ヤンデレ. It quotes the classic definition from 『ツンデレ大全』 (2005), p. 92, and the two shapes from the same book.
• Japanese dictionaries on Kotobank: ツンデレ, つんつん, でれでれ (Digital Daijisen, Nihon Kokugo Daijiten).
• Cambridge Dictionary: tsundere, yandere.
• Japanese Wikipedia: ツンデレ, ヤンデレ, クーデレ.
• English Wikipedia: Tsundere, Yandere, Kuudere, Baka, Yandere Simulator.
• The 2006 buzzword nominees and grand prizes, and what ツンデレラ meant: Internet Watch, 16 November 2006; Jiyu Kokuminsha, the award's list.
• Rie Kugimiya as the "Queen of Tsundere": Mainichi (MANTANWEB), 7 March 2009, archived.
• Character types and examples: Richard Eisenbeis, How to Identify Popular Japanese Character Types, Kotaku, 20 August 2013.
• Fan words: Wiktionary, dandere, deredere, デレ; Japanese with Anime, Tsundere, kuudere, yandere: meaning.
• Reviewed by two independent reviews. The translations of the quoted lines, and the points about using ツンデレ and ばか with real people, are waiting for a native speaker's check.