Rivals

Rivals are the main antagonists in Yandere Simulator. They are the most important people to eliminate, as they have all have a crush on Senpai. If the rival is not eliminated by the end of the week, they will confess their love to Senpai under the Cherry Tree behind the school on Friday, and Yandere-chan will be left heartbroken. A girl confessing to a boy underneath a cherry tree is a cliche in anime that will be drawn upon in the game. Each rival in the game is an anime archetype. Each were inspired by popular concepts and stereotypes. However, not every one of them is based on a "dere" archetype.

There are no actual rivals in the debug build, so there is currently no way to win yet. In the full game, they won't be in the school until their week comes. There are ten rivals for the ten weeks of gameplay, one per week. Each rival will be introduced via a cut-scene conversation with Info-chan. The rivals for weeks two to ten will each have reasons why they did not come to the school for the first week. They will also have a short cut-scene that shows how they met Senpai and why they are attracted to him. Some of the cut-scenes will be humorous to balance out the other dark elements of the game.

Senpai won't fall in love with girls of his own accord. He will start to develop of crush on her if a rival has five interaction events with him. Once a day, there will be an "event" with Senpai, with the final event being a love confession. You will be able to sabotage each event.

Even though their main desire is Senpai, all rivals will have a second crush other than Senpai. This is so you are able to matchmake each and every single rival with a suitor instead of killing them. If the player chooses to make Senpai female, then Yandere-chan will be a lesbian, Senpai will be a lesbian and all of the rivals are bisexual because of their other crush you can matchmake them with.

Every rival will wear special stockings to make themselves stand out and will have unique panties.

As the game progresses, each rival is more difficult to defeat than the previous one, sometimes because of popularity.

Rivals are seen in red in Yandere Vision, although this red outline might also be for others as traumatized students also have this look.

The rivals will never know the player exists or that they have competition for Senpai.

Test Rivals
''These rivals are only for testing and are unlikely to be rivals in the final game. Currently, there have only been two test rivals.''

Rival-chan
Rival-chan uses Osana Najimi's old model, so it is very easy to confuse the two people with each other. Rival-chan only exists to test the red rival outline of Yandere Vision and to be a stand-in for Osana.

Victim-chan
Victim-chan was the first test rival. Her look was a reference to the first rival, Osana Najimi. She was eventually removed from the game.

Kokona Haruka
Kokona Haruka is the current test rival. Although she might not be an actual rival in the final game, she is being used as a test subject. As it is shown, she has a crush on Senpai, and so, Yandere-chan has a reason to eliminate her - however, eliminating her won't do anything, since the player will still lose at the end of the week, due to official rivals not being programmed.

Since there is so much work put into her, she may become an official rival. If she does, then she will become the President of the Drama Club and be the third rival of the game.

Rivals
'''All rivals have been planned out. As of now, there is no official artwork. Everyone except for Osana, Oka Ruto, and The Nurse don't exist in the game yet.'''

Osana Najimi
'''The first rival will be Osana Najimi.  NOTE: The character who stands under the cherry tree is Rival-chan. Osana in a future update will be completely different.'''

Her AI is currently incomplete, so she cannot be interacted with. Because of this, the player cannot beat the game, and you will always lose on Friday at 6:00 PM due to Osana confessing her love to Senpai. She started off as Senpai's childhood friend and a tsundere.

In the second intro her tsundere tendencies and her background as Senpai childhood best friend is not mentioned in the slightest, but it was mentioned by the Dev that she's still the same way now.

Unknown Drill-Haired Girl
There will be a rival in the final game with purple "drill-hair" like Kokona, but with a different name, face, voice, stockings, and other features, likely as a reference to Kokona Haruka who is the current test dummy. It's possible Kokona may become this rival.

Cooking Club President
A planned rival is the president of the Cooking Club. She is a warm, gentle, kind-hearted girl. She is a "big sister" or "onee-chan" type character.

The Nurse
The Nurse is a planned rival later in the game. Her AI, like Osana's, is incomplete. The Nurse rival's character trait is an unintentional sexual innuendo. She is pure and innocent. As of now, you can steal her items in the Nurse's Office to harm students. The rival nurse is a substitute one and the official nurse will be on vacation during the rival's week.

Substitute Teacher
A substitute teacher is also a planned rival later in the game. The teacher rival's trait is an intentional sexual innuendo, as she will be sultry and seductive. She can be called upon by Teacher's Pets if they discover a corpse/witness a murder. You will be able to matchmake her with a student.

Delinquent Rival
There is a delinquent rival planned later in the game. Not much is know about her, other that she is a planned rival and she won't be evil.

She is the leader of a gang, and always has her cronies nearby.

Senpai's Sister
The Imouto is Senpai's little sister and a rival. The Imouto doesn't exist in the game yet. Her appearance has been updated, as of November 28th, 2015. She doesn't lust after her brother. She loves her onii-chan so much that she doesn't want him to get a girlfriend. She wants all his attention. She is said to be one year younger than Senpai and two school years behind.

Oka Ruto
She is the founder and president of the Occult Club. She is also a cross between the Hex Maniac from Pokemon: X and Y, Tharja from Fire Emblem: Awakening, and Tomoko from WataMote.

Swim Team Captain
"The swim team captain is still planned. She's perpetually positive and energetic. You might describe her as a 'Genki Girl'".

Student Council President
The Student Council president is planned to look a lot like Nayuta from Yumina the Ethereal VN. She will be a strict disciplinarian.

Snobby Rival
YandereDev said that there will be a snobby rival who won't be evil.

Final Rival
The final rival will not be a yandere girl. She will be absent from school for nine weeks.

Info-chan was once intended as a rival who would battle you on the rooftop. Since it was a battle to the death over Senpai, she was indeed a yandere. She was supposed to have all of Yandere-chan's abilities. This has changed by as early as September 12th, 2015.

The confrontation with the final rival can be gone through a peaceful way, a violent way, and more!

Elimination Methods
As of now, only some of the elimination methods to get rid of rivals are implemented. Kokona is a test rival for all of them. These elimination methods include: There will be 13 elimination methods that will work on all 10 rivals. Each rival will also have one unique elimination method. That unique method may or may not be the one method that is restricted to only them. The rivals were built around their elimination methods.
 * Drowning
 * Electrocution
 * Poison
 * Dismemberment
 * Homicide
 * Kidnapping
 * Fake Suicide
 * Framing
 * Matchmaking
 * Gossip
 * Suicide
 * Rejection
 * Murder-suicide due to torture.
 * Possibly hanging.
 * Crushing due to droppable heavy objects.
 * A secret peaceful elimination method that has not been revealed yet.
 * "Friend Elimination".

Once a rival becomes a normal NPC after they have been eliminated non-lethally, all "normal NPC interactions" become available for them.

The player will not be able to threaten or intimidate rivals, only directly eliminate them one way or another. Blackmail will not be available either, because the game is about taking direct action against your enemies.

1980s Mode

 * Main Article: 1980s Mode

In this mode, there will be 10 rivals as well. They will be created out of pre-existing assets instead of designed to be completely new.

Instead of having a crush on Senpai, they will have a crush on Yandere-chan's father. This is because the yandere of that mode will be the one from the Mysterious and Basement Tapes, which is Yandere-chan's mother who is the yandere of 1989.

Phantom Girl
She is the only known rival at the moment. She might be killed in the intro animation of the mode, instead of being left up to the player.

Endless Mode

 * In Endless Mode, the game will randomly generate a rival each week for an unlimited amount of weeks. The player will have to stalk Senpai until they identify the newest rival girl. They will not have special stockings. They will have the normal functions as a rival, and you will be able to eliminate them the same way as a rival in Story Mode.

Trivia

 * There was originally one elimination method that would be similar to tampering with the school diving boards so that the rival would smash their face into the ground, but it was claimed as too goofy.
 * In the future, killing a rival early makes the game ask if the player would like to skip to the next week.
 * There is an old page that tells all of the 10 rivals. The information was near the bottom of the page. This may be outdated, but it was right about Osana Najimi and The Nurse. There's also a screenshot of the post.
 * Certain rivals may be capable of self-defense, but not the first rival since she's a tutorial. Some of them are the type of person who would catch a knife if it was thrown at them, even if their back was turned.
 * Only two rivals will directly combat Yandere-chan, and they, including a third rival who can defend herself, will fight in a manner completely different from one another.
 * Koharu Hinata had a crush on Senpai in the September 18th, 2015 Build, and was, therefore, a rival. This mistake changed with the October 8th, 2015 Update.
 * All of the rivals will be someone who Senpai is on good terms with. If he sees them bloody, he doesn't assume the worst. If one of the rivals are arrested, Senpai would be in disbelief, but he would have no way to overturn the evidence against her, so he would be powerless to help the rival.
 * It will not be possible to get rid of one rival that instantly causes the elimination of another rival.
 * Each rival will have a birthday on a different month.
 * YandereDev released a parody of a popular Christmas song at December 26, 2014, which contained two possible rival names: Miyuki-chan and Sadako-chan.
 * The Dev later revealed that he only used those names because he thought they were common, generic Japanese names.
 * The Dev also revealed he'd have names that reference who the character is, an example being Senpai's childhood friend being named Osana Najimi because the word Osananajimi means childhood friend in Japanese.
 * There originally was going to be a short loli rival, but now YandereDev is opposed to the idea because of all the work and problems it would create.
 * There's a page that shows most likely outdated designs of a few of the rivals. The artist even mentions that this is subject to heavy change. The Dev himself linked to the page on the older comments of this page. To see his post search for "Occult Club". There will be a link to the page of the designs and he will also reveal in that conversation about what the Occult Club president might look like. Under the art for the Imouto in the first link tells that YandereDev's characterization of the Imouto from the second link has changed.
 * One rival can be taken out by an effective car bomb in town, but this is not very yandere-like.
 * If the rivals were in Hogwarts, most of them would be Gryffindor.
 * Only rivals will have dark secrets, not regular NPCs. Certain characters like The Journalist might not count.
 * The full game might include a pregnant rival because of the need for a secret.
 * If the rivals have siblings, then they won't attend school.
 * Some of the rivals are intended to be likable people who don't deserve to die, thus possibly giving the player some guilt for whatever they do to them.
 * As of now, the artist who designs the rivals has created full-body illustrations for every rival character. YandereDev ask for a few modifications, and then he'll officially reveal all of them.
 * In the future, rival hairstyles might be unlocked after beating the game once.