Rivals

Rivals are key elements in Yandere Simulator. They are the most important students to eliminate, since they will have a crush on Senpai. If the rival is not eliminated, they will confess their love to Senpai at the end of the week, and Yandere-chan will be left heartbroken, resulting as a game over. There are no actual rivals in the debug build, so there's no way to win yet. All rivals will have a second crush other than Senpai so that you can matchmake each and every single rival with a boy instead of killing them. Each male suitor will have a unique texture or accessory which makes them stand out around the generic NPCs. Each rival will be introduced via a cut scene conversation with Info-chan but in Endless Mode, the game will randomly generate a rival and the player will have to stalk Senpai until they identify the newest rival girl.

The rivals will never know you exist or that they have competition for Senpai...

Victim-chan
Victim-chan was the first test rival. Her look was a reference to the first rival, Osana Najimi. She was eventually killed off by YandereDev.

Kokona Haruka
'''Kokona Haruka is the current test rival. '''Although she is not 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 must eliminate her - however, eliminating her won't do anything, since the player will still lose at the end of the week. When sent a picture of her face to Info-chan, it shows that she doesn't have a crush on Senpai, which might mean she's not going to be an actual rival. Potential rivals will be outlined in red. There are many ways to kill Kokona, including drowning, fake suicide and poisoning (because she is a testing rival).

Koharu Hinata
Koharu Hinata is the new test rival. Just like Kokona Haruka, she is another rival who will not be the official rival in the final game. There is only one way to kill her, stabbing (this is the way to kill every single student). Otherwise there is a way to kidnap her (and other students), but she will always be a blue-haired girl in the basement. However, kidnapping is not a way to kill her.

Osana Najimi
The first rival will be Osana Najimi. Her AI, however, is incomplete, this is the reason why she is outlined red if you use the Yandere Vision. Currently, 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 is Senpai's childhood friend and keeps denying she has a crush on him. This is a typical trait of a Tsundere.

In the second intro her Tsundere tendencies and her background as Senpai's childhood best friend is not mentioned in the slightest. However, the Dev has already mentioned somewhere else that she will be this way. The post (near the bottom, he reveals all rivals) might be a reliable source because it also reveals the nurse, who is already a confirmed rival, as seen from one of the dev's Twitter posts.

Nurse
The Nurse is a planned rival later in the game. The Nurse Rival's character trait is unintentional sexual innuendo. Her AI is also incomplete but she is highlighted in red if you use Yandere Vision. As of now, you can steal her syringe and tranquilizer to Kidnap students.

Teacher
'''A teacher is also a planned rival later in the game. '''The Teacher Rival's trait is intentional sexual innuendo. She can be called upon by Teacher's Pets if they discover a corpse/witness a murder.

Unknown Drills
There will be a rival in the final game with purple "drill-hair" like Kokona Haruka, but with a different name, face, voice, stockings, and other features, likely as a reference to Kokona Haruka who is the current test dummy.

Final Rival
The final rival is rumored to be a Yandere. Not much is known about her, but she will be the most challenging rival because she will have all of your abilities. Since she will most likely be similar to Yandere-chan, she might try to eliminate Yandere-chan before the end of the tenth week.

Trivia

 * You will not be able to threaten or intimidate rivals, only directly eliminate them one way or another.
 * In the future, if you kill a rival early, the game will ask you if you would like to skip to next week.
 * There is an old page that tells all of the 10 rivals. The information is near the bottom of the page. This may be outdated, though.
 * The confrontation with the final rival can be gone through a peaceful way, a violent way, and more!
 * If the player chooses to make Senpai female, then Yandere-chan is a lesbian and all of the rivals are bisexual.
 * Certain rivals may be capable of self-defense, but not the first rival since she's a tutorial.
 * Rivals won't be in the school before their week comes.


 * Koharu Hinata has a crush on Senpai in the August 18th build, and is therefore a rival. However, this is most likely because of a mistake YandereDev made.
 * All rivals with models shown (temporary and non-temporary) have their hair up. Osana Najimi and Kokona Haruka have their hair in pigtails and the nurse has her hair in a ponytail.
 * In the future, you will be able to badmouth rivals on social media.
 * 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.
 * Once a rival becomes a normal NPC after they have been eliminated non-lethaly, all "normal NPC interactions" become available for them.
 * YandereDev has stated that you must stalk rivals to learn their strengths and weaknesses.
 * There will be a couple of rivals that will be able to catch thrown knives.
 * Each rival will have a short cut scene that shows how they met Senpai and why they are attracted to them. Some of the cut-scenes will be humorous to balance out the other dark elements of the game.
 * Only two rivals will directly combat Yandere-chan.
 * Each rival will have a birthday on a different month.
 * YandereDev released a parody of a popular Christmas song in 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'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 this page. If you want to see his post, press 'control' and 'f' and then search for where he talks about the 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 us that YandereDev's characterization of the Imouto from the second link has changed.
 * The dev states that the rivals will rise in popularity as time goes on. Meaning, the first rival is the least well-known. The final rival is the most. This does not mean that if you keep them alive they'll get more popular, although Senpai gets more popular over the course of the game, which is why near the end people like the Student Council President will like him.