Ayano Aishi

'Ayano Aishi, also known as Yandere-chan, is the main character and protagonist of Yandere Simulator''. Her goal in the game is to eliminate 10 rivals who have a special interest in her Senpai.'''

Name
YandereDev originally did not want to name Yandere-chan, as he believed that a name was unimportant. He later changed his mind, and wanted her name to include "yan" in it somewhere. He leaned towards Ayano, because there are fewer Google searches for that name.

Ayano is nicknamed "Yan-chan" by other students (probably by the "yan" in "Ayano" and not because of the "Yandere-chan"), but teachers will refer to her by either her surname or full name.

The name ”Ayano” in Japanese is written as あやの in hiragana (アヤノ in katakana). In kanji, it is either 綾乃, with 綾 (aya) that means "figure", "design", "twill", or "pattern of diagonal stripes", or 彩乃, with 彩 (aya), that means "color", both with 乃 (no), which is a possessive particle.

Ayano's last name, Aishi, is a play on words. "Ai (愛)"means love, and "Shi (死)" means death.

Introductions

 * Main Article: Intros

First Intro
At the beginning of the first intro, after expressing how disappointed she is with her current love life, Ayano has a dream about her ideal lover, 'Senpai', the night before her second year of high school. That morning, she loses track of the time and leaves for school late. She crashes into someone who looks perfectly identical to the person she saw in her dreams. When she sees him, she instantly falls in love with him, concluding to herself that their meeting is fate. She then sees him being scolded by his childhood friend, Osana Najimi, and plans to get rid of her.

Ayano then meets a mysterious girl named Info-chan, who asked by phone to meet her in Classroom 3-3. Info-chan tells her about the panty shot system and asks her to kill others around the school so that her newspaper will sell better. Ayano has serious doubts about this, not wanting to do anything that horrible, but considers the idea after being told that Osana will confess her love for Senpai that Friday, under the cherry tree behind the school. Even so, it will still be up to the player to decide her fate.

This cut scene is no longer in the present game and is outdated. However, as of the August 15th, 2015 Build, there is a visionary scene.

Second Intro
In the second intro, Ayano talks to herself about Senpai, Taro Yamada. She says she had felt no emotions at all until she met him, and now feels envy and rage towards someone who is apparently trying to take him from her. Ayano says she wants to kill this person, and that there is not a single thing she would not do for him.

Info-chan then sends our protagonist a text message, having seen her stalking Senpai. She informs Ayano that the girl's name is Osana Najimi, when she plans to confess to Taro, and about the panty shot system. The two form a client-provider relationship afterward.

Appearance

 * Main Article: Customization

Ayano Aishi has light skin, grey eyes, and medium-length black hair. She is 165 cm tall (5 feet, 4.96 inches), weighs 43 kg (94 lbs), and has average-sized breasts. Her hair is tied into a high ponytail with a bang swept to the right, and has two strands of hair reaching to her shoulders. As of the August 15, 2019 build, she can purchase dye and bleach her hair blond, in order to meet one of the requirements for joining the delinquents. In the future, she may gain a new ponytail, which will be very similar to her current hairstyle, but is an original asset. Ayano is seen wearing a white and navy blue uniform shirt with a red mini scarf, a matching navy blue skirt, black stockings, and black shoes. Her uniform can be customized. In all uniforms, she wears her signature black stockings. In artwork, she wears thigh-highs.

When in town Ayano will wear a teal-green shirt, blue shorts, black stockings, black gloves, and sneakers.

When visibly insane, Ayano will become hunched over, twitch erratically, have dilated pupils, and the top half of her face will cast a dark shadow. If she has murdered a student, her uniform and the rest of her body will become bloody.

When Yandere Vision is active, Ayano's body will be outlined in black, and her eyes will be fully red.

There used to be an Easter Egg where if she ran behind the Confession Tree located at the back of the school, she would be wearing a red and black version of the default uniform. This, however, was removed, after being reported countless times as a "bug".

There are several other Easter Eggs that alter her appearance, those being 47 Mode, Bad Time Mode, Bancho Mode, Blade Hair Mode, Cirno Mode, Cyborg Mode, DK Mode, Ebola Mode, Falcon Mode, Galo Mode, Hateful Mode, Punch Mode, Huntress Mode, Punished Mode, Slender Mode, Titan Mode, Tornado Mode, Witch Mode, X Mode, Hunger Mode, Medusa Mode, Gazer Mode, Yandere-kun, and Ship Girl Mode. The Easter Eggs that don't alter her appearance are Bad Romance Mode, a mode where a Stand from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure follows the player around, and Spooky Mode, a mode where every female NPC turns into a skeleton.

The player can change her appearance by altering the streaming assets folder. The player can currently give her different hairstyles by pressing the H key. The player can give her eye-wear accessories using the P key. They can also give her random miscellaneous accessories using the O key. The < and > keys decrease/increase her bust size.

In the final game, Ayano's hair will not be customizable during gameplay, unless the player goes to the small town's barber shop.

Description
Ayano Aishi is the protagonist of Yandere Simulator. She is known as "Yandere-chan" to players of the game, and has been given the cute nickname "Yan-chan" by her classmates.

Since early childhood, Ayano has suffered from an inexplicable, incurable condition. In short, this condition leaves her with a perpetual sense of being empty, hollow, and incomplete. As a result, she has never been able to experience satisfaction, fulfillment, or happiness, and has not been able to experience emotions in the same capacity as other people. As she grew older, she learned to pretend to be a normal person in order to avoid drawing negative attention from others, but was never able to feel any degree of empathy towards other human beings.

Her mother tried to comfort her, telling her that at Ayano's age, she was the same, and she couldn't feel anything. But someday, she said, she would meet someone who will change her life forever.

On the first day of her second year of high school, Ayano came into physical contact with "Senpai." In that moment, she gained the ability to experience everything that had been missing from her life; she felt complete, she felt fulfilled, and she felt powerful emotions. Meeting Senpai was like seeing color for the first time, hearing music for the first time, and feeling warmth for the first time. In his presence, she felt overwhelmed with euphoria...but as soon as they were apart, the feelings of emptiness returned.

Within a very short span of time, she quickly became absolutely addicted to him and came to rely on him in order to feel alive. Then, Ayano saw something horrible...something that terrified her and infuriated her at the same time. It was a young woman who clearly had deep feelings for Senpai. If Senpai entered a relationship with this girl, then Ayano might lose him forever...

Without a moment's hesitation, Ayano knew exactly what had to be done. This girl - her rival - had to be eliminated as soon as possible, by any means necessary, no matter what the cost.

First Intro
In the first intro cutscene, Ayano seemed to have feelings, and wasn't such a potential criminal; she was coaxed into it by Info-chan and was apprehensive of the idea of killing another person. She was simply a lovesick schoolgirl who wanted a boyfriend. She didn't even seem to consider killing Osana before Info-chan brought it up. This personality, however, is outdated and is stated by YandereDev himself that it does not correctly characterize her true nature.

Second Intro
In the second intro, Ayano is instead very emotionless, apathetic, and speaks with a deadpan expression. She would do anything to prevent people from obtaining Senpai, even if it meant killing them.

Gameplay
Ayano suffers from a fictional type of insanity. This condition doesn't allow her to experience normal, strong feelings. She had been this way since as far back as she could remember, before meeting Taro Yamada, Senpai, for the first time. Ayano doesn't have the ability to feel emotions, empathy, or remorse. She doesn't feel guilt or shame for harming others. However, she can feel pity at times. She knows what the general people consider to be "wrong", but she just doesn't care.

Ayano's behavior does not perfectly match the definition of either a sociopath or psychopath, but she is capable of actions that only a psychopath would consider taking - being usually bold and egoistical. She doesn't see the point of fighting students non-lethally (besides the delinquents) because they will just report her to the teachers. She is also capable of nonviolent elimination methods in order to cause less trouble for Senpai, or to run less of a risk of getting caught while doing something violent.

Ayano's "hobby" is trying to convince everyone around her that she is a normal girl with normal feelings. She buys manga, plays video games, and rides a bike to project the image of a regular school girl. However, she doesn't enjoy any of it.

Overall, Ayano is a blank slate whose personality is determined by the player's actions and choices, but all players have the capacity to commit each of the possible actions in the game. She isn't incredibly talkative by default and will only speak when necessary.

Abilities
At the start of the game, Ayano is very weak as she has not honed any skills. However, she has a great amount of stamina as she can run indefinitely and is quicker than other students. She also has the strength to take down a regular student in one hit and move heavy dumpsters, which can be filled with trash and a corpse, without getting tired. As of the August 15th, 2016 Build, YandereDev implemented the "Sanity-based Killing Animation" for Ayano, which allows her to stealth kill students. As of the April 26, 2018 build containing the delinquents, Ayano can use a hand-to-hand combat system to fight in a one-on-one duel with the delinquents or potentially a rival.

Ayano will not have any supernatural powers other than Yandere Vision, but even then her Yandere Vision is essentially just keen senses. She also can pickpocket others. As of the April 15th, 2016 Build, her giggle now attracts the attention of other students, causing them to follow the noise to its source. As of the March 6th, 2018 Build, Ayano can use a mirror to adopt several different outward personas that will allow her to gain benefits from students she fits in with. She knows how to torture a student to their breaking point in at least 40 hours.

Ayano can take classes to learn how to tranquilize a student, become stronger, run even faster, take down a teacher (an ability implimented as of the August 15th, 2016 Build), and more upcoming abilities when the rest of the classes are implemented. If Ayano reads enough manga volumes, then she is able to seduce males and females, or become numb enough that her sanity hardly decreases when killing students.

Like other video game characters, Ayano currently has an unrealistically large inventory. Although she can only conceal three weapons, she can still simultaneously carry around fifteen manga novels, twelve cassette tapes, a bottle of tranquilizer, an answer sheet, a bottle of poison, Saki Miyu's bra, Ryuto Ippongo's headband, a modified uniform, a pack of cigarettes, her phone, and notes. YandereDev has stated that it is just one of those video game instances where some items take up space and others don't really matter. The player will eventually be able to view her inventory.

By the end of the game, Ayano will be extremely strong, as she has unlocked all skills available. Because of this, only a Yandere girl with supernatural powers could defeat her at this point. Ayano will be able to kill almost any NPC she comes across. However, there may be some exceptions to this. When police are added, she can't kill them because if they started dying, the school would have to be closed.

Sanity
Ayano's sanity begins at 100% at the start of the game. If the player does actions including killing people, pushing them off the roof, etc, her sanity will decrease. Her killing animations change based on her sanity level. It takes longer amounts of time to kill someone when she is insane, and a short time if her sanity is at 100%. The player can raise her sanity to 100% again by doing certain action, such as being in Senpai's proximity or laughing.

If Senpai sees Ayano insane (dark shadow, walking strangely), he will automatically think that she's an insane psychopath, and will reject her, causing an instant "game over". Her reputation will also decrease if more people see you insane. Another way to get a "game over" while insane is when people see her true nature when the player is walking around hunched and stuff, her reputation will decrease and rumors will spread around to school. Those rumors will eventually reach Senpai, warning him of her true intentions. He will then think Ayano is an unhinged person, and will stay away from you. This will result in an automatic game over.

For these reasons, the player shouldn't kill so many people just to get to one person.

Background
Ayano was born on 1st April, currently, of 2004, to Ryoba Aishi and her unnamed husband. Ayano was born with the same condition as her mother, grandmother, and all the female ancestor had. As her description states "this condition leaves her with a perpetual sense of being empty, hollow, and incomplete. As a result, she has never been able to experience satisfaction, fulfillment, or happiness, and has not been able to experience emotions in the same capacity as other people. As she grew older, she learned to pretend to be a normal person in order to avoid drawing negative attention from others, but was never able to feel any degree of empathy towards other human beings".

As revealed in an Intro and in a Yandere-chan's childhood video, Ryoba told Ayano at some point that she was exactly like her when she was a child, and that, one day, she'd meet someone special who will "complete" her, just like she did. However, she never told her what she did in the past, as she promised Ayano's Father to never do it. Because Ryoba always knew about Ayano's condition, she didn't worried about her at all, but Ayano's Father desperately wanted to help their daughter, which included taking her to hospitals, doctors, and on examinations. Ryoba tried to explain Ayano's Father the condition of their daughter, but he didn't want to listen to her words. That was until Ayano began to pretend to be "normal".

As revealed in a childhood lesson video, Ryoba kept the promise that she gave to Ayano's Father, but she still found the ways to "teach" Ayano how to get away with murder. At some point during Ayano's early childhood, when they both were making dinner together, Ryoba "accidentally" cut her finger with a knife. She asked Ayano to clean up the blood while she was bandaging herself, and when Ayano did it, Ryoba informed her that the blood was still there. She then took luminol from the shelf next to her and sprayed the place where the blood was. Afterwards, Ryoba turned off the lights and with using a blacklight, she showed Ayano that the bloodstains will glow in it. Then, Ryoba turned on the lights and took a hydrogen peroxide, sprinkled the place where the blood was with it, and rub it. Afterwards, Ryoba turned off the lights again and with using a blacklight, she showed Ayano that the bloodstains will not glow anymore. In this way, Ryoba taught Ayano how to clean up the blood after murders.

At some point when Ayano was in middle school, Ryoba expressed that she would be happy if Ayano would got the school that she and her husband attended - Akademi High School, as she felt that she's going to met her "someone special" there, just like she did. Ayano decided to fullfill her mother's wish, in hope that when she'll achieve this goal, she'll finally feel "satisfied" with something. Ayano then focused on her learning and her grades were eventually good enough, that she was finally excepted to Akademi High School, but it didn't made her "satisfied" as she hoped, and Ayano finally began to excepting that she may never feel happy, like other people, and spent with that thought her whole first year.

A day before Ayano's first day of her second year of high school (currently, it would be 31st March of 2021), her parents went on a "vacation" to America for a 10 weeks

One the next day (currently, it would be 1st April of 2021), that beside being her first day of her second year of high school, also happened to be her 17th birthday, Ayano collided with a boy named Taro Yamada, who was her Senpai, as seen in an Intro. Althrough they didn't even spoke, Ryoba instantly fallen in love with Ayano's Father, as he finally made her "complete". Then, she quickly found out that he has a childhood friend named Osana Najimi, who apparently has a crush on him. Not knowing what to do about it yet, Ayano just stalked both of tchem, after which, she received a text message from a girl nicknamed "Info-chan", who suggested Ayano to murder Osana and offered her help with getting away with that. Info-chan also revealed that Osana's going to confess her love to Taro next friday what left Ayano only one week before she's going to lose her Senpai to Osana. The game begins with this week.

Taro Yamada

 * Main Article: Senpai

Before meeting Senpai, Ayano was just drifting through life without any purpose. She only met Senpai a few days before the beginning of the game, having enhanced feelings in his presence for the first time in her life. She changes because she no longer cares about right or wrong like she did before the encounter.

Ayano acts perverted and lovesick toward Senpai, wanting to go into the Boys' Shower Room to admire him. and enjoys trying meals that she has seen Senpai eating, because it makes her feel closer to him. She appreciates anything that makes him happy. Even so, what Ayano feels isn't lust or a crush, but more like seeing color in a grey world. In fact, it might not even be romantic, since Senpai just seems to give her new sensations. Ayano would love to confess to Senpai under the Confession Tree one day. If she ever lost Senpai's love, or if she got rejected by Senpai, YandereDev could imagine her crying over it.

If she ever accidentally hurt Senpai, Ayano would feel a mixture of depressed emotions. However, she is okay with traumatizing Senpai in order to eliminate a rival. If Senpai ever committed suicide because of her, she would do the same.

If Senpai died in an accident or due to a disease, Ayano would fall into a deep depression and in a coma-like state. She would refuse to eat and would eventually starve to death. If Senpai died due to murder, Ayano wouldn't rest until she was 100% sure she had killed Senpai's murderer in the most painful way possible. Then, she would gradually fall into the depression-coma. If she knew who did the deed, she also would feel a cross between deep hatred and total, hollow emptiness.

Ayano would not object to anything that would make Senpai happy, as long as it isn't another girl. Because of that, Senpai could use her if he wanted. However, if he ever insulted Ayano, she would punish him and might even break him to fit her ideals. She might mind-break him in an ending.

Ryoba Aishi

 * Main Article: Ryoba Aishi

Ayano is indifferent to both her parents. She believes that her mother is a kind, pure, warm, gentle, and innocent lady. Her mother loves her dearly, because Ayano is the physical manifestation of the love between herself and her husband. Ryoba knows about her daughter's nonexistent emotions, and heeds it no mind. She told her daughter that someone would complete her one day. If she saw Ayano in a relationship, she would be happy to see that her daughter had found "love".

Ryoba subtly taught Ayano how to avoid being caught in case she decides to commit murder. YandereDev has said that in the game's future skirt inventory, the skirt was made by Ryoba and was given to Ayano, who declined, seeing no use for it. However, after meeting Senpai, Ayano managed to find many ways to use the skirt and began wearing it on the first day the player gains control of her.

Ayano's Father

 * Main Article: Ayano's Father

Ayano is indifferent to both of her parents. Her father loves Ayano despite having suspicions about her, but doesn't know her true nature.

In her childhood, Ayano noticed that her father was constantly worried about her and started pretending to be normal, as she started to pity him. Afterwards, there was no longer a reason for her father to worry about her.

However, Ayano suspects that her father had eventually realized she was faking her normality, but was keeping it to himself.

Aishi Family

 * Main Article: Aishi Family

Ayano is an only child of her mother, Ryoba Aishi, and her father.

The rest of her family is not very close, since as soon as a family member finds a lover, he/she does not usually spend time with others. Ayano may not have even met most of her relatives. No one is on bad terms, though.

Info-chan

 * Main Article: Info-chan

Ayano's only current ally is Info-chan. They have a strictly professional client-provider relationship. Ayano works 100% solo, excluding her co-operation with Info-chan. In both intros, it seems that one of them might see their reasons for doing what they're doing as justified, while the other person is just insane. Info-chan's attitude towards or beliefs about Ayano may be affected by the player's actions.

It is possible for Ayano to use Info-chan for basic info on students and to identify rivals without ever giving her any panty shots, meaning that Info-chan may be simply used by her without anything in return, except maybe making Osana suffer. It is a huge spoiler to say what would happen if Ayano didn't take panty shots nor kill students, which would help Info-chan. YandereDev wants it to influence some events near the end of the story.

Rivals

 * Main Article: Rivals

The rivals will never know that Ayano exists (aside from Megami Saikou) unless she befriends them. They will never know they have a competition. Ayano is fine with eliminating them as long as she gets her obsession, Senpai, in the end.

Ayano seems to believe that she is more worthy of Senpai's love than the rivals, because they could never love Senpai as they can, as evidenced from when she saw Osana Najimi.

Students

 * Main Article: Students

Students are witnesses to crimes and acts committed by Ayano. If a student sees Ayano murder too many times, they will see her as a villain that needs to be defeated. They will continue to go to school to attempt to catch her in the middle of a crime, so that she can finally go to jail. Ayano seemingly doesn't care about the fates of the students, and will get rid of them if they get in her way.

According to YandereDev, Ayano's motivations for befriending students are purely manipulative. She most likely has never had any real friends.

If she were to befriend students in order to appear "normal", Ayano would likely not make friends with popular girls in order to not be noticed by too many people, for if she becomes very popular, students may stalk her in the future, complicating the act of murdering without witnesses. On the other hand, it would also be optimal for her to refrain from becoming an outcast, so she likely wouldn't make friends with delinquents or outcasts. She would make friends with the "in-between": People who aren't popular, aren't bullied, and aren't outcasts. In other words, she would become friends with normal, plain students, and/or wallflowers. However, as of the August 15th, 2019 Build, it is now possible to join the delinquents.

It is not possible for students to develop crushes on her. Hypothetically, if someone developed a crush on Ayano, she would not be affected. She would reject them while trying to "stay in character". On the outside, she would act like a shy schoolgirl who cannot accept their feelings. On the inside, however, she would think of them as an insect who needs to be swatted.

Trivia

 * Ayano's model, Aoi Kiryu, can be bought in the Unity Asset store.
 * She will eventually share the same base model as other female NPCs.
 * Motoba Kirie from the manga and anime "Himouto! Umaru-chan" reminds YandereDev of her.
 * Ayano was not meant to resemble Yuno Gasai from Mirai Nikki.
 * Ayano is called "Yandere-chan" but still, she can not be considered one, there are differences between Ayano and the definition of "Yandere".
 * Yanderes are described as "a character, most often female and in anime, who become violently possessive of a love interest" and are sometimes sweet and kind, but otherwise deranged. It is a portmanteau of the Japanese words "deredere", meaning lovestruck, and "yanderu", sick.
 * On the other hand, Ayano doesn't have such strong, normal feelings -- so she is not lovestruck, nor deranged.
 * Ayano's birthday is April 1st.
 * If Ayano is 17 years old and she appears nude, the game suddenly becomes a bit more lewd. Therefore, everyone's age is "????".
 * She has a similar personality to Kuu Dere, Homu Kurusu and Geiju Tsuka.
 * Ayano has never sung a song outside of school anthems.
 * Before she met Senpai, Ayano only ate to avoid an emaciated appearance. However, after she met him, she experienced a heightened sense of taste.
 * Ayano has no preferred tastes regarding food, but if she was asked to name her "favorite" food, she would name Senpai's favorite food, because any food that brings Senpai happiness is a food she appreciates.
 * On that note, Ayano's favorite color is the color that Senpai enjoys the most. However, her signature color is black.
 * Ayano would most likely never become a club leader.
 * Ayano would most likely never deface the Confession Tree, as she would love to confess to Senpai underneath it one day.
 * As of the April 30th, 2019 build, YandereDev implemented hallucinations if her sanity is at a low enough level.
 * YandereDev has imagined that there are very few circumstances where Ayano might be murdered, but the chances are very slim.
 * After meeting Senpai and finding something to protect, she may play Hitman as a "virtual training tool."
 * YandereDev thinks that if she had a time machine, she'd go back to her first year and try romancing Senpai 'normally', fixing any mistakes she made. Ayano crush crush.png
 * If Taeko Yamada is chosen instead of Taro, Ayano's gender won't change.
 * Ayano would not sacrifice Senpai if it was between him and her parents.
 * If Ayano and Senpai grew old and Senpai died first, Ayano would kill herself.
 * If Ayano had a cat and learned that Senpai was allergic to cats, she would kill the cat immediately.
 * In June 2016, YandereDev pitched the idea of adding Yakuza-style hand-to-hand combat with the rivals in the future and final game, but the idea was scrapped.
 * YandereDev thinks she should eventually be able to swim and drown students in the swimming pool.
 * There may be differences between Yandere-kun's and Ayano's characterizations. Yandere-kun would be characterized as sadistic and possessive. His life would be given meaning through his obsession with Senpai. Yandere-kun would view eliminating his rivals as a game, with each rival being an enemy that must be eliminated.
 * Ayano appears as a guest character in the video game Crush Crush
 * Ayano appears as a guest fighter in the indie fighting platform game Go All Out! she's also the first third-party female character to be in this game.

Quotes