least favorite dere from 4 main deres

Trynalbe said:
I think tsundere is my least favourite, that trope annoys me sometimes tbh

MonkeeDan said:
Tsundere for me, it's just so overused and often an excuse for writers to not develop the character imo

_48454449_ said:




have ever heard about senjogahara hitagi?

_48454449_ said:

have ever heard about senjogahara hitagi?

Manaban said:
Meh, Deredere is more common than Yandere, I'm pretty sure. Yandere is just a very popular and recognized term, whereas people have watched tons of anime with deredere characters without knowing deredere was a thing.

Worst is Kuudere, either way. Some people find the lack of expressiveness cute, but I find it dull. It nosedives straight into tiring when they try to match Kuudere with being snarky in a deadpan way because that combo is insanely overdone within that -dere type. I get that there's less ways you can take a Kuudere than a Dandere, Tsundere, Deredere or any other mainline -dere type for that matter, but...yeah, that combo is put together too much for me to want to do anything except groan when I see it used.

There's only been two ways they tend to really go, from my experience. They're snarky in a deadpan way or they're like this because of some tragedy. If the show is action-oriented, they tend to be the strongest. If the show is more rooted in slice of life stuff, they tend to be the wisest. Both secretly, like it's supposed to surprise the audience they're actually this way. This is probably at the foundation of why I think they kind of suck compared to the other -dere archetypes - inflexible in implementation.

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Take Louise from Zero no Tsukaima and Haruna from Kore wa Zombie desu ka? - they're both the tsundere presence in their show. Louise is portrayed as a haughty noble who legitimately dislikes Saito at first on account of being a peasant and continues to dislike elements about him like his tendency to act lecherous, yet her development is centered around trying to more or less come to terms with the former element - the idea that she is inherently above the commonfolk like Saito on account of her status as being from a noble family - through her partnership-turned-relationship with him. This is expressed through being placed into a tsundere archetype, starting tsun, then being kind of tsundere midway through, and finally coming to terms with it towards the back part of the series and just being -dere. There's tsundere hijinks and all of that shit that annoys people, but it's used as a tool to express some kind of complex challenging of perspective that makes her a really fascinating character to watch, if you can get past how unlikable of a first impression she leaves.

Haruna, on the other hand, is the tsundere presence in Kore wa Zombie desu ka? - and she's this aloof, detached genius type. They play lipservice to how intelligent she is and (sometimes) put it to action by showing her as being capable of casting complex spells through memory, but she also is shown as generally awkward. She barely remembers the names of people or locations, she walks into the middle of otherwise serious situations and sends them crashing down by misinterpreting the nature of what's happening (one of the funniest moments in the show for me was when she mistook a life or death fight for a game of red light-green light), and her tsundere feelings towards the MC are played up as an extension of as much. In a comedy that regularly makes it a point drive full throttle off of the stupid cliff, her portrayal as a tsundere is rooted as an extension of her complete lack of perspective and inability to grapple with context. It's presented as awkward and cliche. It's weird. It's a weird person acting in a weird way in a weird show surrounded by other weird people. And that's used to comedic effect instead of some kind of character arc. Yet, in a show where a huge part of the appeal is how weird and stupid both the cast is and concepts it uses are, it plays into that idiotic vibe very well.

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Those are two wildly different interpretations of being a tsundere. Their commonalities are shared in window dressing details, they have very little in common despite fitting under the same umbrella. And now that I've hopefully established an idea of how -dere archetypes can be diverse in execution and shown two authors who were capable of creating characters that are diverse in execution, we should compare them to the kuudere found in either series.

Zero no Tsukaima has Charlotte as a kuudere presence, who is a sort of ex-Princess for that setting's equivalent to monarchic France - the daughter of the former king who was ousted due to court intrigue. Before we get to hear her backstory, she's usually framed as very quiet and distant, yet the most capable student in her school in most regards. The aforementioned ousting is explored.

It's a tragic backstory. Her mother is basically a dementia patient who's abusive towards her now and the court of that kingdom more or less tries to indirectly kill her by sending her out on jobs that are likely to finish her off to prevent her from becoming a claimant of sorts. She is like she is as a result of these experiences.

I find it interesting as a display of strength on her part, especially since it sets aside a decent amount of time to explore it, but...that's all it is. It's a display of strength. At the end of the day, she's still expressionless, doesn't communicate a whole lot and just kind of stands there while the other characters do shit together, only really coming into play if there's a fight she's needed for. That's how you'll mostly be interacting with her as an audience member, and pulling back the veneer to show her tragic past doesn't really do anything else other than show a tragic past.

She's expressionless because she had a hard life. This is pretty much one of the two directions Kuudere always wind up going in at their most basic. It's not interesting when you've seen it a bunch already. I appreciate the effort that I feel was put into Charlotte as a character, but it still just falls flat on account of abundance. In this case, it's not because of the character or the author - being a kuudere is just inherently limiting in what you can actually do, far more than other -dere archetypes.

The other series I talked about, Kore wa Zombie, had Eucliwood Hellscythe as its kuudere - and well, yeah, I think she kind of sucked overall. She's the most popular character in that series, yet I consider her the worst by no small margin. Her bit is that, instead of talking once in a while, she writes what she wants to say on a little notepad. It's usually snarky stuff about how everyone around her is an idiot. She is also portrayed as being the most capable character in the cast, just like Charlotte. She also has a sort of "tragic" backstory in that she's a necromancer who has to "feel the pain of everything she revives" and this leads to some shitty, out of place in an absurd, bombastic comedy, teary-eyed scene where she asks if she's a monster for it.

She is snarky. She has a sad history, I guess. She is portrayed as extremely capable. She is the hallmark kuudere, checking pretty much every box that can be listed as archetypal, yet...she's the most boring character in a series with an otherwise distinct, strange and unique cast because of it. KwZ is a funny as fuck series that regularly nosedives into stupidity, but I found that anything involving Eucliwood to a large degree ended up being held back by her more than anything. She can't bounce off of the other weird characters in a way that keeps up with their pace, and that's...purely because of her archetype. Kuudere are inherently going to be less expressive, and at best, can be pigeonholed into providing a contrast from the goofier, more colorful characters of the series - but that's pretty much what KwZ does with a Kuudere who's mainly remarkable for her design than any personality or interest, and that's all it really could do if it wanted to use a Kuudere prominently like that.

Not that I think KwZ didn't try to do something different. Ayumu's mental image of her is wildly different than how she really is, and that leads to something goofy - different VA for every episode where his fantasy overrides reality and she's portrayed in a variety of different ways inside of his head before snapping back to reality. Issue is? None of it is her. It's all rooted in Ayumu as a character, essentially meaning the most distinct part about Eucliwood - being an object of absurd, out of touch fantasies - is entirely rooted in something somebody else is doing. It's Ayumu carrying her towards having an interesting component of her portrayal as a kuudere because of how he himself is a pretty interesting and funny take on being a harem MC. Outside of that, she's as archetypal as they come.

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You can take authors who are really good at making, compelling distinct characters within the -dere archetypes and watch them struggle writing an interesting or distinct Kuudere. This isn't because they're not skilled, it's entirely because of the limitations of what that archetype can do while still fitting into that archetype. You'd have to bust out fo that archetype to start really doing more with them, and...well, obviously at that point it's no longer a kuudere.

I really feel like you have to have a pre-determined appreciation for the idea or concept of a Kuudere to be capable of liking the archetype itself. It's a common thing with people who mainly communicate online to have that sort of distant disposition themselves in real life. It's probably really nice for Kuudere fans to be able to see a cute girl they can kinda relate to. Seeing a cute anime girl who's like you are? Awesome. Otherwise it falls victim to repetitiveness and uniformity far, *far* more than any other -dere archetype. If you don't like that concept, Kuudere can get old, fast.

Doesn't help that there's dandere, who have a similar core concept regarding social distance, just portrayed as more anxious than stoic. But that anxiety opens up the path for all kinds of expressions and contributions to the overall cast dynamic that kuudere lack, meaning a dandere can maintain some of these elements about social problems without being an overall weight on the show itself due to her very nature. Honestly, I think it's just less flattering than the stoic, socially awkward cute girl who's usually a secret badass. Dandere are socially awkward and tend to stumble over themselves in being this way instead. It evokes a feeling of "I should help/protect her" instead of "She's like me and I like that" because of this, because usually people don't want to see themselves as socially awkward in a stammering way like that, even if they're self-aware about as much.

Back to the point. Unlike tsundere, which is a very flexible archetype - and maybe the most flexible one, but either way I consider its reputation for uniformity entirely undeserved - people don't relate to someone acting like a bitch as a result of struggling to grapple with their feelings. They boil it down to its most basic elements and then dismiss it all as the same because the concept itself doesn't appeal, even if the implementation for tsundere is far, *far* from being as uniform as people would lead you to believe. This is why so many tsundere characters are victims of extensive reduction in terms of audience response.

But the concept for Kuudere is easier for people to appreciate. It's not going to be as divisive because it lacks any elements that could make it divisive, and the core components to it are easy for a good chunk of people to identify with, in a way that's not as unflattering as a dandere portrayal of these personality traits.

It's the opposite of what happens with tsundere. Instead of the diversity within the archetype being overshadowed by dislike for the concept of a tsundere, the lack of diversity within the archetype is masked by people's appreciation for the concept of a kuudere.

So yeah. Least favorite -dere archetype is kuudere. Easily. It's inflexible in implementation and tends to be bad for overall cast dynamics, which is amplified due to my lack of personal appreciation for the character's concept.

People like the archetype still, though, and I get that and feel like I understand the appeal. I don't mind them hanging around harem casts and the like because of this. I'm not saying they need to go anywhere because of the issues I tend to have with them. But when it comes to the question of "which is your least favorite -dere archetype?" I'm going to have an easy answer ready to fire off because of the issues I tend to have with kuudere. That's all this is and all it should be taken as.

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To make kuudere less of an issue in this sense, their development would have to go the way of the classic tsundere development - they start off as kuudere and develop out of that. Cut out the secretly powerful or secretly wise bullshit and reframe it as a character flaw moreso than a general positive, and allow the kuudere to grow out of it and be capable of getting attached to people and actually participating with the team/group/cast/whatever. The lack of expression is fundamental to the archetype and it's just too much of a problem to really get around while keeping it intact.

There's probably some series that does this that I haven't seen yet, but yeah. That's probably the best way to write one. And I think it'd much more negatively impact the impression the character gives off to people who tend to really like kuudere than classic tsundere does for people who like tsundere. It's no longer being portrayed as something desirable to relate to, and I very much have the impression that this is key for kuudere appeal.

Catalano said:
I can't stand kuudere, they're just so annoying when they don't do a thing, they just sit there in silence
also, for all tsundere lovers

Ahmad2345 said:
personally, Yandere. Sure, They can be cute and adorable, But they crazy nature for someone they love/care can make me feel bad for the person/character who loved by said Yandere character. For example: Kurumi Tokisaki from date a live. She's my favorite girl from Date A Live (I'm actually support Shido x Kurumi) But deep down I always feel bad for Shido everytime he meet her. What about you guys?