Hold on, hold on! I see a lot people hating on the MC and saying stuff like "Poor Yuno". This really surprises me because I have a totally different view of things. Granted, I'm reviewing from the recently translated chapter 17, so some of the stuff I draw conclusions from probably hasn't been translated yet.
TLDR; What appears to be a spin less scum bag cheating MC and an innocent victimized childhood friend/girlfriend is not at all what it appears on the surface. Just who is the real victim here? If you're interested in what I think read on.
Anyway I'll explain why Yuno feels like the "villian" in this story to me. I know there are a lot of people who just fangush over annoying mentally unstable yanderes just for the lulz of it, but this particular case is not the norm. In most works the yandere is all over the MC but the MC doesn't have any strong significant others in mind (Case in point, Mirai Nikki). Taking this in mind it's understandable that people side with the Yandere's feelings.
However in this manga Yuno was shown to have signs of mental instability from a young age. Right from when they where kids she was fixated on making Yuki her possession. When another person fell for Yuki she took extreme, presumably violent, measures right away. For a child her age to have the capability to enact such violence isn't exactly normal or healthy. Yuno's actions also served to build a psychological cage around Yuki, constantly pressuring him to fell as if he belonged to her, as if she should rightfully love her. Pushing him into saying things like "I'll stay with you forever" while he was still a kid and never really understood love. Then when they are at the age of puberty she takes his past statements as shoves them all over his face everyday, reminding him of his "place" in life.
From the flashback chapter it is shown that when he met Saotome he found out what it really meant to "like" someone. However all those years of psychological imprinting Yuno did paid off. He wasn't able to muster the courage to tell Yuno the truth, and that he really didn't love her.
Hahaha, but he really has no good options. Yuno is like a powder keg that could go out at any moment. If he where to tell her the truth there's no doubt in my mind that Yuno would go right for the knife. Heck she did exactly that in the beach house chapter! I actually feel for the guy. I absolutely hate indecisive spineless male leads, or cheating scumbags like Makoto. However from what I see, Yukiteru is NOT being indecisive. He clearly loves Saotome, he says so clearly both to her and in his monologues. However he cares for Yuno too. He lies to her to face about "loving her" but I feel that he's motivated by both his genuine care for her and his fear of her backlash.
I guess Saotome understood this, so that's why she was willing to go along with Yukiteru's "playing with fire". She likes him to the point where she's not willing to let him go, but she too isn't brave enough to face the wrath of Yuno. When she tested the waters in the theme park she deduced that things would turn ugly if she confronted Yuno.
Well it also doesn't help that both Yuki and Saotome get off on doing dangerous immoral things on top of being in love. They're really cutting it close though, dancing with a yandere like that. I will however, concede that Yuno likely didn't corner Yuki intentionally. It was her mental instability/server fixation on everything she deems to be hers that caused this unfortunate situation for our protagonists. It seems like she really does love Yuki, and Yuki cares deeply for her, just not in the way she wants him to.
The one person I don't particularly like is Yumeno or whatever that sluts name is. She knows about how violent Yuno would get if she let the truth slip, and uses that to her advantage. Well she's not all bad in that she doesn't seem to have too much malicious intent. However I really don't like the way she plays around with Yuno and Saotome's dangerous potentially life threatening situation just for LULZ.
Of course, it could turn out that I'm all wrong. In Ch18 we could find out that Saotome doesn't love Yuki and is a slut, that Yuki is just a spinless coward afterall, and batshit insane murdering Yuno is actually just "misunderstood" lol.
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