Video Game / Saiko No Sutoka

"Don't hide. Play with me..."

"The feeling of your blood on my hands! It's beautiful!"

— Saiko-chan, randomly after stabbing the player

Saiko No Sutoka (“Psycho Stalker”, as translated from Japanese) is a survival horror game developed by habupain, in which concerns a high-school student named Akira who must find a way to escape his school during nighttime, all while getting hunted down by the eponymous Saiko-chan, who has quite a bone to pick with him...

The first release of the alpha was on September 4, 2020, and the public release version is currently on Alpha v2.2.8, with Alpha v2.0.1 available for free. The game is currently still in development and the visuals are rather unpolished, but the unique mechanics of its antagonist has been the game's selling point. Rather than simply chasing the player on sight from A to B, the game opts for having Saiko be a much more intelligent and unpredictable pursuer. She will patiently hide behind walls/corners/doorways, kill off the lights in rooms and wait outside to ambush the player, knock them down when they have a key in their hands or when she's behind a closed door, stalk and silently follow right behind them, and cut them off if she can predict where they're going. All the while she'll tease, taunt, and laugh at the player in a cute and calm voice to really get under their skin.

It can be downloaded on itch.io here, on Gamejolt here, and on Steam here.

On November 22, 2022, a Spin-Off was released called Saiko No Sutoka: Halloween Edition, where you are trying to escape a forest with the help of a zombified Saiko-chan. She needs help being put back together first though, and the two of you aren't alone in the forest...
This build is meant to be a test for the upcoming Nightmare Mode of the main game. You can download it for free here. A full-fledged Spin-Off (Saiko No Sutoka No Shiki) was later released in January 2024; it can be downloaded on Steam here.

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The alpha contains examples of:

• Abduction Is Love: Saiko kidnaps Akira because she is obsessed with him, and kills his friend Shinji out of jealousy.
• Abhorrent Admirer: In the opening, Saiko holds Akira hostage because of her obsession to him. She even kills off a boy whom she caught her senpai talking to. One of the animated shorts reveals that Akira felt repulsed that she even followed him to the restrooms.
• Accidental Suicide: In the normal ending, Saiko accidentally impales herself on sharp glass while Akira makes his escape. Afterward, she dies of blood loss while pleading for her "senpai" to help, but he runs away instead.
• Agony of the Feet: Saiko can break the glass window on a door to create a hazard that can injure anyone when they step through it, howl in pain, and lose health when running. This can be mitigated if you can find a pair of shoes on Normal/Hard Mode (you have them on by default on Yandere), though there's no such luck on Yangire. Even Saiko will complain about the glass shards whenever she walks over it while in her docile state even though she is the one who smashed the glass window in the first place. Prior to update 2.2, Saiko herself was unaffected by this despite being barefoot, but this has since been patched up. Yangire Mode keeps Saiko's immunity to the broken glass however.
• Ahoge: Saiko is sporting one.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Saiko is portrayed in a sympathetic light in the Good and Best Endings in Normal/Hard mode.
  • In the Good Ending: Her death is presented as tragic. Her last moments spent begging Akira for help make it clear that she knows she'll die and she's terrified. The Nightmare Mode implies that she came back to haunt him, asking why he didn’t save her from a tragic death.
  • In the Best Ending: Saiko spends the final moments of the ending in misery as she realizes that she's lost her "Senpai" forever.
• All Just a Dream: The end of the Saiko no Sutoka: Shinki spin-off reveals the events of the game are actually part of Akira's nightmare. He wakes up in time to get a phone-call from Shinji, implying the events of the main game are right around the corner.
• Alone with the Psycho: Akira has been held hostage by the titular Ax-Crazy yandere at their school and must find a way to escape her.
• Always Identical Twins: Extreme Yangire Mode introduces Elissu, who looks almost identical to Saiko. The only difference is that Elissu's hairstyle is different and she carries blood-stained axes.
• Antagonist Title: The “Psycho Stalker” in question is who you run and hide from.
• Apologetic Attacker:
  • Yandere Saiko seems less intent on killing Akira and usually switches in after her Yangire state has harmed him too much in order to try and save him with an apology and some healing medicine. This also serves as a tell, as a lack of apology by her is a sign that it's actually Yangire Saiko.
  • The bottom part of the note in the office was written by her, also suggesting that she doesn't want to hunt him around the school the way that she is, even though she does take advantage of the situation to mess with him in the heat of the moment.
• Artificial Brilliance: Saiko-chan is more than just a relentless pursuer. She will use a variety of tactics depending on the situation at hand and even actively toys with her target instead of just chasing after him. If she confronts either character in a room, she'll lock the door and break the windows before pursuing him to delay his escape, trapping the room's doorway with the broken glass (if the player doesn't run, they've slowed down and given her an opening). She can occasionally fake an apology when sufficiently angry and appear to offer medicine which turns out to be poison. If Akira is too far ahead of her, she can use a throwing knife to attempt to slow him down. These tactics become more pronounced in Yangire Extreme mode when Elissu is brought into the mix. Usually, one of the duo will actively pursue you while the other sets up an ambush ahead of you or provides support for the former via putting up traps to harass the player.
• Attention Whore:
  • If left ignored for too long by either protagonist, Saiko will enter her murderous state. This is even more pronounced with Akira.
  • If Saiko manages to steal a key, she will demand that they look at her even if the player deliberately ignores her.
• Ax-Crazy: Saiko’s only apparent goal is to hunt you down and kill you, though, unlike most examples of this, she bides her time to enjoy freaking you out just For the Evulz.
  • This is more prominent in Yangire Mode, where she becomes an insane monster out for Akira's blood. Elissu shares this trait as well, while also dual wielding axes.
• Bad End: As of 2.2, five of the nine endings involve Saiko murdering Akira and two involve the death of Shinji.
• Bad Moon Rising: In patch 2.2, the moon has a reddish-orange hue to it in Yangire Mode.
• Bait-and-Switch: The difficulty order from top to bottom is Nightmare, Yangire, Hard, Normal, and Yandere. As a result, it's not uncommon for people to believe that Yandere is Easy Mode by virtue of it being below Normal in the menu, being set during daylight, Saiko's less menacing appearance, and her lack of a weapon. In actuality, the mode is between Hard and Yangire in terms of completing successfully.
• Being Watched: When you look at her from a distance, Saiko has the lovely habit of creepily peeking at the player from behind a doorframe or a wall. She'll also peer at you through a window if you're in a classroom. She also realizes when she's the one being watched if you spend too much time looking through a single camera (and thus knows where you are).
• Beware the Nice Ones: Despite her seemingly friendly demeanor and relatively normal appearance in Yandere Mode, Saiko is actually incredibly vindictive and will deliberately mess with Shinji and taking sadistic glee in playing around with him before going in for the kill.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Saiko and Elissu (once she's summoned) work as a tag team hunting down Akira in Yangire Mode.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Saiko in Yandere mode. Super helpful of her to show you around the school looking for your friend, right? Shame she's just doing it to lure you into a trap. And unlike with Akira, she has NO reason to keep Shinji alive.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Saiko has these in Nightmare Mode, signifying her undead state that is haunting Akira in his mind. They appear to be empty sockets.
• Blood Is the New Black: Saiko considers the feeling of your blood on her hands to be 'beautiful'. She also has several blood splotches on herself prior to meeting the player character, but where they came from is unknown, though the blood splatters you can find around the school (and occasional corpse) imply where they came from.
• Bloody Horror: Yangire Mode has the school's hallways, walls, and rooms drenched in blood.
• Booby Trap:
  • In Yandere Mode, Saiko booby-traps the office with a gas bomb that can only be deactivated by shutting off the breaker panel in the Storage Room. The classrooms which contain the digits for the safe in the office are also rigged with gas bombs. Once she realizes the player foiled her trap, Saiko turns violent.
  • Saiko can set up trip wires at the doors of classrooms and the hallways as a way to knock Akira down to the ground.
• Boring, but Practical: Walking.
  • While running seems like a sensible thing to do when trying to escape from a knife-wielding psycho, doing this too much only gives Saiko a better idea of where the player is as she can hear their footsteps, letting her continually track them down until they eventually make one mistake too many. Thus, sprinting should only be reserved for short bursts as with enough distance between the player and Saiko, quickly dashing around a corner and then walking after breaking line-of-sight will cause her to immediately forget where the player is, giving them much more room to operate as she scutters off to other parts of the school.
  • There's also the fact that running causes Saiko to run in order to catch up with you, tiring her out. As a result, her next attack does fatal damage due to her being too tired to continue the chase properly anymore. The player also gets tired when their Sprint Meter reaches zero.
• Boulder Bludgeon: In 2.2.7, Akira can now chuck a brick at and momentarily stun Yangire Saiko so he can steal the exit key off her, but that will set her off as she will instantly kill Akira if she manages to catch him again.
• Bound and Gagged: Saiko kidnaps Akira in an attempt to induce Stockholm Syndrome in him. To Saiko, Abduction Is Love, clearly showing off her yandere tendencies and killing Shinji out of jealousy. Judging by Saiko's comments in the intro, it's implied she also hates Akira dating other girls.
• Camping a Crapper: If Saiko finds the player hiding in one of the bathroom stalls, she attempts to strangle them, though she backs out if the player fights back. Saiko then reverts to her "kinder" side, offers him a potion (that has a 50/50 chance of being poisoned), and asks them to not leave her.
• Captive Date: In the intro, Akira wakes up to find Saiko holding him hostage and attempting to induce Stockholm Syndrome in him before she leaves to kill his friend Shinji.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Saiko and Akira used to date each other but broke up because Shinji noted that she is too clingy.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • The subtitles that appear are color coded to which mode Saiko is in. Crimson red is when she's in her murderous state, while her more 'helpful' disposition's subtitles are purplish. Nightmare Mode has the subtitles appear in black and red.
  • The Halloween Edition has Saiko talking with the same crimson red as the main game, while Yui has a smaller white font for her subtitles.
• Complexity Addiction: Saiko's plan in Yandere Mode seems to be this. Shinji shows up at school looking for Akira, Saiko doesn't want that, so what's her solution? Greet him when he arrives and walk him around the school pretending to help him, get him to turn on the power after it goes haywire, then trick him into going to the main office to trigger a smoke bomb trap when he opened the door. Following this, lure him to another room as he's dying from the gas to bait him into taking a drugged antidote, which causes him to pass out. She couldn't have possibly accounted for Akira trying to escape the locker he's in and knocking it over, but the trap's presence makes it clear she intended to lure his friend up there at some point with no reason to just not let him die from that. She clearly has fun doing things her way.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: While the Halloween Episode spin-off isn't a sequel, it does feature a new antagonist. Unlike Saiko, who suffers from mental health issues like DID (Dissociative Personality Disorder) and is unhealthily obsessed with Akira, the psychotic woman out for his blood has zero romantic attachment for him and even calls him a "deviant" because of his association with a zombified Saiko. The psycho woman even despises Saiko, disparaging her and even killing her in front of Akira after she helps him escape.
• Cooldown Hug: When Saiko began shifting to Yangire state, Akira can calm her down by either patting her on the head or caressing her cheek to get her to return to her Yandere state, the comparatively less 'hostile' state. There is a chance of this being a fake-out, however.
• Couldn't Find a Pen: There are a few notes in the Office that appear to be written in blood. The identity of the author is mentioned to be Saiko's Yangire personality, with the normal text actually written in pen coming from Saiko.
• Creepy Circus Music: For Yangire mode, a warped version of the "Entry of the Gladiators" circus theme plays when Saiko is nearby and speeds up in tempo as she gets closer. The theme is reversed when Elissu is the pursuer.
• Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: Saiko gains these when she Turns Red and will instantly kill you next time she catches you, though you'll only really notice this when she's in the middle of stabbing you to death.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: The bad endings in Normal or Hard modes, and all endings in Yangire Mode are this. In Normal and Hard modes, Saiko beheads Akira, his last sight being her red eyes looking at him. In Yangire Mode, his bad endings include being "let go" by Saiko after she decapitates him and throws his head out the school window, being cut in half with Saiko and Elissu dancing with his upper and lower halves respectively, and managing to escape only to be knifed in the back, decapitated and his head put on a stuffed animal as Saiko and Elissu have a tea party with him.
• Curtains Match the Window: Saiko has red hair to go with her eyes. Yandere Mode makes her hair look more brown and her eyes look somewhat pink.
• Cute and Psycho: 'Yangire' (basically, this trope) is one of two moods that Saiko can enter. Here, her eyes glow red and she doesn't care as much about her crush on Akira as to hunt him down to stab him to death. In Yangire Mode, she is permanently in this state.
• Cute Is Evil: Don't let her adorable appearance and soft voice fool you; Saiko is a remorseless, vicious killer who will gladly eviscerate you with a bloody knife.
• Dangerous Windows:
  • As Akira is barefoot, Saiko can break the glass window on a door to create a hazard that can hurt him whenever he walks over. It can be mitigated by wearing shoes to avoid being injured.
  • In Yangire Mode, Saiko can smash through windows in the hunt for Akira.
• Deadly Gas: Saiko occasionally tosses gas bombs to slow you down in Yandere Mode. She even wears a gas mask to shield herself from the fumes.
  • Saiko also booby traps the Office and the classrooms which contain the digits for the safe with smoke bombs that activate if the player opens the door. These can be deactivated by killing the juice in the storage room, though that attracts Saiko's ire when she finds out.
  • In update 2.2, she can now booby trap the classrooms and hallways with the same smoke bombs in Normal/Hard Mode. They activate if Akira hits the tripwire.
• The Determinator: Once sufficiently angered, Saiko will stop at nothing to kill you. She practically follows you everywhere once she finds you until you can get the slip on her.
  Saiko: I will kill you.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: The Yandere trope. While many might find it fun or titillating even to have a cute girl relentlessly obsessed with them, the game flips it upside down: Saiko is a deranged murderer whose unhinged mannerisms only serve to make her look creepy more than anything. It's also revealed that ever since their Crash-Into Hello meeting, her obsession of Akira became unhealthy as she transformed her entire bedroom into a Stalker Shrine for him. On the flip side, Akira felt horrified by her erratic behavior as she even tailed him all the way to the boys' bathroom, indicating that she has No Sense of Personal Space even when she's told off.
• Destination Defenestration: In Yangire mode, if Saiko catches you after getting the fake exit key, she tosses you out of a window.
  Saiko: I know you always wanted to escape. Therefore... I decided to let you go.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Akira can throw a brick at Yangire Saiko as an easy way to steal the exit key while she's knocked out, though that sets her off once she notices Akira grabbed the key.
• Difficulty Levels: You can choose between 4 difficulty levels- Yandere, Normal, Hard, and Yangire. A fifth, Nightmare, is currently in development.
  • Normal and Hard are the standard difficulty settings.
  • Yangire ups the difficulty by having Saiko constantly be in her Yangire State, meaning she won't give you medicine or revert to a non-violent state after attacking you. You can then make it even harder by knocking over a picture frame in the office, which initiates Extreme Yangire mode and summons Saiko's twin sister Elissu.
  • Yandere plays quite a bit differently than the others, because it's a prequel; you play as Shinji, the guy Saiko goes to kill at the beginning of the game. Saiko remains in Yandere state, but because she wants you dead, if you don't fall for her tricks she'll attack you using different tactics than the main game.
  • Nightmare Mode will be the hardest of all difficulties. It will be as dark as, if not darker than Yangire Mode. The subtitles are rendered black so you have a harder time knowing which mode Saiko is in, and she's completely invisible, with the only way to see her being the bloody footprints she leaves behind her and the brief moments she returns to visibility when she interacts with something. The game will also shift between "memories and realities" of previous modes to confuse the player and show that Akira has developed PTSD, experiencing flashbacks of the events that led to Saiko's death.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • The motivating factor behind Saiko killing Shinji and kidnapping Akira, possibly with the intent to do the same to them? A casual conversation.
  • Her docile state is fond of this in gameplay. Turning your back on her results in her grabbing Akira from behind and clinging onto his back before she eventually begins choking him. Resisting this causes her to fall to the ground, where she complains that he's hurting her. She then switches to her violent state and starts chasing him.
• Distressed Dude: Akira has been held hostage by Saiko, who is obsessed with him and won't let him leave unscathed or alive.
• Drone of Dread: The 'music' that plays when Saiko is directly chasing after you outside of Yangire Mode.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Saiko sometimes gives an ecstatic sigh and does a Palm on Cheek Pose when the player notices her. The gasp sounds rather orgasmic.
• Door Fu:
  • Instead of entering a classroom you're in, Saiko will sometimes wait behind a closed door (even closing it if it's open beforehand) until you get close enough for the door to smack into you. The player can use this against Saiko if she's blocking the door to knock her off, but she doesn't like it.
  • When it's the player who locks himself up, she will kick the door off its hinges so he will be knocked down if he's too close. If she's in her nicer state, she'll even "beg" the player to let them in before punting it down in anger.
• The Dreaded Pretend Tea-Party: In one of the endings for Extreme Yangire Mode, Saiko and Elissu have a tea party with a decapitated Akira, whose head has been put on a stuffed animal.
• Dual Wielding: In update 2.2, Saiko wields machetes in both hands, swinging wildly as she tries to hack Akira to death in Yangire Mode. Elissu also does this but with a pair of axes instead.
• Dungeon Bypass: In Yangire Mode, you can steal the exit key off of Saiko by throwing a brick at her, circumventing the need to find the keys for the locked rooms to get the keypad numbers, as well as bypassing Saiko's final trap. This is balanced by the fact that you need to sneak up on her while she's unaware of you during the highest difficulty mode of the game, and you'll completely set her off once she sees you have the key, which is a daunting task to say the least.
• Entitled to Have You: Saiko feels entitled to Akira and holds him hostage so that she can have him for herself. She even kills Shinji who spoke to him just because she felt he was taking away the object of her affections. Judging by Saiko's comments, it's implied she also dislikes Akira dating other girls.
• Establishing Character Moment: The alpha 1.9 version and all future updates (besides Yandere Mode) have an intro with Akira waking up tied to a chair and being greeted cheerfully by Saiko. She tells him it's night now, how she's been watching him sleep the whole time and assuring him that she would never hurt him. But then says "He" might if Akira doesn't behave, then that the thought of her senpai leaving her makes her feel "Him" start to come out and freezes up, before suddenly introducing herself to Akira again with a wider smile and twitching a lot more, asking if they missed him. "He" quickly brings attention to the bloody knife Saiko is holding before threatening to use it to cut out Akira's tongue, which Saiko considers playing with before they change their mind to go kill Akira's friend, Shinji, whom he talked to earlier, promising to bring his head back to him before leaving. This pretty much tells you how much danger you're in and how completely bonkers Saiko is.
• Even Evil Has Standards: If the player is crouching next to Saiko, she will assume they're looking up her skirt and snap their neck.
• Evil Is Not Well-Lit: The muted, blue lighting of the school and that it's completely empty (save for you and Saiko) gives off an eerie feeling of kenopsia. At times, Saiko will go to the Storage Room to Kill the Lights and possibly hide there to ambush the player.
  • It's even worse in Yangire mode, as the rooms are drenched in blood all over the place and is implied to be a nightmare Akira is suffering after a traumatic experience with being kidnapped and seeing his friend get killed.
  • The Nightmare Mode that the developer has alluded to will have very dark rooms to signify the PTSD Akira undergoes after he ran away.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Despite her reassuring remarks that she loves him, Saiko loves to troll Akira just to torment and trap him.
• Evil Sounds Deep: In patch 2.2, Saiko and Elissu have reverberating vocal chords in Yangire mode.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Saiko is this towards Shinji in Yandere Mode, pretending to help him look for his friend. She turns murderous even if he manages to foil her traps.
• Failure Is the Only Option: As his endings reveal in Yandere Mode, Shinji is always going to die. Going through with everything Saiko has him do ends up with him being decapitated. Even if he manages to escape, the new ending showcases him gloating about managing to leave...until Saiko manages to throw a vase on his head, instantly downing him and if it didn't kill him, he's definitely unable to move and thus easy pickings for Saiko.
• False Reassurance: Saiko will use this to stymie the player's progress.
  • At times when he holes up in a room, she will beg him to let her in, saying she won't hurt him again. Even if he does comply, she will go back to her attempts at preventing his escape, eventually get angry and attempt to murder him again, or immediately attack him upon opening the door for her.
  • In either of her states, she can offer tainted health potions to the player if he's not at max health. While Yangire Saiko only offers poison, Yandere Saiko can give real medicine that can knock him out.
  • In Yangire Mode, Saiko willingly lets him leave the school once he has the exit key. But the key within the locker is the wrong one and she lures him into a trap that leads to her throwing him from a window if she catches him. She has the actual exit key.
• Fan Disservice:
  • Played with. Regular Saiko, even while covered in blood from who knows where, still looks attractive, all things considered. Yangire Mode Saiko on the other hand is whole other can of worms in that, while she's wearing what looks to be a Playboy Bunny outfit, her arms and legs are covered in cuts and scrapes, she's got Glowing Eyes of Doom and has glowing red paint on her face that makes her look like a female Joker. Also, her voice has reverberating vocal chords.
  • One of the Steam cards shows a ghastly version of Saiko whose limbs are impaled with glass shards, implying that she is haunting Akira even in death.
  • The Immortal Senpai achievement's image shows Akira sporting bat-like wings, horns, and a devilish Slasher Smile.
  • The God of RNG achievement's image shows Akira dressed up similar to Yangire Saiko◊ (including red facepaint, a bowtie, and bunny ears). He also has the same Red Eyes, Take Warning as Yangire Saiko and an unnerving Glasgow Grin that makes him look like the Joker.
• Faux Affably Evil: For all of her giggling and reassuring comments on how much she loves Akira, Saiko is very much cruel and callous in her desire to keep him trapped and tormented.
  • It's more visible in Yangire mode, where she occasionally slips into her yandere state (trying to trick you into opening a door or accepting a tainted potion), only to revert back and mock you for your stupidity.
  • In Yandere mode, she pretends to help Shinji by walking him around the school, then reverts back to her murderous persona if he foils her scheme.
• Flower-Pot Drop:
  • Just as Shinji escapes the school and gloats about it, Saiko bashes his skull with a flower pot and has the last laugh. Even if the pot didn't kill him, he's definitely unconscious and an easy target to be rubbed off.
  • One of the Yangire Mode endings show Saiko dropping a flower pot on Akira as he tries running away. The scene fades to black, and the viewer sees Saiko and Elissu having a tea party with decapitated Akira, whose head is now on a stuffed animal.
• For Doom the Bell Tolls:
  • The ambient music when not being chased by Saiko is composed of eerie bell-like sounds.
  • For Yangire mode, the bells go from ambient to playing a demented, twisted version of "Entry of the Gladiators" (the song often associated with big top circuses) to match Saiko's new glowing facepaint. It gets reversed when Elissu is the one chasing.
• Forgetful Jones: Breaking line of sight with Saiko and walking will result in her immediately forgetting where the player was even if she just saw them go around a corner.
• Genre Savvy:
  • Yangire Saiko. She disposes of Akira's shoes before the mode starts so that he has no way to protect himself from broken glass, will break through windows if he tries to lock her out of a room so that she can get around the usual kiting strategy, will camp at the exit both inside AND outside of rooms, strangles him from behind quickly enough that he can't struggle to escape her hold, carries multiple knives for throwing, and worst of all already replaced the real exit key with a fake specifically for the purpose of luring Akira into a trap on the off chance he does manage to actually evade her long enough to collect the password around the school.
  • Elissu also counts for attacking the player from behind the very second they leave the office.
• Giggling Villain:
  • Saiko likes doing this while within or just out of the player's sight just to get under his skin.
  • Downplayed in Yandere Mode. She doesn't do it at all normally. Even after she Turns Red she does it a lot less than she usually does in the other modes. After all, she thinks you're going to take Akira away from her, and she can't allow that.
• Girl with Psycho Weapon: No pun intended, Saiko is a psychotic, knife-wielding yandere. It's jacked up to eleven when she's in Yangire mode.
• Gollum Made Me Do It:
  • Subverted. Saiko tries to pin the blame for her violent actions on her other personality in the game's opening, though it doesn't stop her from continuing to brandish a knife at the target of her affection, choking him if he turns his back to her, assaulting him for a key, or keeping him locked up with her against his will.
  • Yandere Mode takes this a step further and shows that she's capable of plotting a murder even in her docile state.
• Good is Not Nice: In her Yandere state where she's less murderous, Saiko is still far from good, but at least she is not actively trying to kill Akira. That being said, even when she isn't trying to kill him at that moment, she can still choke him out and drag him inside a classroom, potentially drug him with tainted medicine after her Yangire state wounds him, or flat-out insult him when taking keys from him.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Saiko's comments about Akira in the opening implies that she doesn't like him being around other girls.
• Groin Attack: Attempting to steal Saiko's keys while she's playing keep away or being caught while she's in her murderous state will result in her kicking Akira in the crotch to get away from him.
• Guide Dang It!: How do you avoid being poisoned in Yandere Mode by the gas bottles rigged above the doorways? Turn off the electricity, of course! It's not uncommon to see new players of the game rage due to the completely unclear correlation between these two things.
• Halloween Episode: The Halloween Edition spin-off has nothing to do with the main game (beyond the implication that, like the upcoming Nightmare Mode update, it's Akira having another nightmare). It involves Akira trying to get out of the forest with a zombie Saiko's help, while trying to keep her from eating him and fending off ANOTHER psychotic girl who's out for his blood. In January 2024, the Halloween Edition expanded into its own full-fledged spin-off titled Saiko no Sutoka: Shinki.
• Hearts Are Health: Represented by a human heart and the Hit Points are out of either 100 or 200.
• Hero Killer: While hero is a bit much considering Saiko might try to eat Akira if not fed body parts in time, she's nonetheless trying to help Akira escape and protect him from the psycho woman trying to kill him. The woman rips out Saiko's heart in front of Akira, just as he makes his escape.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard:
  • Saiko has two keys you need to escape in Yandere Mode, which would make escaping much more difficult if she came at you with the same aggression she brings in Yangire Mode. However, cooperating with her until the locker collapses in the office causes her to give both keys to the player with no fuss whatsoever. Assuming the player knows to shut off the power and color puzzle to disable her gas bombs, this makes the difficulty only slightly greater than Hard Mode.
    • As of 2.2, Saiko no longer hands over the Headmaster's Office key, with it being hidden inside of a room. Additionally, disabling the color puzzle is no longer an option. However, the player can still take advantage of her trickery to steal the Power Room key from her after the short circuit in order to prevent her from being able to open the power room, leaving the power disabled for the entire game.
  • Saiko has a tendency to jump the player from behind and choke them. However, her ability to do so, excluding the Bad Ending, is dependent on there being a nearby door that she can either hold shut (pink text) or lock (red text). If she is not near a doorway or has kicked down a nearby door, she is unable to choke the player next to that door and will be rendered non-violent before eventually letting go.
    • Double subverted if she's in a hostile state or the player is on Yangire Mode. While she will eventually let go, she will likely immediately go on the offense as soon as she does or do so after a brief period of stalking.
  • Occasionally, Saiko will lean against a door the player is hiding behind either in an attempt to be creepy (Yangire) or to coax them out to spend time with her (Yandere). Opening the door while she's doing so causes her to be knocked to the ground stunned, though she will predictably get angry if she was in Yandere state.
  • In one of the endings Saiko tries to break through the glass doors of the school entrance and accidentally impales herself on a shard, leading to her death.
• Hope Spot:
  • Shinji's "good" ending. He manages to get the exit key, and leaves the school while gloating about it. Saiko crashes it by literally crashing a vase atop his head, killing him. At the very least, he's knocked out cold and beheaded sometime after.
  • The "good" ending of Yangire Mode involves Akira escaping and reconciling with a Yandere Saiko. As they are hugging each other, Saiko gives a Slasher Smile, revealing that she is actually Yangire Saiko in disguise.
• Horrifying the Horror: In Yangire Mode, Saiko throws her hands up in the air if Akira uses the pages with bunny drawings that are randomly spread around the school. After all pages are shown to her, Saiko runs away and drops the exit key. Why she panics at the drawings is currently unknown, but the dev will explain more about this in a future update. The Voorhees mask that is in one of the alcoves can also be used to ward her and Elissu off for a much longer duration.
• Horror Hunger: In the Halloween Edition, Saiko needs to be kept fed with random severed hands and feet you can find around the forest, otherwise she'll start seeing you as a tasty snack...
• Hyde Plays Jekyll: After various updates, Saiko's Yangire mode is capable of pretending she's in her (somewhat friendlier) Yandere State, usually to try and get you to unlock a door keeping her out or to accept a potion she's tainted in some way. Once you do, she reverts right back (and her eyes start glowing again) while she happily mocks you for doing something that stupid. Considering she's perfectly capable of busting down any locked door or just catching you if she's close enough to offer a potion, she doesn't even need to do this and it's clearly her just fucking with you more.
  • The entire basis of Yandere Mode. She's not actually helping you there, she's just setting you up to get drugged... so she can cut your character's head off when the sun goes down.
  • She can also fake being her yandere side for when you give her the diary, during which she will stay close to Akira and offer to give him the code, actually giving him a few of the numbers before revealing her ruse and saying "Kill" while laughing before she tries to kill him again.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: The lemon tea in the kitchen can inexplicably heal either player character of any knife wounds they might have, but only once and less than the actual health items.
  "Lemon tea is fantastic."
• Hypocrite:
  • Saiko is perfectly fine trolling Akira in her "nice" state, treating it as a game. Returning the favor causes her to whine about how she's being unfairly hurt before immediately becoming hostile.
  • She also gets upset about having to walk over glass to chase the player even though she's the one that broke the window in the first place.
• If I Can't Have You…: Being a yandere, Saiko kidnaps Akira and holds him hostage so he won't escape. She even makes it clear that she won't let him date other girls.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: After she has captured Akira, Saiko makes it clear she has no intention of letting him leave.
• Important Haircut: An offscreen one, but sometime between Yandere Mode and the main game, she cut her hair short, signifying that she's no longer bothering with a Mask of Sanity.
• Interface Spoiler: Steam has a listing for six cards for the game. Two depict the protagonists, while the other four depict alternate versions of Saiko. One is her appearance from Yandere Mode, the next from Normal/Hard, the third from Yangire, and the final is a ghostly version of Saiko that has her limbs impaled with glass with the description stating that she is still after Akira even in death.
• Jerkass: Shinji proved to be this when he rudely told Saiko to stop stalking Akira, especially after he noticed that she even carved Akira's name on her wrist. It becomes the catalyst for her to have Shinji killed off so he won't be an obstacle to her plan to have Akira by herself. He also stole Saiko's diary and spread the pages around the school just to publicly shame her.
• Just Toying with Them:
  • Saiko could easily run up and gut you without a word (in fact, when running at full speed she's faster than you can go at a full sprint), but instead will slowly approach while stating she's seen you. She'll also silently run up and hide behind you if your back is turned when she finds you, giggling and turning off the lights in classrooms you enter in an attempt to make you look behind yourself. She may corner you in a room but decide to shut the lights off and leave, only to stand outside the door and peering in at you; resuming the chase once you open the door. She may even leave you alone after directly looking into a locker you're hiding in and stating she knows you're in there. She will stop doing this if she's sufficiently angered, however.
  • Especially pops up in Yandere Mode. Since Shinji is looking for Akira, Saiko just wants to kill him, which she does with a needlessly complex plan seemingly only for her amusement. Like with the above example, she'll just skip this and go straight to killing if you piss her off.
• Karma Houdini: Zig-Zagged. Saiko has killed Shinji and a random female classmate, and kept Akira captive at school for half a day with no known repercussions or fear of reprisal. Akira is completely helpless to do anything to her beyond annoy her a bit, which is very ill-advised as it just makes her want to kill you faster. While Saiko dies canonically, she returns to haunt Akira in his mind, seemingly for the rest of his life.
• Keep Away: Saiko sometimes taunts Akira by dangling keys she takes from him in front of him or having him chase her around the school, possibly luring him into a trap. She beheads him in Yangire Mode if he tries to take the key from her.
• Kill the Lights: If Saiko has lost track of where the Player is and the lights have been turned on previously, she may run down to the Storage Room to kill the juice. Even worse, she might wait there to ambush them if they try to turn the power on again.
• Knockout Ambush: Saiko will place boobytraps to stymie the player's progress. She can also offer tainted health potions to knock the player out.
  • In Yandere mode, the classrooms are rigged with poison gas traps that can only be deactivated by shutting down the breaker switch. Doing so will enrage Saiko.
  • In Normal/Hard mode, the hallways and classrooms can be boobytrapped by Saiko as a way to trip Akira. Sometimes, Saiko will hide next to the wire trap and wait to ambush them. Fortunately, the trap can be avoided by crouching slowly.
  • In Yangire mode, Saiko will hide in the storage room and ambush Akira so he won't turn on the breaker switch.
• Last Chance Hit Point: As of 2.2, Saiko can invoke this on Akira if he hasn't annoyed her too much. Instead of going for the kill shot, she leaves him at one HP and leaves with the warning she will kill him next time.
• Locked Door: A large part of the game is spent on finding the digits for the safe in the classrooms that are locked while trying to avoid Saiko. The player can also hide in the rooms to avoid Saiko, but she will kick the doors down (sometimes after her demands to let her in are ignored while in her docile state), rendering this method of hiding from her useless.
• Locked in the Bathroom: Akira can now hide himself in the bathrooms in update 2.2, but Saiko will still hunt for him. If Saiko finds him loitering around in one of the bathroom stalls, she immediately camps a crapper.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Saiko insanely pursues Akira, who obviously views her as an Abhorrent Admirer. Saiko's DID and excessive clinginess is the reason why she and Akira broke up. Since then, she stalked Akira for some time before escalating it to kidnapping and homicide.
• Lured into a Trap: In Yandere Mode, if you agitate Saiko too much, she abruptly changes course to wherever she was taking you to say that you both should check out the kitchen, a narrow room with one exit. After she sends you to check on the other end of the room, she locks the door and grabs a knife. You probably don't last long past this point. On the flip side, following her directions will lead to the player being drugged and locked in the infirmary. When they awaken, it is night and Saiko has her usual deranged appearance before executing the player... because you're not playing as Akira, but his friend Shinji. The same one that gets his head cut off in the other modes.
• Lust: The reason why Saiko fawns over Akira despite being out for his blood.
• Machete Mayhem: In update 2.2, Saiko wields machetes in both hands in Yangire Mode.
• Mad Love: Saiko insanely pursues Akira's affections, who obviously finds her abhorrent. They dated each other in the past, but it went sour because of Saiko's excessive clinginess and her DID. Shinji's jerkassery also factored in the break-up.
• Made of Iron: No matter how many times Saiko stabs or otherwise inconveniences them, Akira and Shinji will be able to proceed without detriment so long as they have more than 15 HP.
  • For reference, using only direct damage, it takes Saiko 20 stabs to kill Akira from 100 HP in Normal Mode, or 40 if he has 200 HP. Assuming he takes damage from nothing else, Akira can be stabbed 17 times before he begins to feel poorly at default HP, with that increasing to 37 at 200. Hard and Yangire Mode reduce this to 7 times.
• Madness Mantra: Whenever she goes into a frenzy or when the player deviates from the path she wants them to take, Saiko usually has a habit of repeating "I can't allow that."
• Mask of Sanity: She pretends to be a normal, innocent girl, when she's actually an Ax-Crazy psychopath in Yandere mode. The mask starts to slip if you deviate from the path she wants you to take, and it's completely off for the main game. To signify that the facade is now gone, she even cuts her hair off between the time she knocks out Shinji and when Akira wakes up.
• Mistaken for Gay: Akira is on the receiving end of this from Saiko. According to habupain, he is heterosexual.
• Mood-Swinger: Saiko interacts with Akira in three different manners. The one most common is when she's actively trying to kill you, which is her in Yangire state (designated by her eyes becoming a dull red and glowing). When she lands a hit, she'll revert to her Yandere state (her eyes have a noticeable sparkle to them), which is "somewhat" helpful in that she won't attack you (so long as you don't do anything that might piss her off) and will sometimes give you medicine to heal yourself with. Unfortunately, that medicine may or may not be drugged, though the medicine with a Red Cross is usually safe. The final one is Yangire Weakened state (bags under her eyes), where her patience has run out and she'll instantly kill you if she catches you.
• Morton's Fork: Akira faces one of these situations by virtue of the titular killer. If he stays tied up in the chair, he's effectively dead, and releasing himself from the bindings causes the gameplay to force this on the player as well. If you submit to all of Saiko's requests in order to avoid Yangire state, she'll constantly interrupt your progress via various means^note her medicine can knock you out or poison you (not taking it shifts her to Yangire state), she can keep you trapped in a room by body-blocking it, she can knock you out if she clings to your back, giving her your current key means you can't open a vital door, etc., inevitably running down the ten minute clock until she instantly kills you. Stopping her from wasting your time will quickly piss her off and send her into Yangire state, causing her to actively attack you and giving you no room to breathe. Successfully avoid her for ten minutes, and she'll instantly kill you the next time she sees you.
• Multiple Endings: As of Alpha 2.2.5, the game added multiple endings for each of the modes.
  • In Yandere Mode, there are two endings. If Shinji follows Saiko's instructions, he's strapped up to a bed in the infirmary and killed as suggested at the start of Normal and Hard Modes. If he escapes, Saiko bashes his skull with a flower pot while he smugly celebrates escaping her.
  • In Normal/Hard Modes, there are three endings:
    • Saiko beheads Akira in the headmaster's room after capturing him with sleeping medicine twice in her Yangire state.
    • Akira manages to take the exit key and escape. In her frantic pursuit of him, Saiko shatters the glass on the front door in an attempt to get around its lock, accidentally impaling herself to death as she tries to get through. As she's dying, Saiko does a Futile Hand Reach to Akira and begs for his help, but he runs away instead.
    • Akira manages to take the exit key, only for Saiko to steal it. Stealing it back causes her to go into a rage and strangle him, only for her to have a Heel Realization and drop her knife. Akira flees despite Saiko's return to sanity, leaving her alone.
  • Yangire Mode has four endings, though all four end badly for Akira. Both Extreme endings feature him being mutilated by Saiko and Elissu, the Normal bad ending has Saiko defenestrate him from a window (now chopping off his head beforehand), and the Normal good ending has Akira escape and reconcile with a Yandere Saiko that slowly morphs into her Yangire Mode appearance.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: One throwaway line by Saiko during the intro implies that she hates Akira talking to other girls and has killed one of them for dating him.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Nightmare Mode implies that Akira regrets seeing Saiko die of her wounds and wonders if he could have done anything to save her.
  • In the Good ending, Saiko realizes how much pain she's caused him and voluntarily lets Akira escape. What happens to her afterward is unknown.
• Neck Snap: If you annoy Saiko too much, she will do this to you. Especially if the player is crouching next to Saiko, causing her to believe you're looking up her skirt.
• Nightmare Fetishist: As the page quote shows, Saiko considers Akira's blood covering her hands to be a beautiful sight. Oddly enough, she says the same to Shinji.
  • In addition to the above, Saiko also leaves a "flirtatious" message to the player if they check the ribbon in the office.
    "You're rather cute when you're dying."
• Nintendo Hard:
  • Yangire Mode, which has Saiko permanently in her Yangire state and has new tricks up her sleeve. For starters, she can smash through classroom windows, throw her knives at you, and if she cuts you up, you'll temporarily lose more health. The school's blue-tint is also greatly subdued, bordering on black at a distance.
    • This can be intensified further by examining the photo in the office you begin in. Doing so breaks the picture frame, summoning her (apparent) twin sister Elissu to contend with as well. The bunny pages also burn away after a brief time, so you can't use them to ward them off either.
  • Yandere Mode should you make Saiko Turn Red. There are no health items (besides the lemon tea in the kitchen), and Saiko will constantly try to hit you with toxic gas bombs if you're not already poisoned. As there is a single unit of medicine (also in the kitchen) that's available, getting poisoned twice means you don't have much time left before keeling over dead.
  • Nightmare Mode, from what has been revealed so far, is as dark as, if not darker than Yangire Mode, the subtitles are rendered black so you have a harder time knowing which mode Saiko is in, and, oh yeah, she's invisible, with the only way to see her is the bloody footprints she leaves behind her and the brief moments she returns to visibility when she interacts with something. The reality also changes in between to showcase the chain of events that culminated with Akira developing PTSD.
• No Guy Wants to Be Chased: The game's primary focus is to find a way to escape the school while actively avoiding the titular yandere, who is out for his blood while also obsessively fawning over him.
• No Name Given: No names are given in-game, though the main trio of Senpai, his friend, and "the crazy Yandere girl who wants you dead" are known as Akira, Shinji, and Saiko respectively.
• Non Sequitur: Quite a number throughout the game when inspecting random background objects.
• Not Good with Rejection: Saiko didn't take Akira's rejection lightly and stalked him for three months before waiting for the right moment to hold him hostage. Also, Shinji played a major role in the break-up, believing she was excessively clingy and too nerdy.
• Nothing Is Scarier:
  • The blue lighting of the school and the fact that it's completely empty (save for you and Saiko) gives off a pleasantly eerie feeling of kenopsia.
  • More so in Yangire Mode, as the school has been drenched in blood.
  • Even more so in Nightmare Mode, the school is just that dark and Saiko herself is invisible.
  • It's unknown how many people Saiko has murdered between the time she kidnaps Akira and when Shinji wakes up in the infirmary before being killed off.
• "Open!" Says Me: At times when the player holes up in a room, Saiko will beg him to let her in, saying she won't hurt him again. If he doesn't comply, Saiko kicks down the door and tries to kill them.
• Off with His Head!: In Yangire Mode, one of Saiko's kill animations is to saw off your head and tear it from your neck. This is also what happens in the bad end of Yandere Mode.
• Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: In Yangire Mode, the floors, walls, and parts of the ceiling are drenched in the stuff.
• Palm on Cheek Pose: Saiko will sometimes gasp and do this when she sees you nearby or you turn to look at her after she's been following you. She's also doing this for one of the achievements on Steam.
• Password Slot Machine: Much of the gameplay is spent on roaming around the rooms while actively avoiding Saiko and trying to find the four digits to the locked safe that's in the office, which contains the exit key.
• Peek-a-Boo Corpse: In Normal and Hard Mode, there's a chance that when you open a previously unopened locker, Shinji's headless corpse will come tumbling out, complete with Scare Chord. There's also a chance you can find Shinji's severed head in an unopened cupboard, also with a Scare Chord.
• Personal Space Invader: If Saiko catches the player while their back is turned, she will ride piggyback (with her knife at their throat), nullifying their ability to sprint while enabling her to keep direct tabs on what they're doing if the player doesn't find a way to shake her off. She can also just choke you out while she has you like this so she can drag you somewhere else.
• Playboy Bunny: Saiko in Yangire Mode has her dress like this. It's a case of Fan Disservice, however, since she's also wearing glowing face-paint that makes her look even more deranged, is covered in blood, and is constantly in her most dangerous state.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: She "promises" not to harm the player when she notices that he's about to run away from her.
• Poison Is Evil:
  • While Saiko is willing to share medicine with Akira if she's in her docile state, sometimes it will be tainted with sleeping drugs. It's difficulty to say whether this is the result of her other more violent personality tampering with the bottles or Saiko herself trying to drug him again in order to prevent him from fleeing.
  • In Yandere Mode, Saiko tosses poisonous gas bombs in an effort to slow you down. She even wears a gas mask to shield herself from the fumes.
  • In Yandere Mode, the office and the classrooms which contain the digits for the safe in the office are booby-trapped with gas bombs. They can only be deactivated by shutting off the power in the Storage Room.
• Post-Robbery Trauma: Yangire Mode is implied to be a nightmare Akira develops after escaping from the school.
  • Steam Cards also display a Nightmare Saiko with the description that she continues to haunt Akira even in death. A Nightmare Mode is in development, and the dev has confirmed Akira will develop PTSD after escaping, having been traumatized at witnessing Saiko die from her wounds.
• Prefers Going Barefoot: Saiko wanders barefoot throughout the school. Even in Yandere mode, where she's dressed in her normal school attire, except for loafers.
• Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: Saiko doesn't take Akira's rejection lightly and makes it clear she will not let him go. The dev confirmed she and Akira used to date each other, but broke up because of her DID and that she was a Clingy Jealous Girl.
• "Psycho" Strings: Used in part whenever Saiko speaks in Yangire State and is especially prominent when she's attacking you.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: A mixed example of type C, D, and G, Saiko makes a convoluted game of her murder attempts while appearing playful and cutesy in her attempts at preventing Akira and Shinji from running away. Saiko even uses a sing-song like voice to convince she's nice to them.
  • Later updates have upped this to where she is willing to give keys to Akira if he can beat her in Rock–Paper–Scissors. However, if he does, she immediately throws a bratty tantrum and runs away with the key due to both being a Sore Loser and wanting him to chase her.
  • Yangire Mode ups the ante with Saiko and Elissu dressing up as Playboy bunnies and wanting to "play" with Akira despite being out for his blood.
• Punny Name: Saiko-chan sounds like “psycho-chan”, and she is indeed a psycho Yandere.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Saiko has a pair of these, which contrast heavily with the predominantly blue-tinted atmosphere. Thankfully, they're also a telltale sign of where she is. Yangire Mode has her eyes glowing red permanently and she is always in Yangire State.
• Red Is Violent: Saiko is heavily associated with red, having red hair, being covered in bloodstains, and her eyes glow red when in her yangire state. The contrast is pushed further by the rest of the school being covered in dark blue ambiance.
  • Yangire Mode takes it up to eleven, what with a bloodshot red moon and the school being drenched with the stuff. Saiko and Elissu's eyes glow a constant red in contrast to the darkness. They also wear a reddish bunny outfit that is more Fan Disservice, their limbs are covered in cuts and scrapes that are glowing, both dual-wield bloodied machetes, have glowing red paint on their face, and demonic sounding voices to unnerve Akira. Saiko and Elissu also have red subtitles, indicating they're in the permanent Yangire state.
• Resistance Is Futile: While hunting down Akira in Yangire Mode, Saiko and/or Elissu will give this warning when they're near him.
• Revealing Hug: The "good" ending of Yangire Mode has Saiko (in her Yandere Mode outfit) and Akira hugging each other, but we see Saiko giving a Psychotic Smirk to the viewer, revealing that she is actually Bunny Saiko in disguise.
• Roaming Enemy: Type 2. Saiko at first looks for the player in multiple rooms, but once she encounters the player, she tends to wander after them with no set pattern.
• Rock–Paper–Scissors: Sometimes, Saiko is is willing to give keys to Akira if he can beat her in this game. If Akira loses, she will kill him off, but if he wins, she throws a tantrum like a Sore Loser.
• Rule of Three: In earlier builds, there were three stages of anger Saiko would go through before she stopped toying with you. Her angriest state was punctuated by three ellipsis. This has since been changed to a regular reaction she has when breaking down doors, though continuing to agitate her in her violent state will still prompt the original instant-kill variant.
• Run Away Hide Away: Lockers and bathroom stalls are a convenient way to hide from Saiko, but she will eventually catch up to the player. If she finds the player in a bathroom stall, she immediately attacks them. A way to stop her from doing this is by opening the bathroom stall door just as she climbs up to peek at them.
• Sanity Has Advantages: Well, for one, Saiko could probably have carried on a normal relationship with Akira if she were sane. In the context of the game, her insanity causes her to toy with Akira when she could have just killed him after she drugged him, and her Yandere and Yangire moods have contradictory goals (Yandere wants to trap the player and doesn't like hurting him, Yangire wants to kill him), and will often counteract each other (i.e. after Yangire stabs the player, Yandere will give him medicine).
• Schmuck Bait:
  • Zigzagged with Saiko's health potions in Yandere State. All will heal you for 25 HP. However, potions without The Red Cross are drugged to render you unconscious or poisoned, with only three cures able to be found around the school (the office, the infirmary, and the kitchen).
  • If she finds you holed up in a locked room after she's been in Yangire State for a while, she'll appear to switch over to Yandere State and plead with you to open the door, apologizing for her previous actions. Opening the door may cause her to instantly go back to Yangire and start stabbing you, with her mocking you for your stupidity as she does.
  • In Yangire Mode, Saiko willingly lets Akira leave the school once they have the exit key. But the key within the locker is the wrong one and lures you into a trap that leads to her throwing you from a window. The actual exit key is on her person.
  • In Yandere Mode, if you push Saiko down enough times or try to open doors that she says you should ignore, she suddenly changes course to wherever she was taking you to say that you both should check out the kitchen, a narrow room with one exit. After she sends you to check on the other end of the room, she locks the door and grabs a knife. You probably don't last long past this point.
• Searching the Stalls: In 2.2, Saiko can now search the bathroom stalls for the player and will try to kill them if she catches them. Akira can stop her from peeping by opening the door, which would knock her down.
• Secret Diary: Another way of obtaining the safe's four digits is Saiko's diary, which would allow her to give the code once Akira collects all the pages, which are scattered throughout the school. It contains disturbing drawings made by Saiko, which revealed that she was ostracized by not just her parents, but by the school for being a loner, something which exacerbated her DID and is eating up whatever sanity she still has. Also, Shinji was the one who stole Saiko's diary, ripped its pages out, and posted them around the school just to bully her. Saiko enters yangire mode if Akira hands the diary over without all the pages, tossing it aside as if it were some random junk. She only accepts it when Akira finds all pages and when she's in her docile state.
• Self-Proclaimed Love Interest: Saiko proclaims Akira to be her Love Interest, but this animated short reveals that Akira is not interested in Saiko anymore and actually felt disturbed at her stalking behavior, especially during one time where she followed him to the restrooms and offered him a toilet roll while he was doing his business. Freaked out by this, he runs away in terror.
• Shout-Out: A few to the YouTube community.
  • In one of the rooms in the building is a Jason Vorhees mask with the description "Corpsebombing the graveyard". This is a reference to the Youtuber CorpsebombKeef, one of the early players of the game, who took his username from an old (and since changed) song title from the band Ishitrobots. The Voorhees mask can be used to ward off Saiko and Elissu in Yangire Mode.
  • Extreme Yangire Mode adds a second killer, Elissu, named after Hatsune Elissu, a bug tester for the game who used Yangire Saiko as an avatar at the time of release.
  • Yangire Mode now has a brick item that can be thrown at Saiko or Elissu for a five second stun, a reference to BricK Shooter.
  • A few of the items around the school are in-jokes, such as the crab in the kitchen being a reference to one of the moderators for the Saiko No Sutoka Discord server.
  • The way Saiko beheads Akira with her machete (after rapidly slashing him) in Yangire Mode is a reference to the Fatality finisher moves used in the Mortal Kombat fighting games. One of Akira's death animations in Nightmare Mode would involve Ghost Saiko ripping out his heart akin to Kano's Heart Rip fatality.
  • One of the Yangire Mode endings imply a "Groundhog Day" Loop is in effect akin to Higurashi: When They Cry, where the characters are stuck in an eternal time loop.
  • Saiko's Palm on Cheek Pose and orgasmic sigh when she notices Akira while in her docile state is an obvious reference to Yuno Gasai, another infamous obsessive yandere. It is also known as the "ecstatic yandere trance" on various Image Boards.
• Silly Walk: In Yandere Mode, Saiko walks by moving the arm and leg on the same side of her body at the same time as opposed to alternating, giving her a very odd march as she stalks around the school. In other modes, she has an unhinged way of running at the player with a knife, particularly Yangire.
• Slasher Smile: While she sports a Psychotic Smirk in yandere mode, Saiko sports a sadistic, Jokeresque-smile to boot in yangire mode.
• Slipping a Mickey: The health potions offered by Saiko can be tainted to make Akira fall asleep (as a stall tactic) as they don't have The Red Cross label on them.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Saiko speaks in a hushed tone the entire game, save for when she's giggling or laughing.
• Songs in the Key of Panic: When Saiko enters Yangire State, the music with raise an octave with a slight warble when it happens to bring your attention to it, signifying that she became far more dangerous.
• Sore Loser: If Saiko loses the Rock–Paper–Scissors game to Akira, she scowls and huffs in anger.
• Split Personality: The alpha v1.9 update gives Saiko this. With a new intro revealing the two personalities, one that's obsessive and possessive but outwardly friendly and a "Him" personality that is more outright threatening (with a much bigger and more sadistic-looking smile to boot). The alpha 2.0 implemented this in gameplay, as various actions the player takes or doesn't take will influence which is in control.
  • In her Yandere State, she fawns over Akira but also concentrates on trapping and preventing him from escaping. Upon discovering the player, she'll remain by their side and remain clingy. Any step the player takes to escape (finding keys, unlocking rooms, etc.) will cause her to knock the player out or to demand they hand over whatever they found; she can even physically choke the player and steal the key from him. Not watching her guarantees she'll jump onto the player's back, and she'll knock them out if the player tries to enter a room. She isn't above helping out if you get too banged up, but the health potions she gives you can sometimes be drugged to make you fall asleep or poisoned.
  • In her Yangire State, she's out for Akira's blood and will take every chance she gets to attack you while also being faster to boot. She'll actively trap doorways with broken glass, vault desks and open windows, and try to stab the player for massive damage if she gets close enough. Occasionally, she'll even throw her knife in order to slow the player so she can strangle them to death.
  • While there is a distinction in behavior between personalities for Akira, however, Yandere Mode seems to show that both are fairly indistinguishable for anyone else, save for her Yandere State laughing a bit less often and being much more serious about ending Shinji's life.
• Sprint Meter: The player tires out and pants heavily when the sprint meter empties, opening a window for Saiko to zero in on them. On the flip side, Saiko has her own, but only in Yandere and Normal/Hard Modes only; she has unlimited stamina in Yangire Mode. Previously, all characters had unlimited stamina, but this got patched out in update 2.2.
• Stalker Shrine: This animated short reveals that ever since their Crash-Into Hello meeting, Saiko created a Stalker Shrine peppered with photos and drawings of Akira.
• Stalker with a Crush: Saiko's entire shtick. It's even in the title. Akira doesn't like it, as shown in this animated short. He felt creeped out and asks Shinji if he can ask her to stop it.
• Stalking Is Funny if It Is Female After Male: Averted. Saiko's stalking of Akira is portrayed as downright creepy.
• Stop Poking Me!: Agitating Saiko with your actions will prompt increasing levels of frustration on her part. Initially, she'll say "Stop it!", which changes to "I am upset!", and finally "...", the latter of which leads to an instant kill.
• Sugary Malice: Saiko never drops her cheery mannerisms even as she does terrible things to keep Akira from bolting away.
• Suicidal Pacifism: For whatever reason, Akira doesn't seem inclined to actually try attacking Saiko, even when she's unarmed. At most, he can shove her to the ground when she's in her docile state or stabbing him, open a door in her face while she's leaning on it, or a kick a door that she's holding shut.
  • Justified in Yandere Mode, where Saiko remains armed whenever she's hostile.
• Supernatural Repellent: In Yangire Mode, pages with bunny drawings that are randomly spread around the school can be used to ward off Saiko and Elissu temporarily. After all pages are shown to them, they comically run away screaming and drop the exit key, buying Akira enough time to escape the school. The Voorhees mask that is in one of the alcoves can also be used to ward her off for a much longer time.
• Survival Horror: The primary goal is to escape the school with your life and avoid getting murdered. You don't have much in the way of defending yourself aside from pushing Saiko off of you when she attacks.
• Suspicious Videogame Generosity:
  • In Yangire Mode, if you have three of the four numbers needed for the keypad, you can take your time guessing the last number while Saiko sits on the desk behind you humming. After taking the key, she'll remain on the desk, telling you that you're free to go and remain in a passive state... because she has the real key, and you have a fake that won't work.
  • Yandere Mode takes place in broad daylight and involves a much calmer Saiko walking around with the player without a weapon, helpfully pointing out where to find clues and keys. Following her directions will lead to the player being drugged and locked in the infirmary. When they awaken, it is night and Saiko has her usual deranged appearance before executing the player... because you're not playing as Akira, but his friend Shinji. The same one that gets his head cut off in the other modes.
• Tactical Door Use: Saiko, instead of entering a classroom you're in, will sometimes wait behind a closed door (even closing it if it's open beforehand) until you get close enough for the door to smack into you. You can also use doors this way as well, though she doesn't like that.
• Tae Kwon Door: The doors can be used by both Saiko and the player, though Saiko doesn't like it when the player shuts the door in her face.
• Teens Are Monsters: Stalking, violence, and murder are all acceptable to Saiko, who is hellbent on keeping Akira locked up in the school forever and would kill him if he doesn't cooperate.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Yandere Mode has Saiko with long straight red hair, glasses, and a clean uniform (although still barefoot), acting very polite and helpful to the player. The bad end has her return back to her normal look right before she kills you.
• Too Dumb to Live: All three of the characters exhibit this.
  • Both Akira and Shinji refuse to break out the glass on the door or windows and escape, even though Saiko proves that this is perfectly possible in the endings.
  • Shinji, in particular, manages to escape, only to slowly walk away from the school rather than running. As a result, Saiko kills him by dropping a terracotta pot on his head.
  • Saiko continues to punch out glass in her Yangire state, and will continually step on it while being baffled by the fact that it hurts her in her Yandere state. Taken to its literal extreme in the Good Ending of Normal/Hard, where Saiko shatters a window to get to Akira, only to wind up cutting her stomach open due to not clearing out the glass well enough. Just one more smack to the glass would have cleared the door enough for her to chase Akira some more.
• Too Kinky to Torture: According to the dev, Saiko is a masochist. As a result, stepping on glass doesn't bother her and is something she enjoys. The blood loss that would result from that also doesn't bother her, apparently. It's averted when she is her docile mode, during which she would complain of the glass shards injuring her.
• Torso with a View: The Halloween Edition has Saiko with this by default. You fill it with her still beating heart that's sitting on the ground next to her.
• Trapped-with-Monster Plot: The player is currently held hostage at by the titular yandere at their school during the nighttime and must find a way to escape her.
• Troll: If Saiko successfully steals a key from you, she will follow you around and dangle it in front of you to mock you with it. Attempting to take it from her leads to her playing keep away with it before dropping it.
• Turns Red:
  • If you've caused Saiko to run after you for a prolonged period of time, Saiko will eventually enter a permanent fatigued Yangire Mode, trading her speed for a One-Hit Kill.
  • In Yandere Mode, Saiko is unarmed and harmless. However, once she's sufficiently annoyed, she'll head to the Kitchen to grab a knife, a gas mask, and poison gas grenades.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: This animated short reveals that Shinji unintentionally wondered if Saiko will keep on stalking Akira and do something as bad as attempted kidnapping and murder even if she's told to stop it, but Akira dismisses that as a possibility. We all know what happens to him and Akira at the end when he tells Saiko off.
• Useless Useful Stealth: Hiding in lockers. While this is a method that lets the player hide from Saiko, very rare is it that you will be able to predict where she is before she sees that you are in a room. Worse yet, she will check lockers to see if you are inside, and is capable of body-blocking you if she does find you, leaving you unable to do little more than let her kill you.
• Villainous Breakdown: If Akira shows all the bunny drawings to her, Yangire Saiko has a rather comical panic attack and drops the real exit key^note the fake exit key is in the headmaster's office.
• Villainous Crush: Saiko obsessively fawns over Akira even as she's out for his blood if he doesn't comply, who obviously finds her repulsive due to her murderous nature. Judging by Saiko's comments, it's implied she also dislikes Akira dating other girls.
• Vocal Dissonance:
  • Despite being high school students, both player characters sounded significantly older until Patch 2.2.
  • Saiko's voice barely ever escalates above a whisper throughout her attempts on the lives of others beyond moments of crazed laughter.
• Voice of the Legion: Patch 2.2 changes Saiko and Elissu's voices to this for Yangire Mode, complete with reverberating echoes.
• Woman Scorned: A simple conversation between the object of her attention and a friend leads Saiko to kill the latter and make preparations to do the same to the former in the event he's uncooperative about remaining captured.
• Yandere: Saiko has a massive crush on Akira to the point of having a Stalker Shrine decorated with pictures she drew of him and kidnapping him when he was no longer interested in her anymore. In-game, when her love towards Akira comes to the fore, she enters Yandere State, where she's less directly dangerous because she wants to trap Akira rather than killing him (and might give him medicine after her Yangire state hurts him), but is clingy and will try to stop Akira from solving her puzzles. Judging by Saiko's comments in the opening, it's implied she hates Akira dating other girls.
• You Are Already Dead: Once you piss her off enough, she'll start running at full speed and is much faster than you. If she finds you, which is very likely to happen, she will kill you and there's absolutely no way to stop her.
  Saiko: Are you kidding me?
• You Can Run, but You Can't Hide: Saiko often taunts the player while searching for them in the classrooms, hallways, and bathrooms.
• You're Not My Type: Since their breakup, Akira dismisses Saiko as not of his type, partly because she kept on stalking him even when he told her to cut it out.

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"Don't leave me, senpai!"

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