Many of us suffer from kind of psychological trauma. There are different types and subtypes of trauma, but broadly speaking, trauma refers to an intensely disturbing experience. Sometimes, people who are working through childhood trauma may find it comforting or validating to see characters who were also traumatized in their early years.

(Others may find it triggering, however. If you don’t want to read about disturbing and violent experiences, that’s understandable – just don’t read the rest.)

I often form strong emotional connections to characters who suffered this way – even though my trauma was not nearly as intense as theirs. For anyone else who feels the same, I compiled this list of anime characters. There were so many interesting characters with childhood trauma that I decided I would make this topic into two separate articles. This week, we’ll look at the female characters who were traumatized in childhood. Next week, we’ll study the male counterparts.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for following anime: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ancient Magus’ Bride, Re:Zero, Bungo Stray Dogs, Attack on Titan, Monster, and Future Diary.

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1) Asuka Langely Soryu (Evangelion)

Asuka is a central character in Neon Genesis Evangelion and the Evangelion Rebuild movies. She has a bossy, aggressive, and arrogant personality. When Asuka was very young, her adoptive mother became emotionally (and possibly physically) abusive. She was severely mentally ill, so she asked Asuka to die with her. After Asuka refused, her mother hung herself from the ceiling. Asuka discovered the body and was deeply traumatized.

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2) Chise Hatori (The Ancient Magus’ Bride)

Chise is the heroine of The Ancient Magus’ Bride and an apprentice mage who can see fairies, spirits, and monsters. She has a quiet personality most of the time, but can also be impulsive. It takes a long time for Chise to want to be alive – and even in the most recent season, she’s trying to get used to valuing her own life.

When Chise was younger, her mother tried to strangle her while she slept, since she could no longer take care of the child, and was being haunted by monsters. Chise woke up, which made her mother stop. Then, horrified at what she had done, the woman threw herself from a high balcony and died. Chise has to live forever with these traumatic memories.

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3) Emilia (Re: Zero)

Emilia is the main love interest in the popular isekai anime Re:Zero. She is very sweet-natured and gentle, but also has a lot of courage and spirit when it counts. During Emilia’s childhood, she was being cared for by her surrogate mother, Fortuna. One day, members of the evil Witch’s Cult attacked Emilia’s home in the woods. They tried to force her to open a magical door for dubious purposes.

Fortuna rushed to help, and was brutally killed by the Cult members. Emilia saw it happen up close and suffered intense shock, horror, and grief. Her ice powers went completely berserk and she froze the entire forest, turning all the elves into statues. Emilia used so much magic she that she essentially went into a coma and slept for 400 years. Long story short, she was traumatized after seeing her mother-figure murdered.

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4) Kyouka (Bungo Stray Dogs)

Kyouka is a supporting character in Bungo Stray Dogs who started out working for the Port Mafia as an assassin. She eventually joined the Armed Detective Agency. A few years before all this, Kyouka witnessed the violent deaths of both her parents. Her mother’s special ability – a specter named Demon Snow – killed Kyouka’s mom and dad. Then the power passed on to Kyouka. It turned out there was a reason Demon Snow did this, and it was ultimately to save Kyouka’s life. Nevertheless, it was a traumatic experience.

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5) Mikasa Ackerman (Attack on Titan)

Mikasa is one of the main characters in Attack on Titan and one of the strongest titan fighters in the army. She has a quiet, stoic personality, and her main motivation is to her protect her adoptive brother Eren. Mikasa has gone through a lot of trauma. Her second mother got eaten by a titan, her adopted father abandoned her, and her home was destroyed.

Even before all that, there was intense trauma with Mikasa’s original family. Her mother and father were killed in front of her by human traffickers, who then kidnapped her. Eren rescued helped rescue her, and she helped him slaughter the kidnappers by stabbing them with a knife. After that first traumatic experience, Mikasa became incredibly strong.

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6) Nina Fortner (Monster)

Nina, also known as Anna, has been through unthinkable trauma from a young age. As a very small child, she was the subject of a sensory deprivation experiment, kept in the dark with no explanation or contact for several days. Finally, someone freed her from the dark enclosure, but she found herself in a room full of dead bodies. The person who had freed her poisoned the wine and killed all the men responsible for this experiment.

Anna ran back home, but that was just the beginning of her trauma. Much more happened to her as soon as she told her twin brother, Johan, about her experiences. It would take way too long to write every childhood trauma event. Nina finally got a break at about age 11 or 12, when she was adopted by a healthy family. Dissociative amnesia allowed her to forget everything about her past, and she had a few years of peace. But her traumatic memories start coming into play around her twentieth birthday, when Johan returns.

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7) Yuno Gasai (Future Diary)

Yuno is the female main character of Future Diary, and is well known as the Queen of Yandere. She’s one of the craziest, scariest anime girls out there. Even though trauma doesn’t excuse anything she did, it does help explain some things about her psychology. Compared to some of the girls on this list, Yuno’s trauma was less violent and shocking, but arguably crueler and more mentally taxing.

Mr. and Mrs. Gasai adopted Yuno at an unknown age (the anime doesn’t specify). Unfortunately, the mother was severely mentally ill, and the father was neglectful and “too busy” to help. Yuno’s mom forced her to keep tallies and accounts of every aspect of her life, such as grades, calories, and the number of times she “talked back.” She was emotionally abusive, and frequently blamed Yuno for everything.

It was also a frequent occurence for Yuno’s mother to lock her in a dog cage and leave her there for hours without feeding her or letting her go to the bathroom. This almost cost Yuno her life when she was in her last year of elementary school. She nearly choked to death from trying to eat a straw mat and vomitting. That implies she was literally starving.

Eventually, Yuno had enough. She drugged her parents and put them in the cage. This was Yuno’s attempt to make them understand how she felt. Despite everything, she still loved her parents. So she was shocked and horrified when they died (the exact cause is not stated – but probably dehydration and/or drug overdose). Yuno was now a murderer. That’s when her insanity began.

Thanks for reading~

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PATREON