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I never quite understood it. I know people say its cute. But i've never found belligerent attitudes to be cute, ever. Then you get to the really tsundere types, who'll beat a dude for glancing a naked chick or something.

And yes, i know sometimes it meant to be comedy, and its meant for laughs. But sometimes it can get really mean spirited. And i don't understood why anyone would wanna date someone who verbally and physically abuses them.

So what do you think the appeal.

Well my first instinct is to say not to always try to understand everything. Why do people like traps, scat, futatanari, or NTR? I mean I don't understand all of the fetishes, so sometimes trying to just ask "Why does anyone like X?" doesn't really do much.
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To try to answer the question though, my guess is that lonely people try to find excuse about why someone don't like them/mean to them. Maybe it's easy to brush it off as "They're just tsundere".

Also, not all Tsundere are violent. People love the "denial of their own love" part.

I hate anime tsuntsuns usually, they're so bad. A tsundere's appeal is not in how quick they are to beat the shit out of someone, it's how much they don't want you to know they like you even though it's completely obvious by their actions. They're blunt and open, but not abusively vicious, when it comes to telling you what they don't like or what they want from you, but they're shy and precious when they say nice things. They get all embarrassed and flustered and blushy, it makes you want to squeezehug one even though you're gonna get pushed away, 'cause they're gonna turn all red and get huffy and say they hate you, but you know they don't mean it :3 So cute.

AMB (the developer of my fav otome games) has got absolutely precious tsuntsuns.

Zeke here throws me under the bus during every event when shit gets spooky…

..buuuuuuut…

(^w^)

Nora's even better.

I brushed a leaf off of her.


She said the TV wasn't working, asked if she tried hitting it (she only hits objects).


I asked if she wanted lunch.


One of the rare times she starts a conversation herself lmao

The appeal of tsundere is more how someone is so embarrassed that they can't express their true feelings, so they hide it behind a shell of indifference and anger. Some people like seeing cute girls be bashful and shy when it comes to romantic matters. It's kind of like the appeal of the "bad boy" when it comes to women, that it's the cute and nice side they only show you.

I do have to admit that it can be pretty overdone though (like with Louise from Familiar of Zero and Misaka from A Certain Scientific Railgun) when there's too much tsun and not enough dere.

yummines hit the nail on the head, but I'd like to add – it is a highly-fetishised stock character which has lost its basis in reality, now intended solely to cater to Japanese nerd audiences and similar fandoms.

There are no real-life tsunderes, there are just those people we call "moody". For contrast, see how negatively Western fandoms react to moody characters in their products. I can recall several instances from Dragon Age (Morrigan, Velana, Fenris) who would be classed as "tsundere" were they from Japanese-origin series. As they are not, they are merely considered moody jackasses even in spite of the personal stuff they are respectively dealing with.

The entertaining aspect comes from parody versions such as Noire from Hyperdimension Neptunia. The other characters frequently point out how ridiculous her actions and behaviour are and this is primarily intended for lulz, but it also has the side effect of showing how stupid and awful tsunderes would be as actual people, in that they are incredibly difficult to like.

"Tsundere" is also a loanword and I strongly suggest you alll avoid using it where possible, since we have several terms and expressions in our respective first languages that already describe what it is.