Tsunshun

A Tsundere can either be sweet before knocking your lights out when you annoy her or be abrasive before showing her hidden softness. Other uncommon types of personality can also show themselves, such as Yandere or Yangire. A more obscure type of personality type that will show up occasionally is the Tsunshun, who uses her abrasive nature to hide her depression.

The Tsunshun is the Tsundere equivalent of a pufferfish - she desires to make herself seem spiky and intimidating so that she can protect herself from anything that would antagonize her negative feelings. This is a pretty common method of making a Jerkass Woobie.

In Real Life, frequent swings between angry and agressive reactions and anxious/depressive ones is a hallmark of Borderline Personality Disorder.

Examples of females with the Tsunshun personality type include:

• Asuka Langley, from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Her Broken Bird past, for example her mother Kyouko going insane and treating a doll as Asuka in place of the real deal leads her to be extremely rude to most people...well, except Kaji and Hikari. However, when left to herself Asuka shows that she has almost no self-esteem and struggles to overcome it.
• Faye Valentine, from Cowboy Bebop. Normally acting cool and using her sexy charms to try and get what she wants, she does have her Tsunshun moments. Not knowing about her past, and later finding out the details puts a dent in her confident and self-assured attitude...not that she'd let it show.
• Kagami Hiiragi from Lucky Star. Konata describes her as more of a traditional Tsundere, but Kagami sometimes shows her hidden feelings, like the time she thought one of their classmates was calling her out to confess to her on the school trip but really only wanted her to buy an embarrassing key chain. She seems to be the one who brings up the fact that the girls never achieve any sort of love life, and let's not get into her relationship with Konata.
• Kyoko Sakura from Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Her wish that the congregation of her father's church would increase dramatically caused an untold number of people to mindlessly flock to the church. When her father learned what she had done, he killed himself and the rest of his family. Kyoko only survived because she was a Magical Girl, therefore she was basically a zombie. She later sheds most of her negativity, culminating with her attempt to save Sayaka.
• Mikoto Misaka from A Certain Magical Index and A Certain Scientific Railgun. Normally acts as a standard Tsundere towards most men (especially Touma), her experiences with the Sisters cause her to occasionally act as a Tsunshun.
• Natsume, from Hidamari Sketch. Her feelings towards Sae cause her to overreact and act rude towards her before stomping away. One of the chapters (the only one to not be in 4koma style) helps explain the reason for her attitude. Sae also acts this way, but only when she deals with her younger sister.
• Ririchiyo Shirakiin, from Inu x Boku SS. Being virtually ignored by her family in favor of her sister and the bullying she went through as a kid because she's rich leads her to be rather unsociable at first. This facade lasts only about five minutes, for Ririchiyo either walks away to sulk somewhere or actually opens up to you and shows her Spoiled Sweet side. She's also the Trope Namer, as the term was coined In-Universe by Nobara Yukinokouji to describe Ririchiyo.
• Shizune Hakamichi from Katawa Shoujo turns out to be this, and it's hinted that it's in part to compensate for her deafness, and because she's actually extremely lonely and frustrated over her inability to keep friends.
• Sanzenin Nagi from Hayate no Gotoku acts like this towards Hayate when she isn't being Tsundere.
• Taiga Aisaka, also known as the "Palmtop Tiger" because of her agressiveness. As a Deconstruction of the Tsundere archetype, her violent behavior stems from her body issues and dysfunctional family. As the series goes on, she becomes emotionally stronger and Ryuji and others help her stand on her own again, culminating with both a True Love's Kiss with Ryuuji and her decision to come back home, so she can mend her broken family life before marrying him.
• Victorique, from Gosick. At first emotionless due to being locked in a dungeon for several years and being forsaken by her family, she warms up because of Kujo and they become happily married at the end.
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has Precia Testarossa. Introduced as a cruel, horrifically abusive mother to her daughter Fate, it's later revealed she used to be a kind woman and scientist whose one of her experiments went horribly wrong, taking the life of her daughter Alicia and going mad because of it. Her reason for getting the Jewel Seeds is to bring Alicia back from the dead and fix her mistakes. And the reason she abuses Fate? Fate is actually a clone of Alicia, whom she despises because she's too different from her. The Movie shows more evidence by having her switch from despicable villain to broken lady throughout her screentime.
• Nastasya Filippovna from Dostoevsky's The Idiot is an example from classic literature. Her public persona is that of a proud, arrogant Femme Fatale, but in reality she takes on these characteristics to hide the pain and shame she feels about the abuse she suffered in her past. Interestingly enough, she is in a Love Triangle with the more traditional Tsundere Aglaya Yepanchin for the favor of the saintly Prince Myshkin, and Myshkin's inability to choose between helping to overcome the problems of a 'shun' and returning the love of a 'dere' leads to his tragic downfall.
  • Polina Alexandrovna from Dostoevsky's novella The Gambler has shades of this as well. Given Dosteovsky's interest in psychology and his tragic Real Life affair with the very Tsunshun Apollinaria Suslova, it is entirely possible that there is a reason for his use of this trope.

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Examples of males with the Tsunshun personality type include

Anime and Manga

• Accelerator, from A Certain Magical Index and A Certain Scientific Railgun. Being experimented on, forcing people away and being attacked on a constant basis because of his ability makes him more unbalanced than depressed, but he still uses his abrasive attitude to try to distance himself from others. Sometimes he acts more like a standard Tsundere, others he acts like a Tsunshun.
• Kyo Sohma, from Fruits Basket. being the black sheep (cat) of the Zodiac has put immense pressure on his shoulders, which he covers up with his attitude. He gets over much of his negativity as the series goes on, mostly due to Tohru.
• In Saint Beast, Shiva's got all of the tsun which covers up his fears of inferiority and frustration at not getting what he wants. Kira also counts to a degree with the issue being Fantastic Racism, but his Big Brother Instinct reveals his dere side more frequently.
• Yuudai Tanaka from Sakana fits this trope like a glove. He acts like a Jerkass who hates everyone... except he actually doesn't. His agressiveness is a defense mechanism due to him having suffered extreme Domestic Abuse not long ago, as well as having a generally crappy life, which rendered him a sad and lonely individual. It's no coincidence he tones down his jerkass attitude once someone shows genuine kindness to him.

Western Animation

• In Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy, the movie reveals Eddy is a big one. His horrible attitude throughout the series is actually a Jerkass Facade, acting like his abusive older brother due to a misguided desire to have friends as well as him not showing any "weakness" (i.e. sadness and depression). The events of the movie force him to drop the "harsh" and show the "sad" side to everyone, which get him forgiven by the other kids.