These Might Just Be The 10 Most Evil Anime Villains Ever
Sometimes a villain has a point. Sometimes a villain is worthy of empathy. Sometimes a villain uses questionable means to justify a noble end. These villains? None of the above. These characters are the most vile, sadistic, depraved, and unjustified villains in all of anime – the lowest of the low, the cruelest of the cruel. If a story is only as good as its villain, you can consider each one of these titles a masterpiece. Here they are, the 10 most evil, dastardly, nasty, vicious, no-good-very-bad anime characters of all time.
Gilgamesh
While the Fate series is full of despicables (I’m looking at you, Bluebeard), no character grinds my gears quite like Gilgamesh. This former Babylonian king is the definition of arrogance. He was born into the lap of luxury, inherited untold wealth and power, and he makes sure that everyone knows it. Gilgamesh’s attitude is the most insufferable thing about him. He looks down upon the rest of humanity as “less than” and uses ordinary people as pawns to further his megalomanic goals. The other most irritating aspects of his character? How easy things are for him, especially in combat. While other Holy Grail War warriors have to get their hands dirty with swords, spears, and spells, Gilgamesh just telekinetically throws an arsenal of priceless treasures at his enemies with a smirk. Each one of those treasures is valuable enough to pay off your student loan debt ten times over, and each one explodes on impact. It’s diabolical, wasteful, and totally gauche.
Danzo Shimura
While many Naruto villains use questionable means to pursue noble goals (Madara, Pain, etc.) Danzo Shimura uses atrocious means to pursue goals that are questionable at best. Danzo harbors a vendetta against the Uchiha Clan and orchestrates their genocide with the help of an adolescent boy. He’s the sort of man who uses child soldiers to do his dirty work, playing upon young people’s unwavering loyalty to manipulate them into committing mass murder. At least villains like Madara and Pain can admit that what they’re doing is morally repugnant, but Danzo maintains his “I did it for the greater good” attitude until the very end. A villain in denial of their true nature is the worst kind.
Dino Golzine
While some villains win the hearts of the audience through charisma and charm, the only sensation that Banana Fish‘s Dino Golzine conjures up is bile rising in viewers’ throats. Dino is a New York City mob boss who runs a human trafficking ring, kidnapping children off the streets to sell them to the rich, powerful, and perverted. He also partakes of his own “commodities,” abusing them fulfill his own sick desires. He has a particularly twisted attachment to series protagonist Ash Lynx, whom he views as his personal property, and tries to have Ash killed so “no one else can have him.” Vile with a capital “V.”
Bondrewd
Just when you think that Dino Golzine was the worst child abuser in anime, Bondrewd from Made In Abyss comes along to challenge him for the title. While he pretends to be a kindly (though creepy) father figure to children unfortunate enough to end up in the Abyss, his persona is simply a facade to gain their love and trust. He then uses children as lab experiments to create “cartridges,” suitcase-like objects that transfer the effects of the Abyss’s curse away from the carrier. What’s inside the suitcase? Children. Not a whole child, just part of the brain, the spine, and the guts. It’s essentially a “child soup” that is still conscious and able to experience pain. Absolutely stomach-turning.
Gendo Ikari
The ultimate “the ends justify the means” character, Gendo Ikari spends the entirety of Neon Genesis Evangelion defending the Earth from an extraterrestrial invasion. How? By sticking middle schoolers inside giant mechas and deploying them against divine alien kaiju. To make things even worse, one of these unfortunate kids is Genji’s own son Shinji, whom he manipulates into fighting a cosmic war of attrition. As it turns out, even Gendo’s “ends” are questionable. He wants to melt down every human soul into a spiritual soup that will destroy their capacity to feel pain—along with their individuality and free will in the process. It’s really all just a thinly veiled ploy for Gendo to reunite with his dead wife in a sci-fi spirit realm. We get it, Gendo, you’re sad, but don’t take it out on the entire human race.
Gol D. Rodger
Why is Gol D. Rodger, jolly King of the Pirates, a villain? Because when he found the One Piece, he didn’t have the decency to leave behind a MAP. If he had just dropped a pin on the One Piece’s location, we wouldn’t have had to sit through 1000+ episodes of One Piece just to still not have discovered the treasure. Imagine how many lives he could prevented from being lost in the fruitless search for the titular treasure. At this point, the One Piece might very well just be “the friends we made along the way,” but did Gol really have to make us sit through 1500+ episodes or more to learn that lesson? Besides, how does a PIRATE justify teaching lessons on mortality? The unexamined hubris, I swear.
Minoru Mineta
While Minoru Mineta is technically a “protagonist” of My Hero Academia, he’s easily the show’s most villainous character—and I say this with full knowledge of the deeds of All For One, Tomura, etc. As if the ocular crime that is his bushel-of-grapes-in-a-diaper character design wasn’t heinous enough, he augments his icky appearance with an even ickier attitude. Minoru is an S-rank perv, one of the most down bad anime characters I’ve ever had the displeasure of viewing. He is a font of sexual harassment, who ogles his female classmates without shame, remorse, or self-awareness. Worst of all, his foul treatment of anyone he wants to get busy with (which is basically everyone) is framed as “comic relief.” I would be comically relieved if he fell down a manhole, and a lit stick of dynamite fell in after him.
Shou Tucker
Shou Tucker is perhaps anime’s Public Enemy No. 1 – the knee-jerk choice when asked to consider the medium’s worst of the worst. While Full Metal Alchemist is chock full of murderers and tyrants, one man stands head and shoulders (or sinks knees and feet) below the rest. In his pursuit to create the perfect hybrid being, Tucker used his own daughter and her beloved dog as a lab experiment, turning them both into a horrifying chimera whose existence is only pain. Even the stone-hearted killer Scar was moved to pity the poor beast, and put it out of its misery with an alchemical shock to the system. If there is an Anime Hell, Shou Tucker is at the bottom of its Ninth Circle.
Johan Liebert
The titular evil of Monster, Johan Liebert is one of anime’s most infamous antagonists. It’s unclear whether Liebert was born a bad egg, or if witnessing the brutal murder of his parents while still a child had something to do with it, but he was natured and nurtured into one of the most vile characters imaginable. Liebert is a serial killer, who uses his angelic good looks and intoxicating charm to manipulate and murder his way through Europe. His end goal? To be the last man standing after the downfall of human civilization, and then commit the “perfect suicide” by leaving no trace of his or the rest of humanity’s existence. The poetic complexity of his goal is only matched by its sheer depravity. His mind is both brilliant and dark – a true evil genius.
Griffith
No one is worse than Griffith. Griffith is Anime Judas, the ultimate betrayer who stabbed his friends in the back – and then fed them to demons. Berserk‘s cherub-faced antagonist hides a demon’s heart, one controlled by his unbridled ambition to rule the world by any means necessary. While Griffith begins the Golden Age arc as a hero, the red flags of his ruthless nature were flying just below the banners of the Band of the Hawk. He convinced his band of mercenaries to join him with the promise of a better life, but in the end he sacrificed them upon the altar of his ambition. Griffith allowed his comrades to be consumed by evil spirits in order for him to join a pantheon of dark gods, and has the audacity) to assert himself as the realm’s benevolent ruler. A liar, a killer, and a fraud, Griffith deserves nothing but the business ends of his former comrades’ swords.
(Featured Image: Gainax)
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
