In almost every Shōnen Anime, the tussle between good and evil drives the story, often shaping the motivations for most characters. While a good character aims to protect the weak, it’s usually the villains who are responsible for creating moral dilemmas that make your mind boggle. They challenge us to confront the darkness within ourselves, due to their disturbing and controversial actions.
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Evil actions are mostly associated with villains, but sometimes, even the protagonists surprise us. For example, Light Yagami from Death Note, on a mission to create a better world, eliminates thousands, showing no mercy even to his father. In contrast, an antagonist like Frieza portrays pure malice, causing destruction simply for power.
10 Overhaul – My Hero Academia
A Villain Who Experiments On Innocents
The hugely popular anime series My Hero Academia features a range of heroes and their villain counterparts, but none are as bloodthirsty as Overhaul. Believing in an ancient theory that a rat-spread virus was the true origin of Quirks, Overhaul develops a deep fear of germs.
He envisions a world where humans are free from Quirks, and the Yakuza is back in power again. To achieve his goals, he goes through terrible actions, such as putting his boss into a coma and kidnapping his granddaughter, Eri, whom he tortured for his experiments.
9 Caesar Clown – One Piece
An Evil Clown Who Did Horrendous Things
Caesar Clown is a deranged scientist introduced in One Piece, as the main villain of the Punk Hazard Arc. He’s in every sense a horrible joker who very much embodies the traditional meaning of the word evil. Caesar possesses a brilliant scientific mind, though his talents are mostly directed towards death and sadistic experiments.
Caesar is hired by the wicked pirate Big Mom to research gigantification, leading him to carry out cruel experiments on kidnapped children. As a result, the lifespan of these children was cut down to just five years, but Caesar showed no concern; instead, he continued to kidnap more kids.
8 Muzan Kibutsuji – Demon Slayer
The Demon King Is The Source Of Every Inch Of Pain And Suffering Caused By Demons
Demon Slayer made a huge impact on the anime community when the creators adapted the source material into a series, and their execution was nothing short of outstanding. For anyone familiar with the series, it’s clear that nearly every significant event in Demon Slayer is influenced by the actions of the Demon King, Muzan Kibutsuji.
Once a human, Muzan turned into a demon after a failed experiment, which awakened a deep thirst for blood within him. He is such a narcissist, that he shows no mercy even to his most loyal followers and has taken countless lives simply because he could.
7 Frieza – Dragon Ball Z
Frieza Blew Up Entire Planets As A Pass Time
The Dragon Ball franchise has given us a lot of villains that fans end up loving, even if they probably shouldn’t. But when making an impression, no one comes close to Frieza. Frieza is a villain with no redeeming qualities, as he doesn’t care about anyone besides himself.
He might rarely show a bit of kindness, but only if it helps him achieve his goals. The moment someone stops being useful to him, he has no problem getting rid of them. He’s simply a ruthless killer who used his energy blasts to destroy entire planets and was responsible for the complete massacre of the Saiyan race.
Transmutated His Own Family Into Creatures
From the very start, you sense a dark tone in how the show, FullMetal Alchemist, won’t shy away from violence. So, it’s not shocking when characters do horrendous things, worse than you’ve ever imagined.
Shou Tucker, a bio-alchemist, is one such character who lacks empathy for anyone, including his own family. He’s so devoid of emotions that, out of desperation for his alchemical ventures, Shou transmuted his wife into a chimera. His obsession doesn’t end there. Later, he fuses his own daughter Nina with a dog, creating one of the most heartbreaking moments in the show.
5 Kaguya Otsutsuki – Naruto Shippuden
The Goddess Who Created Chaos
In the Naruto universe, ninjas channel chakra, the energy that flows through their bodies, giving them extraordinary abilities that they use against evil. Ironically, this chakra originated from something that is itself quite sinister.
Kaguya Otsutsuki, the progenitor of chakra, after losing everything she held dear, became disillusioned with humanity and lost her faith in them. Hence, she created the cycle of hatred, plunging the shinobi world into perpetual chaos, before she was sealed away by her children, Hagoromo and Hamura. However, her creation Black Zetsu lived on to incite wars, all in a bid to resurrect Kaguya once and for all.
4 Light Yagami– Death Note
Light Didn’t Even Spare His Father
Death Note is a story about a young boy given the power of a God and presents us with a moral quandary. If you could kill anyone, would it be just to rid the world of criminals and wrongdoers for the sake of society?
This very concept created the character who is Light Yagami, a man who becomes so consumed by his idea of justice that he ultimately corrupts himself with his power. Not only did Light kill thousands, including criminals and anyone who got in his way, but he also indirectly murdered his father, showing just how far evil can reach.
3 Johan Liebert – Monster
Started A Series Of Psychopathic Killings For The Heck Of It
The iconic thriller series, Monster, introduces us to Johan Liebert, a character who has embraced narcissism to such an extent that he can manipulate anyone around him, backed by a charisma that allows him to go along with his ideas.
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The series centers on how Johan creates chaos using nothing but his words, leading to him being directly or indirectly responsible for numerous deaths across Germany. Johan just wanted to kill everyone he had ever known, and then himself too, leaving no trace of his existence. He even massacred his foster parents and burned the orphanage he once lived in.
2 Eren – Attack On Titan
He Manipulates Everyone To Complete Annihilation
Eren Yeager is one of the most controversial characters in fiction. His decision to end the suffering of the Eldian race resulted in a global genocide, with thousands of Titans rampaging through cities and leaving destruction in their wake, nearly destroying the entire world.
Whether you view him as a hero or a villain, Eren manages to deceive everyone with his innocent past self, especially during the last few episodes. By the end of the show, it becomes clear that Eren orchestrated nearly every event in AOT, even going so far as to manipulate his father into killing the Reiss family, and later devouring him for the powers of the Founding Titan.
1 Griffith – Berserk
Sacrifices His Lifelong Friends For His Own Gain
Griffith is undeniably one of the most complex characters in the adult anime that is Berserk, a person whose charm can blind you because of how well the character is written, but you can’t overlook the terrible things he’s done.
Throughout the Golden Age Arc, Griffith appears as the ambitious leader of the Band of the Hawk, a group that was once only mercenaries but now has a reputation that anyone would think twice before confronting them on the battlefield. But after losing everything he ever wanted, Griffith succumbs to the darkness and sacrifices the entire Band of the Hawk to the demons to become Femto and is also responsible for horribly scarring both Guts and Casca.
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