Top 10 (or Bottom 10, Depending How You Look at It) Anime Villains

Criteria include true creepiness, effectiveness, complexity, and capacity for destruction or at least ability to ruin The Protagonist’s life. Some effort has also been made to represent a number of different types of villains commonly found in anime. Given that the real evil is in the thousands of rapists in hentai, here’s Needcoffee’s official list–the best of the worst–the Top 10 Anime Villains:

10. Vicious—Cowboy Bebop.

Very well known for a reason, Vicious was once Spike’s partner, and it is because of him that Spike’s life was shattered. A would-be leader of their crime syndicate, Vicious is smarter and more directly violent himself than a lot of the villains in anime. Old-fashioned destructiveness–plus a soupcon of maliciousness–par excellence. (Click here to Cowboy Bebop stuff from Amazon…)

9. Griffith—Berserk.

Because villains can be pretty, but the evil they do never is. Berserk plays at times like a Greek tragedy about the real price of hubris. Looks all sweet and innocent, doesn’t he? See, that’s how he gets you. Willing to sacrifice anyone but himself, even those he claims to love, to achieve his ambitions (which are selfish and not noble) and to fulfill his arrogance, Griffith shows just how far ego and a belief in fate can make you go. (Click here to Berserk stuff from Amazon…)

8. Rumi & Me-Mania—Perfect Blue.

Given how fully Me-Mania is used and manipulated by the mad Rumi, they count as a single villain here. It’s Rumi’s insane and delusional will that make the duo the perfect representative of the criminally insane anime type. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

7. Kazuki Fuse—Jin-Roh.

Poor, poor Fuse. The society in this film could more accurately be described as the villain, but Fuse does make some interesting choices along the way. His villainy is not due to selfishness, apathy, or evil, but rather to feeling (and actually being) trapped. Forced by his culture and his “programming” to do dark things at very close range, Fuse trades his humanity for his idea of duty and his own continued life. He’s brutally, coldly, rationally effective, and there’s nothing scarier than someone who can look you in the eye and pull the trigger. Besides, as you can see from the above image, that gear is some scary shit, ain’t it? He’s especially frightening as a villain because this sort of “easy” evil happens all the time in the really-real world, and it’s not like he’s the only Wolf in the Brigade. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

6. Meier Link—Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust.

Ah, the villain you actually feel sorry for. He’s stolen her away from her family and home! He’s a blood-drinker monster of the night! He’s killed many people! And… you really, really want him to succeed. He’s only a villain in that his goals are set against the goals of Our Hero, D, and in that he runs to the security of a truer evil, Carmila. Apparently, antagonists can be heroes, too. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

5. Tetsuo—Akira

Yes, he’s also the hero. But he’s a very tragic kind of hero who destroys an entire city and causes the death of countless citizens. Unfortunately, no one said you had to “mean it” to become a villain, or that the viewer can’t empathize with the villain. After all, having depth of character and a good past is what makes him so interesting as a character and the film about him into a classic. He cannot control his power and does not seek assistance doing so in time to contain it, causing him to become the prototypical Accidental Villain. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

4. Paladin Alexander Anderson—Hellsing

Gleefully destructive and completely unwilling to use his brain or listen to reason, Alexander lives to kill, and who he wants to kill now is Our Hero, Alucard. His prejudices against the Hellsings and the Protestant English blind him and prevent him from being in any way a hero, even though he does ostensibly kill monsters most of the time. See him in action, with mad Latin skillz. (Click here to buy the title from Amazon.)

3. Akito Souma—Fruits Basket

Want an emo villain who turns a sweet, funny show into a tragic angst-fest of epic and nigh-unwatchable proportions? Akito proves that having been abused yourself doesn’t give you an excuse to abuse, manipulate, and ruin the hearts, minds, and spirits of other people. Her evil is old-fashioned selfishness, and thereby all-too-real, instead of supernatural, coerced, or otherwise mitigated. You may feel a minor twinge of pity for her, but then you remember what she did to Yuki. And Kyo. And… you get the point. Akito is a vile being unworthy of the love and worship offered her. (Click here to buy Fruits Basket stuff from Amazon…)

2. Orochimaru—Naruto

Classic evil–note the snake eyes. His childhood might give you a second of pity for him, but his life will suck any more mercy right out of you. Even young, he demonstrated malice, power-lust, and a darkness that even friends and a good master couldn’t heal. He’s determined to become immortal so he can learn every jutsu in existence, and he doesn’t care what he has to destroy to get there. Evil experiments on people, betrayal, slavery, mind-control, necromancy, possession, child abuse, murder–he stops at nothing. (Click here to buy Naruto stuff from Amazon…)

1. Chief Kakuzawa—Elfen Lied