Villain characters
9 Best Anime Villains You Can't Stop Thinking About
Our picks for the best anime villains, from Dio and Light Yagami to Johan Liebert and Char Aznable. Every one of them is menacing from the first scene.
Ask people to name the best anime villains and you'll get an argument before you get a list. Here's ours. It's for anyone who roots for the other side a little too often, or who wants a My 9 grid that looks like trouble.
Our one rule: the menace has to be obvious from a villain's first scenes. None of these picks depends on a twist, and every blurb sticks to the premise, so it's safe to read before you watch. We kept to one character per series and skipped shows that already appear in our other character guides. The oldest pick is a masked pilot from 1979. The newest is a demon who reached TV in 2019.
My 9 Characters
9 Best Anime Villains You Can't Stop Thinking About
The nine picks
Dio Brando
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure · 2012
Dio gets adopted into the wealthy Joestar family and wastes no time trying to take everything from his new brother, Jonathan. He's cruel. He's also a total ham, which is the fun of him. His poses and lines became memes of their own, quoted by plenty of people who have never watched the show.
- Best for
- People who like their villains loud
- Why they stay with you
- Theatrical from his first scene
Light Yagami
Death Note · 2006
A top student finds a notebook that kills anyone whose name is written in it. His plan is to wipe out criminals, and the scary part is how reasonable he sounds explaining it. As 'Kira' he gets drawn into a battle of wits with the detective L, and you'll probably catch yourself half-hoping he gets away with it.
- Best for
- Anyone who loves a cat-and-mouse game
- Why they stay with you
- He's the lead and the villain
Johan Liebert
Monster · 2004
Dr. Tenma, a surgeon in Germany, saves a young boy's life. Years later he finds out what that boy grew up to be. Johan almost never raises his voice. He's polite and soft-spoken, and he's creepier than any of the shouting villains on this list. Monster takes its time getting anywhere, and he's worth the wait.
- Best for
- Slow-burn thriller fans
- Why they stay with you
- Never raises his voice
Muzan Kibutsuji
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba · 2019
He's the first demon, and the reason Tanjiro picks up a sword at all. Muzan walks around Taisho-era Tokyo dressed as a respectable gentleman and treats his own followers as disposable. What we like about him is how petty he is. For someone that old and that powerful, he gets remarkably touchy about anything that might threaten him.
- Best for
- Anyone who wants a clear final boss
- Why they stay with you
- A gentleman on the outside
Meruem
Hunter x Hunter (2011) · 2011
The Chimera Ant King is born the strongest creature in his world, and he is sure humans are food. That's his whole worldview at the start. Then Hunter x Hunter does something unusual with him: it gives him time to think, and room to get curious about things a king has no reason to care about.
- Best for
- People who like a villain who changes
- Why they stay with you
- A monster with questions
Shougo Makishima
Psycho-Pass · 2012
In Psycho-Pass, a system scans people's minds to decide who might commit a crime. Makishima is the man it can't read. He quotes philosophy and old books, and he would rather hand other people the means to do terrible things than do them himself. What he wants to find out is whether free will survives total surveillance, and he's happy to run the experiment on strangers.
- Best for
- Cyberpunk fans who like big ideas
- Why they stay with you
- The man the system can't read
Char Aznable
Mobile Suit Gundam · 1979
The Red Comet. Char is a masked ace pilot for the Principality of Zeon, and his red mobile suit is said to move three times faster than a normal one. From the original 1979 series he's Amuro Ray's rival, and he set the template for the cool masked rival with an agenda of his own. If a show gives its antagonist a mask and a red color scheme, it's probably tipping its hat to him.
- Best for
- Mecha fans and classic anime lovers
- Why they stay with you
- The original masked rival
Esdeath
Akame ga Kill! · 2014
Esdeath is the Empire's most feared general, and her philosophy fits on a napkin: the strong rule and the weak get crushed. She fights with ice and enjoys the cruelty. Then she decides she'd like to fall in love, and she means it. We still can't decide whether that makes her more human or just more unsettling.
- Best for
- Dark fantasy action fans
- Why they stay with you
- A sadist looking for romance
Makoto Shishio
Rurouni Kenshin · 1996
The government used Shishio as its hidden assassin, then betrayed him and set him on fire. He lived. Now he's back, wrapped in bandages, with an army and a plan to take Japan for himself. He inherited Kenshin's old job in the shadows, so he's basically the Kenshin who never put the sword down.
- Best for
- Samurai story fans
- Why they stay with you
- What Kenshin could have been
Make it yours
A few of these nine want to remake the world. Others only want to win, and Makishima mostly wants to see what people will do. Start your own My 9 with them, then swap in whichever villain actually kept you up at night.
Opens the maker with these nine in the grid. Swap any of them for your own.