Random Greatest Anime Anti-Villains (13 items)

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  (#1) Itachi Uchiha

  • Naruto Shippūden, Naruto, Ninja World

  When he first appears, Itachi Uchiha seems to be one of the most vile villains imaginable. He took out his entire clan, leaving his younger brother Sasuke as the sole survivor. After that, he joined the Akatsuki, an organization known for wreaking havoc on innocent people.

  What could possibly be the explanation for such heinous acts? Itachi was actually attempting to prevent war and protect his younger brother. Danzo, the leader of an organization called Root, gives a then-13-year-old Itachi a choice. Either Danzo and the rest of Root would destroy his family for him, potentially sparking an all-out war that would implicate the entire city, or he could do it himself, sparing his own life, his brother's life, and that of the rest of the city. 

  While not everything Itachi does after that is perfectly calibrated toward maintaining peace, that is his ultimate goal - even if he has to commit atrocities to get there.
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  (#2) Stain - 'My Hero Academia'

  Hero society isn't what it's cracked up to be, and Stain would be just the guy to do something about it - except that he gets his point across by taking innocent lives. 

  His point is a valid one. Hero society in the world of My Hero Academia is driven less by the genuine desire to save people than it is by flashy sponsorships and corporate deals. Some heroes are actually deeply corrupt people who do more harm than good. It's not unreasonable to want to tear down that system and expose its inherent hypocrisy, but his point is lost in all the blood that's shed by his hands.
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  (#3) Shinobu Sensui

  One of the most unfair things about the Yu Yu Hakusho universe is that that it's perfectly fine to destroy demon lives, while humans are considered worthy of protection. This is because humans are seen as pure and defenseless, while demons and powerful and evil. Except, that isn't even remotely true - plenty of humans are powerful or cruel, while plenty of demons are weak or innocent.

  Shinobu Sensui, a former spirit detective, realizes this contradiction and is overcome with guilt at the number of demon lives he took without thinking. He decides that the only way to make up for it is to destroy humanity through opening up the demon gate. 

  Obviously, no one who seeks to do something so violent can be called a good guy - but his understanding that demons deserve to be treated like sentient beings is on point.
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  (#4) Archer - 'Fate: Unlimited Blade Works'

  Archer began as a heroic person who desperately wanted to save as many people from danger as humanly possible. However, because of the role he was forced to occupy, he's assigned the task of taking lives in order to protect humanity as a whole. This is utterly miserable for him, since he's a man of principle.

  In the midst of this difficult situation, he decides to take out Shirou Emiya, a version of himself from an alternate universe. He believes that this will ultimately prevent further catastrophe, but it casts him in the role of villain during one of the versions of Fate's extensive timeline. 
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  (#5) Tsukasa Shishiou - 'Dr. Stone'

  Just like Senku, Tsukasa wants to rebuild society after humanity was encased in stone for thousands of years. Unlike Senku, Tsukasa's goal involves taking lives. A lot of lives. Because he wants to totally rebuild society from scratch to allow everyone total freedom and control over their lives, he wants to eliminate the adults who built the previous society.

  This means either preventing Senku from reviving the people whose bodies are still made of stone, or breaking the statues before Senku can do anything. His behavior is clearly villainous - and his view that all adults will be on the same page is naive and inaccurate - but he genuinely wants to create a better world. 
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  (#6) Suzaku Kururugi

  • Code Geass

  More than anything in the world, Suzaku Kururugi wants a life free from warfare. To ensure peace, he's willing to make some major sacrifices. Those sacrifices include taking his own father's life to prevent him from leading an uprising and willingly being subjugated by the Brittainians, who consider him to be less than human because he's Japanese.

  His own safety, comfort, and morality are less important to him than his desire to maintain stability at all costs - which is why he opposes Lelouch, who wants to bring about a violent end to the oppression that Suzaku faces. As the series continues, Suzaku's opinions evolve, but this is the place where he starts. 
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  (#7) Shougo Makishima

  • Psycho-Pass

  In the world of Psycho-Pass, people are judged as 'latent criminals' before they've ever committed a single crime. As a result, people are arrested and deprived of all personal freedom even when they're completely innocent. Even worse, emotional disturbances caused by being the victim of a crime can cause a person to be so labeled, and so can participation in the arts. Personal freedom is nonexistent.

  Shougo Makishima can't be read by the scanners that determine everyone else's criminal status. He decides to use this fact to his advantage in order to crash the system and set society free. This would be an extraodorinarily noble goal if his methods weren't so savage. Makishima doesn't care who he has to destroy in order to achieve his goals. In fact, he does everything from slit a young woman's throat to attempt to starve an entire nation by destroying its grain supply. 
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  (#8) Shigure Sohma

  • Fruits Basket

  If you're new to Fruits Basket and aren't familiar with the manga, keep scrolling.

  If you have read the manga, you know that there's a lot more to Shigure than meets the eye. His goal is a reasonable one - he wants to break the curse that forces his family to transform into animals and keeps them bonded to Akito, the god who reigns terror over them all. Shigure wants this not just for the sake of his fellow Zodiac members, but for Akito, too - because the only thing in the world that he loves as much as himself is Akito.

  To achieve his laudable goal, Shigure constantly provokes people into having extreme emotional reactions, lies to and manipulates others, and sleeps with someone he really shouldn't have slept with - although that last one was as much due to petty jealousy as it was to any sort of noble purpose. 
   
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  (#9) Treize Khushrenada

  • Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

  Treize Kushrenada wants to end all war, but his ideas about how to do so are some of the most violent ones imaginable. He decides to start a war so heinous that no one will ever dream of starting another war again - and he's willing to do anything it takes to make that happen.

  Despite his willingness to commit atrocities in the name of peace, he feels deeply guilty about every person whose life is lost in the process. In fact, he even sets up a memorial to commemorate them.
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  (#10) Harumi Kiyama - 'A Certain Scientific Railgun'

  Harumi Kiyama is a researcher who was charged with teaching a group of kids called Child Errors. Child Errors were abandoned by their parents and were generally considered expendable, which is why they fell victim to an experiment that put them all in comas. Horrified, Harumi set to work trying to figure out how to revive her kids. 

  But the results of her research turned out to be wildly dangerous. She created the Level Upper, a sound frequency that's capable of both dramatically increasing the users' abilities and putting them in a coma. This last part is why the heroes feel the need to try and stop her - but her only motivation was to save her students. 
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  (#11) Kugaha - 'Noragami'

  Kugaha's serves as one of the main antagonists in the world of Noragami, but he actually has a pretty good reason for his behavior. He serves under a god called Bishamonten as a shinki - that is, a spirit who has been chosen by a god to fight in their service and transform into a weapon for their use. 

  Bishamonten has more shinki than she can handle. Not only does she need to provide for all of their physical needs, but she's also dramatically impacted by their emotions. When her shinki feel neglected, depressed, or anything else that's negative, she feels it physically in the form of an illness called blight. It gets so bad that Bishamonten is nearly nonfunctional. 

  Kugaha decides to rectify this state of affairs by taking Bishamonten's life so that she can be reincarnated into someone who won't take in every stray she can find and destroy herself in the process. Because he thinks of himself as one of the few shinki worth Bishamonten's time, he's fairly accused of arrogance - but he was also trying to save his goddess from herself. 
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  (#12) Squealer

  • Animal Farm

  If you were part of a species that had been routinely treated like expendable livestock that had to obey humanity at all costs, chances are you'd want to fight back. You'd especially want that if the very people who oppressed you were the ones who spliced your DNA so that you would be weaker than they were to begin with. Such is the fate of monster rats, a species that was once human but was combined with mole rat DNA until they could be easily exploited by humanity. 

  Squealer, one of the more strong-willed monster rats, eventually leads his people in rebellion against humankind. His actions result in countless human casualties, so it's not like he doesn't have blood on his hands. But his ultimate goal - to grant his people the freedom and dignity that any sentient species deserves - is a fair one.

  While most humans in From The New World don't realize this, the protagonist does - which makes it all the more difficult for her to oppose him and protect herself and her loved one. 
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  (#13) Kagemitsu Daigo - 'Dororo'

  Kagemitsu Daigo's behavior is appalling, but he didn't do it for no reason. He traded his first-born child's organs and limbs to a band of demons in exchange for bringing prosperity and peace to the formerly barren and wartorn land that he controlled - thus ensuring the survival of everyone there.

  While it's possible to argue that Daigo did what he did solely for the sake of personal power, it's also impossible to ignore the thousands of people who avoided starvation because of him. Is it fair to ask Hyakkimaru to make a sacrifice he wouldn't make on his own? Absolutely not - but that's exactly what makes him an anti-villain.

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