Evil Rant #45- Greatest Anime Villains

[FalseProphet]

Evil Rant #45- Greatest Anime Villains

It’s no secret that we are fans of anime here at Twisted Jenius and so I thought it was high time that we explored this topic (from a villain’s perspective, as always). One of the things that often seems to confuse or unnerve some new comers to this form of entertainment is the frequently amoral nature of anime. Although there are characters that obviously lean more towards heroics or villainy, anime often blurs the line between the two. The anime world tends to be less morally bias than other forms of entertainment. Good and likable characters get killed off for no reason, and the bad guys sometimes prevail. Bad guys can often become good guys and vice versa. It should come as no surprise that this level of moral ambiguity is one of the elements that first attracted me to anime and is one of my favorite things about it (I also love the visuals). These villains can be intelligent, insightful, charismatic, noble, and understanding. And the heroes can often be rude, petty, hostile, and irresponsible, as well as absent minded.

It is my belief that many anime villains epitomize exactly what villainy should be. This is why I felt compelled to share with you, my valued audience; the characters which I feel are some of the greatest anime villains that I have had the pleasure of encountering. If I know anime fans, each of you undoubtedly has your own list and I’m not presumptuous enough to expect most of you to agree with me on my choices, 100%. You can feel free to share your own favorite anime villains with us in the forum if you’d like. You’ll notice that many of the characters I include here fall under the same basic villain archetypes. I have not included any of the tough guy, “block head” type villains here because they don’t reflect my notions about ideal villainy.

I used several standards of deliberation to choose which villains I would include on this list. Because I prize both intelligence and manipulation so highly, these are attributes that many of the characters on this list tend to have. Aesthetics were another important aspect of this and the ability for these characters to look both cool and evil, simultaneously, was a priority. Another consideration, though not as significant, is just how evil these characters’ actions and attitudes really were. Lastly, the most important factor was how fun and enjoyable it is to watch these characters. Do they seem to inspire a sense of villainy? Obviously, here at Twisted Jenius we strive for a sort of glorified evil, a glamorized darkness if you will; and so it’s essential that the villains whom we choose to discuss fit that standard of Villainesque. It will be argued by many anime fans out there that some of these characters are not quite playing the part of a villain within these stories. Part of this is due to aforementioned morally ambiguous nature of anime and the lack of more obvious villain roles within the story. However, as I have said before, my definition of “villain” has more to do with certain attributes of the characters themselves; rather than just filling an antagonist niche as a character within the story. A character possessing very villain-like attributes is what I would consider Villainesque; regardless of whether or not they happen to be acting as the “bad guy” at any given moment in time.

Since I see no way of doing a rant like this without some sort of visual representation (and it would be criminal for me to try), I have provided a few images* in the hopes that it will give you a better feeling of what I’m discussing or make it easier for you to see what I see. This is the first rant to include pictures like this, but I think it’s important for this topic, as we’re dealing with visual media here. There are plenty of other internet resources in which you can look up general information about any characters you might not be familiar with, (and I encourage you to do this or, even better, watch the series; if this happens to be the case). For now, I’m going to forgo basic character and plot descriptions and focus mainly on my villainous thoughts and insights about each character.


Naraku
Akabane AKA Dr. Jackal
Legato Bluesummers
Treize Khushrenada
Lucy
Itachi Uchiha
Sakyo
Sephiroth
Alucard
Vegeta
Hiei
Roger Smith
Haruko Haruhara
Zechs Merquise
Light Yagami AKA Kira


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[Maleficent]

Excellent. Kira is definitely the best (worst?)... and he really should have won in the series. It's a conspiracy, I tell you. They even say "the ending that everybody wants." Tch. Maybe if the middle was the ending. That was epic stuff. :)

[Vicious]

Of course we here at Twisted Jenius were also routing for Kira win at the end. But unfortunately in this day and age, the good guy coming out victorious isn't unexpected. I heard (but haven't seen) there's a few specials that take place after the series is over that may or may not shed some new “light” on the ending.

[Maleficent]

Very unfortunately. :( Something must be done about that.

The 13th manga? Hm. I'll have to look into that... I wonder if it explains what's up with Misa at the end. Maybe she starts a Kira Kult and they begin their own cleansing process...!

[FalseProphet]

Maybe if the middle was the ending. That was epic stuff.

I agree, and it was great that Kira was able to maintain his scheme for so many years. You have to assume that after that length of time, he must have had a significant impact on society and the fallout from his campaign must have caused his name to go down in world history.

The 13th manga?

I think that what Vicious was referring to was some sort of Death Note special (maybe a movie, though, not the live action one, this one is suppose to be animated) that we’ve heard about which tells the story from Ryuk’s point of view. I’ve heard that it supposedly has a different ending, (and of course we all know the kind of ending that I’d like to see) but I really don’t know what it is.

[FalseProphet]

Something must be done about that.

And that's exactly what our mission is! We hope that we can accommodate everyone who would like to see things done "differently" .

[Maleficent]

Ah! I think this is it:

Part I (includes different intro and a deleted scene)

Part II (includes alternate ending)

[FalseProphet]

Yes, that must be it; I think you’ve got it! I have to say that I like that alternate ending much better. Now that’s the way to end a series!

Maybe if the middle was the ending. That was epic stuff.

You called it, they should have ended it in the middle as they seem to have done with that alternate ending.
Thank you for sharing that with us.