Riko and Reg are on a perilous and almost undoubtedly fatal journey to the bottom of the Abyss, where Riko’s mother Lyza supposedly lies in wait for them. When they reach the second layer, they meet Lyza’s longtime friend and delving partner Ouzen the Immovable, a woman with a towering frame and a strange sense of what it means to be a mentor.

Ouzen isn’t a villain, but her idea of strengthening Riko and Reg’s resolve is to beat them to within an inch of their lives and reveal horrifying secrets about Riko’s own history. She also forces her assistant Marulk to dress as a girl for some reason, and deeply enjoys unnerving other people with how creepy she is. If these poor kids haven’t been traumatized by the Abyss already, they certainly are now.

In the earlier seasons of Fairy Tail, Zeref was a mysterious and tragic villain who possessed the immense (but uncontrollable) power to wither and destroy everything he touched. Almost every group of antagonists worshipped or looked up to Zeref in some way, making him the unwitting man-behind-the-man for the majority of the series’ conflicts.

But in this season’s Fairy Tail: Final Series, Zeref reveals that he has been expertly manipulating both the heroes and the villains from the start. He’s the leader of an entire empire on the continent of Alvarez and sics his massive army on our main characters for the sole purpose of destroying anything that would get in the way of his goal of capturing the guild’s founder, Mavis. We wanted to feel sympathetic for this man who was cursed to kill anything that came near him, but this is too much.

At Hyakkaou Private Academy, the richest and most influential teens in Japan battle each other for dominance with high stakes gambling. Kirari Momobami sits atop this brutal food chain as the Student Council President, and she derives great pleasure from seeing the mighty fall to their own hubris and bad luck.

Kirari is always calm and collected, which is a rarity in this anime, but the glint in her eyes when she presents a student with a “life plan” that she has arranged for them to recover from their debt says it all. She has no regard for human life, instead treating people like fish in an aquarium, like helpless pawns in a prison of her own design, slaves to her every whim and curiosity.

In this anime, parasites from another world have taken over human bodies and use them to kill and eat other people in secret. What could possibly be scarier than seeing someone you know used as a meat puppet to commit such horrible acts? Well, Uragami does the exact same thing, except that he isn’t a parasite.

This death row criminal is technically an ally to our heroes, since the police use his uncanny ability to detect parasites to their advantage, but make no mistake; Uragami is nothing less than a monster. He only feels alive when murdering, raping, and cannibalizing his victims, and continuously toys with the cops even when they have him at gunpoint. It’s telling that the blank, dead eyes that usually signal a parasite appear on Uragami as well, despite him being entirely human.

Light is infamous as an all-around horrible person who deserves coal for pretty much everything he does, but we’re going to focus on one particularly heinous act that seems to get ignored in most discussions of Death Note—his manipulation and killing of Kiyomi Takada.

Kiyomi used to be Light’s college girlfriend, and after the time skip, she went on to become a successful and confident newscaster. However, Light decides that he can use her in his plans, so he goads her into killing Mello with a promise of the two of them ruling the world together. Mello finds her and forces her to take off her clothes (supposedly to remove any tracking devices, but also to humiliate her), but Kiyomi outwits him and manages to kill him with a piece of the Death Note hidden in her bra. Does Light reward her for risking her life and dignity for him? Nope! He writes her name in the Death Note, forcing her to commit suicide by lighting the truck on fire and destroying any evidence of the fight. What. A. Lowlife.

As a mild-mannered Soul Society captain with glasses and short brown hair, Aizen has “background character” written all over him. He’s calm, polite, gives lectures on calligraphy... how could this guy deserve coal for Christmas? But it’s exactly that boring exterior that allowed Aizen to betray his fellow shinigami and become the main villain of the entire series.

While posing as the 5th division captain, Aizen planted suspicions and conspiracies within Soul Society to weaken their trust in one another. He even went so far as to fake his own death, forcing his loyal lieutenant to grieve over him and believe that her own childhood friend murdered him. He’s a manipulative sociopath who cares about nothing but his own ambitions, no matter how many people he has to step on in order to achieve them.

Akira has strange taste in friends. How does a sweet and caring boy like him have such trust and love for Ryo, the gun-toting master manipulator who purposefully turned him into a demon? It’s a bit baffling, but the two share a genuinely strong bond regardless of their wildly different personalities.

But Ryo wants Akira all to himself. He uses social media and clever news broadcasting to whip the world into a paranoid frenzy about demons, causing society to crumble and eventually the Earth to be destroyed in a massive war between demon factions. His love for Akira is real, but Ryo is willing to literally cause the apocalypse to make sure that Akira has nowhere else to turn but to him.

As the main antagonist of not one, but two parts of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (and a major player in several others), Dio Brando is no stranger to cruelty. His greatest wish is to stand above everyone else, particularly, his adoptive family the Joestars, because of his impoverished and abusive upbringing with his real father.

He “rejects his humanity” by turning himself into a vampire, obtaining great power and longevity at the cost of countless other people’s lives. He cares nothing for his victims, even taking pleasure in forcibly turning a mother into a zombie and watching her eat her own baby in front of him. And, possibly worst of all, Dio stole the body of his brother Jonathan Joestar and used it to commit all manner of atrocities in part 3. He won’t rest until the entire Joestar family is not just destroyed, but robbed of all dignity as well.

If you watched the original Fruits Basket anime, you know a bit about how awful Akito can be. He’s the leader of the Sohma family, giving him the strange mind-control-like power to force the Zodiac members to love him no matter what. He despises when any of them forms a relationship with someone else, and will stop at nothing to make sure that nobody strays from his side.

The anime showed Akito blinding Hatori in one eye and forcing him to erase his girlfriend’s memory, as well as showing up at Tohru’s school for the sole purpose of intimidating her into not meddling with Sohma affairs. The manga (and presumably the new anime) shows how horrific Akito’s abuse gets, and even why he acts like this in the first place.

Joseph gets the number 1 spot on this list because he executed his final evil plan at the worst possible time—right after Christmas! Similarly to Dio, Joseph remorselessly uses other people to stay young and powerful and enjoys tearing relationships apart for his own benefit.

After saddling Chise with a dragon’s curse, he shapeshifts into her friend Stella to trick her into thinking that Elias was going to transfer the curse onto Stella to save Chise’s life. Elias and Ruth were also caught up in the ruse and the strong bond between the three of them suffered as a result. He also nearly killed Chise by tearing one of her eyes out, but planting the seed of mistrust was what caused everything else to happen.

Noragami Aragato continues directly from the first season, but this time with a focus on the goddess Bishamon and her huge family of Regalia. With the change of perspective, the show demonstrates the difficulty of being a prominent God.

Kugaha is one of Bishamon’s closest spirits and acts as her doctor, preparing medical remedies for the goddess. However, as his frustration grows with her lack of attention, he begins poisoning her and masking its effects as well as killing off other spirits or tricking them into betraying Bishomen. Overall, he takes the lead in essentially killing off most of the Shinki that make up Bishamon’s family and forcing Bishamon through hell and back as she’s on the verge of reincarnation. Ultimately, the guy is off his wagon and definitely will be getting coal. The only reason why he’s number 10 is that he honestly thought his actions would benefit her.

As a series that has just started this fall, Shuumatsu no Izetta throws us into a world that has broken out into war. Drawing heavily on War World II, the show depicts the country of Germania taking over most of Europe and is now focused on conquering the Principality of Elystadt. However, with a strong-willed princess leading the country, Elystadt is not about to go down easily.

Berckmann is the primary antagonist of Shuumatsu no Izetta and is one of the most interesting characters to watch this fall season. From the very beginning, his calm and collected mannerisms, even while in the act of murder, will send chills down your back. In the first episode alone, you receive massive amounts of insight as he strategically chases down Fine and then promptly kills his own men once they observe the chamber with Izette. The characteristics demonstrated there continue on through the rest of the series, proving that he is a mastermind tactician and analyst who lives for conflict and political intrigue. Oh, and let’s not forget the simple reality that he’s essentially a Nazi spy who wants to rule the world.

It should be safe to say that everyone’s seen Attack on Titan and know that it’s about a world where humanity has been brought to the point of extinction due to the presence of Titans. So let’s get to talking about Annie.

At first, Annie just comes off as a badass, who is critical of the hierarchy that controls humanity’s last sanctuary. Then she comes off as a cold-hearted badass when we find out that she is the incredibly powerful and tactical female Titan who decimated a large portion of the scout regimen in her mission to retrieve Eren. How cold-hearted do you have to be to destroy people you have trained with as well as to smother out some of the last hope humanity has left. Admittedly, there is some evidence to say she wouldn’t have killed anyone if they didn’t get in her way, the way she murders Levi’s personal team is particularly painful. However, if you were conflicted about her motives, the fact that she freezes herself in crystal, refusing to explain herself, turns her into an ultimate troll.

In a world where basically everyone has some type of super power, Izuku Midoriya does not have a quirk. That is until he meets his all-time favorite hero All Might whose power gets transferred into Midoriya. From that point, Midoriya must learn to control his powers in order to attend UA High and become the world’s greatest super hero.

Now, the villain of this show, Tomura, is just particularly cruel and has the perfect power for his personality: deterioration. His main goal is to kill All Might and have the world to crumble under the shock of such an event. He’s even willing to kill off children if it means affecting the mentality and state of heroes in general. It’s true that this might not be a particularly sinister plan in the world of anime, but Tomura has a couple of benefits.

First off, he is actually quite skilled and poses a threat to most heroes, as his analysis is very in-depth. However, that trait isn’t truly unique either. The main crime of this villain is that he doesn’t even take pride in a subversive discussion of superpowers. He mentions for a moment the problem with super powers allowing for dictator-like control over a city, and then immediately tosses out this argument when All Might calls him sick. In fact, he agrees with All Might and begins to laugh immensely. In other words, he’s on this list because he had some power to be an influential villain and then just throws that potential away. Unforgivable.

If you’re not familiar with Sailor Moon, then you have some anime to catch up with. Sailor Moon Crystal brings Usagi Tsukino and her crew of magical girl guardians back into the limelight, as they do their best to protect love and peace.

Is there anyone quite as frustrating in the Sailor Moon series? Admittedly Queen Metalia is actually the top villain, but she doesn’t have a huge physical presence in the anime. Queen Beryl, on the other hand, consistently gets a little screen time where she’s telling the Shitennou (originally good generals who she put under her control) to go take out the Senshu and retrieve the Crystal, so that she may resurrect the Dark Kingdom and end humanity. Clearly, she is the type who would end up on the naughty list. However, she really ups her game later in the series when she starts thinking about double crossing Queen Metalia so that she can be the ultimate ruler and confronts the Senshu personally.

Drifters throws us into a fantasy world that is on the verge of being overran by goblins and demons. This is thanks to the help of a group of people who have been sent from another world with incredible powers and a complete hatred for humanity. To help battle the threat of this foreign group, another group of otherworldly people have also been sent to this fantasy setting in hopes of preventing the evildoers from conquering it.

Oda Nobunaga might not be a clear cut villain, but out of all the heroes out there, he’s pretty self-absorbed. More so than characters like Alucard, Oda Nobunaga does not accept any sort of authority and is willing to disturb the natural order. If you’ve been watching Drifters, you’ve probably noticed two things. One, there is no tactic too underhanded for him. Two, his mind is always on the big picture and he’s already pulling some strings to ensure that he rules. Admittedly, everyone has taken note of this, and yet no one seems quite willing to stop him yet. This is because his plans of conquering the world revolves around the liberation of so many oppressed people. In other words, he’s taking advantage of other’s misery to justify his means. In the end, it will be interesting to see if things work out for him this go around.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is one of those anime you need to particularly experience as it first follows Jonathan Joestar’s rivalry with his newly-adopted brother Dio, and then skips into the future where Jonathan’s grandson, Joseph Joestar, discover his family’s legacy and must take on supernatural beings of immense strength.

You were expecting some other villain, but it was me, Dio. Dio probably enjoys the fact that he’s being placed on this list and will probably be out for revenge for not being number one. There are not a lot of characters who are as greedy and narcissistic as him. From the very first episode, he is obsessed with power and wealth and sets body and mind to the task of achieving it. Considering his poor background, such pursuit would generally be worthy of praise. However, Dio’s desire for power goes way beyond healthy ambition as every step towards power he takes generally comes at the price of someone else’s pride, respect, dignity, well-being and so on.

Makoto Naegi, our main protagonist from the original Danganronpa is now under suspicion of treason by the Future Foundation that he helped form to save the world. Why? Well, he happens to be shielding some Remnants of Despair. Thus the members of the Future Foundation decide to meet and figure out a punishment for him only to suddenly be trapped in another life and death game by Monokuma.

Manipulative, cunning, and harsh are just a few of the words to describe this character and a few of the reasons why she’s getting coal for Christmas. Truthfully, it’s debateable if she even deserves coal. Junko Enoshima is the one who orchestrated the Worst, Most Despair-Inducing Incident in the History of Mankind, so it stands to reason that she would make appearance on such a list. Now what’s particularly unique about her is that she is by no means a one-sided villain. In fact, being a singular type of person is boring for her so she actively changes her personality from moment to moment in order to create some sort of excitement. That desire for excitement is also the reason why she set off the events leading to the worst event in human history, as she can only find her predictions to be wrong when people are responding to traumatic experiences. Basically, she enacts atrocities in order to enjoy herself, which is why she’s at the top here.

Soul Eater takes us into a world where Shinigami train and try to create Death Scythes in order to fight against the evils of the world. The unique aspect of any weapon trying to become a Death Scythe is that it’s actually a human with a special ability to transform. Thus, Shinigami are paired with these humans and sent out on missions to collect 99 evil souls followed by one witch soul.

There are few people in anime as ruthless and cold-hearted as Medusa from Soul Eater. Among the witches, she is one of the most feared and is able to subdue and manipulate the witches Eruka Frog and Mizune through carefully planned schemes and intimidation. Eruka Frog in particular gets the short end of the stick as her body is infested with magical snakes that can easily rip her apart if she disobeys Medusa. Now what else did Medusa do? Oh, she corrupted Stein and made him go AWOL for a little while, and uses her own son as a test subject. That last one in particular is quite brutal as we witness the way she forces little Crona to come to terms with his black blood and become a killing machine. Let me reiterate, she is Crona’s mother and she definitely isn’t winning any mother of the year awards.

DRR!! throws viewers into the lives of numerous characters living in Ikebukuro. Each character is extremely unique and DRRR!!’s exceptional 24-episode run derives its drama from displaying just how intricately these people’s lives weave together.

In the world of DRRR!! is there any character quite as sadistic as Izaya? This is a rhetorical question, because no one comes close to the cruelty and mischief of Ikebukuro’s top information broker. The very first episode of season one starts off with him enticing a girl to commit suicide after acting as her soul mate. Oh, and the blood stains below suggest this isn’t the first person he’s brought to the point of suicide. As a rule of thumb, if you suddenly become a target or have misfortune befall you, Izaya is the one who deserves at least some of your hate. This is because chances are he’s directly involved or directing the forces after you. What makes Izaya the worst is that he’s always willing to sell out just about anyone and is more interested in confusing those who would consider him an ally.