Yes, Johan is a repeat character from a previous edition of this list and for reasons you can refer to in those lists. What can we say about Johan, the titular Monster, that hasn’t already been said? For the most part, Johan is practically the anime/manga equivalent to Charles Manson. He’s very manipulative and can get people to do some terrible things just like Manson did. He’s the ultimate nihilist (no, not a Nazi) and he’s been killing as far back as he could walk. However, not only his heinous actions make him endure for generations to come, but the nature behind them. People can make the argument of nature vs. nurture, but Johan takes that argument to new extremes that have yet to be explored in any work of art or entertainment. Are we to excuse his actions due to his unfortunate childhood? Or should he be held accountable to his actions regardless? If so, where does that leave the rest of the people on this list? This is a guy who doesn’t give a care who he hurts, so you be the judge. Due to these very questions, he gives audiences not only an idea of what evil is, but why some people turn out evil, and is there any turning back.

With the #MeToo movement equally gaining power and controversy, we can understand why the inclusion of Malty can be polarizing for some readers. She may not be the most villainous character, but she stoops to some malicious lows that still qualifies her as evil (of course, the original web novel reveals them). For starters, she falsely accuses Naofumi of sexually assaulting her and getting his fellow heroes and the entire kingdom to hate him. With false evidence and without a fair trial, it really turned Naofumi into a dark character for a good portion of the series. To further add insult to injury, she uses magic to frame him for attacking her sister, who happens to be his greatest ally! She’s a liar and manipulator for the sake of her own personal amusement, and the fact that she enjoys seeing people suffer at her expense makes her one evil bitch (spoiler alert: Naofumi gets legal authority to rename her that!).

As the cliché goes, beauty is only skin deep and Homura takes that to a new level. On the outside, she seems like your typical school girl, but her true form, she’s a vicious demon (depending on the timeline). What makes some evil people deranged is how they think they’re doing the right thing, and Homura fits that category as she claims she wants to protect Madoka. Homura is world weary due to her life as a magical girl, and it has messed up her emotions. Compared to a majority on this list, the audience can get an understanding from where she’s coming. Yes, people become evil due to certain bad experiences, but do your intentions behind your actions excuse you from malicious behavior? Homura’s journey is the ultimate answer to that very question.

We can admit that Tomie, being of the supernatural, is a different kind of evil. While her presence in the series is small, it makes quite an impact. Unlike other Japanese horror icons like Sadako from Ringu or Kayako from Ju-on, who either conceal their face or appropriately look ghastly, Tomie assumes the form of a strikingly beautiful woman. While the respective movies for Ringu and Ju-on give us an idea as to why those respective characters haunt the living, we know very little about Tomie and why she does what she does. She just has this bizarre power to make people fall in love with her to the point of unexplainable insanity and drive them to murdering her and making her multiply. If you could put all the seven deadly sins into one entity, it would certainly be Tomie. She’s not driven by revenge like your typical spirit, but just by the thrill of it.

If you thought Walter White from Breaking Bad was enough, wait until you see Koichi Shido from Highschool of the Dead. He’s someone who abuses his authority to manipulate people, but thankfully, our heroes don’t buy his story one bit. He’s practically a cult leader on steroids with a bag of chips (if there were ever such a crazy combination) as he’s willing to drop anyone he deems expendable at the drop of a hat (and that includes his own former students!), and that’s just the tip of the iceberg! As to how far he exploits his position, if you haven’t seen the series, either feel free to watch it, or use your imagination, and that’ll give you some idea as to how truly evil he is.

Rekka was supposed to be one of the good guys as he was a third generation officer of the Special Fire Force. However, he wasn’t exactly who we thought he was when in episode 8 (which aired shortly after we started writing this list), he shows his true colors. All we can say is, if we’re ever going to discourage people from watching an episode due to disturbing content, it would certainly be episode 8 of Enen no Shouboutai when Rekka reveals his heel turn. If you’re disturbed by images of violence towards women and children, then we discourage you from watching episode 8 of this series for those very reasons and those reasons are enough to explain why he’s evil. Yes, the series’ third episode was delayed by a week due to the unfortunate fire that place at Kyoto Animation, but episode 8 is a different level of disturbing to tell you enough why Rekka is now one of the evilest characters in anime and manga.

If anime could have its equivalent to Osama Bin Laden, it’d certainly be Ali al-saachez from Gundam 00. He lives for the thrill of battle and the money that comes with it. Beyond being a murderous terrorist, what exactly makes him evil? It’s not just that he enjoys slaughtering innocents, but how he exploits children into fighting for him. Yes, this has happened in real life, but Ali takes it to really twisted levels that makes you lose your faith in humanity by telling children that they’re going to be fighting in the name of God. So, how far does he exploit it? This is another quality we don’t want to get into not just for the sake of spoilers, nor merely for the sake of encouraging you to watch the series to figure out, but is just sick and evil to the point that we don’t want to say it. All we can spoil is that he ultimately gets what’s coming to him.

Granted that Gross is only featured in a flashback episode of Grisha, Eren’s father, but what this guy does is more than enough to qualify on this list. As a law enforcement officer to Grisha’s home nation, he was given every authority to be a gestapo. When Grisha and his sister tried to explore the world outside their designated zone, they were apprehended, and Gross was one of the police officers who caught them. So, where does this lead us? Forget about getting into spoiler territory, we’re about to enter territory that will have you disturbed and makes you realize how sick discrimination, a real life problem, truly is. Despite Gross’ brief presence, what he does makes a big impact on what sets the series in motion. We don’t’ want to say what he does that makes him qualify for this list, and we don’t want to encourage you to watch to know why. All we can say is the moment you get to that part of the series, you might want to turn off and step away from whatever device you choose to watch this series on to allow yourself to process what happens.

Yes, Dio tends to get a majority of the praise and fans love him. No doubt he’s evil and over the top, but Kira, the villain of the fourth story arc, is frighteningly evil in a different kind of way. Dio is the loud kind of evil once you give him the spotlight, but what makes Kira evil is how disturbing he is as if Ed Gein and Ted Bundy were turned into anime villains. He’s a serial killer with a twisted fetish. When it comes to serial killers and their twisted motivations and actions, that says it all as to why they’re evil. Even without his stand, Kira was already a vicious murderer to begin with. What makes this guy truly frightening is how he makes you think he’s an everyday guy. He’s not someone who is after power or world domination, nor is he a nihilist. He’s Patrick Bateman from American Psycho on acid. The fact that he finds “peace” and “love” by killing innocents is more than enough to explain why he made this list. But what makes him distinguishing compared to who we’re listing is that he can be your neighbor, your co-worker, or maybe some guy you go to your local church, synagogue, or mosque (depending on your respective faith) with.

At number one, we have Hamdo from the cult classic, Now and Then, Here and There. If Hitler and Saddam had a son, it’d probably be Hamdo. Hamdo is the self-appointed dictator in the desolate world of Hellywood. Out of all the characters on this list, Hamdo is just the worst of the worst. What makes him evil is how he exploits children for labor and forces them into his army for his own personal gain and makes them do things that no one should be doing. He’s a psychotic megalomaniac in just about every way you can think of. Not only does he exploit children in his army, he has the temperament of the cash me ousside girl on crack! You do something to offend him, he’ll beat you like a failed racing horse. He’s a man-child for sure, and we’re talking the scary kind, not the comedic kind like the Angry Video Game Nerd. It’s not just his demeanor that makes him evil, but the world he creates in which Sara, the female co-lead, is subjected to things we don’t want to get into, which more or less says makes him number 1 on this list.

There aren’t many ‘good’ characters in the Kuroshitsuji series. Ciel, the main character, is practically an anti-hero as he simply lives for enacting revenge. However, none of the characters bring out the viewer’s rage and frustration as much as young master Alois Trancy.

Trancy is the main antagonist of the second season and he has made it his goal to cause harm to Sebastian, which basically means taking Ciel away from Sebastian. Though he has gone through a lot of abuse in his life that definitely makes you feel for the boy, he has a tendency to frustrate most viewers. He seeks attention constantly and has a rather uncontrollable temper that results in loud and obscene outbursts. Considering what he has gone through these outbursts are understandable, but they are extremely painful to view because of the fact that everyone else in the show tends to bottle their emotions and act with a sense of refinery (except for Grell). All of that said, he gives into his desire for revenge and so here he is.

Junko Enoshima was brought into Hope’s Peak Academy as the Ultimate Fashionista. First seen as perhaps a little superficial and hot-tempered, it is a nice surprise to find out that it has all been an act.

Junko Enoshima, in fact, has the Ultimate Analytical Prowess and is the creator of the Ultimate Despair. This is to say that she is the main antagonist of the series and is responsible for basically every single terrible thing that happens. This is because she is able to use her analytical prowess to figure out anyone’s weakness and then exploit that weakness to bring about despair. What makes her such a great evil character is how much she enjoys bringing about despair and manipulating people. Even better is that she does it all to simply keep herself from boredom.

Shishio is the main antagonist of the second arc of Rurouni Kenshin. He brings together a group of immensely powerful warriors, as he tries to dismantle the government that turned its back on his work and tried to execute him. Though the warriors join him for vastly different reasons, each have found his passion and philosophy influential.

Shishio is an evil character with mass appeal. He is charismatic and forceful and knows how to overthrow a government. Every step he takes is planned and he always has a back-up plan in place. For most of his arc, he is essentially toying with our heroes, who include two of the most feared manslayers from the Imperial War. The best part about him is that he has the skills and abilities to back up all his bark, and that his philosophy extends to all parts of his life. It doesn’t matter if it comes down to his own life or lover, those who are weak are merely energy for the strong.

Does anything really need to be said about Shou Tucker? Everyone knows his face, and the entire anime community will definitely agree that he is one of the most evil characters.

Behind his rather unassuming appearance is a mind corrupted by the pursuit of power and creation. At first, we think he’s not too far gone. We think he is simply misunderstood by the alchemist community at broad, because he dabbles in the forbidden aspect of alchemy. Considering that Edward delved into the most forbidden of practices, it is no surprise that we find ourselves sympathetic towards the man. Then he uses his daughter in his experiments and creates an existence that is clearly in immense pain. Yep, the guy is evil and the whole community hates him for good reason.

Naraku is the source of all the problems that plague Inuyasha. If it wasn’t for Naraku, then Inuyasha would have had a much easier life. However, Naraku made his way into Inuyasha’s life and decided to turn Inuyasha and Kikyo against one another in such a way that would act as a catalyst for most of the drama in the series.

So we already discussed how Naraku set a couple of lovebirds against one another. Such an act obviously establishes him as an evil character, but there are many more. There’s the fact that he holds Kanna and Kagura hostage by holding onto their hearts. He gladly punishes them by squeezing their hearts if they ever disobey hm. There’s the fact that he pits Sango against her own little brother Kohaku, who was brainwashed into killing off the rest of their family. The guy wants to be the top demon so is it really any surprise that he displays such an evil nature?

Hellsing is an anime full of evil characters. The main character is debatably the most evil. However, Alucard has a leash of sorts tied about his neck and kept his past dealings in a pretty specific location. It’s safe enough to say that he wasn’t out for world conquest, which is why The Major takes this spot.

The Major created an army of Nazi vampires. What more needs to be said? You have to be pretty evil to combine the mindset of a Nazi with the prowess of a vampire. If that’s not enough, then maybe the fact that he’s not actually after world conquest is what makes him truly evil. That’s right, he doesn’t want to simply rule the world. What he wants is to create such systemic conflict that war becomes the constant state of the world. This is to say that he wants death and destruction to be occurring everywhere at all times. He really is a piece of evil pie.

Diva is the main antagonist from the Blood+ series, and she is essentially trying to turn everyone in the world into her mindless slave. Why? Well, she was raised in isolation and abused to the point that she could not care less about what’s right or wrong. She simply wants revenge and control and has a particular fondness for toying with Saya and those closest to her.

Diva is a monstrous villain. From the get go her actions take a stark contrast to the actions of Saya. When Diva is first released from her cell by Saya, in order to sing for Joel’s birthday, Diva slaughters everyone. She then continues to slaughter and kill people across the world. Throughout the whole series she does a lot of terrible things, but few compare to when she rapes Riku, kills him, and then dresses up like him to mock Saya.

Medusa is arguably the most frustrating and cunning villain in Soul Eater. Even though Asura is the strongest opponent in the series, Medusa acts as the primary antagonist for about 90% of the series, and so we get to see a lot more of her cruelty and schemes.

You know a character is evil when you need to take a moment to narrow down the list of deeds to discuss. Let’s start with the fact that Medusa kills the eldest witch of the Mizune family and puts Eruka Frog under her control by slipping snakes into her body that can kill her at any moment. Now let’s discuss how she infused her own child with black blood and abused that child for years in order to use him as a pawn. The icing on top is the fact that she even corrupts Stein for a while and uses him against his own pupils. Medusa is simply pure evil.

Sachiko is the antagonist of Corpse Party and few characters can compare to her in terms of being evil. Admittedly, her presence as a ghost was caused by an incident years ago, where she was killed by the school staff. Of course such a death would leave a person with quite a bit of hostility towards the living.

However, her hostility goes above and beyond. The types of traps that Sachiko leaves for the people that enter her realm are on the level of Saw films. The situations and tortures she inflicts upon the characters of the story are truly horrendous and show an extremely sadistic nature. These methods involve stabbing people through the eye, cutting half of someone’s head off with scissors, and a bunch of other twisted schemes. Essentially, she forces people through hell and back even when they are just innocent children.

Griffith was a messianic figure as he led the Band of the Hawk during the Hundred Year War. His efforts brought about a semblance of peace to the war-torn kingdom of Midland, and then about a year later he betrayed all of humanity and became the fifth member of the God Hand, Femto.

What makes Griffith such a poignantly evil character is that he was an earnestly good person at the beginning. It’s the fallen angel complex, and the creators did an incredible job portraying his turnabout. We watch his conscience make the decision to abandon all empathy and stab those closest to him in the back. This is most powerfully and painfully shown as he, now Femto, rapes Casca in front of Guts.