Who's the most badass villain in anime?

Wow, didn't expect to hear that... :shock:

I don't really think the Sailor Moon villains were very interesting or badass in general. Setting aside the appearances of the youma/cardians/droids/daimons/lemures/phages (which could, at times, be downright scary but were usually just amusing) they just didn't have any depth to them, nothing to really set them apart from other villains.

Though I'll freely admit that Professor Tomoe was pretty kickass with those occasional "fear my coffee machine of doom!" moments he had.

I think its Shishio from Samurai X. He's a damn burning-swordman.[b]

Rau was a great baddy. Seriously. It was great seeing his insanity revealed so suddenly at the end, after being such a cool, level-headed character for most of the show.

The bad guys that I enjoy (or enjoy hating) are the brilliant ones with twisted minds, that orchestrate their will from the shadows. Like Gouda from GITS:SAC 2ndGig and of course, Light Yagami

Ovan from .hack//roots and .hack//G.U
Actually, I'm not sure he's really a villain.
Well, he did plot this and that making the noisy protagonist(Haseo) get busy.
But, in the end... He's treated like he's the one saved everything.
At least he's treated as a villain in some part of the story.

I'd say over it would have be Aizen. He extremely cold and calculating in all his actions. He makes a good villian because he does everything strategically and is always sure of himself (although he actually has the strength to back it up).

Aizen is evil, but I thought the way his plot ended up in execution was a little mechanically written. Especially the part about Tousen randomly joining him at the end to avoid incontinuity. Also, he just seems greedy and cunning, not so diabolical.

Yagami Light from Death Note was pretty heartless, and of course brilliant. He used everybody and everything he could to his advantage, usually destroying it/them in the process.


I guess not exactly anime, but Slade/Deathstroke from the recent Teen Titans show was pretty evil. He didn't just want power, he wanted to subvert the opposition. Considering the nature of his universe, he could just destroy his enemies, but there are alot of in universe superheros, and someone else would just take their place. Subversion or breaking the spirit of his enemies would be a bigger blow, especially Robin, who was single-minded. He knew what he wanted, it was evil, and it was effective. Also, he was a master of mind games.

I think the problem with alot of anime villains is they get too convoluted. Plots reach a level of absurdity, and in some case(see Naraku), it doesn't even seem to be clear what they really are even after, despite the fact that by that point it should. Why does every plot have to involve something like destroying the world by launching J.S. Bach into space with a doomsday organ?

Being an SM fan myself, I'd say that their villains are kinda, well, boring and stereotypical.

How many people here would consider Haruhi a villain (or anti-hero)?

not me

how about Takano Miyo from Higurashi?

hmm..i think..Shishio from Samurai X...

Aizen Sousuke from Bleach. Aizen is is trying to be God! nuff said.

So I was going to easily say Treize Kushrenada, and I'll still keep him as my first choice, but yall have reminded me of some other awesome villians.
Char is way too good and I would probably put him up with Treize. I should mention that Seed is easily my favorite gundam series though.
For a three way tie I'll throw in Yagami Raito from the first arc of Deathnote. If you count the whole thing though then he goes way way down.... but just the first arc and he's at the top =)
Gendo is also great as a villian, I'm not sure if I could say badass though.
I did love the hell scene for shishio. Though I still say in an actual fight Hiko >>>> Shishio, I mean common.

Naraku, is kind of ehh. I mean, obviously he's one evil mofo, but he also does things all bitch-like. Magatsuhi is so much more evil, literally. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but Naraku can't hold a candle to him.

Dante from FMA is seriously evil. Just think about how Greed was created. She wanted to test her skills at making a homunculus, so she kills her lover and uses him as a test subject. Not to mention the fact that she was pulling the strings throughout the whole entire series and racked up a serious body count over the course of hundreds of years.

I'm not sure whether you can call him a villain because the whole Gundam series had multiple perspectives, but Zechs Merquise was hardcore.

As for villains that are based in history, I don't think anyone will disagree about Oda Nobunaga.

Bando from Elfen lied, Lucy rips one of his arms off, breaks the other one, gouges both his eyes out, and he is still giving it some (Black knight from Monty Pythons holy grail style)while writhing around on the floor.

I wouldn't really classify him as a villain,or a badass. Really though we can all say that he was true to his nature and kept his pimp hand strong.

Vicious from Cowboy Bebop. He totally slipped my mind until right now. He was a bad mother fucker.

Epic ^^

How about Hideo Kuze from GITS 2nd GIG? He was only portrayed as a baddie for the first part of the series, but even so he was totally badass.

Yeah, Kuze was the shit. So was the Laughing Man, even though he wasn't really a villain.

Here's a few others that I think deserve recognition(some may have been mentioned):

Yakushiji Tenzen: Basilisk
Frieza: DBZ
Cell: DBZ
Fake high priest(Don't know the name): A Wind Called Amnesia
Prince Lotor: Voltron (I don't know, I just like him)
Raoh: Fist of the North Star
Szayel: Bleach (He gets mad points for tentacle fucking Nemu)
Dilandou: Escaflowne
Legato: Trigun
Il Palazzo: Excel Saga
Natsume Shin: Tenjho Tenge
Nobunaga Oda: I don't know, I think the one from Samurai Deeper Kyo was the best.
Megatron: Transformers
Aion: Chrono Crusade
Hoshunin Eko: Karas
Gyokumen Koushou: Saiyuki Gaiden
Hazanko: Outlaw Star

I'll stop here for now. Its obvious I left out a lot of great villains, but there's just so many.

Sara from Samurai Champloo.

She was a woman, blind, and can still kick your ass.

And also Kariya Kagetoki, he cut water, water.