Forum - View topicVillains of Anime
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DemonDragonJ
 Posts: 116 Location: Somewhere in the United States |
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Let's face it: heroes are cool, but they would be less so if they did not have villains to fight. As far as I am concerned, the villain of a story is by far a cooler and more interesting character than the hero.
I saw a thread similar to this one several weeks ago, but I cannot find it, so I am starting a new thread, if it is allowed. This thread is intended to be a discussion of everyone's opinion on who the most interesting/most diabolical villains in Japanese animation are. Either one villain or multiple villains may be submitted, so do not worry if you like more than one villain, because I certainly do! 
I shall sort my favorite villains into three categories: winners, runners-up, and losers, which should all be self-explanatory. I shall also explain why these characters are noteworthy as villains. My runners-up are Myotismon from Digimon season 1, Ken Ichijoji from Digimon season 2, and Marik Ishtar from Yu-Gi-Oh! All three of these characters are quite sinister, and are quite powerful and influential as villains. The reason that they are runners-up rather than winners is because Ken and Marik, although extremely evil characters, eventually turn good, and there is not enough backstory to Myostimon; we do not learn why he is evil; he is simply evil because that is the way he is. My winners are Yami Bakura and Yami Marik from Yu-Gi-Oh! and Dilandau Albatou from Escaflowne. Each of these three characters practically radiates evil like a black sun. None of them redeem themselves; they are evil to the bitter, glorious end, and they are very cunning and formidable adversaries during their respective reigns of terror. For example, my favorite anime villain, Yami Marik, spoiler[kills his own father quite mercilessly, then attempts to kill his older brother and sister in a similar manner.] My losers are Freeza/Cell/Majin Buu (pick one of the three) from DBZ, Devimon from Digimon season 1, and Pegasus from Yu-Gi-Oh! These characters are certainly challenging to the heroes of their respective series, but simply do not quite possess the "aura of evil" that the other villains mentioned here possess. Any other takes? I would much appreciate any feedback. |
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Wolf X
Posts: 93 Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado |
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When you are talking about Dilandau from Escaflone, are you talking about his character from the movie or from the series? If you are talking about the movie I agree with you that he is completely evil without the redeeming qualities of other villians. But if you are talking about Dilandau from the series I would have to disagree because spoiler[they rebuild his character from Alan's little sister up to Dilandau and back to his little sister]. So in that context with the redeeming qualities it seems more like Dilandau was really a miss guided hero than a true villian. I don't know, that is my opinion and I am up for discussion about it.
Last edited by Wolf X on Sun Dec 04, 2005 5:09 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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joel_s95387
Posts: 1804 Location: California... The Village Hidden In The Porn |
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I don't fully comprehend what you saying but I guess I'll list Villains and why I think they deserve to be mentioned.
In Elfen Lied #35 is a pretty evil villain. spoiler[She kills her own "mother" when first introduced] and murders people without remorse. That military guy is also evil. He's such an a-hole and even punches some girl because she "snuck up behind him" but all she did was tap his shoulder. Harry McDowell from Gungrave is evil too I mean he spoiler[kills his best friend and his own boss in order to move up in the company]. I don't watch Yu-Gi-Oh! or Digimon so I can't comment on your selections. For some reason I know there are even more villains that are worth mentioning but I can't remember for some reason. |
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DemonDragonJ
Posts: 116 Location: Somewhere in the United States |
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Oh, yes, I forgot. Thank you for reminding me of that. You are quite correct in your statement that Dilandau does remeem himself/herself in ther series. That makes me want to ask a question that is off-topic: spoiler[Dilandau was born as a female but was later transformed into a female; ]is that the reason that Escaflowne was canceled after the first several episodes aired on FoxKids several years ago? |
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Wolf X
Posts: 93 Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado |
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Honestly I wouldn't know, this is the first time I heard that Escaflone was on Fox Kids. That really suprises me seeing how advanced it is in comparison to what they usually show.
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Kelly
Posts: 868 Location: New York City |
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From the anime I've watched so far, Last Exile's Maestro Delphine wins the evil sweepstakes hands down. Before the series has even begun, she's started a civil war just to keep herself in power and amused herself by watching the heroes' fathers die in an accident and doing nothing to help them. We really start to hate her when she spoiler[turns her own kid brother Dio into a mental vegetable basically because he doesn't like cool stuff like world domination and assasination]. But the real kicker comes when she spoiler[murders Dio's selfless, loving de facto best friend Luciola, who she hates just because Dio is attached to him, when he tries to force her to reverse the process]. After that, the audience wants her head on a platter and would gladly draw and quarter her personally. And the worst part is that she isn't even insane. She knows exactly what she's doing and enjoys every minute of it.
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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I'm just speculating, but that may be part of the reason...essentially I've always seen Escaflowne's failure on FoxKids as being due to targetting the wrong age group: Esca isn't overly hard to understand, but it does require some actual thinking which is beyond the average kid who watches Saturday morning cartoons. Anyway...back on-topic...for great villians, I've always been somewhat fascinated by Dark/Black Lady, ChibiUsa's evil incarnation from Sailor Moon (though I've only seen that arc in English and haven't seen all of it either). Characters who switch sides are always rather intriguing to me. I also rather adore Trigun's Knives, he's my favourite character. Also, though he's not strictly a villian, Tohma from Gravitation is very cool. I love villians. 
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remember love
 Posts: 764 Location: Germany |
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My favorite villain and one I find should be noteworthy is Gail from Project A-ko the versus. I thought he had an interesting background story that pushed forward and made you wonder why did he become what he has(I love those kind of bad guys...kind of like Darth Vader). Not only that he's very cool and decieve at times which makes him better then the average mad man. Though his plan is pretty simple with the destruction of the universe to create a new(yet better in his opinion) universe/world.
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space clam
Posts: 636 |
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Griffith is easily my favorite villian, due to the way his character is meticulously crafted. I also enjoy the FMA villians, as they're either ones you don't expect, or ones that have more depth (or perhaps good) than others.
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Efan
 Posts: 340 |
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My Favorite anime villain is definetly Orochimaru from Naruto. He posseses that kind of weird aura that makes you uncomfortable when ever you see him, he also has those forbiden techniques that make you fear what he will do next.
A runner up would have to be Gaul from Full Metal Panic. He kills relentlessly against people that don't even stand a chance, and worst of all, he's smart. smart villains are the scariest villains because you know the next thing they do is going to be big, but you never know what it is. |
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Sharpe
Posts: 26 |
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My favorite villains are the "amoral" villains. These villains are not evil per se. Being "evil" suggests that they have morals, but that these morals are poor - i.e, an evil person has values, only these values tend to be hatred, horror, death, destruction, etc... In my view, "evil" villains are less compelling characters than "amoral" villains. I define amoral villains as those who have no "good" or "bad" values - they do not care for either side, and usually are driven by an overriding purpose, such as to reshape the world (usually in a way that they think is good for the world). Whether they use good or evil to achieve that purpose is beneath them - they don't care so long as it furthers their cause.
Delphine from Last Exile comes to mind. Its a stretch to describe her as 'evil'. Its her quality of not caring, of being detached from the rest of the world, that makes her so repulsive. Another type of villain that I like are 'force of nature' villains - these are villains whose purpose, for one reason or another, is the pure destruction of everything, both good and bad. Its also the quality of detachedness that makes these villains so horrifying - they don't care for anything, and thus, have nothing in common with anyone. |
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remember love
Posts: 764 Location: Germany |
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I think my villain can go under this definition. As I said above he wanted to destroy the universe to reshape it in a better way under his views. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6904 Location: Kazune City |
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"Force of Nature" villains have their appeal, but for some reason, I don't like them all that much...maybe it's after watching the first four seasons of Sailor Moon twice, where we see Metalia, the Death Phantom, Pharoh 90, and Queen Nehelenia attacking the Earth with the intent of "destroy everything"/"create nothingness"/"silence the world." Arc the Lad and Final Fantasy Unlimited also suffer from having "I am teh evil power and I will destroy the world for no apparent reason" villains. Just my personal opinion on the matter. One of the reasons that Scrapped Princess is my favorite anime is that there really is no "villain" in the traditional sense of the word; all the forces opposing the protagonists are acting out of a sense of what they believe to be right, just, and good for the majority of the people of the world. Some other choices: Both of the main Full Metal Panic villains are good entries in the insane/ruthless category; if you like angry, sadistic bad guys and impulsive killing, then Gauron and Gates are definitely for you. It brings back memories of Darth "Apology accepted, Captain Needa" Vader from Star Wars episode 5. In Bleach, I like spoiler[Captain Aizen,] because he's a super-powerful villain whom you absolutely wouldn't expect to be a villain at all, providing a great plot twist to the series. I imagine the revelation will happen sometime in the next few episodes, like in 62-63. Ichimaru Gin also makes a strong showing as the laid-back, grinning, Kansai-accent speaking trickster. Lastly, Nakago from Fushigi Yuugi--here's a villain who is intelligent, cunning, powerful, and actually motivated to do what he does. As the saying goes, "people hate a good villain, but love a great one," and though it may vary from person to person, you may actually feel some sympathy for him in the last episode of the TV series when spoiler[Tamahome gives him a Kamehameha-type punch and gets a peek into Nakago's past. Especially profound is the line, "The weak are always defeated by the strong," when asked by Tamahome why he didn't dodge the punch.] |
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excel7769
 Posts: 38 Location: Golden, CO United States |
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I only got my top two villians, each more worse than the other, I also got my reasons behind them too...
First, Gaouron (Pardon any spelling mistakes) From Full Metal Panic despite the fact that he should be dead over and over again, he keeps comming back, and it seems that he's more twisted and evil each time he does come back. Now for my vote on "Best (or Worse) Villian in Anime" Aion from Chrono Crusade. I don't think there's an anime villian out there more twisted and perverse than this guy. The things he puts poor Rosette, Chrono, Azamaria, and well, anybody else in the story, it's just almost unspeakable, best (or worst) part is he doesn't die, he just comes right back.
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Keonyn
 Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
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Definitely my nomination as well. Aion was a cruel and calculating villain who was as intelligent and charismatic as one could ever hope to be. |
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