Summary
- Villains in anime aren’t always entirely wrong in their actions, with some having justifiable reasons for their behavior.
- Some villains, like Scar and Itachi, show a different side to their evil acts, challenging the traditional hero-villain dynamic.
- Despite being despicable, villains like Kyubey and Gendou Ikari have complex motivations that blur the lines between good and evil.
Villains are a staple in any story, providing an antagonizing force for the protagonists and driving the story forward with conflict. They also tend to be jerks who give the audience someone to hate. However, the best villains are the ones that aren’t completely in the wrong. After all, realistically speaking, few people are ever the villain in their own stories.
Some of the best villains are only villainous in the framing of the story, others are reprehensible only in their methods but have noble intentions. Anime, known for big characters, naturally has some big villains. And while most of them are vile, some of them are not completely without morality, and some of them are even more in the right than they seem. These are anime villains that kinda had a point.
7
Lady Eboshi And Iron Town
Princess Mononoke
If this were something like Fern Gully, then the denizens of Iron Town and their leader Lady Eboshi would be the unequivocal villains of their tale as people who take from the land and pollute it without a care for its health. However, in Princess Mononoke, it’s not so simple. While Iron Town seem like the bad guys, it’s clear all that they just want to be able to thrive.
This puts them at odds with the denizens of the forest, who want to wipe out the human presence in the area, something Lady Eboshi would rightly not stand for. Though they don’t initially know how to interact with nature without causing harm, it doesn’t necessarily warrant their deaths.
6
Scar
Fullmetal Alchemist
One group’s terrorist could be another one’s folk hero. Scar is a serial killer with a deep hatred for Amestrian State Alchemists who ended a stalemate in one bloody show of overwhelming strength, in one night killing combatants and civilians alike to end the war with Ishval, his home.
Some would call him a zealot, but his actions are arguably justifiable as any act of revenge, given the destruction of his country at the hands of Amestris and its Alchemists. The issue is that he’s not picky, even targeting Edward Elric, who wasn’t even involved in the war.
5
Itachi Uchiha
Naruto
Perhaps the most tragic character in all of Naruto, Itachi is also the most patriotic character in the show, committing fratricide in the hopes of protecting his village and little brother from the horrors of war.
Ultimately, Itachi might not be a villain at all, despite how terrifying he is. His aim was a peaceful world, even through bloodshed, which was at odds with his peace-loving nature. With all the power and skill he possessed, he was still a victim of circumstance, trying to make the right decisions when all his options were terrible.
4
Lordgenome
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
The major antagonist of the first season, Lordgenome is presented as a tyrant with a callous disregard for life who commands his legions of Beastmen to keep humans underground for seemingly no reason. Except, with the revelation of the Anti-Spirals and their ultimatum to keep human population low or face extinction, Lordgenome’s edict to keep humanity below the dirt makes sense.
Though he could conceivably be kinder about it, the human spirit in Gurren Lagann is shown to be a power all its own, meaning that to keep humanity around, he’d have to crush their will to avoid the ire of the Anti-Spirals. His ultimately good nature shows through at the end when he sacrifices himself for his daughter and all of humanity in the final fight against the Anti-Spiral.
3
Kyubey Puella Magi
Madoka Magica
Make no mistake: Kyubey is absolutely despicable. It’s part of an alien race called Incubators, who act as familiars to the magical girls of the series, granting them a wish and magic powers, as well as burdening them with the task of fighting bloodthirsty Witch monsters.
Related
In reality, Witches are actually the end of every magical girl’s life, a product of terrible despair. This is a system that Kyubey presides over, one that exploits and discards young girls in the name of creating energy to counteract universal entropy. While their goals are theoretically good, their methods are monstrous. But how else can you deal with something as all-consuming as entropy itself?
2
Mewtwo
Pokemon: The First Movie
While Mewtwo is definitely the villain of this film, the reasons for his aggression make sense. After all, who would want to awake, essentially alone in the world and told that you’re a tool of violence. Though his initial impulse wasn’t exactly a good idea, especially since he leaned into the very thing they wanted him to be, lashing out is a pretty reasonable response.
Ultimately, he realizes the error of his ways and leaves with the clone Pokemon, saving them from the very fate that Giovanni designed for him and allowing them to live peacefully. After Ash sacrifices himself, all future appearances by Mewtwo are as a good guy, even if it doesn’t look like it at first.
1
Gendou Ikari
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Let’s get this out of the way: Gendou Ikari is an awful person, maybe one of the reprehensible in anime, and the worst dad on this side of Shou Tucker. He uses and discards people at will, has no regard for human life, and is cruel to his own son.
But he’s a bad guy in a world where the bad guys win, locked in a constant game of chess with the members of SEELE for no less than the fate of all humanity. Who’s to say that the ambitions of evil old men would be more pure than that of someone who just wanted to see his wife again? We know that this doesn’t turn out well for him, but it’s entirely possible that if it did, he would make a happier world where he could be with his wife and son.
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