Anime Protagonists Who Are Technically The Villain Of The Story

Some of the best parts of anime, and the writing that goes into it, are the very well crafted villains of the story. Oftentimes, these are individuals within the manga and anime universe with unprecedented power or intellect, which allows them to ruthlessly dominate others, forcing them to submit to their will.

However, sometimes the true villain of the story is not so clear. There are a lot of stories out there where, even though there is a blatant antagonist, the actions taken by the assigned protagonist of the show are so corrupt, that these main characters could be considered the story’s villains in their own right. Here are five characters who showcase this phenomenon as morally-corrupt main characters.

5 Yuichi Katagiri

Type Of Villain: Malevolent Schemer

He’s been called a devil and a monster by other characters for a reason. Though some might say this is a good thing when they're playing the Tomodachi Game. Yuichi’s status as a devil is part of what makes him such a good player.

When viewers first meet Yuichi Katagiri, he seems to be a standard survival game protagonist. A kind, humble high school kid who was broke, tired, and wanted nothing more than to just be around his friends. However, they'll soon learn that Yuichi is the opposite. He only performs the role of a nice, humble, hardworking high school student with not much about him. In reality, Yuichi is a master of manipulation and trickery who is willing to throw away any and all moral values if it means he will win. He will resort to the lowest of tactics to succeed, including blackmail, life-ruining schemes, violent threats and, at some point, risking someone’s life by shoving them off a cliff.

There was one thing that made Yuichi seem not that bad, the one part of his high school persona that was not faked. Yuichi truly does care about his friends and will do anything to support them. The only issue is, ‘anything’ often involves boundless cruelty enacted on others.

4 Kiyotaka Ayanokoji

Type Of Villain: Machiavellian Student Mastermind

The young man who was trained to be adept from an early age could possibly be and, as a result, became a cold machine of a person. The archetypal super-intelligent anime character who can do absolutely anything required of him in the psychological competition that is his high school life, and with a blank expression on his face the entire time too.

Ayanokoji attends a school meant only for the most elite students in Japan, in which everything from the tests to the field trips are steeped in intense competition where the winners can increase their spending power and class rank. Ayanokoji wants to live a normal high school life and, despite his amazing skills, is fine with barely competing and letting his class remain in Class-D, the lowest rank. However, a series of circumstances doesn’t allow for that, leading to Ayanokoji having to work to improve his class rank and violently compete against the other top students in the school.

The same grueling childhood training that made him so intellectually and physically capable also made him an emotionless being who only sees other people as tools to be used for his goals. In spite of the many friends he makes, Ayanokoji seems incapable of truly bonding with anyone, using them all as pawns in his game. At one point in the manga, he makes a girl fall in love with him and dates her despite having no feelings for her, just to experiment. Though he’s usually either heroic or neutral, he often comes across as one of the coldest, most sociopathic characters in the series.

3 Lelouch vi Britannia

Type Of Villain: Vengeful Manipulative Leader

Lelocuh Lamprouge, or Lelouch vi Britannia, was a Britannian royal who was banished after calling out his country's rulers for causing the death of his mother and the disabling of his sister. He swore revenge on the Britannian Empire for these reasons while he hid in Japan. He was finally able to enact this vengeance once he received an ability that allowed him to convince anyone to do whatever he wanted, but just once in their lifetime. It is clear to see how a heroic character with such a background might often behave villainously.

Related

Code Geass: Lelouch's 10 Best Strategic Decisions

Lelouch from Code Geass is one of the smartest anime characters of all time. Consequently, here are some of his most practical strategies.

Posts

By  Emedo Destiny

Manipulation and lies are Lelouch’s modus operandi, using his natural charisma, Geass power, and military genius to bend others to his will. A brilliant chess player, Lelouch treats life itself as if it's a chess game, one in which he sacrifices many pawns for the sake of his greater goal. He would do anything to secure a brighter world for his disabled sister to live in. This includes the countless people he killed on his journey to become emperor of Britannia, as well as his efforts to become as ruthless of a dictator as possible, in a gambit that would unite the world in celebration once he died.

One could argue the many villainous things Lelouch did were worth it, considering by the end of the series, he had achieved his goal of establishing this brighter world. But some could say the good does not wash out the bad.

2 Light Yagami

Type Of Villain: Mass Murderer With A God Complex

Potentially the most obvious example of a villain protagonist in anime, the charming, intellectual, and narcissistic Light Yagami went from honorable high school student to righteous megalomaniac much quicker than most people would expect.

Light Yagami was a genius who found everything in life far too easy. His boredom as well as the great distaste he had for what he saw as a crime-infested world are what drove him towards his liberal use of godly powers. When Light received the Death Note, it allowed him to act on his goal of building a better world by killing as many criminals as he could. That was how it started, at least. Very soon, Light started to kill anyone, be they innocent or not, if they either stood in his way or disobeyed his rule as God. Yes, God. That was how Light began to see himself. As far as he considered, anyone who tried to stop Kira as God was a blasphemer who must be killed. Be it detectives like L, police officers, or spouses of FBI agents.

Related

Who Has the Best Hero-to-Villain Story - Light Yagami, or Eren Jaeger?

En Jaeger and Light Yagami are both fascinating characters, starting as likable protagonists who use their 'powers' for good. However, both of these characters flip the script by becoming the show's main antagonist, which sparks the question - who had the ultimate hero-to-villain tale? While I feel that Eren's shift had a heavier impact on the viewer and arguably his wrongdoings were on a much larger scale, I have to say that I believe Light Yagami holds the best hero-to-villain transition over him. This is for one reason only - Eren chose to do what he did, knowing it was the only possible option/timeline of events that would secure safe futures for his friends and the ones he cared for, as well as enabling him to free Ymir's curse and make the titans disappear. He would be setting up a 'new world' for his friends to live the rest of their lives in, freely. Light Yagami, on the other hand, was too far gone and was instead using his power with the Death Note to not only kill criminals

Posts

At some point, he considers not just killing criminals to create a better world, but also killing off the lazy and idle. Ever since Light took hold of the Death Note, his moral descent was palpable.

1 Eren Yeager

Type Of Villain: Cataclysmic Warrior

The maniac who, with nothing but a burning passion in his heart, declared he would kill all the Titans, the cannibalistic monsters that ate and maimed his people. Eren started off as a heroic, albeit incredibly aggressive and explosive type of person. The heroic side of him did not last.

To be fair to Eren, it could be argued that a person of his immense number of passions and regularly developed Titan-shifting powers was bound to become a villain in such a world. His lands were beggared by human-eating monsters that killed family members and many comrades. He, a thorough enjoyer of freedom, was forced to hide with the rest of his people behind walls for years because of these creatures. So when he got the power to enact revenge and learned the rest of the world was to blame for his people's plight, he went full throttle.

Eren Yeager went down in the anime history books as one of the deadliest mass murders of all the time. He orchestrated the Rumbling, a march of Colossal Titans across the world that ended up killing 80% of the population. Like other entries on this list, Eren committed a truly evil act to preserve a better future for those he loves, but many have argued that such a motive is not noble enough to excuse such cataclysmic levels of killing.