With new seasons of My Hero Academia and Tokyo Revengers set to air in the coming seasons, fans will remember the tragic stories of some of their villains, such as Tomura Shigaraki and Keisuke Baji.
While villains who are evil for the sheer love of it are plenty of fun, these villains had no choice but to do the awful things they do, or they believe that their cause is righteous enough that any amount of bloodshed is an acceptable price, thus creating a tragic and almost sympathetic villain.
Daki and Gyutaro (Demon Slayer)
Even the strongest demons in Demon Slayer led miserable lives as humans, which drove them to choose lives as demons instead and compels Tanjirou to shed tears for them even as they die by his sword. Daki and Gyutaro were poor, abused children who only had each other to rely on. In them, Tanjirou sees what he and Nezuko might have been like without the love of their family.
As the siblings blame each other for losing as they die, Tanjirou softly tells them to stop it, because they are all they have. Nobody else is going to forgive or mourn them. They both take this to heart in the afterlife, Gyutaro trying to force his sister away from him since she still has a chance to be redeemed, and Daki refusing to leave her brother, going to Hell alongside him.
Sloth (Fullmetal Alchemist 2003)
While the manga and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood‘s incarnation of Sloth was rather flat, the 2003 anime’s version is a punch to the gut for both the audience and the Elrics. Rather than being direct creations of Father, 2003’s Homunculi are the grim result of failed human transmutations. Sloth is what Edward and Alphonse created when they failed to bring back their mother Trisha.
Sloth is revolted by her memories of her past self, believing that they make her an incomplete person. She is determined to kill Ed and Al to prove that she is her own person. But when Ed reluctantly kills her, she uses her last moments to praise Trisha’s sons like a mother would, with her mindset and motive ambiguous.
Johan Liebert (Monster)
One half of one of the best sibling rivalries in anime, Johan Liebert is as inscrutable to the audience as he is to the rest of the show’s cast. Certainly, his deeds are monstrous, from murdering several sets of foster parents to manipulating people of all ages into suicide. Everyone who comes into contact with him suffers, dies, or both.
From a traumatic separation from his twin sister as a child and the malicious experimentation intended to make him the world’s most deadly and effective cult leader, there are many ways that Johan could have been molded into what he is, never having the chance to be his own person.
Isabella (The Promised Neverland)
At first glance, Isabella is just as vicious and frightening as the demons she works for. She raises the oblivious Grace Field children to be eaten by the demons and goes to any lengths to sabotage escape attempts, including breaking the eleven-year-old Emma’s leg with her bare hands in one episode.
However, Isabella was also a child raised as livestock on Grace Field, watching her friends sent away to be eaten. Unlike the protagonists, she couldn’t escape the farm, and becoming a “Mom” was the only way she could survive. When she is unable to stop her children’s escape plan, she doesn’t begrudge them and prays that they find better lives in freedom.
Shinobu Sensui (Yu Yu Hakusho)
Usually, an unwaveringly strong sense of honor and morality is what makes a lifelong hero, especially in one of the best martial arts anime. Sensui’s was his downfall. As Yusuke’s predecessor as a Spirit Detective, he was fully committed to the role because of his steadfast belief that all demons were evil and all humans good, and he was doing the absolute right thing by killing one to protect the other.
When confronted with the truth of humanity’s capacity for evil and demons’ for innocence, Sensui could not handle it and had a complete breakdown. He devotes the rest of his life to opening a portal to the Demon World to unleash demonkind on humanity and slaughter them all, himself included.
Light Yagami (Death Note)
How sympathetic Light is varies greatly in the opinions of fans. He isn’t seduced or manipulated into murder and megalomania, he leaps headfirst into it at the first chance he gets. But whatever the audience’s opinion of him as a character is, his story is undeniably a tragedy.
Light spends the entire story believing and trying to prove that he is a god of justice, something greater than humans and untouchable by human judgment. But the final episode “New World” proves him wrong. As he flees from the task force, bleeding out, terrified, and ultimately dying alone as Ryuk’s Death Note stops his heart, it is clear that he is only human after all.
Lord Darcia III (Wolf’s Rain)
All the wolves of Wolf’s Rain, despite being some of the best canines in anime, live tragic lives, are hunted to near extinction by humans and forced to suppress their natures and don human disguises to survive. The only thing keeping them going is the thought of Paradise, which legend has it that only a wolf may reach.
While Darcia is never kind to the heroes, he kidnaps Cheza not to use her to access Paradise but to heal his terminally ill lover, Harmona. But when Harmona dies mere hours before he can do so, he breaks down completely and sets out in a vindictive frenzy to destroy the world, so that the only one to ever enter Paradise will be him.
Homura Akemi (Puella Magi Madoka Magica)
Most episodes of Madoka compete to be the most shocking, but a top contender is Episode 10, which shows that the dark and ruthless Homura that Madoka currently knows was once a shy, sweet girl that looked up to Madoka as a role model. Watching Madoka die fighting a witch broke her, and she wished for the power to turn back time and save her life. Countless rewinds later, she still hasn’t managed it.
Even after Madoka becomes God, Homura can’t be happy. Permanent separation from the one she loves most is the complete opposite of what she fought for. In the sequel movie Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Rebellion, she becomes the devil to Madoka’s God, willing to rewrite reality to reverse Madoka’s choice, suppressing her powers and imprisoning her. Though the movie ends with Homura successful, it is strongly implied that even this will not last.
Akito Sohma (Fruits Basket)
Akito is an object of utter terror to the zodiac members. The God that binds all the cursed Sohmas under her control, Akito is willing to do anything to quash their development and independence and keep them by her side forever, up to and including isolating them, hurting the people they love and blaming them, and brutally attacking them.
However, Akito learned by example. Shewas adored by her father Akira, who died when she was young, and hated for it by her mother Ren, who constantly taunts Akito about how she is unlovable and that everyone will abandon her in the end. This coupled with Shigure’s manipulations causes Akito to double down on constraining the Zodiac members, terrified of being left alone.
Zabuza Momochi And Haku (Naruto)
The very first arc villains of Naruto are also the saddest. Haku was a child whose father murdered his mother and tried to kill him too, out of fear of their hereditary powers. The hardened assassin Zabuza took the newly orphaned boy under his wing. Despite Haku knowing that Zabuza only wants to use him for his power, this act still earns him Haku’s eternal loyalty.
Zabuza was also a product of the deeply broken shinobi system, and insisted that he just valued Haku as a disposable tool. But when Zabuza watches Haku sacrifice his life to protect his master, only to have his corpse disrespected by Zabuza’s boss, he is compelled to use his last moments to kill his boss and then lie beside Haku. He wishes to reunite with him in the afterlife but believes it is impossible for someone as cruel as him to go to the same place as someone as kind as Haku.
