Hey youtubers it’s charlie, welcome to my forever evil edition of anime club.
Last time I spent the whole video talking about the best characters period and a lot
of evil made the list.
So I thought it would be fun to dedicate an episode to the best bad things.
Who among us hasn’t rolled a sith warrior in knights of the old republic.
Playing evil is just more fun sometimes and up until a certain point you didn’t see
a lot of evil characters celebrated the way they are now.
Just to go outside the world of anime for a second, Walter White has been the most popular
evil character in the past year.
But the really awesome thing is that the best evil characters never really see themselves
as evil.
The secret is that everyone even people in real life are always the protagonist of their
own story.
It’s just that sometimes when you zoom your perspective out to include all the characters
on a show you find that the story isn’t really being told from their perspective.
Really quick though, congrats to my random winners from my last anime club video.
apropo of the wet snow you win the amazon gift card and the milling, you get to pick
a future anime club topic.
I’ll reach out to both of you on your channels.
This week same prize.
One random subscriber from the comments will win a twenty dollar amazon giftcard and one
will get to pick a future topic.
So let’s do this.
I’m going to list my top 5 evil characters.
and then give you guys a really good example of a new anime series where the true protagonist
is evil.
Everyone raise your glasses and let’s toast “Gentlemen, To Evil”.
By the way, the winner of this week’s gift certificate will be the first person who can
tell me which tv show that quote comes from.
Here’s a hint, it’s the longest running modern animated series in the world.
Here’s a double hint, you can probably just google the phrase.
Let’s do this, number 5 - Griffith from Beserk.
He killed all his companions to become femto the fifth member of the god hand and committed
some really really awful atrocities against Guts.
Before he was tortured for seducing the princess you could say he was just a really selfish
person that eventually went insane.
But because of his crimson behelit you could also say there was a pre-destiny aspect to
him becoming the true villain of the series.
That’s the nature vs nurture argument that all villains have in common.
Are you a villain because it’s in your nature or are you a villain because people turned
you into one.
Number 4 - Johan Liebert from Monster.
Guilty on all counts of Psychological crimes against humanity.
The term villain is usually applied to big monsters who physically attack other people.
But sometimes psychological attacks are even worse because it causes people to act out
on themselves.
Johan twists minds indiscriminately.
Not to be outdone by casual monsters he also does outright murder people considered to
be his friends and family.
Personally I think he’s worse for the mind crimes he commits.
I would say he’s like the Joker of the monster series, but he actually has a grand plan.
Where you could say the joker is just an agent of chaos..
Now for the top 3, just a quick note.
In order to make it into my top 3 I tried to distinguish evil geniuses from characters
that are just plain awful.
In order to be classified as such they need to have a grand design, have all the best
monologues and a flair for the dramatic that would make tom hiddleston as loki bow in submission.
And so it goes Number 3 - The Major from Hellsing Ultimate.
All you need to do to understand him is watch his war speech from episode 4.
Not only does he have a grand design, he loves revels in acts of atrocity.
The fact that he’s a nazi makes it easier to visually identify him as a villain, but
it’s really speeches like he makes that sets him apart.
Sub note for my top two.
This is where evil geniuses begin to wield the power of god and become much more ambiguous.
The best evil characters don’t see themselves as evil.
Breaking Bad anime style.
Number 2 - Father from Fullmetal alchemist brotherhood.
All that he wants is to know everything that can be known and uses his nearly limitless
power to to achieve it.
Because he’s immortal he becomes a kind of hell on earth, unleashing the seven deadly
sins from himself, then killing those children, so to speak, when it suits him.
What’s worse, he takes the face of the hero.
Even though edward and alphonse are the protagonists, they’ll eventually look like hoenheim.
Who’s face father took.
He’s such a good character, that you cheer for him a little bit when he almost achieves
his goal.
Because what’s wrong with wanting to know everything.
And for my number 1 villain I had to select a human.
Because father is amazing, but he’s still an ethereal create, like the living embodiment
of evil.
And the only thing worse than that is a human who becomes such as a result of his actions.
This is like that walter white character.
Someone trying to do good, weilding the power of god, but ends up becoming the greatest
villain ever.
So Number 1 is Light Yagami from Death Note.
He tries to rid the world of evil and instead becomes it.
He’s so single minded in his quest that he’d kill his own family if they tried to
stop him.
Which becomes a really elegant contradiction.
You try to protect your loved ones from evil but kill them when they try to stop you from
becoming evil.
It becomes this self fulfilling prophecy that is common amongst all heroes that turn into
villains.
So now it’s your turn to let me know who your biggest anime villains are.
and as I mentioned earlier, here are a few recommendations for anime that’s new in
the last year where the main protagonist is a villain.
First is The devil is a part timer!
The premise is actually kind of funny.
The devil is trapped in the body of a human with none of his powers.
So he has to get a job at a fast food restaurant so he can live.
And the hero gets a job as a telemarketer to try and keep him in check.
It’s just funny because it’s these epic characters forced to do the most mundane things.
It’s streaming for free on Funimation’s website.
Second is Flowers of Evil.
The protagonist is a normal human student who becomes really dark after getting humiliated
by his classmates.
The animation is really different and the pace is really slow.
So it’s a lot different from Devil is a part timer.
It just depends on what type of anime you favor.
But it looks really interesting and it’s streaming on crunchyroll.
Feel free to make other recommendations for anime with evil or just really ambiguous main
characters.
Next week I think I’ll do an attack on titan video just because it’s all on netflix now
for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.
Big news too, Walking dead is back tonight.
I’m doing a weekly giveaway.
So watch it and be sure to subscribe to get my review video.
Right now click here for my top 10 anime characters and click here for my top 5 miyazaki movies.
Thanks for watching, see you guys tonight.
High Fives!