Anime is a truly enlightening form of entertainment that’s able to tell unbelievable stories with stunning displays of animation that truly feel groundbreaking. Anime covers all sorts of genres and stories of different shapes and sizes, but many popular anime involve the battle between courageous heroes and powerful villains. It’s fascinating to see how anime handles these relationships and if a series will go through many antagonists or hang on to one major villain.
It’s common practice for these showdowns to result in heavy deaths, but there are also heroes who have opted to lean in another direction. Pacifism can sometimes be the right approach, but heroes can also be blinded by justice and let a dangerous figure survive when they shouldn’t.
10 Goku Heals Cell & Is Curious To Test His Strength
It’s become a running joke in the Dragon Ball series that Goku will let his opponent go and give them a second chance. It’s an approach that’s led to some villains, like Vegeta, reforming themselves, but it’s often incredibly reckless and misguided. Goku pulls this trick with Frieza, but it’s even more embarrassing when he goads Cell to fight his son and gives him a Senzu bean to completely heal himself. This behavior ultimately leads to Goku’s death, and if he wasn't so curious to see how far Gohan had come, then they could have taken out Cell earlier.
9 Midoriya & Togata Balk At Their First Encounter With Overhaul & Eri
My Hero Academia’s fourth season is the most satisfying, but also the most mature. The villain Overhaul and his hostage, Eri, become the season’s focus, but it’s not until very late that Midoriya is able to take out Overhaul. Midoriya and Togata know that something is suspicious when they encounter Eri and Overhaul for the first time. However, they don’t act and they instead act like responsible heroes. Admittedly, the two likely wouldn’t have been strong enough to defeat Overhaul at this point, but their inaction here haunts the both of them and they might have caught Overhaul by surprise.
8 Yusuke & Kuwabara Don’t Properly Finish The Job Against The Toguro Brothers
Yu Yu Hakusho features a wealth of demonic threats that endanger Yusuke Urameshi and company, but the two Toguro brothers become the most persistent threats throughout the series and they reflect very different kinds of evil.
Yusuke and Kuwabara initially think that they’ve killed Younger Toguro, only to realize that they didn’t finish the job. This brings both brothers back stronger than ever in the Dark Tournament. Yusuke is eventually able to win, but he loses his friend in the process, and it’s something that a more thorough job would have avoided.
7 Devilman Crybaby’s Akira Can’t See That His Best Friend Is His Worst Enemy
Masaaki Yuasa’s Devilman Crybaby tells a beautifully violent and thematically rich story. Akira becomes the titular Devilman, but he’s persuaded to by his friend, Ryo. The two fight demons together, but a schism slowly forms, only for Ryo to reveal that he’s the fallen angel, Satan, and he’s orchestrated this manipulation of Akira into Devilman. A painful fight ensues since these two still care about each other, but there’s so much death and Akira doesn’t make it out alive. He should have seen the threat in Ryo from the start and taken him out during his inaugural nightclub attack.
6 Tower Of God’s Khun Fails To Act On His Suspicions Over Rachel & Bam Pays The Price
Tower of God creates a compelling mix of mystery and action as many eclectic individuals compete to ascend a challenging tower. Bam enters with only one thing on his mind, Rachel, but she’s oblivious towards him. Bam makes several friends along the way, including the brilliant and resourceful Khun, who grows protective over Bam. Bam lets his guard down in a major way against Rachel and he seriously pays the price for it. Bam would have never killed Rachel, especially early on, but Khun is suspicious of her and he could have acted more impulsively to test his theory.
5 Jonathan Joestar’s Shortcomings Allow Dio Brando To Torment Future Joestars
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is a highly entertaining series that’s cleverly reinvented itself over the years by how its large narrative covers different members of the Joestar lineage. These new stories are still connected and the first three in particular feature DIO Brando as the major antagonist.
DIO goes through tremendous changes, including becoming a vampire, and Jonathan Joestar’s inability to properly finish the job leads to DIO’s survival and takeover of Jonathan’s body. Early on Jonathan has no idea of how problematic DIO will become, but if he had immediately taken him out then the future would be more peaceful.
4 Vash Is Blinded By Brotherly Love Against Knives In Trigun
Trigun is a chaotic, yet thoughtful action series that examines the cost of a life and the pain of grief. Vash the Stampede is a dangerous warrior, but he pushes an ideology of love and peace. Vash avoids death, but in the end, he’s forced into a difficult position when his brother, Knives Millions, threatens greater devastation. Vash has no other choice, but on some level, he knew this was the inevitable outcome. It wouldn’t have been easy, but Vash had opportunities to overwhelm Knives during their youth and it would have been an acceptable means to an end here.
3 Eren Doesn’t Understand How Big A Threat Reiner Really Is In Attack On Titan
Attack on Titan’s latest season plays with perspective in a brilliant manner to examine who the real villains are in this war. Reiner Braun is a major force on the Marleyan side and Eren is now in a position where he wants to take him and the rest of his people out. Eren fought hard against Reiner, Bertholdt, and Annie, but it still feels like he holds back on some level against Reiner due to their history and how he doesn’t understand the full scope of what’s going on. It’s an act of empathy that could have serious repercussions.
2 Spike Spiegel’s Avoids His Past & It Destroys His Future
Cowboy Bebop expertly weaves episodic stories with a heavier arc that involves Spike's past, in particular his connection to Vicious and Julia. Spike is now an outlaw, but Vicious remains a member of the villainous group, the Syndicate. The final episodes of the series involve Spike's final showdown with Vicious, but this is another occasion where if Spike acted earlier on during their days in the Red Dragon then he could have prevented a lot of the Syndicate's evil. He's clearly torn due to his history with Vicious, but getting past that sooner than later would have saved him.
1 Pokémon’s Pikachu Has Fried Team Rocket Beyond Recognition
It may be morbid to consider a series like Pokémon killing off characters, let alone humans, but it does seem like there are some extreme circumstances where such an act would be beneficial to the world. Team Rocket is nothing but evil in the series. Ash and his Pikachu have electrocuted Jesse, James, and Meowth’s faction of Team Rocket on multiple occasions with attacks that should do serious damage to them. It’s likely that on some level Pikachu is still holding back from a lethal attack, but if it were to happen, there’d be more safe Pokémon out there.