So many anime are built around characters doing the right thing, doing what’s good, and delivering justice to those who deserve it. That can mean helping people who have suffered a wrongdoing, or delivering punishment to those who were in the wrong to begin with.
But some anime characters have their sense of justice all out of whack. They take the law too seriously, or serve one group’s version of justice. Some people might even hide behind the concept of justice so long as they get what they want afterwards. Whatever the case, characters with bad moral compasses are often some of the most entertaining to watch.
10 Pain Wanted To Cause Harm To The Entire World So They Would Stop Fighting (Naruto)
Pain was once a kind child who was taken under the wing of the legendary ninja Jiraiya along with his friends Yahiko and Konan. Together, they eventually created an organization known as the Akatsuki for the sake of bringing peace to the world. But after the Akatsuki were brought down by Hanzo and Danzo, Nagato’s ideal of ending war was destroyed. Instead, to him the best way to bring peace was by everyone feeling pain, meaning they could understand one another and no longer want to bring harm to someone else.
9 Top Blamed Goku For The Tournament Of Power And Decided He Was A Villain (Dragon Ball Super)
The Pride Troopers believe in justice above everything else, and Top more than all the rest. His frustration at Goku essentially causing the Tournament of Power leads him to blame the Saiyan for the majority of the arc. It isn’t true, but he sees Goku as a villain because without him the tournament would have never happened and so many universes wouldn’t be at risk of erasure. But even worse is that when things don’t go his way, he tosses his justice aside and embraces the power of a god of destruction instead.
8 Light Yagami Eventually Used His Powers To Kill People Committing Minor Crimes (Death Note)
Light Yagami believed that justice was whatever he said it was. He started out using his new power to deal out justice fairly, wiping out only those who committed heinous crimes. But the longer he wielded that power, the worse he got.
Eventually he took the life of people who were committing minor crimes. Moreover, he admitted that eventually he planned on using his power to wipe out people who were lazy. Everything was in service of creating his own perfect world, where everyone did only what he told them to do.
7 Stain Began Attacking And Trying To Kill Heroes Who Didn't Fit His Mold Of A Hero (My Hero Academia)
Stain is a man disgusted with the state of heroes in this new era of peace that All Might has ushered in. Heroes who work for money are immoral to him, and he begins operating with the specific purpose to take out any hero that doesn’t meet his standards. He has no problem taking lives, but specifically doesn’t like taking them if he doesn’t feel like there’s a purpose. Because of that, he refuses to kill Midoriya because he sees in him the spark of the kind of hero he believes deserves to exist.
6 Amelia Wil Tesla Saillune Believes Justice Will Allow People To Survive Fireball Attacks (Slayers)
As the second princess of Saillune, one would think someone like Amelia would have a bit more sense. But she’s still young, and at only 14 years old, she believes a bit too strongly in the idea of good and bad guys. She has a bad habit of trusting anything someone tells her, and also coming up with weird ways to decide what’s right and what’s not. In one instance between main character Lina and someone else, she decides that because justice always prevails, whichever one makes it past her fireball attack would in fact be the good guy.
5 Zamasu Wanted To Eradicate All Sentient Life Because He Believed That Would Bring The Universe Peace (Dragon Ball Super)
Zamasu believes that humans aren’t capable of being just, which is what causes him to enact his Zero Mortals Plan. He doesn’t believe mortals deserve the opportunity to grow and change, and after witnessing one brutish display on an undeveloped planet, he pretty much gives up on them. This gets worse when he realizes Goku is more powerful than him. Essentially, because mortals make mistakes and have the potential to surpass the gods, he finds justification in wiping out all sentient life across the universe.
4 Rei Ogami Has A Goal Of Paying Evil To Evil (Code: Breaker)
Technically, Rei’s sense of justice isn’t warped, it just hasn’t adapted for a modern era. As a Code: Breaker he takes on the power of judge, jury, and well...the rest is obvious. He believes in repaying evil with evil, using his power to light anyone he deems unworthy on fire.
The first time he uses it in the anime is against a group of bullies that had killed a homeless man. And while that might be acceptable to some, he also tried to kill the only person who saw him, Sakura Sakurakouji, and the only reason she survived is his powers don’t work on her.
3 Sensui Was Unable To Ever See That A Group Could Contain Evil And Good People (Yu Yu Hakusho)
Sensui had the unfortunate problem of having too rigid a system of good and evil. As a Spirit Detective, he’d carried out his job for years wiping out demons. His belief system was that all humans were good and all demons were evil. But then he got a look at the Chapter Black tape, showing him the atrocities that humanity had committed upon demons. Unable to then understand that there were evil people in every group, his sense of justice flipped and he believed that demons were good and humans were evil. His plan going forward was to wipe out all humanity and then give up his own life as well.
2 Rob Lucci Believes In Giving Out Dark Justice (One Piece)
Rob Lucci is a member of the CP0, and claims to have the best interests of the World Government at heart. Specifically to him, whatever goes against the World Governments rules and laws are evil, because the World Government is just. In reality though, what Rob truly loves is the ability to kill people that’s granted to him by the government. For that reason, he’ll follow any order and any command given him. Still, his goal is to deal “Dark Justice” that relies on being needlessly sadistic and inflicting as much pain to his opponent as possible.
1 Seryu Thinks Justice Is Whatever Her Empire Says It Is (Akame Ga Kill)
Seryu might be one of the worst anime characters ever created. It isn’t that she’s evil, it’s that she genuinely believes every act she takes is good. Because she works for the Empire, and the Empire is “good,” everything she does is carrying out justice. She also believes every crime is punishable by death, whether someone stole just for the sake of eating, or stole because they were forced into it by someone who threatened their life. Though she claims the good guys will win, in the end she’s brought down by the actual assassins interested in liberating the people. Technically that was the first time she was ever right.