While there’s no denying anime brings forward strikingly similar content and characters year after year, there’s also no denying how the medium blesses fans with characters who do exactly the opposite of what is expected of them.
Good guys turn bad, bad guys become good, murderers become preachers –the list is endless. Perhaps one of the most enjoyable (and commercially undervalued) tropes in anime is when the hero becomes a villain. The lines are blurred and the stakes are high, which is exactly how fans love their anime.
10 Hajime: A Superheroine With Twisted Ideals Who Eventually Dated A Mass Murderer (Gatchaman Crowds)
Right from the get-go, Hajime is someone who always swam against the current. She kept on taking risks, defying orders of her superiors, and doing as she pleased, for no other reason than “because my gut says so.”
Even though she helped save people (which is why she was a heroine in the first place), she eventually not only forgave an unhinged mass murdering alien, Berg Katze, but also agreed to go out on a date with him after the “battle” was over.
9 Light: He Lost Sight Of What He Wanted & Began Murdering Innocent People (Death Note)
Light is perhaps the poster boy of good-guy-gone-bad in the world of anime. While he started off with good intentions –of ridding the world of criminals and making it a safer place for everybody.
However, he soon got too consumed with the idea of being Kira, the hero that was worshipped by most people. Soon, he began killing off people just because they opposed him or because they were close to finding out his identity as Kira.
8 Keigo: This By-The-Book Cop Eventually Became A Cold Hearted Murderer (Future Diary)
Even though he initially helps Yuki win against the maniac Minene, he, later on, changes his tune when he learns of his son’s terminal illness. He then loses all sense of right and wrong, begins plotting against people behind their back, and goes as far as getting Yuno and Yuki arrested under fake charges.
He becomes increasingly desperate to kill off the other diary holders in order to become the winner of the Survival Game, just to save his son’s life.
7 Slaine: He Snapped After His Beloved Died, Eventually Giving In To The Darkness Within Him (Aldnoah.Zero)
While Slaine silently accepted all sorts of unfair punishment aimed at him, the death of Princess Asseylum changed him completely.
He became ruthless and coldhearted. He killed the very man who showed him kindness, destroyed whoever got in his way and made it his ultimate goal to completely decimate the existing power structure in Mars, giving reign to complete chaos.
6 Yuuichiro: The King Of Salt Within Him Kills Whoever Is In Its Sight (Seraph Of The End)
Yuu was unaware that he was part of the Seraph experiments when he was a child, and this fact was revealed, to everyone’s shock, on the battlefield.
He turned into the King Of Salt, according to whom everybody on Earth was a sinner who deserved to die. This is why he turned both humans and vampires into pillars of salt for awakening him from his slumber.
5 zaShunina: A Well-Intentioned Alien Who Was Unable To Overcome His Selfish Motivations (KADO: The Right Answer)
ZaShunina came to earth with the intention of sharing his technology. However, the more he interacted with the human Shindou, the more emotionally involved he became, losing sight of his logical self.
This is why when Shindou refused to let zaShunina destroy humanity by forcing them to travel to a higher dimension, the alien lost his cool and eventually ended up killing the only friend he’d ever made.
4 Laurent: He Kept Putting Edamame Under Increasing Mental Duress, Until He Finally Broke The Man (Great Pretender)
Even though Laurent is the show’s protagonist, he’s anything but a hero. He’s a lying, selfish and manipulative man who goes increasingly to great lengths throughout the show in order to complete his con.
This included completely shattering the mental health of a man he’s hinted to have feelings for, which he laughed off as if it were a joke, just because pulling a con was more important to him than the sanity of his friend.
3 Kaneki: He Became The Very Thing He Hated (Tokyo Ghoul)
While Kaneki initially wished for an understanding between humans and ghouls, every increasing confrontation with ghouls and humans crushed his ideals, step by step.
After his torture at the hands of Jason, he gave up on being the good guy (at least on the surface), giving in completely to his ghoul instincts instead, and abandoning the very friends who’d been there by his side right from day one.
2 Favaro: Turns Into A Ruthless Demon After He’s Forced To Drink A Concoction (Rage Of Bahamut)
Favaro already gains a demon’s tail after his vow to Amira, but his problem is exacerbated when he is unable to save Amira after she’s been tricked into absorbing the Demon Key
Martinet feeds an imprisoned Favaro a liquid that turns him into a demon and then sets him free. He does this with the intention of keeping Favaro busy with killing his companion Kaisar so that he could focus on his master plan on freeing the dragon Bahamut.
1 Eren: This Young & Idealistic Boy Started Adhering To Fascist Ideologies (Attack On Titan)
Like Kaneki, Eren started slowly leaving behind his ideals and initial beliefs once he realized the world wasn’t as black and white as he’d believed it to be.
Constant war and death of his comrades hardened him to the point where Eren convinced himself that the only way the Eldians on his island could have everlasting peace was if he went and destroyed all traces of their natural enemies, the Marleyans.