There's no prize or conquest as grand and unattainable as immortality. The promise of living forever has eluded people for as long as history has been recorded, so much so that it became a go-to motivation for some of anime's most memorable villains.
Anime villains want a variety of things, but only those who can see the whole picture (or at least claim to do so) want eternal life. For these antagonists, worldly treasures and political victories mean nothing compared to living countless lifetimes.
10 One Piece - Every Bad Guy Ever Wants The Ope Ope Fruit Because Of Its Powers
The Devil Fruits grant whoever eats them an incredible power in exchange for their ability to swim. It's for this reason that any Devil Fruit is worth a fortune, but all known and undiscovered fruits pale in comparison to the Ope Ope Fruit. Legend says that whoever eats it will be gifted eternal youth, which is why almost everyone in One Piece wants it.
To be clear, whoever eats it can bestow eternal youth to someone they choose, but at the cost of their life. The Marines were willing to pay the fruit's previous owner, Diez Barrels, a fortune for it, though Donquixote Doflamingo got it first after killing Diez. Doflamingo's gambit for eternal life failed after his brother Rosinante force-fed the fruit to Trafalgar Law.
9 Baccano! - Szilard Quates Wanted To Maximize His Immortality
Szilard is the rare anime villain who began his series victorious, as he's already immortal at the story's beginning. Rather than just live forever, what Szilard really wanted was to make the most out of his immortality by absorbing the knowledge and lives of his crewmates from the original alchemist expedition of 1711. Specifically, he had to devour them.
In the '30s (or the anime's present), Szilard gave his henchmen/test subjects a lacking version of the elixir he drank centuries ago; they technically become immortal, but without the benefits of eternal youth. Szilard was only stopped at the tail end of Baccano! when his own homunculi Ennis turned against him at the last second.
8 Blade Of The Immortal (2019) - Kagimura Habaki Experimented On Manji For A Failed Super-Soldier Program
Habaki is fiercely dedicated to advancing the shogun's will in any way he sees fit, so much so that he sanctioned unethical human experiments on the immortal swordsman Manji and countless prisoners. Habaki's endgame in Blade of the Immortal was to artificially recreate Manji's regenerative abilities, effectively giving him an army of unstoppable soldiers to command.
Unfortunately for him, not only did Manji escape, but so did the prison's populace, thus exposing Habaki's crimes against humanity. For this failure, Habaki is sentenced to death and given just one month to wrap up whatever loose strings he had left. For what it's worth, he did get one bootleg immortal: the sadistic Shira, who Manji supposedly left for dead.
7 Dragon Ball Z - A Villainous Vegeta Needed A Trump Card For His Fight Against Frieza
He may be Dragon Ball's most famous antihero today, but Vegeta didn't always start with the best intentions. During his introductory arc in Dragon Ball Z, Vegeta and Nappa attacked Earth in search of the Dragon Balls. Predictably, their goal was to wish for immortality, but not for the reasons one would expect.
The two Saiyan warriors wanted immortality so that they could enjoy an eternity of combat, though Vegeta felt that he needed eternal life so that he had a fighting chance against his powerful despotic boss, Frieza. After he and Son Goku defeated Frieza, Vegeta didn't just abandon his antagonistic ways, but his quest for immortality as well.
6 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - Kars Wanted To Become A God
Technically speaking, the Pillar Men from Battle Tendency are already immortal. They come from an ancient race of superpowered and hyper-intelligent vampires, who were capable of such feats like creating artificial vampirism through the Stone Masks. This wasn't enough for the Pillar Men's leader Kars, who wanted to become the "perfect lifeform."
In brief, Kars wanted to become a god. With a Stone Mask and the Red Stone of Aja, Kars transformed himself into a perpetually evolving being who wasn't just immune to a vampire's weakness, but ageless as well. This backfired in the most hilarious way when Joseph Joestar shot Kars into space via volcano, where he was doomed to float around forever.
5 Bleach - Sosuke Aizen Wanted To Validate His Superiority Over Everyone Else
For reasons even beyond him, Aizen was born with impossibly strong supernatural powers and energy. Unsurprisingly, these inflated Aizen's ego and god complex to such an extreme degree that he sought to exercise his godhood on Soul Society, Hueco Mundo, the living world, and everywhere in between no matter what.
Aizen achieved immortality at the end of Bleach's first major arc, where he orchestrated Soul Society's civil war and Rukia's execution just to get his hands on the Hogokyu. By fusing with the orb, Aizen broke the barrier between Shinigami and Hollow, thus giving him access to both races' powers and effectively becoming an immortal god of both.
4 Fullmetal Alchemist - Dante Wanted To Surpass Her Subpar Immortality
Though it went down a wildly different narrative route, the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime still followed the original manga's and Brotherhood's themes. This was best embodied in the central, anime-only villain Dante, whose goal was to become truly immortal but was blinded by her hubris, much like Father.
Dante achieved "immortality" by transferring her soul between bodies. Problem is, doing this for decades or centuries took a toll on her true body, which is now rotting away. Dante used the conspiracy between her Homunculi and Amestris' elite to turn Rose into her new permanent body, but she was stopped and (possibly) killed by Gluttony for her troubles.
3 Naruto - Orochimaru Forgot The Real Reason Behind His Quest For Eternal Life
At first glance, Orochimaru was as evil as a ninja could get in Naruto: he was a sadistic necromancer who wanted to live forever so that he could master every jutsu ever made. This also included forbidden and deadly spells, and Orochimaru cared so little for human life that his relentless pursuit of knowledge left a horrifying body count in its wake.
However, Orochimaru's quest for unlimited power was only the result of being driven mad. Long ago, Orochimaru's parents died and he swore to become immortal so that he could await their reincarnation. Unfortunately, years of emotional pain and experimenting on himself broke his mind and he soon forgot his original reasons for eternal life.
2 Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Father & His Conspirators Wanted Immortality For Different Reasons
Every villain in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood wanted eternal life, but they had different motivations for doing so. First, Amestris' central government collaborated with Father's atrocities because they were promised eternal youth, something their greed couldn't decline. Unfortunately for them, they were just fuel for Father's Philosopher's Stone.
Father, meanwhile, needed immortality because he was afraid of returning to the nothingness of The Gate. Technically, Father is already immortal, but his endgame was to absorb God himself so that he could grant himself limitless life and power. Father got what he wanted, but this backfired when he was dragged into The Gate where he got to suffer a deathless eternity.
1 Fairy Tail - Dyst Couldn't Get Over The Death Of His Pet Weasel
If not for a specific set of story details, Fairy Tail The Movie: Phoenix Priestess' central villain Dyst would be little more than another anime bad guy who wanted immortality. Dyst and his cohorts aimed to summon the legendary Phoenix, whose blood is said to grant eternal life. The reason Dyst did this was because his childhood pet, his beloved weasel, died of natural causes.
When Dyst realized the harsh reality that there was no magic capable of bringing back the dead, he swore to live forever. Dyst then grew up to be a dangerously powerful mage who nearly burned all of Veronica just because he couldn't wrap his head around the concept of mortality.