Anime villains who commit vile atrocities are fairly common, but only a special few literally become monsters that reflect their actions and beliefs. Whether by dark magic or science, these villains truly embraced their evil sides.
While some of these villains are actually more tragic than they are malicious, others were always monsters to begin with. Either way, they became one with their inner darkness and never looked back.
WARNING: Spoilers ahead.
10 Afro Samurai — Jinno Lost Himself To Revenge & Became Kuma
In more ways than one, Jinno is Afro's foil. Aside from being childhood friends, they were the students and adopted sons of the Sword Master, or the former Number Two Headband wearer. Bent on revenge, Afro killed the Sword Master to get the headband. This in turn doomed Jinno to follow his own path of vengeance against Afro.
Like Afro, Jinno slaughtered many to avenge his dead. During the anime's present, Jinno lost so much of his old self that he was reborn as the robotic samurai Kuma, who went from a revenge-driven rival to a mindless killer by the time of the quotable Afro Samurai: Resurrection. Kuma regained a bit of humanity in the end, just in time to save his old friend Afro.
9 Blade Of The Immortal (2019) — Shira's Monstrosity Became More Evident With Time
Even before working for the government's covert assassins, the Mugai-Ryu, Shira was already a monster. Unlike his acquaintances, Shira was a sadist who enjoyed killing and torturing his targets or whoever he fancied. His veneer of humanity cracked when he fought Manji, who he felt a twisted connection to.
After every fight, Shira came back a little less human. Not only did he lose his arm to Manji and fashion his arm's bone into a sword, but he gained imperfect versions of the immortality-granting Bloodworms after fusing his stump with Manji's severed hand. Shira was only killed for good after Manji quartered him and left him to wild dogs.
8 Ajin: Demi-Human — Sato Embraced Evil For The Fun Of It
The titular Ajin are nigh-immortal people thanks to the strange Invisible Black Material (IBM), or spirit-like entities that only the Ajin can see. Because of their undying nature, the Ajin are feared and oppressed, to the point where some are tortured for the supposed sakes of science and defense. Sato rebelled against this, or so he claimed.
At first glance, Sato was a kind old man who seemed to genuinely stand for the Ajin's future, albeit violently. That façade slowly broke, as Sato was really a sadistic monster who wanted to wage war between Ajin and humans for fun. By the end, Sato was deliberately causing wanton carnage so that the authorities would respond in force – which he saw as a fun challenge.
7 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure — Dio Rejected His Humanity For Power
Dio was always an evil brat, but he took things to the next level near the end of the first JoJo arc, Phantom Blood. When he got his hands on the mythical Stone Mask, Dio willingly used it on himself, knowing full well that it would turn him into a vampire. In fact, he proudly proclaimed that he was throwing away his humanity in exchange for power.
When the Stone Mask took effect, Dio only became worse. Not only was he as manipulative and sadistic as ever, but now he had vampiric powers, technical immortality, and a Stand (the time-stopping The World) at his beck and call. The ill-tempered Jotaro Kujo defeated DIO, but it was almost a century after he first gained his powers.
6 One Piece — Baron Omatsuri Let Lily Carnation Fuse With Him
When the Straw Hats first met the Baron in the sixth One Piece movie Baron Matsuri And The Secret Island, he looked like any other eccentric captain, only with a weird flower perched on his shoulder. The horrifying truth is that not only is the flower – Lily Carnation – sentient, it biologically fused itself with the Baron's body.
The Baron let this happen, since Lily had the power to cast lifelike illusions which he then used to recreate his dead crewmates and turn the remote island he was stuck on into his man-eating kingdom. When Lily revealed itself in the final fight, it was a monstrous flower with fleshy appendages made from the still alive but petrified Straw Hats.
5 Bleach — Kaien Shiba Was Aaroniero Arruruerie's Meatbag
When Rukia Kuchiki went up against the ninth member of the uncanny Espada, she was surprised to find out that the masked Hollow was actually Kaien, her former superior officer who she thought died in combat years ago. However, the truth was a lot worse: Kaien was indeed killed by a Hollow, but then his killer used his corpse as a morbid disguise.
Aaroniero doesn't just absorb their prey's bodies, but their memories and powers as well. Before Aaroniero unleashed their true self, they used Kaein's identity to lull Rukia into a false sense of security. By the fight's end, what remained of Kaien's old self was gone, leaving behind a pair of Gillian Hollow floating in a tank atop a humanoid body.
4 Akira — Tetsuo Shima Was Consumed By Akira's Godlike Powers
While he was Akira's chosen vessel, Tetsuo could barely contain Akira's godlike being. To be clear, Tetsuo didn't just have Akira's powers, but the godlike being itself was slowly reforming inside Tetsuo's body. For a while, Tetsuo was able to harness Akira's might, which he then used to exact vengeance on the unfeeling cesspool of Neo-Tokyo.
Tetsuo's godhood came to an end when he lost what little control of Akira he had and became a perpetually growing inhuman amalgamation of flesh and metal. This was Akira's doing, as his power was now at such an immense scale that it could only be contained by something that transcended human limits.
3 Berserk — Griffith Was Reborn As The God Hand's Fifth Member
The ultimate tragedy of the already bleak Berserk is that Griffith, Guts' closest friend and possibly more, was fated to become an Apostle even before both were born. This was dictated by the God Hand, who saw to it that Griffith would pick up the Behelit and activate it shortly after his escape from the torturous dungeons of Midland.
Determined to reclaim his former beauty and fulfill his childhood dream of founding a kingdom, Griffith sacrificed the Band of the Hawk during The Eclipse to become the fifth God Hand, Femto. Though he ended both the 1997 anime and the later movie trilogy as a demonic god, Griffith was now a far cry from the man Guts and Casca once loved.
2 Psycho-Pass — The Sibyl System Are More Algorithm Than Humane Think Tank
In the mind-bending Psycho-Pass, Japanese society lives in blissful ignorance as everything from job hunting to criminal justice is taken care of by an algorithm called The Sibyl System. What a select few know, however, is that Sibyl isn't a cold and calculating artificial intelligence, but a hive mind of disembodied brains.
Worse, these brains belong to criminally asymptomatic people or, simply put, sociopaths. Convinced of their self-importance and believing themselves to be the only thing holding society together, Sibyl's members all sacrificed their individuality and humanity in both an abstract and literal sense to enforce their morals on the country.
1 The Fate Series — Angra Mainyu Became Evil Incarnate & Corrupted The Holy Grail
Before he became the Servant known as Avenger, Angra was a normal villager from ancient Persia. One day, his neighbors chose him to be their ritualistic scapegoat, meaning he was now the embodiment of evil and they tortured him for their religion's sake. Little did the villagers realize that their prayers would be answered in the worst way possible.
In the Third Holy Grail War during Fate/Zero, the Einzbern clan summoned Angra, mistaking him for the Zoroastrian faith's evil deity. After Angra's defeat, his soul was taken by the wish-granting Holy Grail, which answered the prayers of Angra's torturers and turned him into All The World's Evil. What little of Angra remained was gone and, as evil made literal, he corrupted the Grail and changed Fate's story forever.