The world of anime features plenty of spooky and scary characters who fit the Halloween season, from cute and/or deadly vampires to dark wizards, zombies, mad scientists and more. Another popular Halloween character is Frankenstein's Monster, who's often depicted as a lab-born monster built with assembled body parts.
Ever since Mary Shelley's original 1818 novel, which is arguably the first-ever sci-fi story, Frankenstein's Monster has been a pop-culture staple, such as Boris Karloff's famous depiction of the monster. Now, as Halloween approaches, anime fans can try out all kinds of scary series featuring their own version of this character. The best monsters are stitched together one corpse at a time.
9 Blood Lad Featured Akim Parpradon, Who Kept Experimenting On Himself
Blood Lad features a doctor actually named Franken Stein, but it's not the creator who is evil, but the creation. Franken Stein is actually somewhat friendly to Staz and Fuyumi, while his creation, Akim Parpradon, is totally evil.
Akim continuously collects more and more demonic body parts, then mixes and matches them to boost his power level higher and higher. He chooses only the best parts, and with them, he can become far stronger than any demon was ever meant to be.
8 Soul Eater's Franken Stein Is Hardly Ambiguous
Some anime characters are meant to be a subtle reference to pop culture characters or Japanesese mythology, while others are gleefully obvious about it, often for the sake of humor or to match the character's blunt personality. One example is Franken Stein from Soul Eater.
Franken Stein is the doctor and monster combined into one, and he loves to dissect specimens. He will only reluctantly leave his work to teach the heroine Maka Albarn and her classmates, and it's clear that he has experimented on himself a few times. Why else would he have a giant bolt in his head and sutures on his skin and coat?
7 Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) Had Frankenstein-Style Homunculi
In the original 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist anime, several of the homunculi are different than their manga versions, including Wrath and Sloth, among others. In this alternate take on the franchise, some homunculi can be roughly compared to Frankenstein's monster in spirit.
These characters were made in a lab and have a relationship to their creator that might remind astute anime fans of that between Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his own monster, but with a little more alchemy and action added to the mix. For what it's worth, the 2009 anime Wrath is a bit like Frankenstein's monster too, being a creature finished in a lab with mad science.
6 Dragon Ball Had A Robot Frankenstein's Monster, Android 8
Many high-tech robots and contraptions can be found in Akira Toriyama's legendary Dragon Ball franchise, and many fans love Android 18, who became more human and married Krillin. But there is another android worth mentioning: Android 8.
This particular android pays clear homage to the Boris Karloff version of Frankenstein's monster, and in the anime, he was supposed to fight for the Red Ribbon army. However, he is actually a good-hearted creation, and he wouldn't fight unless he absolutely had to.
5 My Hero Academia's Nomu Beasts Are Like Frankenstein's Monster
The world of My Hero Academia depicts a future where almost everyone has a Quirk, or superpower. But for some villains such as All For One and Dr. Garaki, that's still not enough, so these villains built their own Frankenstein-style monsters: the Nomu.
Each Nomu is made from assembled body parts and has multiple Quirk factors, making them far more powerful than typical humans. Some of them are even designed with specific missions or targets in mind, such as the invincible All Might.
4 Pokémon's Mewtwo Is A Frankenstein's Monster Analogy
Not all Frankenstein-style monsters have to look like zombies or Gothic horror creatures. Some anime characters are meant to be Frankenstein monsters in spirit rather than in the flesh, and that includes the bizarre Pokémon known as Mewtwo. Fans saw this for themselves in the first Pokémon movie.
Mewtwo was made in a lab to be the ultimate being, but it was in torment, not knowing its true purpose or whether it can find any acceptance from others. Mewtwo escaped the lab and built its own island kingdom, populated by clone Pokémon who also had nowhere else to go.
3 The Empire Of Corpses Has Lots Of Monsters
The feature-length anime movie The Empire of Corpses takes the basic concept of Mary Shelley's story and greatly expands upon it. In this version of the tale, Dr. Victor Frankenstein can make living corpses with a soul, but it's also possible to make Frankenstein monsters with artificial souls in them, or Necroware.
As the 19th century progresses, these kinds of monsters become common laborers, mindless automatons that keep society running. At one point, the medical student John Watson tries to reanimate his dead friend Friday, and the plot gets even wilder from there.
2 Fate/Apocrypha Includes The Bride Of Frankenstein
In Fate/Apocrypha, Dr. Victor Frankenstein wanted to create a zombie version of Adam and Eve from the Bible, and he started with the bride, Frankenstein. However, she had a twisted and underdeveloped mind and didn't behave as intended.
Still, this version of Frankenstein is a powerful fighter, as expected of the Fate series, and she has all the Frankenstein classic elements to her, including being built from stitched-together corpses and given life from the power of lightning.
1 Anpanman Includes Frankenrobo
Anpanman is a somewhat older anime series, but it has been running for over 1,000 episodes and was originally based on children's books. This series has influenced a number of modern franchises and has taken inspiration from older works, including Frankenstein.
The series includes a small and cute robotic version of Frankenstein's Monster, which is clearly more interested in making music than spreading terror. Given the intended audience for Anpanman, it makes sense to depict a harmless and fun version of the monster instead of the original.