Along with the huge success of the video games, the Pokémon anime series, manga, and movies all have their many fans. In all the platforms, fans love both the heroes and the memorable villains that they clash with.
The villains from the anime series come in a range of personalities, and their nefarious goals and schemes against Pokémon and their trainers are as diverse as they are. Whether it’s world domination, making a quick buck, or revenge, it’s their evil schemes and motivations that give the stories all their twists and turns.
10 Archie Believes In The Sea Of Hoenn – So Much He’ll Drown People To Raise It
Archie is seen as misguided rather than flat-out evil by some fans. He really does believe that his plan – to eliminate the land so as to create more sea (using Kyogre with the red orb) – will make the world a better pace. It’s just that it won’t help most of humanity, who will drown. The leader of Team Aqua, he’ll even kill all his own Team members if it means he can raise the level of the Sea of Hoenn. In the end, he’s defeated and disbands Team Aqua.
9 Guzma Is Brash And Tough
Guzma is rude, crude, and full of himself, and adds personality to his role. He and the rest of Team Skull are out for revenge on the people of Alola (his home region) after he doesn’t become Trial Captain during the Alola Island Challenge. He's violent, and doesn't know the meaning of fair play, and could be called a sore loser on occasion. He disrespects Lana at the Manalo Conference, which is a point or two against him, but he's memorable and unpredictable.
8 Meowth Is A Cute, Greedy Villain
Meowth is one of the series’ most popular villains, as Pikachu’s arch-nemesis and loyal friend of Jessie and James in Team Rocket. Some of the other characters in the series see the talking Meowth as loyal, but Pikachu remembers his deceptions, his double-crosses, and his generally greedy, arrogant, and scheming nature. Still, there are times when it seems almost like he and Pikachu would become friends. Meowth does seem to have a more playful side, but when he's pushed hard enough, he can be a beast in battle.
7 Faba Is A Serious Threat To Ash & Friends In The Anime
Faba is a psychic trainer who works for the Aether Foundation and Lusamine. The Aether Foundation is dedicated to harnessing the power of Ultra Beasts that they capture. On the outside, he appears to be a mild-mannered scientist, but when he shows up in the anime, it's generally to get in the way of Ash and his friends.
He's responsible for Lillie's abduction and later, tortured her so she'd forget about it all. A jokey villain in the games, he emerges as someone more sinister in the anime.
6 Hunter J Has Awesome Tech
Hunter J is one of the coolest villains in Pokémon. She uses an airship as her base, she’s equipped with lasers and other great gadgets – she can even teleport with her visor. Best of all, she’s got a huge Salamence. To Hunter J, it’s all business as usual when she steals Pokémon to sell on the black market. She’s cold and calculated, strong and smart. She doesn’t care much more for her own henchmen than she does for the Pokémon she steals.
5 Colress Loves Trying To Control Pokémon
Working for Ghetsis, Colress is a noteworthy villain in his own right. He does research for Ghetsis, but he goes on his own tangents, with a specialty in controlling wild Pokémon with sonic waves. The process works, and he uses it on Pikachu and Meowth, among others, but it always fails in the end – luckily for the Pokémon. He may be Ghetsis’ henchman and take his orders from him, but he’s definitely evil on his own.
4 Lysandre Isn’t The Well-Meaning Scientist He Seems
Leader of Team Flare and creator of Lysandre Labs, Lysandre seems like a hard-working scientist on the surface – a man just trying to make the world a better place. But, underneath all that, he's working with Team Flare and they're out to capture the Zygarde cores.
It has to be mentioned that he’s good to his Pokémon and team members, it’s just the part about eliminating the rest of humanity and Pokémon for the purpose of preserving what’s left that makes him a villain.
3 Ghetsis Pretends To Have A Seemingly Worthy Cause
Ghetsis is a wolf who comes with a seemingly altruistic, albeit wrongheaded, goal – to free Pokémon from what he calls slavery. Underneath it all, though, he’s got a hidden agenda. What he really wants is to persuade everyone to give up their Pokémon so he can take over the whole world. He wants to destroy Unova. What’s even worse is his treatment of his adopted son, N, who he gets mixed up his plans to appropriate all Pokémon. He’s part of Team Plasma until he’s arrested by Looker.
2 Cyrus Finally Became The Power Hungry Villain He Could Be
Cyrus was under-developed in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, but his character gradually became fleshed out into a frighteningly cunning personality. Leader of Team Galactic, his ultimate ambition is to become the god of his own world, no less. Naturally, that also involves destroying the existing world first. He's a rich businessman, and he keeps his Team Galactic identity secret.
1 Giovanni Is A Cruel Crime Lord
Leader of Team Rocket, Giovanni is also the Gym Leader of Viridian City in the Kanto region. He's cruel and ruthless, and his goal is world domination through exploiting every Pokémon he can. He’ll do whatever he can to gain more power and money, making him a formidable enemy. He's smart where he needs to be, which includes keeping abreast of other criminal organizations. He’s scary as a powerful crime lord who will stop at nothing to fulfill his ambitions.