When thinking about anime girls, a very specific image tends to come to mind. Often cutesy with impossibly fluorescent and voluminous hair, stereotypical anime girls are feisty while still being naive and innocent enough to need the protagonist's protection. On the other hand, there are some anime girls who are total badasses and reject the damsel in distress trope.
Then, there are some classic creepy-cute yandere types who become the kind of monsters that would make Freddy Krueger check under his bed before going to sleep every night. These anime girls have terrorized their peers and audiences alike, cementing themselves among anime's most chilling characters.
Updated on June 12th, 2022 by Sarah Martin: Since this list was published in 2020, we've added a few more anime girls who still give fans the creeps. These girls range from classic yandere types to downright manipulative villains. While some have become fan-favorite characters, others left behind a bitter aftertaste.
14 Saki Hanajima Is A Psychic Who Can Read Minds (Fruits Basket)
Unfortunately for Saki, her psychic ability resulted in constant ridicule from classmates as a child, becoming the scapegoat for every unfortunate thing that happened. Luckily, Tohru helped her control these powers and accepted her as she was.
Saki always dresses in black and has an eerily deadpan attitude. She can read minds and pick up on "waves" to gauge a person's mood. One time, Kyo was wondering how Saki could survive in the heat with layers of black clothes on. Saki read his mind and responded out loud. This freaked Kyo out to no end. Saki's mysterious and quiet but is one of Tohru and Arisa's most loyal friends.
13 Yamai's Obsessive Behavior Is Disturbing (Komi Can't Communicate)
A running gag in Komi Can't Communicate is that everyone worships the ground Komi walks on. Unfortunately, Yamai takes this too far and becomes absolutely obsessed with her. She has photos of Komi plastered all over her room and even kidnaps Tadano for getting too close to Komi.
Yamai went so far as to lock Tadano in a closet and tie him to a chair to keep him away from Komi. Even now, Yamai's still doing creepy things like trying to take pictures up Komi's skirt and following her everywhere.
12 Makima Is The Control Devil (Chainsaw Man)
Makima comes off as an ally at first, but she's absolutely terrifying. It isn't until the end of Chainsaw Man that her true identity as the Control Devil is revealed, and no other character can fulfill the role as well as her. Makima is manipulative and serves as the ultimate puppet master during the series.
Makima strung Denji along with the promise of a romantic relationship, only to kill everyone dearest to him because she wasn't interested in him at all. She's a master of toying with peoples' psyches and ultimately sought to break Denji's, so she could take advantage of Pochita.
11 Yukako Yamagishi Is Obsessed With Koichi (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable)
There are plenty of lovable Jojo's side characters, but Yukako certainly isn't one of them. She's not a yandere, but she's an obsessive stalker who should've been defeated when the heroes had a chance. Yukako is obsessively in love with Koichi and takes extreme measures to stay close to him, like lighting another girl's hair on fire and then kidnapping Koichi.
Yukako tried to abuse Koichi into developing Stockholm Syndrome but was overpowered by his stand, Echoes. Unlike other Jojo's antagonists, Yukako had a mini-redemption arc and, unfortunately, ended up with Koichi.
10 Himiko Toga Is A Teenage Girl With Homicidal Tendencies (My Hero Academia)
A villain from My Hero Academia, Himiko possesses a shape-shifting ability, which she can trigger by ingesting another person's blood. Himiko looks like a typical cheerful anime school girl, but is quick to fly into a murderous rage at the first inconvenience.
Adding to her creepiness, Himiko has a twisted view of interpersonal relationships. She once attempts to befriend two teenage girls while simultaneously trying to kill them. Even those she admires aren't immune to her murderous tendencies. Himiko has expressed a desire to kill and "become" her role model, Stain.
9 Road Kamelot Seems Childish, But She's Actually In Her Mid-Thirties (D.Gray-man)
Road Kamelot is an anime villain with a childish nature. Considering the fact she's at least 35 years old, this personality trait adds to how creepy she is. Kamelot can also disguise herself as a talking doll, and dolls are always creepy.
In a show where the heroes have to destroy the corrupted souls of resurrected loved ones, Road's creepy nature fits right in. She's sadistic and will kill her own subordinates just to upset Allen Walker, the protagonist of D.Gray-man. Additionally, despite claiming to be in love with Walker, Road once stabbed him in the eye with a candlestick — a classic creepy anime girl move.
8 Hana Midorikawa Is Violent With Bizarre Interests (Prison School)
Prison School is an extremely bizarre anime about an underground school prison. Any of the sadist female student council members could qualify as creepy anime girls, but Hana Midorikawa truly takes the cake with the file baked inside.
Upon first impression, Hana seems like a cheerful witchy neighbor. She loves four-leaf clovers and brewing dandelion tea. Upon the second impression, Hana is actually a violent sociopath with a urination fetish. That's not even the end of her creep factor.
7 Junko Enoshima Is Obsessed With Despair (Danganronpa)
When most teenage girls want to shake things up, they get a new haircut. Junko Enoshima shakes things up by getting her classmates to kill a fellow student. She pulls this off by using a robotic teddy bear to hound her victims and murdering her own twin sister.
Obsessed with despair, Junko is the villain of Danganronpa. Her ultimate goal is to inflict despair onto others by pressuring them into making terrible decisions. When she's ultimately unmasked and backed into a corner, Junko gleefully executes herself with maniacal laughter.
6 Shiro Had No Choice But To Become A Creepy Anime Girl (Deadman Wonderland)
Adopted for the sole purpose of being used for human experimentation, Shiro had no choice but to become a creepy anime girl. The painful experiments caused Shiro's body to fall apart, and she developed a second personality, "The Wretched Egg," to cope. Technically, it's the Wretched Egg who's the real creepy anime girl.
The experiments also led Shiro to develop supernatural abilities. The Wretched Egg uses these powers to murder all of her adopted brother's classmates and frame him for the crime — and that's just episode one.
5 Ai Enma Crawled Out Of Her Grave As A Vengeful Spirit (Hell Girl)
Buried alive by her own village at the age of seven, Ai Enma crawled out of her grave as a spirit of vengeance. She burned the entire village to the ground, killing all the inhabitants.
In punishment for the horrific (albeit justified) act, Ai was sentenced to spend her afterlife as "Hell Girl." Frozen as a child, Ai dragged souls to hell, regardless of whether the victims deserved their fate. The cold, unfeeling manner in which Ai went about her work is what made her truly creepy.
4 Sachiko Shinozaki Is The Ghost Of A Violent Elementary School Student (Corpse Party: Tortured Souls)
Image if Casper the Friendly Ghost ripped out Christina Ricci's tongue in the second act of the 1995 Casper film. That's basically Sachiko. An antagonist from the Corpse Party video game series, Sachiko unleashes a host of horrors in the OVA series Corpse Party: Tortured Souls. In the anime, Sachiko is the ghost of an elementary school student who cut out her classmate's tongues shortly before her death. In the afterlife, Sachiko continues her reign of terror by torturing children in a living hell called Heavenly Host Elementary School.
3 Sekai Saionji and Kotonoha Katsura Are Frenemies (School Days)
Sekai and Kotonoha are the ultimate frenemies. Sekai sets Kotonoaha up with Makoto, a boy from school. Not long after, Sekai has an affair with Makoto, and things escalate. Someone is stabbed to death with a kitchen knife, someone has their stomach cut open, and someone sails away with a severed head. There's an argument to be made for both girls being creepy, as both are driven to madness because Makoto is simply an awful person.
2 Yuno Gasai Is A Classic Yandere (Future Diary)
While many creepy anime girls don the disguise of an innocent schoolgirl, no one pulls it off quite as well as Yuno. Sweet and innocent on the surface, Yuno quickly reveals herself to be a cold, obsessive psychopath.
Stalking a crush on social media is bad enough. In Future Diary, Yuno has a supernatural journal that shows her everything that will happen in her crush's life. She gladly uses this to kill anyone who could harm him. Granted, having watched the love of one's life die in an alternate reality could drive anyone to drastic measures.
1 Esdeath Is The Ice Queen Of The Empire (Akame Ga Kill!)
The Ice Queen of the Empire, Esdeath from Akame Ga Kill! is a manipulative sadist. She justifies torturing her enemies and killing innocents by following her father's creed: The strong survive and the weak die. As a general in her Empire's army, Esdeath once forced the prince of a failed rebellion to strip naked and lick her boots before she killed him.
Most creepy anime girls let their unhinged nature turn them into outcasts with no real power in the social structure. What makes Esdeath so terrifying is the fact she keeps her sadistic impulses in check just enough to remain in a position of authority. This empowers Esdeath to unleash her cruelty on even more defenseless people. That said, she has no loyalty to the empire she serves. Esdeath once stated that should the Empire fall, she would start another war herself, so she could keep killing.