Anime characters have a whole spectrum of temperaments, including highly deceptive characters who either hide their mean streaks behind faux politeness or simply bully their fellow characters and make it painfully clear they intend to be nothing but hostile. While there are some who are redeemable, plenty of these characters aren't. Still, despite their flaws, audiences can never quite hate them, as seen in Death Note, Miraculous Ladybug and more.
Here are some anime characters who are quite frankly unbearable, but who audiences still find in themselves to forgive and even justify the awful things they do. We just can't bring ourselves to hate them.
Light Yagami - Death Note
Death Note is a supernatural suspense anime that revolves around Ryuk and Light Yagami. Shinigamis are Gods of Death, able to kill someone just by seeing their face and writing their name in a book known as a Death Note. Ryuk drops a Death Note into the human realm. and Light, a high school student, finds the powerful book and wields it to satisfy his hunger to "cleanse" the world.
Light is characterized as hardworking, talented and a natural genius. However, through the use of the Death Note, Light quickly begins to develop a cold and ruthless nature; he starts to set aside his morals and brush "right" and "wrong" under the proverbial rug in favor of punishing anyone he deems fit.
Despite the sadistic power trip that Light experiences through his possession of the Death Note, he is still the series' main protagonist, and as such, it can be hard to not overlook his poor decisions and selfish entitlement.
Chloé Bourgeois - Miraculous Ladybug
Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir is a CGI superhero/magical girl television series. The series focuses on two Parisian teenagers, Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien Agreste, who transform into the respective superheroes Ladybug and Cat Noir, to protect the city from supervillains. Chloé Bourgeois is a recurring character in Marinette and Adrien's class at Collège Françoise Dupont.
Chloé thinks highly of herself and lowly of others. She is bossy, arrogant and inconsiderate toward her classmates, who she treats with minimal respect. She can be ruthless and reckless, especially when it comes to undertaking the superhero responsibility, which she believes to be her God-given right. She may be overbearing and disrespectful, but Chloé is a uniquely underestimated character. She adds a certain flair to Miraculous Ladybug that would otherwise be non-existent without her.
Frieza - Dragon Ball Z
Dragon Ball Z is an action-adventure series that picks up five years after the end of the Dragon Ball anime. Goku is now a young adult and father to his son, Gohan. A humanoid alien named Raditz arrives on Earth in a spacecraft and tracks down Goku, revealing to him that he is his long-lost older brother and that they are members of a near-extinct alien warrior race called the Saiyans.
Frieza is a mutant and the emperor of Universe 7, who controls his own imperialist army and is feared for his ruthlessness and power. In Dragon Ball Z, while his polite demeanor is somewhat retained, it also ends up downplayed by emphasizing his more brutal nature. He commonly utilizes dark humor, making twisted jokes and tastelessly mocking his foes before killing them. To summarize his nature, Frieza is a typical primary antagonist. He exhibits the same traits as most conniving villains, and while we all love the hero, every story needs a good villain.
Sugou Nobuyuki - Sword Art Online
Sword Art Online is an action-romance set in the near future, where a virtual reality massive multiplayer online role-playing game (VRMMORPG) called Sword Art Online has been released. Players control their avatars with their bodies using a piece of technology called Nerve Gear. One day, players discover that the game creator is holding them captive unless they reach the 100th floor of the game's tower and defeat the final boss. However, if they die in the game, they die in real life.
Sugou Nobuyuki, known as Fairy King Oberon, is the main antagonist of the Fairy Dance Arc -- the second arc in the Sword Art Online series. Nobuyuki is an amoral and greedy entrepreneur, having kidnapped 300 players from SAO for his experiment on manipulating the human mind, which he plans to sell to other companies. He also has an extremely perverted side, especially towards Asuna, his ex-fiancée, who he has sexually harassed on many occasions.
Perhaps the most on-the-nose definition of diabolical out of this list, Nobuyuki is all shades of wrong. He truly is unforgivable and irredeemable, but maybe that's precisely what audiences, as thoroughly entertained viewers find -- dare we say -- likable.
Louis - Beastars
Beastars is a slice-of-life drama anime where, in a civilized society of anthropomorphic animals, an uneasy tension exists between carnivores and herbivores. At Cherryton Academy, this mutual distrust peaks after a predation incident results in the death of Tem, an alpaca in the school's drama club.
Louis is the deuteragonist to Legoshi, Tem's friend and the central protagonist. He appears to be arrogant and self-righteous, but underneath this lies his insecurity about being physically weak. After collapsing during a curtain call and ending up in the infirmary, he lashes out in anger for being treated like a child. At times, his reserved demeanor cracks, and he vents his built-up frustration inappropriately; he is quite frail, but can be intimidating when the situation calls for it.
With the weight of expectations on his shoulders, Louis is the most misunderstood character on this list, testing the limits between hero and villain, which makes him all the more interesting.