Since the likes of Kenshiro Ken or Son Goku entered the television screen, the bar for being overpowered in anime keeps getting risen, with each new generation taking things to obscene heights to either create fantastic spectacle or just show that they have the bigger toys. That means bigger muscles, faster speeds, more explodey laser beams, and a variety of other powers your elementary school friends would use to win an argument.

RELATED: 10 Most Overpowered Heroes In DC Comics, Ranked

What this essentially boils down to is that the 2010s brought about a wild ride of anime action and logic defying nonsense that fans just can't wait to see be topped.

Updated May 21st, 2021 By Sean Cubillas: The anime world never rests. For those who do, they're bound to lose their spot to the more hungry, skilled, and powerful of the industry. Since this article was last written, there have been several new entries to the anime world, whether they be new Shonen heroes or isekai protagonists just about to head into their journeys. While personality and character design are certainly good traits, what these characters bring to the average anime convention are some good, old fashioned arguments about power scaling.

15 All Might - My Hero Academia

Starting off this list is the Japanese fusion of Hulk and Superman that entered the Shonen anime scene right in the middle of the media industry's superhero boom. Taking from his Western's influences exaggerated personifications of strength and virtue, My Hero Academia's All Might literally embodies insurmountable strength from a power for all.

RELATED: My Hero Academia: 10 Most Powerful Quirks, Ranked

This manifests in a large, intimidating physical form, as well as superhuman strength that is still ridiculous by Western standards, allowing All Might to create air pressure to disperse all the clouds in the sky from the ground, traverse city blocks with a single bound, and punch a hole right through a city.

14 Koro-sensei - Assassination Classroom

Following the symbol of justice is the symbol of education represented by a teacher you definitely don't want to get detention from. Koro-sensei is an ex-assassin turned yellow, tentacled mutant after some questionable government testing.

His new form allows him considerable durability from most melee weapons and projectiles, camouflage to escape even the most scrutinizing eye, the ability to create energy blasts from pieces of his body, and best of all, move at mach 20 speeds, which is great for taking 10 minute breaks in Hawaii, giving multiple students private tutoring sessions, and evading gun fire from all directions.

13 Meruem - Hunter x Hunter

Meruem is somehow a more terrifying Perfect Cell. Born from the perfect combination of a variety of the world's animal life, including humans capable of using Nen, Meruem is a Chimera Ant whose physique, power, and intellect have far evolved past the capabilities of man. Keep in mind, this also includes super powered humans who can use Nen, as just the intimidating aura of his underlings are enough to invoke a flight response from some of the world's top mercenaries.

He was more than a match for the Hunter Association's own Netero, even after the chairman took a considerable amount of prep time, and couldn't even be taken down by a chemical explosion. He is truly the superior species.

12 Shin Wolford - A Wise Man's Grandchild

Shin Wolford from Wise Man's Grandchild.

Shin Wolford is the isekai protagonist to end all isekai protagonists. It's a time saver just to say that the main character of A Wise Man's Grandchild has the power to just be good at everything. Raised by his society's elites since reincarnating, Shin has become an expert in both combat and the magical arts.

This has made him a confident combatant against large squads of enemies as well as a revolutionary within the magic ability, going as far as to create new forms of destructive magic that are essentially just fantastical, nuclear bombs.

11 Giorno Giovanna - JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind

JoJos Bizarre Adventure Giorno Giovanna Part 5

Giorno Giovanna is only the latest of the ongoing line of JoJos the world will expect until Hirohiko Araki finally decides to age, and he's easily the most powerful thus far. While fans have seen characters manipulate time or reshape matter, Giorno is practically entering the series into godlike territory.

RELATED: 5 Anime Characters Giorno Giovanna Could Beat (& 5 He Can't)

With his base Stand, Gold Experience, Giorno is able to grant life to any inanimate object, allowing him to heal his allies while also changing and commanding his environment at will. When Gold Experience reaches its Requiem state, it gets incredible, superhuman strength as well as the ability to remove anyone and their actions from all of causality. It's pretty much the flex to literally end all flexes.

10 Saiki Kusuo - The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.

Comedy and cartoons as a whole are always hard to set on a strength and power scale. While a wacky character can stretch their arms, pull the moon, and even pull random objects from nowhere, it is widely regarded that these are exaggerated qualities not to be taken seriously by any means of consistency.

However, that doesn't mean a show can't derive its humor from a defined yet still very much overpowered ability set. Such is the case with Saiki Kusuo who seemingly has every power in psychic mythology, including standard powers like strength enhancement, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, mind control, teleportation, and even memory alteration. He truly has a disastrous life.

9 Undead Ban - The Seven Deadly Sins

Getting back on the hypo-masculine Shonen train, there are so many characters and ridiculous powers from The Seven Deadly Sins that it would be hard to pick just one character to put on this list. However, if there was ever a fan favorite, it would definitely be the supermodel, anime version of Deadpool that is Undead Ban. He carries similar, exaggerated feats of strength and skills as his contemporaries, with the added benefit of his Snatch ability, which allows him to magically steal anything from close range.

However, what truly makes him an unfair opponent is the fact that after a mishap with the Fountain of Youth, Ban has lost the capacity to die, allowing him to sustain strong levels of damage (if anything could even scratch him) without any long term or short term affects.

8 Akira Fudo - Devilman Crybaby

Akira in his devilman form standing in front of a fire.

The original Devilman from the days of anime old was incredibly powerful within his own right; and while Masaaki Yuasa took large liberties with his adaptation of the Japanese icon, he still kept Akira Fudo fairly overpowered. Akira may start Devilman Crybaby fairly weak but his powers gradually make him stronger and vastly more violent and horrifying as the series goes on.

He goes from struggling to just run in the beginning to wiping out gangs with just a flick of his claw around the middle to straight up battling over the fate of the Earth at the end. Fending off eclipsing demons and Earth shattering attacks, Akira is truly doing the Devil's work.

7 Satoru Gojo - Jujutsu Kaisen

satoru gojo smiling

Jujutsu Kaisen is the new, baby brother of the Shonen Jump family, but he's quickly become the family favorite. A huge part of this is Studio Mappa's stellar animation and direction bolstering the story, but the characters and their incredible powers are certainly carrying their fair share of weight, with none likely carrying more at the moment than Satoru Gojo, aka Kakashi Hatake with really pretty eyes.

Gojo is the most powerful jujutsu sorcerer around whose power, "Limitless," grants him, well, seemingly limitless control over all reality around him. Enemies can't even conceptually touch him, and he's able to deliver reality shattering attacks with ease.

6 Shigeo Kageyama - Mob Psycho 100

While Saiki was a nice dip into the overpowered, psychic territory, Mob will be the full dive into deep waters, as he not only personifies the same qualities to a much more spectacular degree but is derived from a manga writer infamous for making overpowered characters.

RELATED: The 10 Strongest Characters In Mob Psycho 100, Ranked

Mob is a teenage boy whose basic uses of psychic powers already border on miracles, as he can create plant life, reassemble broken items, and defeat high level spirits with ease. However, when he finds himself under great staff, Mob goes over 100 (take that Dragon Ball), as he enters a higher psychic state that can seemingly tear apart all earth around him if not reality itself.

5 Momonga/Ainz Ooal Gown - Overlord

Here's an example of incredible amounts of grind and nerd knowledge manifesting in something much more ridiculous than a power fantasy. Thrust into the modded video game world of his own making, Ainz Ooal Gown rules with a pixelated fist, using overpowered stats to handle any enemy or mission at ease.

If that weren't enough, he was somehow able to exceed the supposed limit for learned magic in the world to master hundreds of game reality bending spells, allowing for an outrageous advantage that's less ground breaking and more game breaking.

4 Rimuru Tempest - That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime

Rimuru Tempest As A Slime

Shonen protagonists used to dominate playground discussions for who the toughest, most overpowered characters were in the animated realm. And while there are still plenty of superheroes and ninjas out there doing the brand justice, isekai anime are now the ones seemingly developing ridiculously overpowered characters by the season.

The cream of the crop thus far has to be Rimuru Tempest (who may actually be the slime of the crop). As a slime, Rimuru is able to take on the powers and abilities of anyone and anything he absorbs. This has progressively allowed him new forms, greater strength, incredible magic powers, and, towards the latter parts of his story, godlike abilities that help manipulate reality itself.

3 Saitama - One-Punch Man

Getting to the absolutely highest of the monster tiers, Saitama easily ranks at the top of many lists in this category. His entire gimmick is to defeat any opponent with one punch, acting bored from the resulting tedium.

Going further than that, his surprisingly average workout routine has also allowed him super speed faster than some of the fastest vehicles in the world and durability that can withstand earth shattering blows. He is proof that not every anime hero needs an outrageous hairdo.

2 Madoka Kaname - Puella Magi Madoka Magica

It's surprising that a magical girl series could rank so high on this list; but given the dark and depressive nature of the series itself, it's nice to know that someone's getting a decent break. In a world where an alien cat can promise its clients any wish in exchange for turning them into magical girls, something has gotta be amiss. And it was.

It was really harvesting the misery of these girls after their wishes inevitably fail, turning them into a dark ploy for renewable energy. Madoka, however, makes a wish that grants her godlike properties that not only defy the cat creature but also allow her to rewrite their rules and all rules of reality.

1 Zeno - Dragon Ball Super

Zeno errantly considers universe erasure in Dragon Ball

Standing at the top of the decade is one of the latest character entries from the series that defined "overpowered." Zeno stands at the top of a food chain that is constantly evolving at extraordinary and ludicrous rates, where there's Saiyans, gods, and angels all co-existing yet still solving conflicts with martial arts bouts.

Zeno, aka Grand Zeno or Future Zeno (depending on which one you're talking to), is the king of all the Multiverse, ruling over the very realities that will house whatever the next evolution of Goku will be if it isn't outright beating the king of the multiverse.

NEXT: 15 Best Vampire Anime For Your Watchlist