Big Bad / Anime & Manga

Big Bad
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"The ultimate villain of the story, who's causing the problem the heroes must solve."

Note that Big Bad is not a catch-all trope for the biggest and ugliest villain of any given story. The Big Bad is the one who turns out to be behind several other seemingly independent threats.

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Works with their own page:

• Doraemon
• Dragon Ball
• Pokémon
• Pretty Cure

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Other Examples:

• 20th Century Boys: Friend, actually Fukubei Hattori, the leader of the Friendship Party who plans on taking over the world and succeeds in doing so; leading him to initiate his true goal of destroying 99% of the population and ruling over the remaining 1%. Once he's killed, Katsumata takes up the mantle of Friend and causes even more widespread devastation onto the world in his efforts to continue Fukubei's plans of destroying humanity.
• 91 Days: Vincent is the boss of the whole Vanetti family and the man who ordered the murder of the Lagusa family, making him the ultimate target of Avilio's revenge.
• Abunai Sisters: The main antagonist is Madam Hokuroda, a gonkish woman who seeks to steal the sisters' Booby Stone to restore her beauty.
• Agent Aika:
  • The original series has Rudolf and Neena Hagen, a Brother–Sister Team contracted by the military to find the Lagu, but whom wish to kill all of humanity and replace them with Rudolf's children. They are later replaced by their Dragon Ascendant, the unnamed White Delmo Commander, who tries to avenge Rudolf's death.
  • The prequel, Aika R-16: Virgin Mission, has Risako Nagisa, Aika's teacher, who turns out to be an agent for a secret organization that tries to stop Aika's expedition.
  • Aika Zero has Miyu Shiratori, the leader of the White Knights that terrorize the school.
• Air Gear: Sora Takeuchi sets the over-arching plot of the series in motion through his plan to claim the Sky Regalia and become Sky King, eventually taking personal control of Genesis.
• Ajin: Ajin Satō, the eader of the Ajin resistance and a brutal terrorist who commits crimes against civilians and tries to corrupt Kei to create conflict for his own amusement.
• Akame ga Kill!: Prime Minister Honest and General Esdeath are the true rulers of The Empire. Honest manipulates the boy emperor to create a brutal and corrupt regime whose sole purpose is to preserve his power and pleasure. However, despite being more dangerous than he appears, his rule would not be possible without the cooperation of Esdeath, the Empire's best general and a One-Woman Army. She helps maintain Honest's rule because its sheer brutality places the Empire in a state of almost constant internal rebellion and war with its neighbors, creating her ideal world of perpetual conflict where the weak are winnowed out and the strong survive.
• Albegas: President Azos. Because he wanted to use Earth as a power source for hus dying plamet, he launched an Alien Invasion, only for it to backfire when the humans responded with Albegas. The other Dellingers follow in his footsteps after his death to fulfill his dream, and their entire race ends up being exterminated by the titular Super Robot as a result.
  • Hinowa ga Crush!: King Zuou, the brutal ruler of Tenrou, who's leading his kingdom in a war to conquer the entire continent of Wakoku, including the protagonists' country of Soukai.
• Akazukin Chacha: Daimao, a large red demon sealed in a castle, who has turned Chacha's parents to stone and seeks to kill Chacha so that there will be no further royals in the kingdom and his rule will be be permanent. Due to being sealed inside of the castle, he has no choice but to rely on weak underlings to send monsters into the world to attack Chacha.
• Akudama Drive: Boss, the head of the Execution Division tasked by the Board of Kanto to hunt down and kill any and all Akudama.
• Aldnoah.Zero: Count Saazbaum, the mastermind behind the plot to assassinate Princess Asseylum, using her death as an excuse to send the VERS Empire into a war against Earth.
• All You Need Is Kill: The nexus, a Mimic with the ability to send its memories back in time upon its death, allowing the Mimics to counteract whatever occurred that enabled the humans to defeat them. However, it accidentally alters protagonist Kenji Kiriya's brain so that his memories are sent back in time too, trapping them both in a "Groundhog Day" Loop.
• Amalgam of Distortion: Chief Sara Warren is the head scientist of SAI who is responsible for turning Rokumichi Kusaba and many others into monsters, as well as the monster attacks on innocents.
• Angel Cop: Tachihara, originally a right-hand man, is the new leader of the Red May terrorist organization which wants to bring down the government and the enemy of the titular anti heroine Angel. He gets captured about halfway through, after which the Hunter known as Lucifer takes over, carrying out orders to kill everyone in the Special Security Force for (supposedly) aiding the terrorists. Then both of them are revealed to be pawns of Governor Maisaka, all as part of his plan to dump American toxic waste in Japan and get rich off it.
• AR∀GO: City of London Police's Special Crimes Investigator: The Patchman, a notorious Serial Killer out to make humanity suffer and ultimately end the world who's responsible for the murder of Arago's parents,
• Armitage III:
  • Poly Matrix has René D'anclaude, the enigmatic leader of a group of murderous anti-robot terrorists who want to rid Mars of robots, particularly Thirds. D'anclaude himself is actually a group of assassinroids created by the original D'anclaude, a researcher and partner of Dr. Asakura who turned against his project at the behest of Earth's Straw Feminist government.
  • Dual Matrix has Demetrio Martini, Vice President of Earth Robotics Corporation, who seeks to block a recent Robot Rights bill and discover the secret behind Thirds so he can mass-produce Thirds as a slave race; to that end, he is willing to kidnap Yoko, daughter of Ross and Naomi, to force Ross to vote against the bill, and kill Ross and Armitage for interfering.
• Assassination Classroom: Shiro is the most recurrent antagonist Koro-Sensei and his students face over the course of the series, earning this spot by default. Then it's solidified when it's revealed that he's really Yanagisawa, the Mad Scientist who transformed Koro-Sensei from a human into what he now is, making him responsible for the whole series in the first place. Then he and the God of Death, who he makes his Dragon, jointly serve as the Final Boss at the series' climax.
• Attack on Titan:
  • The Beast Titan is the most dangerous and frightening enemy faced by the heroes during the pre-Time Skip half of the story. It transforms the citizens of Ragako Village into Titans under its command to wreak havoc across Wall Rose. It's later revealed to be Zeke Yeager, the "Warchief" of the other Titan Shifters and Eren's half-brother, taking command of the mission and forcing the Reiner and Bertolt to submit to him. While he's taking orders from the nation of Marley, Zeke is more directly involved in the story, while Marley controls things from the background. However, it's later revealed post-time skip that Zeke has his own motives against the Eldians, caring less about Marley and wanting to use the founder's power to sterilize their bodies in preventing reproduction — effectively euthanizing them.
  • After the Warriors' defeat in Shinganshina and the reveal of the outside world through Grisha's writings, the entire nation of Marley steps up as the series' Big Bad, being responsible for all of the main events of the series in an effort to seize resources from Paradis Island and ultimately wipe out all the Eldians they consider "devils." The failure of the Paradis Island Operation has them allying with other nations in declaring war against Paradis, serving as the last straw in Eren slowly descending to villainy.
  • And sure enough, Eren Yeager himself officially usurps his half-brother Zeke and Marley of this role in the final arc, serving as the main antagonist of the rest of the series. Eren manipulates events in order to gain access to the Paths realm and meet Ymir Fritz. Managing to outwit Zeke, Eren convinces Ymir to give him the full power of the Founding Titan so that he can awaken every single one of the Wall Titans and command them to trample all life outside of Paradis Island. His friends don't accept this though, thinking that he's going too far, and band together with their former enemies to stop him. It's ultimately revealed in the final chapter that Eren was deliberately playing the role of the villain to give his friends the motivation to stop him and paint them as heroes to all that's left of humanity.
• Aura Battler Dunbine: Lord Drake Luft is responsible for the war in the setting, seeking to conquer all of Biston Well and rule supreme.
• Avenger: Lord Volk is the effective ruler of Mars who controls it as a tyrant. He runs the gladiatorial matches, sends out various minions to capture Layla and Nei, and is responsible for the former’s Dark and Troubled Past wherein he destroyed the space colony containing her parents, which she seeks revenge for. He does this all in the name of protecting his people, conserving resources so as to prepare for the moon’s arrival.
• Ayashimon: Doppo Akari, a hitorima and the chairman of the Enma Syndicate, who has proven to be much more ruthless and violent than his predecessor and has ambitions to expand the gang's control in Kabukichō and beyond. Urara also believes that he had a hand in the death of her father Kio, the aformentioned previous chairman, though her suspicion may not be true given the genuine admiration and loyalty Doppo had previously displayed towards Kio.
• Banana Fish: Initially, there's Dino Golzine, who works for Union Corse but is also connected to a cabal of politicians and military officers. The situation gets complicated: Dino is forced out of the Union, the Lee family (represented by Yau-si) wants in, Dino comes back after murdering most of the other Union members, followed by knocking off the lead senator and officer in the cabal. Eventually, Dino and Yau-si are the only major players left standing, so they enter into an alliance, and are the primary villains for the second half of the series.
• Beasts of Abigaile: Aaron, the sinister headmaster of Abigaile Island, a correctional "school" where lugas are conditioned to become slaves. He's also responsible for revealing the existence of the lugas to a foreign government, which in turn led to the lugas' country of Ruberia being conquered and them being enslaved in the first place.
• Battle Royale: Yonemi Kamon is the manga incarnation of the supervisor/administrator of the Battle Royale Program, where high school students are forced to kill one another. There are two secondary antagonists, the deadliest competitors among the students, in Kazuo Kiriyama and Mitsuko Souma, who are The Heavy, but the supervisor himself is the one running the game.
• Berserk: The Godhand; consisting of Void, Slan, Ubik, Conrad, and Griffith/Femto; are the five beings who are responsible for ruining the world on behalf of the Idea of Evil. Pre-Ecplise, Void was the sole leader, but Griffith joins forces with him in the Eclipse and asserts himself as Guts’ Arch-Enemy, and all of them seem to share power.
• Bee Train's Girls with Guns trilogy:
  • The Noir duo's enemy is Mistress Altena, leader of a faction within Les Soldats who sends various hired killers after them in order to bring about the Grand Retour; that is, to train them so she can use them to cleanse the organization of corruption.
  • Madlax and the other three heroines have as their main enemy Friday Monday, the insane, masked Diabolical Mastermind leader of Enfant who sends his henchmen after the heroines, instigates the civil war in Gazth-Sonika, wants to unleash humanity’s darker nature, and is behind everything bad that has ever happened in Margaret/Madlax's life.
  • El Cazador de la Bruja:
    • In the anime, CIA Director Douglas Rosenberg is the head of Project Leviathan, which aims to create a race of humans, known as Witches, with power over temperature and gravity. He tries to capture Nadie and Ellis to complete this project and seek revenge on the higher government for driving his father to suicide, and manipulates the Witch Coven, a competing sub-faction, for this purpose.
    • In the manga, Rosenberg is Adapted Out, so the antagonist role goes to Alice, a “sister” Witch of Ellis who is Driven by Envy to steal her powers and get revenge on Project Leviathan for abandoning her.
• Bikini Warriors: Demon Lord Deathgeld is the In-Universe Final Boss and leader of the monsters who wants to Take Over the World, making him the main enemy that the four heroines must defeat. Not much of him is known beyond this, as the series is a non-serious spoof of JRPG games.
• Biomega: Niardi/Nyaldee, Overlord of the DRF and the one responsible for the virus that caused the Zombie Apocalypse. She intends to Kill All Humans and recreate the world in her own image.
• Black Cat: Creed Diskenth, the leader of Apostles of the Stars who intends on destroying Chronos and taking over the world in its place, as well as force Train to rule by his side.
• Black Clover:
  • In the First Saga, Licht, the leader of the Eye of the Midnight Sun, leads a group of rogue mages whose goal is to destroy the Clover Kingdom, putting him at odds with the kingdom's Magic Knights. However, he is revealed to be Patry, an innocent elf boy who idolized the real Licht, but grew to hate humans after they attacked his people during Licht and Tetia's wedding. It's further revealed that this attack, as well as Patry's Start of Darkness, was all planned by Zagred, the Kotodama/Word Devil, who used the elves and their hatred of humans as part of his plan to restore him to power.
  • In the Second Saga, Dante Zogratis the leader of the Dark Triad, takes over as the main villain of the series as he rules over the Spade Kingdom with an iron fist along with his siblings and is the Arch-Enemy to Asta as he’s connected to Asta’s past and like Asta, Dante’s a devil user, the host of Lucifero. Then he gets beaten down by the Black Bull's weakest member and seemingly killed in his second appearance. Later, it turns out he was never the strongest devil host at all — he may have had the strongest devil, but his brothers are much more compatable as hosts.
  • After Lucifero is defeated, Lucius (The latter being the true identity of Julius Novachrono) steps up as the main villain and is revealed to have planned the raid and Lucifero's defeat to obtain the devil king's heart.
• Black Fox: Lauren, a Mad Scientist and former rival of Rikka's father, who decides to finish the job of killing the rest of the family.
• Bleach:
  • Sosuke Aizen is the main villain of the pre-timeskip half. For the first 436 chapters^note The first 424 chapters plus the Turn Back the Pendulum Gaiden, spanning the negative-numbered chapters -108 through -97, Aizen is the major villain that is behind almost everything that's happened. He slaughtered the Central 46 and gave out the order for Rukia's execution to obtain the Hogyoku. After betraying Soul Society, he would later lead an Arrancar army to destroy Karakura Town and harvest the souls of the town's citizens to create the Oken to enter the Soul King Palace and overthrow the Soul King. At the end of the Arrancar Saga though, he is stopped by Ichigo. After that, he is no longer the main enemy, but the new villains are hinted to be driven by events and motives that ultimately tie back to Aizen's own actions and motives in some mysterious way.
  • Yhwach, The Emperor of Vandenreich is the main antagonist of the post-timeskip half, as he is revealed to be responsible for all the things that Aizen wasn't involved in and has a far more personal connection to Ichigo than the renegade Soul Reaper. His desire is to escape death by killing the Soul King and create a world without death and fear. To do this, he's willing to commit any atrocity he can that will aid him in his quest. He leads a ruthless attack on Soul Society that leaves many Soul Reapers dead, and kills Genryusai Yamamoto. He creates chaos and bloodshed to feed off souls, which keep him alive and functioning. He even manages to succeed where Aizen failed by destroying the Soul King. He is the most powerful, dangerous. and crulest villain in the series, uniting enemies against him, with Soul Reapers, Quincies, Arrancars, Humans and even Aizen himself all working together to defeat him.
• Blood: The Last Vampire: The unnamed Chriopteran attacking the school.
• Blood+ has Diva, Saya's younger twin sister and the other Chiropteran Queen, who wants to extinguish humanity and create a world of chaos and death populated by chiropterans; though since she is a Psychopathic Womanchild and not the planning type, her Dragon-in-Chief Amshel who engineered the events who made Diva a threat in the first place is the one who leads his fellow chevaliers and concocts the experimients which resulted on the outbreak of chiropterans.
• Blue Gender has a Big Bad Ensemble. The Blue are a race of Big Creepy-Crawlies who aim to wipe out humanity, but Chairman Victor, leader of the High Council that runs Second Earth like a dictatorship, is the one responsible for the Blue attacking humans, by screwing up the Earth badly enough to bring about Gaia's Vengeance (and driving the Blue berserk with their experimentation), and he is doing everything in his power to escape justice. Around the end of the series, Tony briefly becomes the Big Bad when he leads the Blue in killing the council and raiding the station, and after his death, Seno Miyagi takes over the station himself and tries to keep humanity from returning to Earth, making him the final Big Bad.
• Blue Reflection Ray: Shino Mizusaki, the true leader of the Red Reflectors, she drives their goal of extracting emotions from everyone to create a world she finds more desirable. All the conflicts during the main story can be traced back to her, and she is the final opponent to be defeated.
• BNA: Brand New Animal has Alan Sylvasta, CEO of Sylvasta Pharmaceuticals whose company was responsible for turning Michiru and Nazuna into Beastman. He takes advantage of this in his plot to trigger the Nirvasil Syndrome in the Beastman of Anima City as an excuse to turn them into humans, all because he's secretly a Pure-Bred Beastman who despises the Beastman "hybrids" and seeks to erase them all.
• In Brave10, Tokugawa Ieyasu is responsible for the political machinations threatening Isanami, Yukimura, and Ueda's independence. Although he's portrayed as ineffectual and always at a distance, both Hattori Hanzō and Date Masamune are working for or through him to attack the Braves on all sides.
• Brynhildr in the Darkness:
  • In the manga, Director Takachiho is the leader of Vingulf labs who oversees their experiments to turn girls into witches, and seeks to capture Ryota Murakami and Neko Kuroha to accomplish his plan of replacing humanity with a newer, better species. However, he is killed in the finale by Loki, an alien under study who takes the position of Final Boss when he decides to Kill All Humans.
  • In the anime, Chisato Ichijiku is the Chief of Vingulf who directly carries out their operations and antagonizes Ryota and Kuroha, as Takachiho is more in the background.
• B: The Beginning: Gilbert Ross is the one responsible for the crimes of Market Maker, as well as the attack on Koku's school and subsequent massacre.
• Cat's Eye: Cranaff, Michael Heintz's main disciple and twin brother, who, with the other disciples, stole most of his paintings and tried to kill him, forcing him on the run.
• [C] – Control: Souichirou Mikuni, initially a benevolent businessman who sought to alleviate the effects of bankruptcy in the Financial District, becomes this when he takes over and floods Japan with Midas Money to save the economy — which results in mass disappearances, increased poverty, and overall misery. Kimimaro Yoga decides to stop Mikuni from sacrificing the future to preserve the present. Though Midas Bank itself is running the corrupt system that Mikuni is trying to save people from, and there are hints of the bank’s representative, Magasaki, being The Man Behind the Man.
• Candy Flurry: Amato, the most powerful sweets user. He was in fact, one of the original users, a unwilling human guinea pig of Cyndy ToyToy before he broke free and caused the destruction of Tokyo. Resentful that sweets users are being hunted down despite starting out as victims, his goal is to destroy Recette, the organization responsible for apprehending sweets users, and start distributing the empowering Cyndy ToyToy candy once more to create a world where people need sweets and he's top dog.
• Chainsaw Man:
  • Public Safety Saga: The Gun Devil is a Disc-One Final Boss and Red Herring. The true Big Bad is Makima. She's the Control Devil and the one behind every bad thing that happens to Denji over the entirety of Part 1, all so she can break his contract with Pochita and either have Chainsaw's Ret-Gone power serve her, or be consumed by Chainsaw herself.
  • Academy Saga: The War Devil is merely a Big Bad Wannabe possessing the protagonist Asa Mitaka so she can kill Chainsaw Man. The real mastermind here is the Famine Devil, the one indirectly responsible for all the nefarious activities of the other villains (including the "Justice" Devil, who turns out to be the Fire Devil impersonating Justice), however even Famine is small potatoes compared to the threat she's trying to stop… her eldest sister, the Death Devil, the Great King of Terror and the most powerful Devil of them all whose arrival in July 1999 will result in The End of the World as We Know It as she begins to Take Over the World and rule over an Age of Devils.
• Chaos Dragon: Inori drove the Red Dragon mad, leading to the destruction of much of Nill Kamui, while trying to bend the country to her rule.
• Chaos;Head: The mysterious old man in a wheelchair, known only as 'Shogun/The General', is the one stalking and haunting Takumi Nishijou, and is using the Demon Girl to perpetrate the New Gen murders gripping Shibuya, all for some hidden purpose. Except their malevolence is all in Takumi’s head. Both Rimi and Shogun are innocent, and trying to train Takumi to fight the real villain — Genichi Norose, president of the NOZOMI group who created the superpowered gigalomaniacs (through Mind Rape) and used them to power Noah II. He masterminded the murders with the goal of psychologically tormenting Takumi into awakening as a gigalomaniac, then extracting his CODE sample to perfect Noah II and use it to essentially control the world through Mass Hypnosis.
• In Chrono Crusade, Aion's behind a huge chunk of the bad things that happen and is the final foe Chrono and Rosette have to face — although in the manga his morality is a little more gray than his anime counterpart.
• Claymore: Priscilla, Clare's Arch-Enemy and the most powerful Awakened Being. After the fall of the Organization, she becomes the Final Boss.
• Charles zi Britannia of Code Geass. He's advertized as the prime villain, but he's generally inactive except for a couple episodes (which you can literally count on one hand). An argument can be made that the true main villain of the story is Schneizel el Britannia, Charles's son and Lelouch's Aloof Older Brother and Evil Counterpart.
• Combattler V: Empress Janera, even though she was working through pawns for the first half of the story.
• Vicious from Cowboy Bebop. Due to the episodic nature of the show, he's only in 5 episodes, but he's not only the central threat of those episodes, he also plays a huge role in Spike's past.
  • Vincent Volaju serves as the Big Bad of The Movie.
• Cross Ange: Embryo, an ex-scientist who is Julio's superior, Earth's ruler, and The Creator and God of humans, is the one who oversees the oppression of Norma by the humans, making him the main enemy of Ange. He is also responsible for transforming the humans fighting against him into DRAGONs, and not only steals Aura but uses the humans in general as pawns so he can annihilate all life on Earth to make it anew.
• Cyborg 009:
  • Original manga: Skull, head of the Black Ghost organization which seeks to stoke War for Fun and Profit around the world, and are behind the majority of Arc Villains in the manga and its adaptations. Later arcs of the manga and the 1979 anime have the Neo Black Ghost organization, who were involved in any episode or Story Arc that wasn't a self-contained plot.
  • Cyborg 009: Call of Justice has Emperor, leader of a faction of the Blessed seeking to "forcibly adjust" humanity more to their liking.
  • Cyborg 009 The Movie: Legend of the Super Galaxy has Emperor Zoa, who the 00 Cyborgs travel into space to stop.
• Dance in the Vampire Bund: Rozenmann and Ivanovic, two of the Three Vampire Lords, seek to wed and impregnate Mina Țepeș, thereby securing rule over all vampires and ensuring the royal vampire bloodline isn't further made "impure" (i.e., mixed with non-vampires). Of the two, Rozenmann is the greater threat thanks to his manipulations. The third lord, Li, is a Greater-Scope Villain, dangerous and powerful in his own right and also wishing for Mina as his bride, but, unlike Rozenmann and Ivanovic, never orchestrating a plot to seize her by force. Later on, the Telomere Clan’s leader Fake Mina joins in; she starts out as a part of Rozenmann's plan to secretly kidnap and replace Mina, but once she plays her part in his scheme the two part ways, with her pursuing her own goal of finding a mysterious MacGuffin known as the Elixir of Life (later revealed to be the akamitama) and Rozenmann having no further interest in her. A subsequent revelation in Dance in the Vampire Bund II: Scarlet Order is that Yutaka Isurugi, patriarch of the family that provided the clandestine Mediators between vampires and human societies, actually had possession of the akamitama the whole time. He was exploiting the unwitting Fake Mina's hunt for it to get his hands on the Pied Piper virus to force vampires to attack humans and cause a pandemic in Tokyo, with the aim of turning world opinion against vampires and force them back into the shadows.
  • In the spinoff series Dive in the Vampire Bund, which was released during and takes place around the middle of main manga's run, the various incidents destabilizing the Bund are revealed to be caused by a single source, Fake Mina, who is using said incidents to establish contact with Mina's spymaster Alphonse Medici Borgiani in order to turn him to her side.
  • The Interquel series Dance in the Vampire Bund: The Memories of Sledgehammer has Bolton, the master of a renegade Catholic organization dedicated to hunting vampires. He seeks to acquire the Edelman Report, a record documenting vampire manipulation of human societies, politics, and economies, ostensibly to publicize it and rally anti-vampire sentiment, but really to ensure that his murder of the organization's previous master, the facts of which are also in the report, remains secret.
  • Dance in the Vampire Bund II: Scarlet Order: The enigmatic gunslinging vampire known as Shadow, who has been relentlessly hunting the akamitama for at least 170 years. As it turns out, he's actually the Dark, the god of vampires whose millennia-long goal has been to produce a child with his power. Mina, the first true blood vampire capable of genuine sexual reproduction, is the one who can conceive this child, and the akamitama is what is needed to evolve Mina into her full power and form in order to bear the Dark's heir.
• DARLING in the FRANXX: Papa, the true leader of the VIRM, a ruthless alien race who desire to assimilate all of humanity.
• Date A Live has Sir Isaac Ray Peram Westcott, managing director of Deus Ex Machina Industries and creator of the Spirits who caused the war between them and mankind. He plans to use their power to become a god and create a new world in his image, purely For the Evulz. While he was relatively out of the picture for the first four volumes or so (the entirety of the anime's first season minus his involvement with Mana and Origami's new weapons), once he makes his appearance, it's made clear that he harbours ill intent towards the Spirits, and slowly overrides the story's initial Excuse Plot.
• Deadman Wonderland: Tsunenaga Tamaki, assistant warden and promoter, is the man who more or less runs the titular Deadman Wonderland prison (with The Director, a frail old man, having very little to do with the series with his worsening health), as well as the leader of the Undertakers and 1st Unit Forgeries. Everything from the very beginning to the Forgeries arc ultimately has him driving the conflict as the man responsible for how Deadman Wonderland is run. Ultimately, however, it's revealed this was only due to the manipulations of Rinichiro Hagire, as Toto Sakigami/Mockingbird. He is also the one behind the experiments that created the Red Man/Wretched Egg, Shiro’s Superpowered Evil Side who killed Ganta’s classmates in the beginning. After Hagire dies, the Egg takes over as the Final Boss, forcing Ganta to fight her.
• Dead Rock: God is the supreme ruler of the Three Worlds, the principal of Dead Rock institution, and responsible for killing Yakuto’s family.
• Deadpool: Samurai: Loki, who's amassing an army of villains from multiple realities to destroy Japan because Thor's become something of an otaku.
• Death Note takes an unusual approach to this trope by making Light Yagami, the main character himself, the Big Bad who uses the titular Death Note to kill criminals, and aims to establish a crime-free utopia with him as its god. The main antagonist, Detective L, is a Hero Antagonist who wants to bring him down.
  • Another Note has Beyond Birthday, an Ax-Crazy Serial Killer who wants to upstage L.
  • Ryuk himself became one in the Death Note Special Chapter. He is the main antagonistic force and who carries out the plot events.
• Deca-Dence: Hugin and Mugin, the chief content administrators of Deca-Dence oppressing both the cyborgs and humans.
• Delicious in Dungeon has the Red Dragon taking the spotlight after eating Falin alive, forcing the party to go save her. The Lunatic Magician is set up as this in the first couple of pages, being the one who created the dungeon by sinking a whole kingdom into the ground, but doesn’t really appear physically and may even be a myth. However, after it is revealed the Magician (aka Thistle) very much exists and is behind the Red Dragon, she solidly takes this role in the story. She cursed the residents of the Golden Kingdom with immortality, executes any who try to escape, attacked Team Touden with the monsters she controls, stole away Falin and mutated her into her chimera form, and is just murderously insane in general. Even the people she's "protecting" hate her.
• Demonizer Zilch:
  • Hubert Emeran is the executive director of Goetia's Far Eastern Laboratory, and was thus the one who oversaw the Qliphoth Plan that fused demons with young girls into beings called Branches, and thus also the one leading Goetia's attempts to recapture the runaway Branches and its work to implement the mysterious Project Eden. One can be forgiven for overlooking him, however, as his actual appearances on the page are scant and he's very quickly killed off shortly after his introduction.
  • Hellentza Fitzengahen, the Branch of Beelzebub, is the second Big Bad of the manga. She's the one who dispatches Emeran and takes over the Far Eastern Laboratory, and leads most of the other Branches. She seeks to awaken the dormant Lucifer within Murohime Yakagi and initiate Armageddon, the final battle between the demons and God and His host.
  • The third Big Bad is Ayana Io, Haruomi's thought-dead sister and the actual host of Astaroth, with Zilch Kanoa being an artificial personality created to to suppress Ayana's true personality. Unlike the other antagonists, she has no grand plans; she's simply murderously possessive of her big brother and intent on killing Murohime, the rival for Haruomi's affections. She was in fact responsible for Murohime's near death, back when she was a Goetia test subject known as Akino Kiriba, which was one of the traumas that caused Haruomi's memory loss.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba has Muzan Kibutsuji, the first of the demons, and their progenitor and ruler. He was the demon who attacked the Kamado family, killing all but Tanjiro and Nezuko while turning the latter into a demon. The entire series revolves around Tanjiro training under the Demon Slayer Corps both to restore Nezuko's humanity and to eventually kill Muzan.
• Devilman:
  • Demon Lord Dante: God is the alien invader who conquered Earth in the past and turned the survivors into demons, and he seeks to stop Ryo and Dante from taking the world back.
  • In the original manga and DEVILMAN crybaby, Demon Lord Zenon is the leader of the demonic forces out to conquer Earth and the main enemy of the titular hero, though he is doing it on behalf of the Greater-Scope Villain, Demon King Satan. However, once Ryo Asuka recovers his memories as Satan, he takes over as main villain for the rest of the series.
  • In the Devilman anime, Demon Lord Zenon, as in the manga, is the leader of the demon army, and is the one sending out minions after Akira/Devilman to punish him for defecting. He is also the sole leader as Satan is Adapted Out.
  • Violence Jack: The Slum King is the Evil Overlord who rules over the destroyed, post-earthquake Kanto with an iron fist, and is the greatest enemy of the titular Anti-Hero.
  • Devilman Lady: Satoru is the mysterious boy leader of the Devil Beasts who seeks to Kill All Humans and kill the titular heroine, Jun Fudo, for betraying her kind. However, near the end, it is revealed that Lan Asuka, Jun's ally and mentor, is a Devil Beast herself who wants to eliminate Satoru so she can rule the world, and has been manipulating Jun for that purpose. She becomes the Final Boss as the Child of God after Satoru's defeat.
• Devils' Line: The biggest threat to the heroes comes in the form of Kirio Kikuhara, the leader of the CCC, an organization dedicated to the annihilation of all devils in Japan, whether they try to live among humans or not.
• Digimon has the following, by series:
  • Digimon Adventure followed the Arc Villain trope with Devimon, Etemon, Myostimon and the Dark Masters (MetalSeadramon, Puppetmon, Machinedramon, Piedmon). Though it is revealed that Apocalymon was the mastermind and serves as the Greater-Scope Villain for the whole Adventure series, except for Diaboromon and the corrupted Kokomon in the movies.
    • Our War Game: Diaboromon, a Digimon born from a Digiegg created from the amassing of computer viruses who, since his inception as Kuramon, caused chaos in the real world by eating crucial data, thus digivolving rapidly.
  • Digimon Adventure 02 playing again with the Arc Villain, but it is revealed to be Yukio Oikawa behind the schemes of turning Ken Ichijouji into Digimon Emperor (who created the Devimon-possessed Kimeramon), creating Arukenimon and Mummymon (who in turn created BlackWarGreymon) as well as the Dark Spores which caused the Digimon Emperor persona and wants to implant them into other children. Though it's part of a plan made by Myotismon's spirit to come back into a more powerful form: MaloMyotismon. There's also Daemon/Creepymon who appears to be interesting and then completely vanishes.
    • Revenge of Diaboromon: Diaboromon, who survived his previous defeat and sent billions of Kuramon to enter the Real World, and eventually resurrected himself through fusing them with each other, becoming Armageddemon.
  • Digimon Tamers first had HYPNOS, then Zhuqiaomon, and after this the D-Reaper. Impmon was originally intended to be this (which is why he's portrayed in typical Big Bad fashion in the early promotional material), but Konaka later changed his mind.
  • Digimon Frontier had Cherubimon as its initial Big Bad, because he aimed to steal the Fractal Code that made the Digital World through his Evil Legendary Warriors. However, he turned out to be manipulated by Lucemon, who corrupted Cherubimon by exploiting his disagreements with Seraphimon and Ophanimon to have him gather the Fractal Code, and commanded the Royal Knights to finish gathering it in order to free himself and then conquer the Human World.
  • Digimon Data Squad has Kurata, a bigoted scientist who wages a campaign of genocide against the Digimon for petty and selfish reasons. He's only present for 18 of the show's 48 episodes and dies with ten episodes left to go, but his actions shape the whole plot. The other Arc Villains are all Digimon who hate humans specifically because Kurata killed their friends and threatened the existence of their world, and they assume that all humans must be as horrible as he is.
  • Meicoomon and her Digivolved variants serves as this in Digimon Adventure tri., being the source of infections that made other Digimons feral and is the main enemy that the Digidestined faces.
• Dokuro: Kanehira Aiichiro, founder of the corrupt Cult the Nirvana Church of Creation.
• Dolls Fall: Chloe Zola, the headmistress of Jiaiin Girls Dormitory who uses her orphanage in a bid to resurrect the witch she worships and leads her followers to sacrifice the innocent girls to do so.
• Domu: Old Cho is the psychic responsible for causing the suicides in the apartment complex so he can steal the belongings of the victims.
• Doron Dororon: Hanzō Miyamoto was once the strongest samurai of the mononoke-fighting Izanagi Force until he was passed over for leadership of the force. Enraged, he became determined to become even stronger and destroy the Izanagi Force, absorbing mononoke energy and manipulating powerful mononoke in their plot to release their master Nobunaga in order to absorb him.
• Doubt Trilogy by Yoshiki Tonogai:
  • Doubt: The Wolf is the one who uses her hypnotic abilities to trap people in a mafia-esque Deadly Game called “Rabbit Doubt” and infiltrate the group as the murderer. It turns out to be Rei Hazama, who was controlling Mitsuki Houyama and lashing out at society because she was accused of being a fraud psychic and her parents killed themselves, and attempted to kill her, out of shame.
  • Judge: The Judge, a talking doll resembling some sort of fox-like animal, is the overseer of the titular Deadly Game and a proxy for someone amongst the participants, who is actually two people, Hikari and Hiro, as Revenge by Proxy for a court case in which Hiro's brother and Hikari's lover, Atsuya, died and the perpetrator got off scot-free. Of the two, Hikari's more dominant, as seen when she kills Hiro at the end for indirectly being responsible for Atsuya's death.
  • Secret: The student who caused the bus “accident”. Shinichi Mitomo, the school's guidance counselor who consults the students after the accident, is technically the mastermind, but his game is not lethal — he simply claims that three of them are murderers, one of them caused the accident, and that he has the evidence, and encourages them to confess. The conflict is uncovering who the culprit is. Except that the crash really was an accident, and Mitomo made it look intentional to pin it on two of the students and get another thrown in jail. The culprit's motive for doing this was to kill everyone who he suspects got his beloved sister pregnant- he wanted her for himself.
• The Dragon Half manga's main antagonist is Demon King Azatodeth, as the one ordering the monsters to cause havoc, and Mink’s goal is to defeat him; but she must also deal with Princess Vina, who wants Dick Saucer all to herself and often clashes with Mink, and is the main Big Bad of the OVA in which Azatodeth does not appear.
• In the manga adaptation of Dragonar Academy, which covers the first seven light novels in the series, there are two Big Bads. The first seven volumes of the manga has the dragon Mordred, or more specifically Mordred's evil soul (he had two). The heir to the Dark Dragon house of Nehalennia, Mordred's plan is ultimately to force Eco, the heir to the rival Imperial House of Avalon, to unlock her extremely powerful dragon form so that he might possess her. From Volumes 11 to 13, the Big Bad is Prince Uriel, third-in-line to the throne of Chevron, who orchestrates a plot to surreptitiously off his father and replace him as king, the first step in his goal to conquer the entire continent.
• Dragon's Dogma: The Dragon, who Ethan seeks to exact vengeance upon for destroying his village, killing his family, and and turning him into a Arisen; all so Ethan can kill him and free him from his curse.
• Dream Eater Merry has "Pharos" Hercules, a powerful Dream Demon who seeks to supplant the human population and alter it so Dream Demons can exist human hosts. However, it turns out he was the pawn of Kyou Shiragi, who loaned his power to him and seeks to make people's dreams come true by sacrificing Dream Demons after planting them inside the hosts. Anyone with short-term goals no longer have anything to strive for, making them just as lost those whose Dream Demons have killed. Others have come out of it intact, but at the cost of losing the Dream Demons accompanying them, friendly or not.
• Dr. STONE
  • Though initially framed as an ally, Tsukasa quickly becomes the main antagonist when he begins killing petrified humans against the others' wishes. He becomes simply an Arc Villain following his defeat and Heel–Face Turn.
  • Following the defeat of Tsukasa, the Kingdom of Science discover a new enemy: the Why-Man, who has intentions of petrifying all of humanity.
• Izaya Orihara in the Durarara!! anime. In the light novels, the Big Bad is revealed to be Yodogiri Jinnai, who is apparently even worse than Izaya. However, it's soon revealed that Jinnei is dead — it's actually Kasane Kujiragi who is using his identity.
• Early Reins: Jack, a Confederate deserter, is the leader of the Heaven's Hill outlaw gang that hijacks the train and holds Union war hero Colonel Spencer hostage, leading the six heroines to take up arms against him, but he is killed a short while in. In the end, the supposed Big Good Colonel Spencer reveals himself to be the real mastermind, seeking revenge against the politicians who forced him to live as a poor man after the war ended.
• The final episode of Earth Maiden Arjuna reveals that the mysterious boy Chris who gave Juna her powers is the one summoning the Raaja to save the planet from human destruction. Chris then proceeds to cause a mass blackout and nearly destroys Japan, forcing Juna to stop him and save her friends.
• EDENS ZERO at first doesn't have any real obvious candidates for ultimate villain, so each Story Arc has a standalone Arc Villain serving as a one-off obstacle against the crew of the Edens Zero. Each major part of the story is called a saga, which conists of multiple arcs, and there's a Big Bad per saga much like One Piece. It takes until the halfway point of the series before we finally learn the ultimate villain of the series is Demon King Ziggy, who returned to life as the Machine King and intends to ignite an apocalyptic war between humans and machines.
  • The Sakura Cosmos Saga has a Big Bad Ensemble between Drakken Joe, the kingpin of the criminal underworld, and Madam Kurenai, one of Joe's debtors who swindled him out of money. She is the Evil Overlord of Sun Jewel and the Climax Boss of the anime's first season, as she is deeply involved in Homura's character arc and is the reason behind Valkyrie Yuna's disappearance, so finding Valkyrie is both Homura's main goal and the goal of the Edens Zero crew as a whole for the first half of the series. Meanwhile, he is responsible for turning Guilst into a Wretched Hive, several Arc Villains are in his debt or otherwise involved with him in some way (like Sibir and Jamilov), his operatives are known for harassing people in his name (Jamilov on Digitalis), and his defeat sets him up as the Disc-One Final Boss for Ziggy to be revealed as the ultimate Big Bad.
  • The Aoi Cosmos Saga has Poseidon Nero, leader of the Nero Empire, and his son Shura who serves as The Heavy, directly antagonizing the heroes throughout the saga in various ways. It ends in the Aoi War Arc where Nero fights Ziggy in an Evil Versus Evil one on one duel. Both Shura and Nero end up dead by the end of the Aoi War, leaving Ziggy as the undisputed Big Bad for the rest of the series to date.
  • The Kaede Cosmos Saga, itself a buildup to another War Arc on Kaede itself, finally puts Machine King Ziggy full front and center as the main heroes' Arch-Enemy, although he does make an alliance with Acnoella.
• Elfen Lied: Director Kakuzawa runs the research facility and is responsible for all the horrific experiments the Diclonii suffer through. He plans to capture Lucy and use her to Kill All Humans then replace them with a new Diclonii race that he will rule over as a god. As such, he is essentially the living distillation of the cruelty of humans. Once he is killed, however, the Diclonius DNA voice takes over the role. She was the one manipulating Lucy and the one implied to be behind the Diclonii’s madness, and could be considered the true antagonist, especially when she nearly destroys the world.
• Eureka Seven: Dewey Novak, a disgraced military official who seizes control over the United Federation Forces in order to lead a crusade to destroy the Coralians.
• EX-ARM: Beta used EX-ARM 11 in 2020 to level large parts of Tokyo, ruining country's economy. Many terrorists have later used Japan's decaying state and other EX-ARM for their own needs, as he watches the chaos ensue.
• Fabricant 100: The Doctor's assistant, Fabricant No 1, is the one who helps other Fabricants complete their Organ Theft. Being the only one with the special surgical skills and personally knowing all others, Mortsafe believes if he's taken down, the Fabricans will be unable to hunt humans.
• While Fairy Tail has several Arc Villains, most of them get overshadowed by one or both members of the Big Bad Ensemble, who act as Greater-Scope Villains until the final arc of the series:
  • The Black Mage Zeref, the strongest and most evil mage in history. He created the Etherious, demonic entities released by the Book of Zeref, who cause trouble throughout the series, and the Dark Guilds of the series are often more than not Zeref worshipers. Not to mention he's also Natsu's long-lost brother. Interestingly, while Zeref has some connection to almost every villain in the series and is seen as the ultimate evil, he turns out to be an Anti-Villain Death Seeker himself once his motivations and Dark and Troubled Past are revealed.
  • Acnologia, The Black Dragon of the Apocalypse. Not only is he so powerful that even Zeref fears him, he jumps to the top of Natsu's shit list and becomes his Arch-Enemy by killing Igneel. He's also the Final Boss of the series, outlasting Zeref and becoming the very last enemy which Fairy Tail faces.
  • The other two Big Bad candidates, Hades and E.N.D., are ultimately revealed to be lesser threats than Zeref and Acnologia, as they are both subordinate to Zeref in some sense. Hades, who acts as the primary villain initially, is a Fallen Hero attempting to resurrect Zeref and claim his magic (not knowing he was actually alive), and turns out to be a Disc-One Final Boss after getting defeated at the end of the Tenrou Island arc. Meanwhile, E.N.D., Guild Master of the Etherious guild Tartaros, is the most powerful demon created by Zeref, and turns out to be none other than Natsu himself (i.e., Etherious Natsu Dragneel). Though E.N.D. does pose a potential threat, as it is Natsu's Superpowered Evil Side which could be released with a Book of Zeref, and Gray makes it clear he still intends to destroy the demon (not knowing that it's Natsu), he and Natsu, along with Lucy, ensure that E.N.D. remains locked away forever.
• The Familiar of Zero: King Joseph Gaul is this to the franchise. He is responsible for the murder of his younger brother and attempting to poison his niece to insanity, which was halted because of her mother's intervention. To a wider extent, Joseph is responsible for kickstarting the rise of Reconquista in the shadows by helping them and its true leader and his familiar Sheffield, making him the root cause of the conflicts in the series.
• Fang of the Sun Dougram: Donan Cassim is the prominent Earth Federation politician who controls the occupying Earth forces and wants to crush the rebellion and keep the planet a part of the Earth Federation so he can use the local resources to save Earth. However, Helmut J Lecoque, his secretary, turns out to have been manipulating him to secure power for himself all along and takes over after his death.
• Final Fantasy: Unlimited gives us Earl Tyrant, who is succeeded by Solijashy for FFU: After. A strong case could actually be made for Oscha being the true villain, as well.
• Fire Force: The Evangelist, an ancient being worshiped by the White-Clad who orchestrated the Human Combustion Pandemic the Fire Force is fighting against in an effort to set the entire world on fire and turn it into a new star.
• Fist of the North Star has Shin at the beginning, the man who engraved the seven scars on Kenshiro chest and took his woman away. However, he only lasts 10 chapters in the manga (a bit longer in the TV series) and his role as Kenshiro's greatest rival is eventually taken over by Raoh, who serves as the main antagonist for most of the manga (being supplanted only by Souther at one point). The later half of the manga has Governor Jakoh, a Dirty Coward, followed by Kaioh, Raoh's long-lost brother.
• FLCL: Haruko Haruhara, who seeks to obtain Atomsk's power in hopes of absorbing his infinite power for herself and is willing to destroy the Earth in order to get it.
• Flowering Heart has Cannabis, the Queen of Despair who's behind all of the problems the girls face.
• Fruits Basket: Whether you believe him to be truly evil or not, Shigure provokes most of the conflict in his attempt to break the curse. He pushes everybody's buttons (including Akito), fully intending for them to lash out (just not at him, if he can help it).
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • Original manga and Brotherhood: Father, a Homunculus who came from the Gate of Truth and tricked the King of Xerxes into sacrifiying his people in a bid of immortality, of which only Father and Van Hohenheim gained such immortality. He also founded Amestris through the teaching of Alchemy, and his main goal is sacrificing the entire country to open the Gate and becoming the new God of the World. Also, he is the creator of the seven Homunculi, who manipulate alchemists in order to harvest Philosopher Stones (with King Bradley acting as the dictator in order to instigate wars and expand the ratio of sacrifices and establishing the State Alchemist program to gather powerful alchemists enough to serve as suitable sacrifices).
  • Fullmetal Alchemist (2003): Dante, a 400-year old alchemist and Hohenheim's first lover with a severe case of God Complex, who aims to gather Philosopher's Stones to live forever through Body Surfing, and for this creates or recruits Homunculi (under the false promise of turning them human) to instigate conflicts, spread diseases and manipulate alchemists and other people to forge a stone.
• Future Diary: Mur Mur, who schemes behind Deus Ex Machina's back and manipulates Yuno to ensure that the survival game never ends for her own amusement.
• The Garden of Sinners has Araya Souren, who is responsible for everything before and after Ryougi Shiki, the main character, woke from her coma. Strangely enough, he is finished off in the fifth movie in a series of seven movies.
• Kazuhiro Mitogawa in Ga-Rei, virtually kick-starting the entire series as of Ga-Rei -Zero- by giving a Sesshouseki to Mei, and then to Yomi, and is also implied to have been the spirit which killed Kagura's mother. That said, he's still second to Greater-Scope Villain Lord Tamamo.
• GARO: Crimson Moon: Ashiya Douman, who is causing much of the Horror activity in order to summon Rudra.
• GeGeGe no Kitarō has a sort of a Big Bad Ensemble with Nurarihyon, who in adaptations starting from the third anime he appears in various non-consecutive episodes and in some can even get some Yokai work for him, and Backbeard, the leader of the Western Yokai, appearing most notably in several The Great Yokai War (and by extension the Western Yo-kai arc in the 2018 anime) and Yokai Rally adaptations. Uniquely, the 2018 anime adds new villain Nanashi as the most recurring threat from the very first episode until the end of the first half, as he aims to sow hatred between humans and Yokai (and among them) and he manipulated even Backbeard to instigate the Yokai War; and later Rei Isurugi appears as the Big Bad of the Four Generals of the Underworld arc, but Nurarihyon is revealed to be behind the release of the Four Generals and in the final arc, revives Backbeard to form a Big Bad Duumvirate.
• Geneshaft has a Big Bad Duumvirate: Oberus, an AI disguised as Jupiter’s moon Europa that is the source of the giant rings attacking the Bilkis ship, and Lord Sergei the 4th Sneak, the leader of the human anti-humanity terrorists and the commander of the ship using the terrorists for own benefit, are working together to annihilate humanity, seeing it as a “bug” in the universe that must be deleted.
• Genesis Survivor Gaiarth: Siegfried, an AI-controlled super-weapon that's responsible for turning the world into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. He assigns the General with bringing Sakuya to him so he can use her to restore his power and destroy the last remnants of humanity.
• Genma Wars: The Maoh King and Parome, as the despotic rulers of Earth and on the top of Genma's command, they are responsible for the lead characters' woes and suffering. Up until they are killed in Episode 9 and it's revealed they are merely puppets to a higher power - the Great Genma King, who has reincarnated into Ran's baby Dar.
• Gintama being a episodic Gag Manga with the occasional serious arc here and there, had only Arc Villains and no Big Bad for the longest time. Good candidates for the role were the Tendoshu, who have been rulling Japan since the amanto invasion, the Harusame, a massive fleet of Space Pirates, and Takasugi, who seemed to be shaping up to become the manga main vilain. Then Utsuro appeared and hijacked most of the others factions involved. He quickly turned out to be the show biggest Knight of Cerebus, strongly tied to Gintoki's past, and having a massive impact on the plot, he clearly took the Big Bad position.
• Most of Girls Bravo has Kazuharu Fukuyama as the rich, perverted antagonist who constantly cooks up schemes to sexually harass Kirie and the other girls, though he's a Harmless Villain who is rarely successful.
  • The last few episodes of the anime have him replaced as the antagonist by Yukina, Yukinari's Distaff Counterpart within the planet Seiren who kidnaps Miharu and plots to kill all the Seiren males because of her allergy to men, though Yukinari talks her out of it.
  • The last few chapters of the manga, meanwhile, have Lord Kazuha, Fukuyama's Evil Twin who runs the Space-Time Management of Seiren, is even worse than him in the lechery department, and tries to force Miharu to marry him.
• GoLion: Emperor Daibazaal, the ruler of the Planet Galra bent on conquering the great Dark Nebula. [[spoiler:That is, until he's usurped by his son, Prince Sincline.
• Guilty Crown: Shuichiro Keido, the one in command of the Anti-Bodies, the main threat to Funeral Parlor's efforts to liberate Japan, and the mastermind behind Mana's resurrection. From episode 17 onwards, a revived Tai Tsutsugami teams up with Keido in a gambit to get Shu to kill him and Mana.
• Most Gundam series have one.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: The Zabi Family as a whole counts, but it's Gihren Zabi who's the de facto ruler of the Principality of Zeon and the driving force behind Zeon's war game.
  • Zeta Gundam: Jamitov Hymem, the leader of the tyrannical, Federation-sponsored Titans at first. Paptimus Scirocco gradually supplants his authority before outright usurping him in the last five episodes and teaming up with Haman Khan of Axis Zeon against AEUG in the Final Battle.
  • Gundam ZZ: Haman Khan, the leader of Neo Zeon and the only victor of Zeta's conflict. Later on, Glemmy Toto challenges her for this status, triggering a split in the ranks.
  • Char's Counterattack: Char Aznable himself, aiming to use a Colony Drop on Earth to force humanity into space and, more importantly, finally settle the score with his old nemesis, Amuro Ray.
  • Gundam F91: Carozzo "Iron Mask" Ronah, commander of the Crossbone Vanguard and the spearhead of their war effort. He's technically working for his father-in-law Meitzer Ronah to help him establish his "Cosmo Babylonia", but it's Carozzo who's the bigger threat.
  • Victory Gundam: Prime Minister Fonse Kagatie, the source of all evil in the Zanscare Empire and the one behind nearly all of their atrocities.
  • G Gundam: The Devil Gundam itself, with the heroes trying to stop it and various other villains looking to gain control of it although Colonel Ulube Ishikawa is this insofar as setting the entire plot in motion.
  • Gundam Wing: The initial antagonist is Duke Dermail, the leader of the Romefeller Foundation who wants to control the United Earth Sphere Alliance for himself. After his exit the role is split between Treize Khushreneda, leader of OZ; and White Fang co-leaders Zechs Merquise/Miliardo Peacecraft and Quinze, who want Total Pacifism and to declare war on Earth respectively.
  • Gundam X: Fixx Bloodman, President of the New Earth Federation, and Seidel Rasso, leader of the SRA, wage war against each other for control of the world, though it turns out that Shagia and Olba Frost are manipulating them to cause war, with Shagia as the more senior of the two.
  • ∀ Gundam: Gym Ghingnham, a warmonger who plots to usurp Moonrace from Queen Dianna and destroy the Earthrace.
  • Gundam SEED: Muruta Azrael, leader of Blue Cosmos, and Chairman Patrick Zala, leader of ZAFT, both being opposing dictators on either side of a destructive race war, as well as Rau Le Creuset, who is manipulating both of them to bring about humanity's destruction.
  • Gundam SEED Destiny: Lord Djibril and Chairman Gilbert Durandal, the new respective leaders of Blue Cosmos and ZAFT, who have revived the war between them. Durandal is the one who comes out on top, while Djibril dies five episodes from the finale.
  • Gundam 00: The first season has Alejandro Corner, a scheming Observer looking to take advantage of Celestial Being to become leader of the world. The second season has Homer Katagiri, Head commander of the A-Laws who wants but to eradicate anti-Federation resistance to create peace. In both cases it turns out, Ribbons Almark, leader of the Innovades, was the true mastermind using them to rule the world himself.
  • Gundam Unicorn: Full Frontal, leader of the Neo Zeon Remnants, and Maria Vist Carbine, scheming wife of the Anaheim Electronics chairman.
  • Gundam AGE: Leader of Unknown Enemy (aka Vagan), Lord Fezarl Ezelcant.
• The Claw from GUN×SWORD is a sweet old man, with a track record of crimes agains the protagonists as long as his artificial right arm. Every single bad thing in the series ultimately traces back to him.
• Hanako and the Terror of Allegory may have a Big Bad depending on whose account of what's real/what actually happened you believe. The final antagonist Daisuke Asou and Kanae Hiranuma face claims to be Mafuyu Tachibane, Asou's supposedly dead lover. She claims it's actually Asou who's dead, and the Asou that operates as the Allegory Detective is himself an Allegory that she created through her fiction and readers' belief in it. Therefore, everything that's happened, and every previous antagonist, is due to her. Asou, however, insists that the real Mafuyu is the one who is dead, and the author-Mafuyu is another Allegory. The esoteric ending to the series makes it hard to tell who's right and who's wrong, or whether both or neither are.
• Haruhi Suzumiya does not really have an overall main antagonist, but does have several Arc Villains:
  • The first two novels (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya) and two of the earlier short stories ("The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya" and "Endless Eight") have the titular character herself as the villain. However, Haruhi is neither evil (though she is quite the Jerkass before her transformation into a Jerk with a Heart of Gold) nor even aware of what she's doing. She's an extremely powerful Reality Warper, but is completely clueless to this fact. This makes her emotions and overactive imagination matters of existential importance, with the SOS Brigade focused on keeping her content and grounded in reality. Otherwise, she might do something like unconsciously use her power to destroy the world or force everyone to repeat the same two weeks 15,498 times.
  • The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, the fourth novel, ultimately has Yuki Nagato as the one responsible for stealing Haruhi's power and the disruption of spacetime. Another excellent example of a non-evil main antagonist, the poor girl just wanted a world where she could live as a normal human being, and one where she wouldn't spend 596 years in a Time Loop and, unlike everyone else, be conscious of all of it.
  • In the short story "Snow Mountain Syndrome," the antagonist is the Sky Canopy Dominion, a gestalt of data entities similar to, and later the Arch-Enemy of, the Data Overmind, which Yuki is part of. It traps the SOS Brigade in a Pocket Dimension because it's intensely curious about Yuki and wishes to learn more of the Data Overmind through her.
  • Within Dissociation and both volumes of Surprise, the Anti-SOS Brigade, a faction believing Haruhi was not meant to be the true recipient of her God-like powers, fulfills this role, seeking to make Sasaki, Kyon's childhood friend with a potential similar to Haruhi, the Reality Warper instead. It is composed of Fujiwara, a time traveler and thus Mikuru Asahina's Evil Counterpart; Kuyou Suou, a humanoid interface of the above-mentioned Sky Canopy Dominion; and Kyouko Tachibana, an esper from a rival group to Itsuki Koizumi's Agency. Fujiwara's goal to is to use Sasaki to restore a timeline in which he and Mikuru are siblings, Kuyou's motive is inscrutable, and Kyouko believes Sasaki will be a more stable, and thus safer, holder of Haruhi's power. Fujiwara and Kuyou are the most dangerous of the three, with Fujiwara, aided by Kuyou, ultimately resorting to violence to achieve his ends.
• Hayate the Combat Butler: While they don't show up very often due to the manga being a mix of Slice of Life, Romantic Comedy, Slapstick, and several other genres, there are some.
  • The first Big Bad is King Midas, a powerful spirit who stole the power of the goddess Oruzumuto Nadja and created the Royal Power, the Royal Garden, and the King's Jewels. In "End of the World," he tries to keep Athena Tennos, Hayate Ayasaki's First Love, trapped in the Royal Garden. In the Mykonos arc, he is attempting to return to the Royal Garden. To this end, he manipulates and possesses Athena in order to claim Hayate's King's Jewel. He's ultimately destroyed by Hayate, setting the stage for the next Big Bads.
  • After Midas' death, there's a Big Bad Ensemble. On one end is Hisui Hatsushiba, Nagi Sanzen'in's chief and most dangerous rival for the Sanzen'in inheritance. Completely amoral and utterly ruthless in the pursuit of her goals, Mikado Sanzen'in fears that she would be a threat to the world if she got her hands on the Sanzen'in wealth, and all the political and economic power that went with it. It goes from bad to worse when Hisui learns of the Royal Power, stashed in the Royal Garden along with the MacGuffin needed to claim the Sanzen'in inheritance. The other two are Hayate's parents, who, trying to find some means of leveraging Hayate's connection to Nagi into a payoff, trick him into revealing to Nagi that his Love Confession to her was a miscommunication, prompting her to flee to the Royal Garden where she uses the Royal Power to trap herself in an illusion.
• Hekikai no AiON: Ariel, the eldest of the seven mermaid sisters, who periodically destroy major cities (usually by tsunami) to collect humans' psyche.
• Hellsing
  • Manga and OVA series: The Major, a Nazi cyborg who employs humans and vampires to start war after war just for shits and giggles.
  • ''2001 anime: Incognito, a vampire overseeing the creation of the FREAK Chip, which he uses to transform people into ravenous, impure vampires to fight Hellsing.
• High School D×D
  • Volume 1 has Raynare, a fallen angel who murders Issei and Asia.
  • Volume 4 has Katerea Leviathan, a member of the Old Satan Faction who attacks the club at the peace conference.
  • Volume 6 has Diodora Astaroth, the strange heir of the Astaroth clan who's obsessed with Asia and has been coordinating an Evil Plan to kidnap her since the very beginning, with Shalba Beelzebub acting as the Greater-Scope Villain.
• Higanjima franchise has Miyabi.
• The Hunters Guild: Red Hood: Ludwig Geppetto, an ex-Hunter with potent magical abilities who's also Velou's father figure Mayor Horlock, the apparent death of whom being part of what galvanizes Velou to try to join the Hunters Guild. Velou is in fact a creation of Geppetto whose very existence undermines the conventions and tropes built into the world, and Geppetto's goal is to get Velou in proximity to the True Book, which the Hunters Guild uses to write the story of their world, so that Velou can destroy the book and thus the world. His motive for this his disgust with the evil and tragedies the Guild introduce into the world, which they do in order to entertain the Readers, gods who would otherwise reboot the world if it isn't suitably engrossing.
• Hyouka: Fuyumi Irisu "The Empress" is the closest character this show has to one as main antagonist. She manipulated Oreki during the mystery of the unfinished film, after all.
• Hyper Police anime: Police superintendent Tokijiro Murota, who intends on removing monsters from the human world by any means necessary.
• Ibitsu:
  • Main story: The Strange Lolita is a mysterious girl in a Lolita dress who spends the story tormenting Kazuki and killing everyone he loves to force him to be her big brother.
  • The Corridor of Dolls: The titular dolls haunt the building where the main characters go and trap them inside to take their skin.
  • The Mysterious Tale of the Editor: The titular editor, Rukina Midorikawa, forces mangaka Susumo Sano to write her story the way she wants it and abuses him when he refuses, eventually kidnapping him.
• In ICE, Lady Kisaragi and Commander Julia are the leaders of the post-Gendercide dystopian Lady Land, and both are fighting each other to accomplish their opposite agendas. Kisaragi believes that humanity as a whole should accept their fate of death, and wants to use a Lost Superweapon to kill the remaining humans, while Julia wants to save humanity by inventing a method of artificial reproduction, but is willing to kill anyone who stands in her way.
• Ichi the Killer: Masao Kakihara, the leader of the Yakuza that Ichi and Jijii are trying to take down.
• ID: Invaded: John Walker, actually Takuhiko Hayaseura, the leader of Kura turning people into serial killers.
• In Another World with My Smartphone has a zigzagged case. The first few volumes start off with a Big Bad Ensemble between the traitorous Dominant-Class Phrase Yula and the traitorous Servile God, who went to a Villain Team-Up to destroy the world via the Phrase invasion the former started after deposing Melle. However, Yula betrays the Servile God by letting the Wicked God to consume him, causing the Servile God to be fused into the Wicked God, making the Wicked God the actual part of the ensemble and not the Servile God on its own. However, after the deaths of both Yula and the Wicked God, the Wicked Devout's five Generals and Wicked God's lieutenants Indigo, Scarlet, Hazel, Tangerine and Orchid are part of the Big Bad Duumvirate and are now the main antagonists at the start of Volume 24, who are revealed to have been planning to complete their master's Evil Plan after his demise.
• Ingoshima has Gamou Ingo the head of the Ingo Clan.
• Inugami: Kiryu,a mysterious monk figure with lots of connections who seems to be suspiciously familiar with the Inugami phenomenon.
• In Inuyasha, Naraku was behind almost everything that happened in the story from generational family curses to destroying an entire clan of youkai-slayers, to destroying tribes of youkai to pissing off technically neutral youkai, destroying the lives of the titular hero and his first love, and even being behind the heroine travelling through time. He's behind most of the major destruction of towns, villages, noble clans and even the destruction of entire sacred mountains. There's almost nothing he hasn't been responsible for... including the near-success of the true plan of the Artifact of Doom.
• Sekidousai in Inukami!, whose inventions form the basis of early plots and those Evil Plan drives the second half of the show.
• Jackals: Don Salieri and Lee Mei-Lang are the respective leaders of the dueling Gabriella and Tennouren gangs fighting for control of Cicero city. It eventually turns out that Vampire Franco Odman has been Playing Both Sides as part of his own plan to take over their gangs and the city and he winds up being the final opponent- though Lee is the one who wins the war.
• Jagaaaaaan:Chiharu Matsuyamachi has been responsible for lots of bad situations happening in the manga and a real pain in the ass to Jagasaki, The Hero. However The title ends up going to Nomans Nomen, after he manages to unlock an Enlightenment Superpower and begins plans to kill the entire human race with utter bliss.
• Jewelpet:
  • Jewelpet (2009): Dian. He takes over from Diana, who was always acting on his behalf, midway through the show. Aims to prove the supremacy of Jewelpets by stealing the Jewel Stick from the heroine and turning all humans into stone. Uses his powers to control Jewelpets to accomplish his goals and devises schemes to ruin the heroes' lives, which are usually carried out by his underlings, though he does it himself when it comes to the main heroine specifically.
  • Jewelpet Twinkle☆: Alma Jinnai. Wants to kill Big Good Jewelina out of revenge and stops at nothing to accomplish it. Gets herself possessed by Dark Magic and nearly destroys Jewel Land.
  • Jewelpet Kira☆Deco!: the Dark General, leader of the Decoranain, who aim to cover Earth and Jewel Land in eternal darkness.
  • Jewelpet Happiness: the Red Moon, which wants to contaminate everyone with Unhappiness out of spite, and possesses many people to further its plans.
  • Lady Jewelpet: Joker. It's trying to undermine the Lady system, and, through it, bring chaos to Jewel Land. Is the cause of Luea's troubles and the creator of Lillian.
• Jinmen: The Pig Director leader of the Jinmen.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Dio Brando serves as this for Phantom Blood and Stardust Crusaders, and his influence on later Parts of the story arguably make him the main antagonist of the entire series.
  • Kars serves as this for Battle Tendency, being the leader of the Pillar Men (who created the mask that helped Dio turn into a vampire in the first place) whose goal to become the Ultimate Being drives the plot of the Part.
  • Diamond is Unbreakable is a strange case, as due to the way the plot is structured, there are arguably two Big Bads, one for each half of the Part:
    • For the first half, Keicho Nijimura serves as this, as despite dying rather early on, it's his actions that result in most of the Stand Users the heroes face throughout the first half. In the first of the live-action film adaptations of the Part, he serves as this by default, as the film ends at his arc.
    • For the second half, Yoshikage Kira serves as this, as despite having nothing to do with the events of the Part's first half, he serves as the primary threat of the Part and it's the heroes goal to catch him that drives the plot. Because of this, he's often seen as the overall Big Bad of the entire Part.
  • The boss of Passione, aka Diavolo, serves as this for Golden Wind, as it's his encouragement of the mafia's drug trade that drives Giorno to take action against him, and his attempted filicide of his daughter Trish turns the rest of Bucciarati's gang against him as well. He was also the one who found and sold the Stand arrows around the world retroactively making him responsible for giving DIO and other antagonists their Stands.
  • Enrico Pucci serves as this for Stone Ocean, being the cause behind the plot's events, as well as the primary threat faced throughout. He wants to fulfill DIO's legacy of "reaching Heaven" by resetting the entire universe and ensuring that the Joestar bloodline is erased from existence.
  • Funny Valentine serves as this for Steel Ball Run, as while he's more sympathetic and well-intentioned in his goals, he's still the cause behind most of the bad things that happen in the Part.
  • While who the Big Bad of JoJolion would be is a mystery for most of its run, it becomes clear within the climax that Tooru is the one taking this role, being the true User of Wonder of U and the leader of the Rock Humans, making him responsible for nearly all of the bad things to happen throughout the Part.
• Juujika no Rokunin: Kyou Shigoku, the ringleader of the Gang of Bullies responsible for Uruma's relentless torment and murdering his parents, leading him to seek vengeance against them.
• Jujutsu Kaisen: Suguru Geto ...or rather an impostor Curse User named Kenjaku, who used his Cursed Technique to transplant his brain into the body of the real Suguru Geto, who died during the events of Volume 0. He's been body surfing around for some time now; one of his previous bodies was the evil Sorcerer Noritoshi Kamo, responsible for the creation of the Death Paintings about 150 years ago, but going by the Sorcerers he has gathered up as Cursed Objects, it's been at least a thousand and some years. Joining forces with the Disaster Curses at the beginning of the story, he uses them to accelerate his plan of bringing out humanity's potential in using cursed energy and ushering in a new era of jujutsu sorcery through arranging a twisted Culling Game.
• Kagerou-Nostalgia has Lord Gessho Kuki, Shadow, who is responsible for every horrific thing to occur in series. May actually be the host of an even Greater-Scope Villain to boot.
• Kaiji: Kazutaka Hyo(u)do(u), the CEO of Teiai corporation behind the cruel games that Kaiji and the other debtors are forced to play.
• Karas: Eko Hoshunin, the former Karas of Shenjuki, aims to Kill All Humans and remake the world in his own image.
• Karin: While the bulk of the manga deals with Karin Maaka's relationship with Kenta Usui and her family, and the strain her unique vampire nature has on them (she's a vampire that produces and injects blood into others), the latter half of the manga reveals that the vampire Glark has a sinister interest in Karin. He's working for Cecilia Brownlick, scion of the powerful Brownlick vampire clan. Karin is actually the Psyche, a host for the spirit Sophia Pistis, whose blood is capable of turning vampires, most of whom are sterile, fertile. Cecilia's goal is to hold Karin captive for the rest of her life, providing her blood to the Brownlicks until her sanguinary ability eventually killed her. Even more twisted, she intends to have Karin impregnated to ensure the bloodline of the Psyche will continue after her death.
• Kemono Friends: The Black Cerulean is the leader of the Ceruleans, and its mere existence, invulnerability and threat is the reason Japari Park is abandoned, decaying and complete ruin.
• Kemurikusa has The Red Tree, a massive, sentient Kemurikusa that has been poisoning the world with its fog, creating mechanical monsters and using all of the water, leaving the main group with nowhere to live safely as long as it's standing.
• Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple: Saiga Furunji is the eponymous One Shadow in the Yami organization's One Shadow Nine Fists group — essentially, the strongest martial artist in the organization — who is also the son of the series' Big Good, Hayato Furinji, and the Disappeared Dad to Hayato's granddaughter Miu. However, it seems Saiga may be a complicated case of this, as he's been shown to still be a Martial Pacifist despite being the leader of a group that advocates murderous martial arts.
• Kichikujima: Yoshikazu the patriarch of the crazy family on an island.
• Kill la Kill: Satsuki Kiryuin, the Student Council President, runs Honnouji Academy as a dictatorship and is The Rival to Ryuko Matoi, and is apparently involved in the murder of Ryuko's father, Isshin. Then it turns out that Ragyo Kiryuin, Satsuki's mother, is the true villain; not only did she order Nui to kill Isshin/Souichirou, but Satsuki has actually been preparing Ryuko, her sister, to help her defeat Ragyo and the Life Fibers.
• King O Thorn: Zeus, the security chief for Venus Gate's labs who's responsible for using Shizuku's Medusa to create an army of monsters to terrorize not just the survivors, but also the entire world.
• Kinnikuman has had, in terms of Big Bads that were actually dangerous, Robin Mask for the 20th Choujin Olympics arc, Warsman for the 21st Choujin Olympics arc, Buffaloman for the Devil Choujin arc, Akuma Shogun for the Golden Mask arc, the tag-team of Neptuneman and Big the Budo for the Golden Mask arc, and lastly Kinnikuman Super Phoenix for the Throne arc.
• Kirby: Right Back at Ya!: Nightmare (eNeMeE in the 4Kids dub). Unlike his appearance in Kirby's Adventure, where he was a Sealed Evil in a Can whose existence causes King Dedede to destroy the Star Rod, here he is a Galactic Conqueror who runs a Monster-delivering firm, consequently serving as a significantly more influential and widely-known threat than his debut game.
• Kite (1998): Akai, who kidnaps numerous young girls and brainwashes them to serve as his personal assassins/sex slaves, with Sawa attempting to escape from him.
• Knights: The Crown Prince, who's responsible for the witch hunts ravaging the countryside in an effort to empower the Relics so he may expand his kingdom through bloody war.
• Kodoku Experiment: Camilla Baruges. She kicks off the plot by abandoning Cannon and his platoon to die on Deronga Five Alpha, then lures the Deronga virus onto the Space Force ships to have them kill people as a twisted experiment.
• Kukulcan: The Greatest Strategy: The Tezcatlipoca, an extremely-advanced sapient airship, the product of the advanced civilization within the El Soral, aka the Sphere. It went rogue, attacking its brother ship Quetzalcoatl and stranding the El Soral on Earth. It seeks to destroy the El Soral and the Quetzalcoatl and claim the former's power source entirely for itself, creating a skeletal army and giant monstrous avatars of itself that pose a threat not only to its makers and brother, but to the Kingdom that happens to be on the edge of the Sphere's landfall.
• Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne: Lord Villagulio De Metrio Lu, brother of Muginami (adopted) and leader of the enemy organization Kiss that rules the planet De Metrio and rebels against the Jersey Club heroines, the Novumundos agency, and the Polyhedron Federation. In Season 1, his goal is to steal all the Vox Units and destroy the Polyhedron planet of Le Garite, but only because he believes the Vox Units can destroy the world, and the two planets are on a crash course with each other- he would really rather not destroy any planets. As of Season 2, he fights against and eventually gets overshadowed by King Dizelmine Fin E Ld Si, Princess Lan’s brother and Polyhedron’s leader who wants to destroy the other planet. Both of them are in turn pawns of Balance T. Moid, Lan’s Mad Scientist Treahcerous Advisor who wants to open the Rin-ne and admire its beauty, even if he causes the apocalypse in the process.
• Last Exile: Maestro Delphine Eraclea is the leader of the Guild who oppresses her people and seeks to capture Alvis to use her to activate the titular Last Exile and gain even more power.
• Last Exile: Fam, the Silver Wing: Premier Luscinia Hāfez controlss the Ades Federation and leads the invasion of the Kingdom of Turan and other nations to achieve world peace.
• Last Hope (2018): Mr. Gold, the one orchestrating the B.R.A.I. attacks on Neo Xianglong out of resentment towards Mayor Cecil Sue and a desire to destroy everything she loves. [[spoiler:After he's killed in episode 15, Sieg takes over as the villain, whose been manipulating Mr. Gold into aiding him in resurrecting the source of the B.R.A.I., Chaos.
• Legend of Himiko: Lord Shikara, governor-general and son of the king of Kune, is the one leading the invasion of Yamatai.
• Liar Game: Artlier is the Chief Executive of the Liar Game Tournament Office and the mysterious man running the titular Liar Game, where people are forced to compete in various challenges risking their entire livelihood. Though it is revealed in the ending that he was actually trying to provoke rebellion against the corrupt government.
• Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Archbishop de Villiers is the de-facto leader of the Terraist Church, the secret masters of Fezzan, and desires both the Alliance and the Empire to be gone entirely, masterminding the war between them and going behind even his own master's back to do so. Almost every opposition Yang and Reinhard face, including each other, is either directly sponsored by the church and their associates, or ended up where they are by the church's design, and he solidifies himself as this when the Grand Bishop dies and he fully takes over via a Puppet King.
• Lord of Lords: Ryu Knight: Emperor Helldragon, the leader of the Helldragon tribe who wants to takeover Earth Tear.
• Lost Song: General Bazra and Prince Lood, who both want to use the power of songs to bring destruction to the battlefield. After Lood is killed in the first timeline (and comes back as a good prince in the second), Bazra take over as the lone Big Bad for the rest of the story.
• Love Hina Again and its corresponding manga chapters have Kanako Urashima, Keitaro's sister who wants to take him away from the other girls, and becomes Naru's love rival as she usurps control of the Hinata Inn to punish them. Kanako does make a Heel–Face Turn and let Keitaro go in the end. The series otherwise lacks a Big Bad aside from a few one-shot threats.
• Lovesickness: The mysterious boy at the crossroads, whose pieces of advice have compulsive and devastating effects on the girls who hear them.
• A rare work where the "villain behind everything" isn't even a character is Lupin III: Dead or Alive. The Nanomachines are the ultimate source of conflict, providing an initial challenge, and defeating the Protagonists several times early on. The main plot for Lupin's gang is to discover the secrets of Drifting Island, which is protected by the nanomachines. Even General Headhunter is subordinate to the nanomachines, because he is a robot constructed by them.
• Lychee Light Club: Zera, the leader of the Hikari club who has Litchi kidnap teenage girls for them to hold captive before gradually turning on his followers out of paranoia.
• Macross Frontier: The Vajra Queen leads the Vajra who seek to assimilate humanity into their Hive Mind, and turns out to be Grace O'Connor, Sheryl Nome's seemingly kind manager.
• Madlax: Friday Monday, the head of the Enfant organization who attempts to brainwash all of humanity into plunging the entire world into war.
• Magical Girl Apocalypse: Wataru Himeji is the one who caused the apocalypse in the first place, hoping to use it as part of a bid to absorb ultimate power and rule unquestioned. That is, until Makabe kills Himeji and hijacks his plan for godhood in the final arc.
• Maid-Sama!: Gerald Walker, Takumi Usui's half-brother and heir to the Walker family. He's not evil, but his goals threaten to derail Takumi and Misaki Ayuzawa's potential Happy Ending and his actions are the chief source of conflict in the latter half of a manga that only had the occasional Jerkass Arc "Villain" until him. Suffering from the same ill health that took his and Takumi's mother, his machinations revolve around grooming his brother into the new Walker heir, with the lower-class Misaki being unsuitable for a scion of one of Britain's wealthiest aristocratic families.
• Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro: Sicks (Jody Tubulik), who plans to wipe out most of humanity to make way for the New Bloodline.
• Manyu Hikencho has Munenori Manyuu, Chifusa's Archnemesis Dad and leader of the Manyuu clan who enforces the oppressive Buxom Beauty Standard. He's also one of the, if not the, most serious character in the show. He's also Orcus on His Throne, since he never takes the matter of Chifusa's escape in his own hands.
• MÄR: Phantom, the strongest of the Knights who leads the Chess Pieces and wants to destroy all of MAR heaven. However, he himself is working for The Queen/Diana and The King/Caldean Orb, a former citizen of Caldia and the swirling mass of all of Earth's evil energy that formed a consciousness, respectively. It's behind the entire plot, manipulating everyone.
• Master of Martial Hearts: The Leader of Platonic Heart who is organizing the tournament, in which women are forced to fight each other to be able to Make a Wish on the Platonic Heart. It seemingly is the fake Haruki, but is actually his boss, Kumi Honma, who has been turning the losers into mindless Sex Slaves and wants Revenge by Proxy on Aya's mother for turning her into one, and pressued her children (Nastume and Haruki) and Miko Kazuki into becoming her Co-Dragons to manipulate Aya.
• Mayo Chiki!: Negare Konoe, Subaru Konoe's father. He's far from evil, and he loves his daughter very much, but he is the main antagonist of the story and the one responsible for the bind Subaru finds herself in. Disapproving of her desire to be Kanade Suzutsuki's butler, he issued the ultimatum that Subaru must pose as a boy throughout all of high school without being discovered if she wants the position of Kanade's butler permanently. He's also adamantly against Kinjirō Sakamachi's courting of his daughter, and poses the biggest and final obstacle in their relationship.
• Michiko & Hatchin: Satoshi Batista is the former friend of Hiroshi who took over his crime syndicate, Monstro Preto, after he left. Although the plot is driven by the titular heroines’ struggle to find Hiroshi, Satoshi is the leader of Monstro Preto, the biggest gang that opposes them. His obsession with killing Michiko (as he blames her for Hiroshi leaving), combined with his vast connections, establishes him as their biggest obstacle. It becomes a Big Bad Ensemble when his right-hand man, Shinsuke Saci Rodriguez, betrays him and takes control of the gang, but Satoshi comes out on top.
• Midori Days: Dr. Shiro Makinoha often tries to kidnap the protagonist so he can research his hand-girlfriend and become famous in the scientific community.
• Mnemosyne: Apos is a mysterious angel who leads the Always Male angels, enemy of the Always Female immortals, and is the Arch-Enemy of Rin. He himself is actually a cross between angel and immortal. He manipulates the other villains Rin fights and seeks to secure a permanent position as guardian of Yggdrasil, then turn all men and women into angels and immortals to spark worldwide war, purely For the Evulz.
• Monster Rancher: Moo, an ancient evil searching for his body so he may continue his efforts to conquer the world.
• Muhyo and Roji: Teeki, the head of Ark who seeks to bring down the MLA, while becoming all powerful in the process.
• My Hero Academia initially had a Big Bad Duumvirate in the form of All For One and Tomura Shigaraki. Shigaraki leads the League of Villains from the outside, while All For One monitors him from the shadows, until he fully appears when the League of Villains’ base was found by the heroes. Once he is defeated by All Might and incarcerated, Shigaraki becomes the sole Big Bad until All For One hijacks his body at the end of the Paranormal Liberation War arc, which then becomes a Subverted Trope once Shigaraki manages to counteract this possession and prove himself the bigger threat.
• My-HiME:
  • My-HiME anime: Nagi Homura is the acting leader of District 1/the First District who creates the Orphans that the HiMEs must fight and seeks to awaken his master, the enigmatic Obsidian Lord/Prince. Then Alyssa Searrs takes the role by leading the Searrs Foundation attack to capture the HiMEs. After her defeat, the Obsidian Lord/Prince, aka the HiME Star, awakens and takes direct control, possessing Reito Kanzaki, forcing the girls into the HiME Carnival/Festival, and attempting to Kill All Humans via Colony Drop.
  • My-HiME manga: As in the anime, Nagi Homura is the creator of the Orphans that the HiMEs must fight and seeks to awaken his master, the enigmatic Obsidian Lord/Prince. Then Saeko Kuga takes the role by leading the Searrs Foundation attack to capture the HiMEs. After her defeat, the Obsidian Lord/Prince, aka the HiME Star, awakens and takes direct control, possessing Takumi Tokiha and attempting to Kill All Humans via Colony Drop.
  • My-Otome anime continuity:
    • In the original anime, Grand Duke Nagi Dai Artài, ruler of the Artài Principality, is the mastermind behind the Schwarz, using them in his quest to conquer the Kingdom of Windbloom, destroy the Otome system, and Take Over the World.
    • My-Otome Zwei: Yuna is the ancient super-weapon from long ago that threatens to destroy the world.
    • My-Otome 0~S.ifr~: The original John Smith is the leader of the Schwarz who seeks to capture the titular Sfir, as he plans to use her to power a super-weapon that will spark world war.
  • My-Otome manga continuity:
    • In the original manga, as in the anime, Grand Duke Nagi Dai Artài, ruler of the Artai Principality, is the mastermind behind the Schwarz, using them in his quest to conquer the Kingdom of Windbloom, destroy the Otome system, and Take Over the World. But unlike the anime, here he is revealed to be an Unwitting Pawn of the real Mashiro, who aims to control the world herself as queen. Then Sergey Auguste Taiki, the Prime Minister of Windbloom, reveals that he was manipulating both of them as part of his own plan to destroy the world.
    • Mai-Otome Arashi: The titular Arashi Dai Artài, Nagi's brother, aims to avenge him by taking over Garderoube Academy. It turns out he's a she, and, like Nagi, a pawn of her own subordinates, the jewel-thieving Cosmo Beauties who seek a rare jewel from Garderoube.
• Nabari no Ou: The Mysterious Cloaked Guy (Inasa/Fuuma Kotarou), who's been manipulating everyone in order to obtain the Shinrabanshou and become God.
• Naruto:
  • Part I: Orochimaru is the Big Bad. He targets Sasuke Uchiha with the intent of making him his new host body and brands him with a Cursed Seal, orchestrates the invasion of Konohagakure, is responsible for the death of the Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi, is revealed to have killed the Fourth Kazekage Rasa, fights Tsunade and Jiraiya in an attempt to coerce the former to heal is sealed arms, and tempts Sasuke into abandoning Konoha to learn under him in one of the biggest Wham Episodes of the series.
  • Part II: The Akatsuki, under the leadership of Pain, were initially presented as the main villains of the second half, until it was revealed that one of them, Tobi, aka Obito Uchiha manipulated them to further achieve his Eye of the Moon Plan, which will trap everyone in their own perfect illusionary world. During the Fourth Shinobi World War, it appears to be a weird mix of Big Bad Duumvirate and Big Bad Ensemble between Obito, and his ancestor Madara Uchiha, one of the two founders of the Hidden Leaf Village and the one who came up with the Eye of the Moon Plan. Obito is carrying out his ancestors plan, and Madara, who is resurrected contrary to Obito's wishes, and works/competes with Obito to carry out the plan. But Obito has a Heel–Face Turn after being defeated and Madara gets backstabbed by his seemingly loyal minion Black Zetsu, who reveals himself to be the will of Kaguya Otsutsuki. Madara's entire plan was based off a lie crafted by Black Zetsu, and the Eye of the Moon Plan was the culmination of the latter's centuries-long scheme to unseal Kaguya. Black Zetsu then revives Kaguya, whose goal is to devour the world's chakra and convert the population into White Zetsus, thus making her the Big Bad for the rest of the final arc. Once Kaguya is finally defeated, Sasuke Uchiha becomes a Post-Final Boss who desires to end all the wars by redirecting everyone into fighting only him.
  • The Canon movies, The Last and Boruto, have two final villains for Naruto to help defeat before passing on the torch; Toneri Otsutsuki, a descendent of the before-mentioned Kaguya, and Momoshiki Otsutsuki, whom even Kaguya feared, (likely before she ate the Chakra Fruit and her entire Evil Plan was so she could gain enough power to fight him off).
• Natsuki Crisis: Chairman Kyotaro Himuro is the man who basically runs the rival high school, Jotoh Academy, and seeks to destroy Goujou High, which the titular Natsuki has sworn to protect.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi has Fate Averruncus’s boss Dynamis, leader of Cosmo Entelecheia. The plan he's trying to carry out, to trap each inhabitant of Mundus Magicus in their own personal paradise to save them from the world's inevitable collapse, is actually that of the Mage of the Beginning's (aka the Lifemaker), Cosmo Entelecheia's founder and Mundus Magicus' creator. When the Mage of the Beginning is unsealed, he/she resumes his/her past position of Big Bad and is the Final Boss.
  • He or rather, she is the Big Bad of the sequel, UQ Holder!, as well. Taking place in an Alternate Timeline where the Golden Ending to Negima did not occur, the Mage of the Beginning is still scheming to bring about her lotus-eater utopia, and this time she's using former protagonist Negi Springfield as her host. More backstory is revealed about her, such as her name (Ialda Baoth), confirmation that the killer of her previous host body becomes the new host, and what drives her, namely her ability Infinite Empathy that forces her to experience the pain and suffering of all humanity, past and present. It drove her mad, and it inevitably drives her host mad as well.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion has a Big Bad Ensemble. The Angels are inscrutable monstrous creatures that, if left unchecked, will bring about Third Impact, wiping out every human on Earth; they in turn are opposed by Gendo Ikari, Shinji’s uncaring father and head of NERV, who's scheming against his superiors to usurp the power of Adam and Lilith (the genetic ancestors of the Angels and humanity respectively) to reunite with his beloved wife Yui; and Keel Lorenz, the head of the mysterious SEELE organization, and its even more exclusive inner circle, the Human Instrumentality Committee, which is the leading force behind the strings being pulled within the United Nations and NERV. Keel is also later revealed to have had a direct hand in Second Impact. His end goal is to trigger his own version of Third Impact and force humanity, which he views as at a dead end, into the next stage of its evolution: godhood, which in this case means collapsing mankind, body and mind, into a collective gestalt merged with Lilith.
  • Keel Lorenz also serves as the Big Bad (in the guise of SEELE 01) for Neon Genesis Evangelion: The Shinji Ikari Raising Project, leading SEELE in its efforts to thwart the Artificial Evolution Lab's project to make Evas.
• Noir: Mistress Altena, leader of a faction within Les Soldats who sends various hired killers after them in order to bring about the Grand Retour; that is, to train them so she can use them to cleanse the organization of corruption.
• In NORA: The Last Chronicle of Devildom, Kneel is originally the Big Bad until Fall shows up, officially taking the role soon after Knell becomes The Starscream. With Knell driving Nora to achieve his full strength by becoming a "true" Cerberus and destroying everything, he can be considered the Greater-Scope Villain. That is, until the final chapter, where Knell shows up stronger than ever, nearly goes Omnicidal Maniac on all of creation, and officially replaces Fall as the Big Bad until he is consumed by the Cereberus Vortex.
• Not Lives: Max and Pax Mattelite seem like this at first blush, but they're ultimately participants in Not Alive like everyone else, albeit more ambitious and dangerous than most. The true Big Bad is the GM. An otherworldly reality-warping being who created and runs the game, it's ultimately the cause or at least the enabler of all the strife and suffering in the story. Even worse, the current iteration of Not Alive is a closed beta, and the GM intends to release the full version of the game to the entire world, promising untold bloodshed and chaos.
• Now and Then, Here and There: King Hamdo, the tyrannical ruler of Hellywood who instigates war against villages in order to take their resources (both inanimate and human), which puts the world in a desperate state of conflict.
• Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan initially has Hagoromo Gitsune, who killed Rikuo's father and plotted to take over Kyoto by crushing the Keikain family; her child Nue, aka Abe no Seimei, supplants her and drops her into hell upon his rebirth. Seimei also had a hand in most of the series' conflicts by having the Yo-kai created from Sanmoto Gorozaemon's body infiltrate the Shikkoku and Kyoto Yo-kai and even the Nura clan in order to facilitate his resurection.
• Occult Academy: Mikaze Nakagawa, a black mage responsible for the regular monster attacks who desires to open a gate to Hell and destroy the world.
• Omamori Himari: Tamamo-no-Mae, the Fair-faced Nine-tailed Fox. Reduced to a fragment of herself after being slain hundreds of years ago, she seeks to regain her full powers by devouring other ayakashi. She wants Himari Noihara, a particularly powerful ayakashi, as her main course and attempts to goad Himari into using her demonic powers to make her especially "filling."
• One Piece follows the Arc Villain example to the very bone. It’s taken quite a while on who'll end up as the Big Bad of the entire series, but ultimately, the main contenders for the series as a whole are Blackbeard (Luffy's Evil Counterpart), Akainu (the World Government's primary General Ripper), and Imu (the World Government's Shadow Dictator).
  • One Piece Film: Strong World: Shiki the Golden Lion, a pirate from the times of Roger and Whitebeard who aimed to conquer East Blue (and eventually, overthrow the World Government) with an army of superpowered fauna.
  • One Piece Film: Z: Zephyr "Black Arm", aka Z, leader of the Neo-Marines and a former Marine Admiral who aims to end the New Era by detonating Dyna Stones in the Endpoint islands, regardless if civilians are killed in the process.
  • One Piece Film: Gold: Gild Tesoro, the owner of Gran Tesoro and a former slave to the Celestial Dragons, who made a practice of sinking those who visit his island in debt and force them to work for him to pay off — ironically being no different than a Celestial Dragon.
  • One Piece Stampede: A Big Bad Duumvirate with Douglas Bullet and Buena Festa, with Bullet (a former crewmate of Roger) specifically wanting to become Pirate King by luring several of the most powerful people in the world to the Pirates Festival and kill them.
• Ōkami-san: Shiro Hitsujikai is the Student Council President of Onigashima High School, where his personal army of delinquents attend, and they're responsible for all the danger in the plot as they try to sabotage the good deeds of Otogi Bank. Shiro himself is the Arch-Enemy of Ryoko Okami, his ex-girlfriend whom he raped in the past.
• Outlaw Star: Lord Hazanko, who leads the Kei Pirates who harass and attack our protagonists right from the beginning, as well as commands the Anten Seven.
• Pacific Rim: The Black:
  • Season 1: The biggest antagonist is the Kaiju Copperhead, who destroys Taylor and Hayley's home and proceeds to stalk them throughout the season. There's also a secondary antagonist in the form of Shane, the leader of Bogan, a band of scavengers and mercenaries who stalk the Outback to trade in Jaeger and Kaiju parts, and who come into conflict with the siblings as Shane tries to take Atlas Destroyer from them.
  • Season 2: The High Priestess of the Sisters. She spends the entire season trying get ahold of the Boy so she can brainwash and transform him into the Kaiju Messiah, in order to finish ending the world.
• Parasyte: Mayor Takeshi Hirokawa leads the parasite organization. He uses his position as mayor to create feeding zones for the parasites and increase support for them. His plan and position of power are the cause of all the problems Shinichi and Migi face. When he’s killed, Gotou takes over for him.
• Patema Inverted: Izamura is the leader of the Aiga society, with maniacal drive to root out "sinners", all while abusing his power in every single step.
• Plastic Little: In the original OVA, Guizel is the armored commander of a rouge military faction that aims to conquer Ietta, and he seeks to capture Elysse to activate his gravity weapons, putting him against Tita and her crew who want to protect her. The manga is more episodic and has No Antagonist.
• Princess Candle: Lord Swey, a noble who kidnaps Princess Skw'ah to make her marry him so he can become king, with the heroine Flora seeking to rescue her from him.
• Princess Tutu: The Raven, a demon who devours people's hearts and intends on making the prince his next victim. However, it's D. D. Drosselmeyer actually pulling the strings, being the one responsible for all of the trouble that goes on in the story, including the Raven, all in an effort to make his story interesting.
• Psycho-Pass: The series as a whole has the tyrannical rulers of Japan, the Sybil System itself, who have turned it into an Orwellian dictatorship. Each season and movie pits them against a criminal mastermind of some sort:
  • Season 1 has Shogo Makishima, the mastermind behind many of the murder cases who desires to cause chaos and destroy society in order to bring down the Sibyl System.
  • Season 2 has Kirito Kamui, a cult leader who seeks to inspire revolution against the Sibyl System, no matter how many innocents die in the process.
  • Season 3 has the three Congressmen, who are the leaders of Bifrost, a secret society out to commit crimes away from the reach of the Sibyl System.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Walpurgisnacht is effectively the head witch, and will destroy the world if not stopped. However, it is the adorable but duplicitous and secretive little Hive Mind Weasel Mascot Kyubey/Incubator who created her and the other witches. It doesn't tell the Magical Girls it creates certain key facts, including that Magical Girls are essentially liches, that the wishes they make with it frequently turn out badly for them because they're not wishing for the right things, that every Witch that the Magical Girls fight (aside from those born from familiars) was once a Magical Girl herself — and that they're ultimately doomed to become Witches themselves. Not only that, but it doesn't care one whit about humans as long as the universe itself continues to exist. Also played with, since while Kyubey does not directly oppose or antagonize the girls, it is the reason why the bad events of the show happen.
• Queen Millennia: The Great Leader of La-Metal is Holy Queen Larela introduced earlier as Larla, the mother of all Queens Millennia who claims the right on all life in space. It turns out the incoming collision with Earth wasn't a cosmic coincidence, but a long-running plot of hers.
• Record of Ragnarok has Zeus serving as the story's main antagonist, being the Top God among every known deity and by extension being the one leading the gods' goal to wipe out humanity. Unlike most tournament based series, however, where the main antagonist would usually be saved for last, Zeus is the second god to fight in Ragnarok, though he manages to continue to play this role after he ends up winning his battle.
• Red River (1995): Queen Nakia plans to curse the other Hittite princes so that her own son can become king, and will do so by killing Yuri. She’s also the one who dragged Yuri into Hattusa in the first place. Every conflict in the series sprouts from her plans to get rid of Yuri.
• Red Sprite: Supreme Leader David Atlas is the ruler of Edenia and the one behind the Plasmarrow system, which enslaves children and harvests energy from them to power his society. Tatsu Frampt seems to overthrow him and stop his system.
• Release the Spyce: Kurara Tendō. She's in charge of Moryo's operations in the Far East and plans to use the organization to lead humanity to a new order. While she's not the highest in the organization's pecking order, Kurara's still the most direct antagonist due to operating in the same city as Tsukikage.
• Renjou Desperado: Arthur Tokugawa Jr., the brother of the Shogun who was once scarred by Monko and is the one who put the bounty out on her.
• Revolutionary Girl Utena has End of the World/Akio Ohtori, the one who's been organizing the duels, forcing Anthy to be a prize in them, for the purpose of gaining her power, and to this end he ruthlessly manipulates his own sister Anthy and Utena. In the end, he loses Anthy, but it could be rightly said that otherwise, he got away with everything, including being responsible for probably hundreds of deaths, if not thousands.
• Rosario + Vampire:
  • In the first season, Hokuto Kaneshiro is the president of the student festival committee, but is also the leader of Anti-Thesis and a leader of Fairy Tale who plots to reveal Yokai Academy's existence to humanity, provoking a human-monster war that will exterminate humanity and permanently destroy the academy's goal of coexistence between the races.
  • In the second season, Gyokuro Shuzen, mother of Kahlua and Kokoa, is the commander of Fairy Tale, but she's actually taking orders from the mysterious Masked King, the organization's true founder. Their goal is awaken Alucard and destroy the human world. The Masked King later reveals himself as the supposed henchman Miyabi Fujisaki and Alucard himself, originally an advocate of human-monster peace but now a Fallen Hero who wants revenge on humans after they destroyed his kingdom. The penultimate chapter reveals, however, that the whole thing was actually a Zero-Approval Gambit to achieve said peace.
• Rurouni Kenshin had Makoto Shishio and Enishi Yukishiro:
  • Shishio was the Big Bad of the Kyoto arc by virtue of being Kenshin's replacement as the Ishin Shishi's top assassin, a Social Darwinist whose views clashed with Kenshin's pacifistic ideals, and his desire to overthrow the Japanese government that both his and Kenshin's swords helped to set up. He had the strength, connections, manpower and weaponry to start and maintain his campaign, plus being a magnificently Manipulative Bastard for a lot of people, both within his private army and on a wider scale; plus his aptitude for planning and executing strategies to keep himself two steps ahead of his enemies. What made him especially effective was that he was willing to cop to his faults whenever any aspect of his planning did fail such as underestimating Sanosuke and not anticipating he'd have portable bombs powerful enough to destroy the Rengoku battleship, he actually respected his underlings to a degree, and he proved powerful enough to stave off four of the strongest opponents he could have — while being physically impaired himself (his burns from the government's assassination attempt meant he couldn't fight longer than 15 minutes at a time or else he'd risk death by overheating).
  • By contrast, Enishi, the Big Bad of the Jinchu arc, has a much closer tie to Kenshin than Shishio did (both Kenshin and Enishi had Tomoe in common, and both got lasting marks from her death — Kenshin got the second half of his scar, with the first half coming from Tomoe's slain fiance; Enishi, meanwhile, had his hair turn white from the shock of seeing Tomoe die in front of him), being the only one to both physically defeat Kenshin in combat and psychologically break him.
• The Sacred Blacksmith: Siegfried and Augustus Arthur. Augustus Arthur is commander of the military of the Empire (which merges with the Crowd Powers to become the Imperial Crowd Powers) who desires to harness Valbanill to conquer the entire Continent. Siegfried, who's motive is to simply to cause as much untold misery and death as possible, is technically his subordinate, but he conceived of the plan to control Valbanill and it's clear that the two are partners.
• Saike Mata Shitemo: Will Clooney, for most of the story seemingly just one of Johann Dietrich's followers notable only for his power to brainwash people. As it turns out, despite having the body of a child, he's over a century old and has been manipulating Johann to acquire the Akashic Records for himself. Why? He's not actually interested in the totality of all knowledge; he just wants the records' infinite storage medium so he can transfer his excess memories before they kill him (which means first emptying the records into the mind of a hapless victim and thereby killing them). Then he can continue repeatedly deaging himself so he can pretend to a Child Prodigy, all because he can't stand being otherwise average as an adult. Evil Is Petty indeed!
• Sailor Moon was no stranger to this concept, but it was even more fond of setting up the season's Dragon as the Big Bad, only to do a big reveal at the end.
  • In the first season, Queen Beryl rules the Dark Kingdom and intends to Take Over the World using the Legendary Silver Crystal (and get Prince Endymion for herself), but she also wants to use it to free Queen Metallia, the real ruler of the Dark Kingdom who corrupted Beryl in the first place.
    • Codename: Sailor V, the manga that began before Sailor Moon but ended after it, has Danburite as the head of the Dark Agency and the titular character’s Love-Interest Traitor, Phantom Ace. Though in the scheme of things, he's a small fry, being an underling of the Dark Kingdom, which the Dark Agency is a branch of.
  • Sailor Moon R:
    • Ail/Alan/Seijuurou Ginga and An/Anne/Natsumi Ginga in the first half of the anime, a pair of Makai Tree alien siblings who came to earth to drain human energy and feed their tree, thus ensuring their own survival.
    • In the second half, Prince Diamond is the leader of the Black Moon Clan, a group of rebels against Neo Queen Serenity; he wants to kill Chibi-usa, destroy the Legendary Silver Crystal, and rewrite the past, all to take revenge on Serenity. But he himself is being manipulated by his advisor, Wiseman/Death Phantom, who is actually an Eldritch Abomination that wants to destroy everything For the Evulz.
  • Sailor Moon S: Mistress 9/the Messiah of Silence and Professor Souichi Tomoe/Germatoid are the leaders of the Death Busters, a group of Daimon supremacists who aim to wipe out all other life by creating a doorway for their master Pharaoh 90 to enter through and carry out the destruction.
  • Sailor Moon SuperS: Zirconia, ringmaster of the Dead Moon Circus, wants to gain the Golden Crystal so she can take control of Earth and make it a world of darkness by releasing her master, Queen Nehellenia, from her Magic Mirror seal.
  • Sailor Stars: Sailor Galaxia, leader of the Shadow Galactica team of former Sailor Guardians who want to remake the universe In Their Own Image, except she’s working for and corrupted by Chaos, the original source of all the true Big Bads (who were incarnations of him/her/it).
• Saint Seiya:
  • The Pope, a.k.a. Gemini Saga, in the Sanctuary Arc. He had taken over the role of heading figure many years ago, and many of the evil actions performed by the Silver and Gold Saints were part of his orders to get rid of Athena.
  • Hilda in the Asgard Arc, and the respective titular villains of the Poseidon and Hades Arcs. Hilda in the Asgard Arc plans to flood the world by melting the polar ice; her defeat reveals that she was previously brainwashed by Poseidon, who then plans to take over the world on his own and sets up the events of his corresponding arc. Some time later, Hades sends his men (reanimated forms of deceased saints) to attack the Twelve Houses, so eventually Seiya and his friends have to travel to his realm to defeat him in person.
• Sand Land: Commander Zeu, the Man Behind the Man to the King of Sand Land who's been hoarding the water supply in order to hold power, causing the kingdom to go through a massive drought.
• Science Ninja Team Gatchaman: Sosai X, an alien who founded the Galactor syndicate with the intent of conquering the world before deciding to instead destroy it out of spite.
• School-Live!!:
  • The Zombies in general serve as this trope for a large chunk of the manga and the entirity of the anime, as their precense is what's caused the emotional and psychological turmoil that the girls go through, including killing many of their loved ones. Even with the manga later introducing other antagonists the zombies are still an important part of the story,
  • The University arc has Takahito Tougo, the leader of the Melee Fight Crew. He's the biggest obsticle that the girls face throughout the arc and ends up causing them all sorts of trouble before he eventually meets his demise in Chapter 54. With his death, it remains to be seen if his 2nd in command Ayaka Kamji will claim this role later down the line.
  • The series has heavily implied that the Randall Corperation is behind the zombie virus and outbreak in Japan, and they also just so happen to be an Expy of The Umbrella Corperation while also sharing the same name as Stephen King's most famous antagonist Randall Flagg. So far the corperation has been more of a Greater-Scope Villain, but with the girls planning on going to one of the company's buildings, they may end up taking a far more active roll soon.
• Scott Pilgrim Takes Off: Older Scott is the one responsible for Scott's disappearance, having dragged him into the future to prevent him from falling in love with Ramona. He also serves as the final threat that the main cast (including the Evil Exes) has to defeat.
• Secret: The student who caused the bus "accident", with Iku Sanada and his five classmates having to figure out which one of them is the culprit. Except it truly was an accident, which Shinichi Mitomo knows, and has been manipulating the students into turning on and killing each other as revenge for one of them impregnating his half-sister before he could.
• Seraph of the End: Shikama Dōji, the First Progenitor, once a vampire named Sika Madu and now a demon. He's responsible for virtually all evils plaguing the world: the birth of vampires, the creation of demons and Demon Weapons, and the experiments on the Seraph of the End, the last of which caused the near extinction of humanity. He also the possesses each head of the Hiragi family, rulers of Japan's occult community for centuries and leaders of the Japanese Imperial Demon Army. Virtually every faction in the post-apocalyptic conflict between vampires and humans is his unwitting pawn.
• Serial Experiments Lain: The God of the Wired A.K.A. Masami Eiri, who is trying to merge everyone's consciousness with The Wired so he may rule above them as a God.
• The Seven Deadly Sins:
  • The overall villain of the series is the Demon King, who rallied his demons to wage war on the other four major races in Britannia before being sealed away and seeks to unseal himself so he may conquer Britannia. However, the Supreme Deity is revealed to be his equally evil rival, as she and the king usurped their creator, Chaos, and are masterminding the holy war between each other for fun.
  • Holy Knights saga: Great Holy Knights Dreyfus and Hendrickson are the leaders of the Holy Knights of Liones who usurped King Baltra Liones and took control of the kingdom of Liones, also murdering Great Holy Knight Zaratras and framing the titular heroes for it, in order to prepare the kingdom for war against the demons.
  • Ten Commandments Saga: Fraudrin "The Selflessness" is one of the Ten Commandments demons who was manipulating Dreyfus and Hendrickson from the start and is working to unseal his boss, the Demon King.
  • Prisoners of the Sky: Bellion leads the Six Black Knights on their attempts to awaken Indura and get a crack at destroying the Sky Temple they failed to do 3,000 years ago.
  • Cursed By Light: The Supreme Deity sends the brainwashed Dahlia and Dubs to attack the Demon Realm and the Seven Deadly Sins in an attempt to restart the Holy War.
• In the first two seasons of Shakugan no Shana, the Snake of the Festival is the ruler of the Crimson Denizens, but he is sealed away prior to Yuji merging with the Snake of the Festival and becoming the Big Bad, so the acting Big Bad is the Trinity — Bel Peol, Sydonay, and Hecate, interim leaders of the enemy organization Bal Masqué working on freeing their master and carrying out the Grand Order. Bel Peol serves as The Strategist, Sydonay as The Heavy, and Hecate the Evil Sorceress.
  • In the final arc/season, the Snake of the Festival becomes the Big Bad after being freed and merging with main character and Shana’s love interest Yuji. For a number of reasons, they could be considered a non-evil Big Bad: they're Well-Intentioned Extremists whose goals are to create a parallel world where Crimson Denizens can feed on limitless Power of Existence without preying on humanity and thus harming the fabric of reality, simultaneously ending the Forever War between Denizens and Flame Hazes, preserving humanity from further depredations, and creating the possibility of a peaceful future to enjoy a relationship with Shana. They actually win, but the Denizens graciously accede to a compromise with the Flame Hazes to prevent any possibility of them eating humans' Power of Existence and threatening the world.
• Shangri-La: Ryoko Naruse, President of Atlas Corporation and (eventual) Prime Minister of Japan, is the tyrant responsible for the oppression inflicted by the elite of the Atlas Tower onto the village dwellers, forcing them to live in the harsh jungles outside while she and her men live comfortably in Atlas. While she is technically an advisor of Lord Hiruko, it is not him, but her who is the prime enemy of Kuniko Hojo and Metal Age. It is later revealed that she is also the human interface of Zeus, who plots to Kill All Humans and revive Himiko so she can rule over a new world.
• Shiki: Sunako Kirishiki is the leader of the Shiki and the reason behind the events of the series. She masterminds the plan to turn Sotoba into a safe haven where Shiki can live relatively normal lives.
• Shimeji Simulation: Big Sis's renegade duplicate is the closest the manga ever has to have an antagonist. She was created by Big Sis unintentionally when she used the machine language in the Rock World to boost the simulation's compuitational power, before making appearance in Chapter 38, attempting to free-fall her prime's entire world into chaos by feedback loop, during the conflict with her original, Shijima and Majime. Her intention is to grant humanity the ability to change themselves in a whim through the Key by using the Mosasa Dogs and their concert, which would directly cause the said feedback loop in the first place. She is a far worse threat than both Sis and Gardener combined and it shows.
• Show by Rock!!: Dagger Morse, the CEO of Unicorn Virtual Music, Inc., a record label hell-bent on conquering Sound World. The second season has the Queen of Darkness.
• Silent Möbius: Ganossa Maximillian, the man who leads the Lucifer Hawks on behalf of the ruler of Nemesis and aims to conquer Gaia. He is also the one who sabotaged the Gaia project, an attempt to unite both worlds, out of envy.
• Sol Bianca:
  • Original OVA: Emperor Batros rules over the planets Trez and Uno and wants to steal the titular Sol Bianca ship from the heroines so he can use it to conquer the rest of the galaxy.
  • Sol Bianca 2: Gomez is the leader of the rival pirate gang who competes with the heroines for control over the valuable substance Pasha, and desires to kill them to get it from them.
  • The Legacy: The Admiral of the Terran Federation wants to capture the titular Sol Bianca ship from the heroines in the name of Earth, and sends Captain Giunter to pursue and apprehend them.
• Sound of the Sky: Though he doesn’t appear until the last two episodes, Colonel Hopkins, the Demon of Vindt, is the main antagonist who wants to instigate war with the Roman Empire, plots to capture and kill the Roman soldier Aisha for this purpose, and tries to take over the 1121st Platoon, pitting the heroines of the platoon against him. He is also responsible for the psychological issues of Noel, a recurring problem for her through the series, as he manipulated her into unknowingly unleashing a bio-weapon amen killing millions.
• Soul Eater has one for every major story arc. In the first one, it's Medusa, who wants to sink the world in chaos by trying to turn her child Crona into the new Kishin; the second, Arachne, Medusa's sister and the leader of Arachnophobia who resurfaces after 800 years to overthrow the DWMA; and the third, Noah (The Greed Incarnation) but actually it's the Book of Eibon's Table of Contents as the Noahs are artificial constructs created by it. Although Medusa is notable, in that she unseals Kishin Ashura and wasn't killed in her arc, continuing to be an active villain until she was killed by Crona at the beginning of the Moon Arc (which was even part of her plan). While Kishin Asura could be interpreted as the Big Bad of the entire series (given that Soul Eater is about preventing Kishins from being born just like Asura, and that everybody is after him), for most of the story he qualifies better as the Greater-Scope Villain. While he did make a few recurring appearances in the story arcs, unlike Medusa and the other major villians most of his influence was indirect. It's only until the Moon Arc that he takes center role as the Big Bad.
  • In Chapter 104, it seemed that Crona was going to take the role of the Big Bad by by hijacking Asura but that was inverted in Chapter 106 when it was revealed that the Greater-Scope Villain, Asura, was Sharing a Body with Crona.
  • In Soul Eater Not!, Medusa's and Arachne's younger sister Shaula Gorgon can be qualified as the Big Bad, as she is responsible for the uprising of the Traitors as part of a scheme to create a being capable of destroying the DWMA and brainwashed Meme Tatane to be her spy in the academy, all to prove her superiority over her sisters.
• Speed Grapher has Shinzen Tennouzu, the head of the Tennouzou Group and Roppongi Club, as well as the abusive mother of Kagura, who sends Chouji Suitengu and his minions to capture her after she escapes with Saiga. Until Suitengu kills her and eventually reveals he has a much grander plan in motion that he used her for — mainly, to bankrupt Japan and eliminate the corrupt upper class, especially Prime Minister Kamiya who drove him to it in the first place. And he wins, freeing Japan from the evils of greed.
• Spider-Man: Fake Red: Mysterio is responsible for Spider-Man's disappearance and has forcibly bonded him to the Venom symbiote, his end goal being to make Spidey a major threat that he would defeat and thereby become New York City's new greatest hero.
• SSSS.GRIDMAN: Akane Shinjo, classmate of Yuta Hibiki, is the one building the kaiju that she sends to attack those whom she feels have wronged her, with the help of her computer program Alexis Kerib who makes them real. Until Alexis Kerib turns out to be manipulating Akane Shinjo to relieve his boredom, and disposes of her once she stops being useful.
• Stars Align has Kenji Kyobate, a criminal who is the violent father of the series' protagonist Maki, and the one bullies him to ruin his tennis career.
• Str.A.In.: Strategic Armored Infantry: Captain Vivian Medlock, who runs the Deague ship that the heroines' Union ship comes into combat with, is technically this; however, she is mostly in the background, as the show focuses more on her enforcer Ralph Werec, once a star pilot and beloved brother of Sara until he defected. Ralph ultimately turns out to be the real threat when he betrays and kills Vivian to accomplish his goal — eliminate humanity as revenge for their treatment of the little girl aliens called the Emilies.
• Studio Ghibli:
  • Castle in the Sky: RoMuska Palo Ul Laputa (Colonel Muska), an ambitious, manipulative man who plans on taking over Laputa and using its power to rule the world.
  • Princess Mononoke: Lady Eboshi, who wages war on the forest gods to protect her people and create a stronger, more fortified version of IronTown.
  • Spirited Away: Yubaba, a Youkai witch who runs a spirit bathhouse, turns Chihiro's parents into pigs, and tries to enslave her forever.
  • The Cat Returns: The Cat King, ruler of the Cat Kingdom who wants Haru to marry his son Prince Lune as thanks for saving his life, completely oblivious to the fact that Haru doesn't want such a thing.
• Summer Time Rendering: Hiruko is the progenitor of all shadows on the island and her existence is ultimately responsible for every shadow related misfortune that occurs in the story. Shidehiko takes her place in this role once his intention to use the power of her eye to destroy the world is revealed.
• Super Atragon: Avatar, an agent of the Subterraneans who, fearing that surface humans were so warlike that they would inevitably invade their land upon discovering them or even wind up destroying the planet, provided two rival countries, the United States and Japan, a powerful energy source as a test to see if they would use it for peaceful or war-like purposes. Avatar, disgusted by the hatred and savagery on display during World War II, works to provoke the surface humans into failing the test and then leads the Subterranean efforts to wipe out the surface world with a giant microwave weapon.
• Sword Art Online:
  • For the Aincrad arc (light novel Volumes 1, 2, and 8, though only Volume 1 focuses on the main plot), the Big Bad is Akihiko Kayaba, the creator of the VRMMORPG Sword Art Online who traps 10,000 players in a virtual reality where death inside means death in real life, all to turn a world he conceived of in his imagination into reality. Kayaba also serves as the Greater-Scope Villain behind most of the subsequent conflicts and antagonists. Strangely, an AI copy of him serves a more benevolent role, despite maintaining his predecessor's Blue-and-Orange Morality.
  • For the Alfheim arc (Volumes 3 and 4), the Big Bad is Nobuyuki "Oberon" Sugou, director of the RECTO corporation's research institute, who acquires the SAO engine and servers and creates his own game, ALFHeim Online, and, after Kazuto "Kirito" Kirigaya frees those trapped in SAO, imprisons the minds of 300 SAO players before they can awaken. Among them in Asuna Yuuki, Kirito's girlfriend, whom Sugou is engaged to and obsessed with. The other 299 poor souls are subjected to torturous experiments to research the extent one can manipulate memories and emotions through VR technology.
  • For the Phantom Bullet arc, Death Gun is the Big Bad, a Serial Killer player in the game Gun Gale Online with the ability to kill simultaneously in real life and the game. Death Gun, however, is a Collective Identity shared between Shouichi "Red-Eyed XaXa" Shinkawa, Atsushi "Johnny Black" Kanamoto, and Shouichi's brother, Kyouji. While one of them operates as Death Gun in GGO, another sneaks into the target player's house and murders them with a lethal injection. Both Shouichi and Atsushi are SAO survivors and PKers obsessed with continuing the game of death, while Kyouji is a deeply mentally-ill young man who was fascinated by the other two's exploits in SAO and enraged at high-level GGO players who recommended a character build that ended up being unbalanced and useless. Shouichi and Atsushi also have a grudge against Kirito, one of the players responsible for the capture and dismantling of their PK guild Laughing Coffin in SAO. Shouichi in particular is incensed by Kirito's pretending he can just move on and forget about the trauma he both experienced and caused in SAO.
  • The Alicization arc has two Big Bads, one for the first half of the story, the other for the second half.
    • Administrator was once Quinella, one of the numerous artificial Fluctlights populating Underworld, a virtual reality, until she made two important discoveries: the sacred arts were actually system commands (and thus through experimentation was able to discover more) and killing living beings increased her stats and gave her authorization to use more advanced commands. Turning Underworld's Human Empire into a theocratic feudal system predicated around preserving her rule, Quinella usurped the Administrator authority from the Cardinal Sytem and, as a result, became obsessed with regulating all aspect of life in the Human Empire, establishing authoritarian religious law and brainwashing anyone who defies her.
    • Gabriel Miller is the CEO of an American PMC company who, obsessed since a young age with controlling the human soul, enters the Underworld after he and his team invade the Ocean Turtle, seizes control of the Dark Territory and turns it into one where the strong rule and survive, and launches an invasion of the Human Empire to take take possession of the one fully-realized artificial Fluctlight in that world, become god over Underworld, and turn it into his tailor-made domain (which includes kidnapping real world people, killing their physical bodies, and placing their souls in his virtual world, so he can manipulate their souls as he sees fit).
  • The Big Bad of Sword Art Online Progressive, a spin-off light novel series taking place during the Aincrad arc and focusing on Kirito and Asuna's exploits floor-by-floor, appears to be Vassago "PoH" Casals, the leader of Laughing Coffin. While he has yet to appear in person and is operating mainly through proxies, he's trying to manipulate the SAO players to turn to Player Killing. The main series' light novels reveal that his reason for doing this is his pathological hatred for East Asians, the result of his Korean father abandoning his mother after knocking her up and his and his mother's being bought and shipped to Japan by a Japanese CEO.
  • The Big Bad of Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale is Shigemura Yuuna, the designer of the Augmented Reality device Augma and game Ordinal Scale. Having lost his daughter in SAO, Yuuna is using Augma and Ordinal Scale to steal the memories of SAO from SAO survivors to create an AI copy of his daughter. Not only does the theft erase the original memories, but his final step, performing a massive brain scan on thousands of survivors invited to an AR concert, threatens to kill the majority.
• Symphogear:
  • Finé is responsible for the events in Season 1. She is also founded the villain organization F.I.S. that appears in G.
  • Dr. John Wayne Vercingetorix, known as Dr. Ver, in G. The F.I.S. are dependable from him, and he's leading them into a darker direction than they originally expected.
  • Carol Malus Dienheim in GX, who is leading the Auto-Scorers she created, and she created the Alca-Noise as well.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has Lordgenome, ruler of the underground who seeks to keep the humans trapped inside for the first half of the series. In the second half it's revealed he was provoked into his villainy by the Anti-Spirals, who want to Save the World by keeping Spiral Energy from going out of control — and to do this, they limit Spiral Energy by keeping humanity in despair.
• Tenrou Sirius the Jaeger: Yevgraf, the young king of the Vampires who is revealed to be the one who purged Yuliy's village and sent the vampires to retrieve the Sirius Ark.
• Tiger & Bunny: Albert Maverick is the leader of the crime syndicate Ouroboros, and the one behind all the other villains.
• Time Bokan usually has the vixen leading the Terrible Trio of each show, though some shows have them working for someone else.
  • The first series has Marjo, leader of the Time Skeleton trio seeking to steal the Dynamond Gemstone.
  • Yatterman has Dokurobei, the disembodied voice who employs the Doronbo Gang to seek out the Skull Stones and punishes them whenever they fail.
  • Zenderman has Muujo, who leads the Akudama Trio in seeking out the Elixir of Life before the heroes get to it first. Although at the very end, the real Big Bad turns out to be the Akudama Trio's Team Pet, Nyaravolta, who was using them to obtain the elixir for himself.
  • Time Patrol Tai Otasukeman has Tomomot, who employs the Terrible Trio to travel back in time and alter history so it matches the error-filled history book he wrote.
  • Yattodetaman has Princess Mirenjo, who plots to obtain the Firebird so her younger brother can ascend the throne.
  • Gyakuten! Ippatsuman has Con Cordo, chairwoman of Skull Lease who employs the Terrible Trio to sabotage their rival company Time Lease so they can dominate the world.
  • Itadakiman has Yan Yan, leader of a trio of villains looking to get into Ochaka School by any means.
• To Be Hero: Emperor Darnell is the leader of the Alien Invasion that Father/Uncle is chosen to thwart. It turns out he is a shadow of Father himself, representing his self-hatred and doubt over being a good father to his daughter; and the one keeping him trapped in his coma.
  • To Be Heroine: Kokoro Obutsuki, Tooru's father, is the man responsible for the darkness engulfing the Other World, and the man that Futaba Hanaya must defeat, as he took control of the Keito Company, killed his boss, his “friend” Tenshin, and Tenshin's son Hikaru, then used a memory-altering formula to erase all memory of them, gaining control of the town and leaving the memories in darkness.
• To Love Ru Darkness: Nemesis, a Transformative Weapon like Golden Darkness but with grander aspirations to take over the galaxy. The crux of the manga's main conflict is her attempts to awaken and recruit Golden Darkness' Superpowered Evil Side while also serving as Momo Belia Deviluke's Evil Counterpart and another "love interest" for Rito Yūki.
• Tokyo Mew Mew: Deep Blue is the computer leading the invading aliens in his mission to retake the planet from humans, and exterminate them for that purpose.
  • The sequel Tokyo Mew Mew a la mode has Duke, leader of the Saint Rose Crusaders who want to reshape the world In Their Own Image.
• Tokyo Ghoul series:
  • The original manga and anime have the mysterious One-Eyed Owl/King, leader of the ghoul supremacist organization Aogiri Tree. The finale reveals that he is actually Eto Yoshimura/Sen Takatsuki, Kaneki’s favorite author and the Half-Human Hybrid daughter of Big Good Kuzen Yoshimura. Her true goal is to end the Forever War between humans and ghouls. Also introduced as major antagonists are Rize Kamishiro, a Femme Fatale who serves as Ken Kaneki’s Enemy Within (after trying to attack him and dying as a result) and Dr. Akihiro Kanou, the Mad Doctor who turned Kaneki into a ghoul.
  • In :re, the One-Eyed Owl continues to be the central antagonist for the first half of the story, whilst Dr Kanou works to further his own agendas, until Eto is detained post-Tsukiyama Extermination. The role is then usurped by the traitor to the Wasshu clan known as Kichimura Wasshu, also known as Souta and Nimura Furuta. It is revealed that he was the one who sprung the steel beam incident which got Kaneki turned into a one-eyed ghoul all the way in the beginning, has been influencing events from behind the scenes, and gets himself involved in much more. A Greater-Scope Villain exists in his father, CCG chairman Tsuneyoshi Wasshu, who is the chairman of the CCG and indirectly behind the series events, but after Furuta kills him and takes down Eto, he becomes the Final Boss of the series. Ironically, he has the same goal as Eto, to end the Forever War.
  • The prequel JACK has the titular ghoul, mainly known as Lantern, who kills Taishi’s friends, setting off his journey of revenge. It turns out that he is Uruka Minami, a high school girl and friend who Taishi had a crush on.
  • The side story JOKER has the unnamed leader of the skull mask gang, as Juuzou is trying to track him down — and finds out that he is a girl (again) whom Juuzou saved on a train from a molester.
  • The game JAIL has Jail, the mysterious ghoul sought by Rio and Kaneki. It turns out Jail is Rio, who doesn’t remember. As such, the real Big Bad is Shiki Kijima, the investigator who killed Rio’s brother and provoked Rio into becoming Jail.
• Tomie: The title character, a Humanoid Abomination who enjoys toying with and tormenting innocent men.
• Toriko:
  • Midora, the leader of the Gourmet Corp and former disciple of the Gourmet God served as the main antagonist of the Human World Act before forming a Big Bad Ensemble with NEO in the beginning of Gourmet World Act.
  • Acacia the Gourmet God turns out to be the main villain of the Gourmet World Act, being responsible for literally everything bad that has happened in the series; but it’s later revealed that he was a Well-Intentioned Extremist trying to stop his own Appetite Demon Neo from devouring the enter world.
• Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun: Tsukasa Yugi, a sociopathic ghost and Hanako's twin brother and murder victim. He's responsible for the rumors transforming the School Mysteries and other supernaturals into dangerous beings, horrifically twisting wishes, and utterly disrupting the relationship between the Near Shore (living world) and the Far Shore (supernatural world). His overall plan and goals are still unknown, but his philosophy hints at a rejection of any constraints or inhibitions on one's desires or actions.
• Trigun: Millions Knives, Vash's twin brother who's out to destroy humanity and replace it with Plant-people like him.
• Fei Wong Reed in Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-. For a long time he appears to be doing nothing at all, apart from watching the heroes on magic TV and remarking about how all is going according to his plan; he appears to be a remarkably useless villain. However, that's because we're actually coming in halfway through his plan. As it turns out, three of the four original main characters were his servants.
• Tweeny Witches: Grande is the leader and general of the warlocks, who are (mostly) the mortal enemies of the witches and wizards. He is behind one of the most prominent conflicts in the original series as he plans to destroy the Human Realm through dark magic in hopes of making a new home for his species to escape the eventual destruction of the Magical Realm.
• Umareru Kachi no Nakatta Jibun ga Anna no Tame ni Dekiru Ikutsuka no Koto: The protagonist Kazuya Mukai, after having reincarnated in his pre-teen body, spends the manga trying to rape his childhood crush Anna and callously manipulating his 'friends' to achieve this goal. The mysterious girl Izuru, the main antagonist, is trying to save Anna from him because Izuru is their future Child by Rape.
• Umi Monogatari: Sedna, the being of Darkness that Urin accidentally frees. She then starts corrupting the sea creatures and everyone around her. However, she is a non-evil Big Bad, as she is revealed to be the sorrow that the islanders cast away, rather than a truly evil being. The characters accept it rather than defeat it.
• Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle: Fugil Arcadia presents himself as a servant to the Lords clan in their attempt to restore their empire and Take Over the World, but Lux Arcadia believes Fugil is just using them for his own agenda, based on his own experience of being used by Fugil to enact a coup. This turns out to be true when Fugil backstabs the leader of the Lords and reveals that he's been using perception manipulation on the world for millennia in order to overthrow tyrannical regimes, prop up a more benevolent government, eliminate any opposition to that government, and repeat the cycle when the propped up government eventually falls to corruption. Fugil wants to eventually end the cycle and create a balanced world without persecution, but he believes that he has to continue the cycle until he can find someone who can maintain their sanity and morals while fused to Sacred Eclipse in order to turn them into an immortal benevolent dictator.
• Ushio and Tora has Hakumen no Mono, an Eldritch Abomination that not only was behind a majority of events, was revealed to behind even things that originally didn't seem connected, like a few arc villains. And it almost wins.
• Val × Love: Loki, leader of the wicked gods, who's trying to bring about Ragnarok and take over Asgard.
• Vampire Hunter D: Count Magnus Lee, a vampire lord who takes a new bride every 10 years.
  • Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust: Carmilla the Blood Countess, Dracula's former wife killed for her depravity, who seeks to come back from the dead.
• Violinist of Hameln: Great Demon King Chestra, the king of all Mozaku and Hamel and Sizer's father. Hamel's main goal is to prevent him from being released form Pandora's Box and annihilating humanity.
• Wedding Peach: Rain Devila in is behind all the demons who attack Momoko and her friends, until her own Heel–Face Turn in the end.
• Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun: Baal. Most of the conflicts of the story involve him in some way, and the entire overarching villain plot to "return demonkind to its evil origins" is fully orchestrated by him, with characters like Kiriwo, The Six Fingers, and Ocho acting as his Co-Dragons.
• Wild Knights Gulkeeva: Prince Zaza, Norsetia and the leader of the Darknoid army who gradually gathers power in order to complete the Great Transmutation, a spell that will drain all life from Earth.
• Wolfsmund: Lord Magistrate Wolfram, the bailiff of the titular Wolfsmund ("Wolf's Maw"). But only for the first 3/4s of the story; after Wolfram's defeat and execution, his boss Duke Leopold I takes over the role.
• Lord Darcia in Wolf's Rain is not only a Big Bad, his entire family line is responsible for anything evil involved in the story... even in its "happy ending," which is anything but because of him.
  • Oddly enough, the original ending (the version that stops at episode 26) seems to present Lady Jaguara as the real villain, especially after Darcia's apparent death. In the OVA, Darcia takes that position back hard.
• The Yagyu Ninja Scrolls: Dohaku Ashina, the villainous leader of the Ashina clan. He's the real mastermind behind the Seven Spears and Akinari himself, plotting to rule Aizu and eventually the entirety of Japan from the shadows.
• In Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches:
  • Because he wishes to keep up the witch masquerade, Yamazaki is behind a lot of the problems encountered by the main character in the manga's first witch war as well the entire live-action drama and anime.
  • Ushio fills the role for most of the manga's second witch war. His wish of winning Odagiri back makes him oppose the student council, gather students in the Japanese chess club, and drive the plot. Yuri later takes over the role.
  • Amamiya fills the role in both Yamada's and Leona's flashbacks, given that she was the one who noticed that Yamada, Himekawa, Nancy, Leona, and Yamazaki all were trying to start a ceremony, and sent Rika to wipe their memories.
• Yasuke: The Dark Daimyo, the demonic ruler of the Daimyo who wants to create a Hell on Earth using Saki's powers.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • The manga and second series anime have an overall Big Bad, Dark Bakura (a.k.a "the Spirit of the Millennium Ring"), who works on his scheme the whole series. In terms of individual arcs:
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds:
    • Season 1: Rex Goodwin starts off looking like one, but turns out to be more of a Stealth Mentor. In the second half of the season, Rudger (Goodwin's brother and leader of The Psycho Rangers) seems to take over, but is soon abruptly killed off halfway through his arc, leaving the rest of it to his followers who had been Dragon Their Feet. The final three episodes of the season, however, reveal the guy behind everything: it really was Goodwin the whole time, playing everyone up to and including two deities for suckers.
    • Season 2: Z-One, who was, through his followers, responsible for Goodwin and Rudger turning evil, and thus could be considered the Greater-Scope Villain for Season 1, as well.
    • Manga version: Rex again, albeit with a totally rewritten backstory and motive.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL
    • Season 2: When we are led to believe that Durbe is leading the other Barian Emperors, Vector returns and takes the role of the leadership again and their plan is to revive their deity Don Thousand. But then, the true leader of the Seven Barian Emperors comes back to them, Nasch. However, Vector is still working behind the back of the other emperors; back-stabbing them and becoming the vessel of Don Thousand, so he can use his power. After Vector is defeated and consumed by Don Thousand, the deity himself takes this role, who was responsible of the events behind Seven Barian Emperors in the first place.
    • Manga version: Mr. Heartland, usurped by Kyoji Yagumo, usurped at the last second by Despair Goddess E-Rah.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: Professor Leo Akaba is the leader of Academia from the Fusion Dimension and is responsible of the invasion of Heartland in the Xyz Dimension, and he ordered Yuri to can capture one of the bracelet girls, Ruri Kurosaki. He has also sent his agents and soldiers to Maiami City in Standard and to the City in the Synchro Dimension to capture the other bracelet girls: Yuzu Hiiragi from Standard, Rin from the Synchro Dimension, and the refugee Serena from the Fusion Dimension. It is later revealed that Leo is attempting to restore his daughter, Ray Akaba, by fusing her 4 soul fragments in the form of the bracelet girls back together, as well working to destroy Zarc, an even greater threat who serves as the original incarnation of the Dragon Boys, including our hero Yuya.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS:
    • Season 1: The Knights of Hanoi led by Revolver. Behind the scenes though, Dr. Kogami is the real mastermind, while Revolver is merely his protege.
    • Season 2: Lightning. He leads the faction responsible for the destruction of the Cyberse World and intends to not only create a new Cyberse World beyond human reach but also rule over humanity from within. Then it's revealed that he's responsible for pretty much every bad thing that happened in the series, from Dr. Kogami's coma to the destruction of the Cyberse World. He's also a reason why Ai became the big bad in Season 3.
• YuYu Hakusho breaks these up by season as well (except the first, where the villain in turn depends on the case Yusuke is in):
  • Sakyo in Season 2 (although Younger Toguro looks like this, for being the one who challenges Yusuke to a fight in the Dark World Tournament, he's more the Dragon-in-Chief). Sakyo plans to have his team of choice (Toguro's) win the tournament to open a portal between the human world and the Makai, as he would love to see the ensuing chaos. He's an honorable villain, however, as he disapproves of the rigs done against Team Urameshi, and when Team Toguro loses to them in the final round he stays in the stadium as it's about to self-destruct to die.
  • Sensui in Season 3. He aims to fulfill the wish of Sakyo by opening the portal to Makai with his own team. His motivation is different, however: He's a very strong human who wishes to duke it out against the most powerful demons and, because he's suffering to a terminal illness, he wants to be killed by the strongest of them all. He ultimately succeeds, as the portal is opened and Yusuke, who is forcefully transformed into a demon by his ancestor, kills him. This last outcome leaves Yusuke himself furious.
  • The three main rulers of the Makai world. One of them is revealed to be Yusuke's ancestor, Raizen, and the one who meddled with his fight against Sensui in the prior arc. After one of them (Raizen) dies due to a self-imposed famine, the other two aim to set up a plan to dominate and rule all of Makai. Yusuke convinces them to settle the conflict with a tournament where many demons participate. Neither Yusuke, his friends nor either of the two remaining rulers wins, but in the end all involved parties end on amicable terms, and the former ruler Yomi wishes to fight Yusuke again in the future for fun.
  • In the manga, it's revealed that alot of the early villains had been pawns in an enormously elaborate publicity stunt overseen by King Enma, the true villain.
  • Yakumo in Poltergeist Report. He incapacitates the Spirit World with a flood, and aims to take over all other realms starting with that of the humans. After a grueling battle against him and his most powerful servants, the world is saved.
• Zombie Land Saga: The Curse of Saga, being responsible for trying to keep Franchouchou from trying to spread Saga's name.

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