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Evil Versus Evil / Anime & Manga

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Evil Versus Evil in Anime and Manga.

  • Baccano!:
    • The most literal example is probably the fight in the Flying Pussyfoot between the Lemures and Ladd's gang. The Lemures are a Cult devoted to the immortal Mad Scientist Huey Laforet and they plan on slaughtering the passengers as a sacrifice to their leader/show of force to free their leader from prison. Ladd's gang are a bunch of psychos who are there to hold the train for ransom...after killing half of the passengers. Ladd's gang only kill the Lemures and by extension rescue the passengers, because they want to kill the passengers themselves, purely For the Evulz.
    • The presence of the Rail Tracer makes this a three-way bad guy fight.
  • An episode of Bakugan Mechtanium Surge was actually called Evil VS Evil.
  • Invoked in Basilisk by the Shogun, to head off another Evil Versus Evil Xanatos Speed Chess occurring between the nannies of his heirs, and remove them from influence over the succession.
  • Battle Royale has Kazuo Kiriyama against Mitsuko Souma as the two most dangerous contestants of the titular Deadly Game.
  • In Berserk, the Neo-Band of Hawks led by Griffith and the Apostles versus Emperor Ganishka of Kushan. Both sides use different types of Eldritch Abominations in their final battle.
  • Happens to some extent at the end of the first season of the Black Butler anime. A psycho Fallen Angel tries to burn London to the ground as the first stage of an attempt to "purify" humanity. Humanity's only hope ends up being a demon who, for various reasons, wants said angel dead.
    • The second season initially appeared to be leading towards this type of conflict, but very quickly abandoned this approach by having Claude, previously morally ambiguous a la Sebastian, off Alois, briskly setting him up as the main antagonist and effectively eliminating the moral ambiguity aspect.
    • The whole principle of Ciel's role as the Queen's watchdog is like this. Ciel achieves the Queen's desires and keeps stability through many times evil means. It is not too surprising that a police officer calls the Earl a demon.
  • Black Joke features zero good guys, with all important characters being organized criminals.
  • Black Lagoon has an awful lot of this going on. With very few exceptions it's extremely hard to see what, if anything, distinguishes the protagonists and antagonists on a moral level. Possibly nothing, except for the strength of the person's Freudian Excuse. In Black Lagoon you're either a mafia leader or a complete psychopath. Or both.
  • Bleach:
    • Mayuri Kurotsuchi (who is technically still evil) achieves his Big Damn Heroes moment when he saves Ishida and Renji from Szayelaporro Granz, who was gleefully torturing them by snapping every bone and tendon in their bodies one by one.
    • A second time occurred with Mayuri in the final arc. The amoral Mad Scientist performs a second Villainous Rescue (or Big Damn Heroes — take your pick) by the end of Chapter 589, facing up against Giselle Gewelle, who Loves the Sound of Screaming and performs Unfriendly Fire for her own amusement. The only reason he intervened just before she zombified Ikkaku and Yumichika is because he found her Zombie ability intriguing.
    • And again for Mayuri a bit later, when he takes on the Sternritter Pernida Parnkgjas. Kubo seems to be deliberately one-upping himself — each Mayuri fight is a bigger horror show than the last. This time his opponent is pure Eldritch Abomination, but Mayuri too is at his most twisted, with a horrifying new bankai and a pocketful of screaming primitive lifeforms that he uses as shields and bombs. Yet as always he's the guy you want on your side: he saves Squad 11 from an enemy they couldn't possibly have beaten, and we even get to see a faint glimmer of humanity in his relationship with Nemu.
    • Kenpachi Zaraki, Blood Knight galore, versus Nnoitra Gilga, a He-Man Woman Hater. While Kenpachi just fights for the sake of getting a thrill out of it, he has his own code of honor, like not killing weaker enemies, and he has a(n equally battle-hungry) Morality Pet. On the other hand, Nnoitra fights dirty, attacks wounded opponents, mistreats his own subordinate, kicks a child in the gut, and practically tortures The Hero throughout their fight.
    • Invoked by Shunsui on the topic of bringing out Aizen to help fight Yhwach:
      Shunsui: Honor? Is that what you are all talking about? Then let us speak instead of our duty to the Gotei 13. Honor will not protect the world. I do not believe that using evil to defeat evil is itself an evil act.
  • In The Boy Who Swore Revenge On The World, the protagonist sees nothing wrong with weaponizing a Zombie Apocalypse against people who have done no wrong to him and boosting his martial might by any means necessary, and wants vengeance upon the whole world, trusting none but those who are magically enslaved to him. He is slightly more sympathetic than his enemies as he does treat those who are in his thrall with genuine care and treasures them and is pragmatic in his villainy, refusing to harm non-combatants if he can help it. His Arch-Enemy is a Godhood Seeker former angel that usurped the god she served who brainwashed an entire country of 10+ million people, uses Human Resources, and repeatedly attempts to genocide all her country's neighbors that are less than 100% human.
  • Code Geass: Lelouch vi Britannia invokes this trope to his campaign as the leader of the Black Knights against the Holy Empire of Britannia. In reality, it's a case of Black Versus Gray, where Lelouch knowingly plays around with conventions, given that traditionally heroic means won't accomplish anything.
  • In the Digimon Adventure episode "MetalEtemon's Comeback Tour", MetalEtemon, previous Big Bad Etemon who Came Back Strong, and Puppetmon, current member of the Big Bad Duumvirate, get into a fight over who gets to kill the Digi-Destined. Despite them both being Mega-level Digimon, their battle looks utterly ridiculous because MetalEtemon is still a Large Ham, and Puppetmon is basically a Psychopathic Man Child.
  • Dragon Ball Z:
    • During the Saiyan Saga, Piccolo (the reincarnation of the demon king) teams up with Goku to fight against Raditz. This was before Piccolo had his Heel–Face Turn.
    • The Saiyan Saga also has Vegeta and Nappa, two murderous Blood Knights, depose an Evil Overlord on the planet of Arlia after he made the mistake of locking them both up. The people think they've been saved from an evil tyrant, only for Vegeta to remind them that he's a villain as well when he blows up the planet for shits and giggles.
    • The Namek saga has Vegeta almost in the role of Villain Protagonist. He is the Big Bad of the previous arc (barely a month before), and that his methods for obtaining Dragon Balls (devastate the village it is kept) are exactly the same that Frieza and his men employ. But, with Goku in space/healing and Piccolo dead, he is the best chance of holding off or defeating Frieza for most of the saga.
    • In the Android Saga, Androids 17 and 18 reveal they aren't so loyal to Dr. Gero and proceed to betray him and execute him in front of the Z-fighters.
    • Then in the Cell Saga, the now antiheroic Vegeta fights with Semiperfect Cell. When Tien notices Piccolo doesn't look pleased he asks if they were winning, however Piccolo replies by saying "Vegeta is winning."
    • Buu Saga, while Vegeta has now firmly reformed we still get this trope in play with Majin Buu. First off he fights Demon King Dabura in a Curb-Stomp Battle. Then later he betrays his master Babidi after sick of being bossed around and abused.
    • Later in the Buu Saga, after Fat Buu turns over a new leaf thanks to Mr Satan, trouble rises again when two thugs shoot Mr Satan. This causes Buu to become so angry it manifests into a separate body as Evil Buu who promptly kills one thug. Then Evil Buu proceeds to overwhelm Fat Buu and absorb him, becoming Super Buu, who then proceeds to kill the other thug.
  • Elfen Lied is an example of this in some respects. Lucy is a Villain Protagonist, but the organization that's trying to capture her is led by a villain and has field agents who are very questionably heroic. Most of the good characters can't really do much in this conflict; Nana is the only "good" diclonius, and she's a bit of a Jobber.
  • Excel♡Saga. One side is World Domination group ACROSS, trying to take over Fukuoka City as a first step towards taking over the world. The other side is the very corrupt Department of City Security, trying to stop ACROSS. Both recklessly disregard the lives of the people living in Fukuoka in their attempts to take the other one down.
  • In Fairy Tail, the power-grabbing megalomaniac King Faust loses no time backstabbing the Exceed, whose leaders have presented themselves as nasty, self-righteous, specieist tyrants. Downplayed when the Exceed are revealed to have just pretended to be powerful with the help of their queen's prophetic abilities to keep humans frightened and avoid annihilation, though it did give their people a serious god complex.
  • As an odd example where the worse bad guy is actually the one you might cheer for, Kirei Kotomine vs. Zouken Matou in Fate/stay night. Sure, Kotomine's an Omnicidal Maniac who screws with people For the Evulz, but he's not the one who inflicted Sakura’s backstory on her. Nor is he made of worms. Zouken wants immortality. Kotomine wants to destroy the world. Kotomine comes off as less horrible. And in the climax of Heaven's Feel it's Kirei who destroys Zouken's main body, although Sakura finished him off. Kotomine gets a lot of sympathy points beforehand, though. And he saves Sakura and Ilya plus stops True Assassin.
  • In Fixed Damage, the backdrop involves 7 parties of "heroes" being sent against an Omnicidal Maniac Devil King and his armies. The armies of the Devil King are very fond of Rape, Pillage, and Burn, which occurs on-screen, but the so-called heroes aren't much better. Chrome, the protagonist, is betrayed by his party in chapter 1, slapped with a curse to steal his magic, strength, and endurance as well as inflicting him with "Darkness" which forces him to feel hate, despair, and misanthropy while the party's "hero" not only gains the stolen power, but is then infused with "Light." This is done purely so said party can gain an edge over their 6 peers, who are later shown being butt-hurt that Yuno got the "accomplishment" of being the one to destroy the Devil King, one of these "heroes" even siding with the Demon King's army! As for the original party? Once the Devil King's taken care of, they full-tilt Villain with Good Publicity and do heinous things to everyone around them while still making themselves look virtuous to the masses at large. Hard to feel sorry for them when Chrome catches up to them...
  • Fullmetal Alchemist pits Greed against the other homunculi and Father/Dante. He betrayed his creator and "siblings", and remains against them right up to his death.
    Al: That makes you a friend of Envy, Lust and the others, doesn't it?
    Greed: I wouldn't say 'friend'; more like 'sworn enemies' if you wanna get down to the grit.
  • In Futari wa Pretty Cure, the fact that the Dark King and the three Dark Seeds didn't get along was the only reason the girls stood a chance. Ridiculous levels of power were being thrown about in the last few episodes... but thankfully not at them at the time they were least able to fight back.
  • Gundam also used it a few times.

  • Ryo Mashiba vs. Ryuuhei Sawamura in Hajime no Ippo. See a greater description on Eviler than Thou.
  • In Haruhi Suzumiya, Ryoko is extremely forward about her plans. She wants to kill Kyon in order to provoke a massive data explosion from Haruhi. Admittedly, this could cause the end of the world, depending on how much Haruhi loves Kyon. Yuki stops her and deletes her. Fast forward to nine novels later. Yuki is sick. ( She's become ambassador to the Sky Canopy Dominion, because they aren't allowed to kill her after Kyon's threat. Next best thing is to send her to Cthulhu, and hope that'll break her completely.). Just when Suyoh comes out, and attacks Kyon, Ryoko arrives, in a Big Damn Heroes arrival, and protects Kyon. She still wants to kill him, but for now, only she can kill him.
    Kimidori: Your potential usefulness was marginally greater than the threat you present.
  • Hellsing's final battle turns into something like this after most of London's civilians have been slaughtered. On one side there's literal Knight Templars with orders to kill any Protestants, and on the other are baby-chomping vampire Nazis. And finally there's Alucard.
  • The Hero Laughs While Walking the Path of Vengeance a Second Time has this as its very premise. Ueki Kaito was an Ideal Hero in the original timeline, but after being framed, betrayed, and hunted down like an animal by his "companions", the God of Earth revived him at the very moment he was summoned to this new world ending "Tutorial Mode," at which point, he cared about little aside from seeking out some rather righteous vengeance. The people who wronged him? A Nazi by Any Other Name psychotic princess who summoned him to be her Unwitting Pawn and scapegoat, a Mad Scientist Glory Seeker Psycho Lesbian mage who only sees him as "an ingredient" to make into a magical tool that will get her name on a monument, and isn't above condemning entire villages into undead minions so she can kidnap her own half-sister to use as Human Resources, and a Yandere Saintess who thinks the best way to win his heart is to name him the enemy of the world, hunt him down and kill him, to "purify" his soul, and then somehow travel back in time to the summoning chamber to try again... Oh and everybody in the original timeline who hunted him aside from these "companions?" Murderous dicks who see nothing wrong with Rape, Pillage, and Burn, among other nasty crimes.
  • In Holyland, Katou tries to muscle in on King's drug operation. It does not end well for him.
  • Hunter × Hunter's main villain Hisoka is a pretty good example of this as he often pits himself against other villains either for his own twisted amusement or so that he can be the only one to kill series protagonist Gon and his friends.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Kekkaishi is oddly getting to be like this. Aside from the guardians of Karasumori, there are two main factions. Sousui is attempting to bring down the Urukai, and Shinyuuchi-hunting. Yumeji is attempting to stop the former, but is also Shinyuuchi-hunting and trying to destroy Karasumori. (For those unfamiliar with the series, Shinyuuchi-hunting is the act of killing a god and taking over its domain. Considered to be the ultimate perversion of the laws of nature.)
  • One arc in Kill la Kill has Honnouji Academy try to invade Naniwa Kinman High School. While the latter and it's Student Council President, Takarada, would technically be considered the good guys in this scenario since Honnouji has already been established as the villains and since Takarada is secretly funding Nudist Beach, Takarada turns out to be arrogant and greedy, bribing the citizens of Osaka to fight for him with not a single care about the collateral damage caused to the city. Though eventually Ryuko arrives as a third party to the conflict to retrieve the stolen patches of Senketsu attached to and empowering Honnouji's uniforms and put Senketsu back together.
  • Liar Game is more of a down to earth type of story but it goes on and on for chapters on Round 4 where Yokoya and Harimoto are competing with each other, and in times making alliances even, to a point that our main heroes, Akiyama and Nao, kinda disappear. Even Yokoya and Harimoto kinda disregard Akiyama as a threat for a while. Big Mistake.
  • Lone Wolf and Cub has Retsudo Yagyu and Abe-no-Kaii Tanoshi. Kaii attempts to destroy both Yagyu and the main character, Ogami Itto, while Retsudo spies on Kaii with plans to kill him after Itto. Eventually, Retsudo gets fed up with Kaii and frames him for a seppuku-worthy crime. Kaii dies.
  • Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force: The Huckebein Family finds itself fighting others who are infected with the same virus but are Eviler than Thou.
  • The entire premise of Moriarty the Patriot revolves around William and his brothers murdering evil nobles and others who abuse their power. But the Moriarty brothers are well aware that murder is, well, evil.
  • In My Hero Academia, this sometimes happens between the League of Villains and those who want to take their spot as the head honchos in the criminal underworld, or otherwise use their defeat to further their own goals.
    • The Shie Hassaikai Arc has the League of Villains vs the Yakuza. Initially, the Yakuza leader Overhaul attempts to form an alliance with the League, but they swiftly came to blows over who should be in charge and differing goals. The League later does agree to work with the Yakuza, but only does so in order to betray them in revenge.
    • The Meta Liberation Army Arc focuses entirely on the League of Villains facing off against the eponymous group. The League is a collection of dangerous villains who primarily seek to tear down the fabric of a society that they see as flawed and broken. The Liberation Army is an organization of domestic terrorists who seek to remove the restrictions on quirk usage and create a "liberated" society where one could use their quirks however they please regardless of potential consequences. The Liberation Army finds the League's growing notoriety a threat to their goals, and to that end, they offer them an ultimatum; either face their forces directly or have their location swarmed by the professional heroes that they might tip-off.
  • Naruto:
    • Orochimaru is a former Akatsuki member, and The Akatsuki itself want him dead and vice versa.
    • Sasuke vs. Danzo. The former is planning to kill everyone in Konoha to avenge his clan, while the latter was responsible for said clan's demise, along with many other questionable deeds, including trying to let Konoha get destroyed just so he can take it over.
    • Sasuke does this quite a bit; he also fights Deidara, a terrorist whose "reason" for fighting is literally "just because", and Orochimaru, an Evil Overlord who also tried to destroy Konoha and has virtually no regard for the lives of anyone except himself.
    • In the backstory, there's Pain/Nagato vs. Hanzo. Hanzo was a paranoid warlord responsible for the death of Nagato's best friend, which makes Nagato jump off the deep end; after killing Hanzo, he murders everyone even slightly associated with the warlord, declares himself a god, and forms a terrorist organization with the aim of enforcing world peace through the series's equivalent of a nuke. Only a few brief verbal descriptions and a handful of flashback panels allude to what surely was an epic war. The anime gives Adaptation Expansion a go and really dives into the meat of the war.
    • Naruto himself dives into evil territory when he's being controlled by the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed inside of him; he's faced both Orochimaru and Pain in this state. Though the fox eventually makes a Heel–Face Turn.
  • In One Piece, the Seven Warlords of the Sea, the World Government's Token Evil Teammate serve as this, going after other Pirate crews, who are all viewed as evil by the World Government and Marines, and who are almost all not good like the Straw Hat crew. In a way, this sort-of sums up the Pirates versus the World Government. Especially when you have people like Fleet Admiral Akainu and Vice Admiral Onigumo in such high positions in their armed wing, or a guy like Rob Lucci as the leader of your top assassin squad. And whether the Revolutionaries are actually good overall — despite Dragon defecting from the Marines and originally resisting the Government through non-violent means and only rising in arms when there was no other option, and declaring the Dragons the actual enemy to be toppled — remains to be seen.
    • Bartholomew Kuma is a subversion, as he used to be a Revolutionary before becoming a Warlord, and he's said to have been a vicious mass murderer; however, said awful reputation was built on a demonization campaign the deranged king of the Sorbet Kingdom engaged into; He was an slave, and then a pastor who was hailed as the rightful king of Sorbet, and his actions prior to losing his free will to his cyborg conversion demonstrate he is one of the more decent of the Warlords.
  • Pokémon: The Series: Teams Magma and Aqua as always, and Teams Rocket and Plasma as well. The Pokémon Adventures manga contains another example: during the "Yellow" arc, we have Team Rocket vs. the Elite Four (who are subject to Adaptational Villainy in this version).
  • Redo of Healer: The titular Healer is a vicious Serial Rapist who captures and enslaves two of his enemies and puts them into his battle harem and a war-mongerer who occupies and destroys entire corrupt kingdoms not out of well-intentions, but to get back at his former "comrades" who raped and tortured him. His enemies are just as bad without even the sympathetic Freudian Excuse he has and are just flat-out vile assholes.
  • The first major conflict in Rise Of The Outlaw Tamer involves a coup in the "Kingdom of God" (yes, that is the country's actual name). The former head of state was the Pope who was a Dirty Old Man and The Social Darwinist bent on a 100% magic-capable population by killing children who didn't have magic talent. The usurper is a cardinal who practices Black Magic and is, if anything, even worse.
  • In the various Slayers series, the Mazoku Race shows up to be exemplars of this trope on a regular basis, usually through Xellos. The main plot Arc of Slayers Try is an archetypical example of this trope.
  • Transformers: Armada:
    • Megatron and Starscream's battle in "Rebellion" had Sideways trick both Starscream and Megatron into a duel with one another in attempt to overthrow the decepticon leader and promote the Dragon. Starscream had eventually lost and Megatron was restored as being the leader.
    • Thrust and Sideway's fight in "Detention".
    • "Regeneration" and "Cramped" also had Megatron and Starscream battle once again, but in the case of the latter, it's unsure if Starscream could still be considered a villain anymore.
  • In one of the manga from UFO Robo Grendizer — part of the Mazinger Z trilogy — Big Bad King Vega killed Emperor of Darkness, Big Bad of the former series: Great Mazinger. Pretty funny, King Vega not only did it because he was a potential competitor — since he also wanted to Take Over the World — but also because Emperor of Darkness was wanting to ally with the heroes to overthrow him.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! has a duel between Yami Marik, a psychopath who likes to Mind Rape and attempt to murder people, and Yami Bakura, a thief and murderer who wants the Millenium Items for his own mysterious reasons. The chapter/volume this duel appears is actually called "Evil VS Evil", making it an intended example of this trope. We're meant to be rooting for Bakura, as he's got Marik's good half on his side... too bad he loses. It has the honour of being both this and an example of Ham-to-Ham Combat — it becomes the kind of duel that needs to be seen to be believed.

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