Hero Killer / Anime & Manga

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• Pretty much any incarnation of Astro Boy has Pluto, whose entire function is to destroy the most powerful robots on Earth.
• Attack on Titan
  • The Female Titan. While ordinary Titans are quite a problem to deal with, this unique variant proves to be a literal case of More Deadly Than the Male as well as an Implacable Woman. She begins her rampage by slaughtering numerous experienced soldiers, and kills several in unnecessarily cruel ways such as spinning one poor soul to death after she catches his maneuver gear wires. But she's only getting started, and proceeds to slaughter the expert Titan-killers of the Special Operations Squad one by one. In the end, the best the surviving heroes can hope to do is slow her down long enough to escape with their lives. It doesn't help that the real identity of said Titan is Annie who is a very strong warrior up to Mikasa's level and knows exactly how they fight and how their gear works.
  • The Beast Titan gains this status by defeating the second strongest warrior of the Survey Corps when he first shows up. What's more, he was responsible for the emergence of Titans within the Walls. Then in the Battle Of Shiganshina Arc, he took out a large chunk of Survey Corps, including Marlo Sand and Erwin Smith, who had to lead a Heroic Sacrifice charge to distract the Beast Titan until Levi could cut through his defending Titans and then him before escaping with Cart Titan's aid. After the Beast Titan's rampage, coupled with the losses from that of the Colossal Titan, Survey Corps had only nine soldiers left. On top of that, they were forced to choose between letting either Armin or Erwin live on as a Titan Shifter. The former was picked.
  • The Colossal Titan is also this in the Battle Of Shiganshina Arc following Bertolt's explosive transformation leading to the deaths of Hange's squad, defeating the Attack/Rogue Titan easily, and then burning Armin alive with his heat. Thankfully, Hange and Armin survived but the former loses her eye while the latter had to take the Titan serum and eat the Colossal Titan, Bertolt, in time to live.
• Anytime Battle Royale's Kazuo Kiriyama shows up, everyone you are rooting for is going to die. Well, with the exception of Sugimura, the only character who is badass enough to survive this encounter. Twice.
• In Berserk The Apostles and by extension Femto aka Griffith massacre Corkus, Pippin, Judeau, Gaston, and rest the Band of Hawk as a sacrifice during the Eclipse. Only Guts and Casca make it out alive, albeit raped and missing limbs and an eyeball. Cue Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• Claymore has Priscilla, who in her debut kills the then-#1 Claymore Teresa and from then on proceeds to walk all over anyone and everyone whenever she gets serious.
  • Rigaldo's very first action is to effortlessly kill numerous named characters during the Northern Campaign (including Jean, Flora, and Undine) and forcing Clare to nearly awaken a second time in order to defeat him.
• Code Geass has Backstory Invader Rolo Haliburton pose as Lelouch's younger brother (as a replacement to Lulu's actual younger sibling, Nunally), and everyone who ever knew Nunally is mind-wiped to believe that Rolo has always been there. When Shirley regains her memories and accidentally reveals it in front of Rolo, he figures that she's too in the know and assassinates her in cold blood.
• In Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, there's a reason why people fear Adam Smasher as a dark Night City legend. Arasaka is generally not keen to deploy Adam Smasher due to his violent tendencies, but when faced with the most serious of threats he quickly lays waste to anyone who is deemed a threat to his employer. In the series proper, he kills Rebecca by smashing her into a fine paste with barely any effort, and then brutally kills David not too long after to establish exactly why he's so feared. Smasher also isn't even fazed by Lucy's attempt to hack him and nearly fries her brain instead midst the fight.
• In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, the most powerful assembly of demons in the series, the Upper Moons in the Twelve Kizuki group, are the scourge of the Demon Slayer Corps. Each Upper Moon has a body count of numerous slayers across centuries, the most elite and powerful slayers, the Hashira, included; the Upper-6 demons casually state they have killed 7 and 15 Hashira respectively in the past, while Akaza and Kokushibo vaguely allude to having fought Water Hashiras and Wind Hashiras beforehand. It goes to show just how miraculous the current Hashira generation is to actually start to pose a real threat to the Upper Moons after centuries of humiliation.
• Kazutaka Muraki from Descendants of Darkness. Literally, by the end of the series.
• D.Gray-Man: so far, Tyki Mikk has put Suman Dark in a Superpowered Evil Side that eventually killed him, curb-stomped Daisya Barry before having his butterflies eat his heart, killed General Yeegar with the assistance of Road and put Allen in a state that is so close to death, his Innocence had to save him (His arm was already almost destroyed by overloading it trying to save Suman Dark, but Tyki found it neccesary to kill off Suman´s still alive body before his eyes, rip off his arm and disintegrate it, crushing what seems to be his innocence before his eyes and then having a teez eat a hole in his heart). and even when he looked defeated, he instead went into a One-Winged Angel form that took a new character gaining his innocence AND General Cross to show up for them to survive. Hero Killer indeed.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Great Demon King Piccolo from Dragon Ball was the original Hero Killer. His actions lead to the deaths of Krillin, Master Roshi, and Chiaotzu. He also ordered the deaths of dozens of martial artists and killed Shenron after getting his wish from the Dragon Balls (something no other villain in the series has attempted before or since).
  • In Dragon Ball Z, Nappa directly killed Piccolo and his actions led to Tien and Chiaotzu's deaths by attempted Heroic Sacrifice. In addition, one of the Saibamen that he and Vegeta used managed to kill Yamcha by blowing him up.
  • Frieza set the standard to follow for many Dragon Ball villains by killing Dende, Vegeta and Krillin (and almost Gohan and Piccolo). In the Resurrection F Saga, he kills Piccolo and then destroys Earth after being beaten by Vegeta in his Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan form. Fortunately, Whis rewinds time to give Goku a second chance to destroy Frieza for good.
  • The Androids were this in the timeline Future Trunks came from; he and Bulma are the only main characters still alive before the timeline was altered, though Dragon Ball Super would later expand this number to include Android 8, Turtle, and Yajirobe.
  • Cell kills Future Trunks in the original Future timeline in order to get into the present day, where he kills Android 16 and Future Trunks again, and forces Goku to make a Heroic Sacrifice to stop him from blowing up the world.
  • Majin Buu is the most prolific example for this series. He killed the entire cast, except for Goku, Vegeta, Dende, and Mr. Satan (and Bee the dog), along with the Earth's inhabitants before blowing up the planet. And before he was even introduced, he had already killed or eaten several GODS.
  • The Demon King Dabura, a minor villain in the Buu arc, kills Piccolo by turning him to stone (though Piccolo is brought back later), does the same to Krillin, and incinerates Kibito with one blast. But what really gets him a spot here is his actions in the alternate timeline (as seen in the Dragon Ball Super manga) that Future Trunks is from. He kills Kibito again, kills the Old Kai by smashing the sword he was trapped in, beats down Future Trunks, and kills the Supreme Kai just for good measure.
  • In Dragon Ball Super, Goku Black makes his debut by killing Future Bulma, who was the one that provided the Time Machine for Future Trunks. He also severely wounded Future Mai who luckily turned out to be alive. He's also killed both Alternate Present and Future Gowasu, Alternate Present Goku in his old body, Alternate Present Chi-Chi and Goten, and the Supreme Kais from every other universe in his timeline except U7.
  • In Super Dragon Ball Heroes, the Crimson-Masked Saiyan, an alternate Goku Black, reveals he has been traveling through multiple timelines and killing their Gokus. When he meets our Goku, he says he has already killed 99 of them.
• Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist is introduced in this fashion. He kills many high ranking state alchemists, and shatters Ed's arm the first time they meet.
  • The Homunculi never lose this title, especially Wrath/King Bradley. Of all the villains, he has the highest count of characters killed (Dorchet, Roa, Martel, Greed I, Fuu, and Buccaneer, in addition to cutting off Lan Fan's arm, nearly killing Scar, and taking out most of the Briggs garrison and a tank); most people just run after seeing him.
  • Another Homumculus, Envy, while not quite as dangerous as their anime counterpart (see below), managed to prove themself quite the Knight of Cerebus by killing the unambiguously good military man and parent, Hughes. Not to mention, they singlehandedly started the Ishbalan conflict (and the indirect deaths of many characters, as this "created" Scar) by shooting a mere child.
  • In Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) (which went in a ''very'' different direction from the manga), Scar retains his Hero Killer status for much of the series, and Kimblee, while a different character, still has this going for him. Envy is another very good example, murdering numerous named characters, dancing pirouettes around the heroes during combat, and ultimately killing Ed during the climax. If you see Envy, book it.
• Ikazuchi, the villain of the second season of Future Card Buddyfight, is the first person to beat Gao, the series' Invincible Hero. He also has his Buddy monster, Yamigedo, eat Tenbu.
• In Future Diary we have the brutal stalker and Deuteragonist Yuno Gasai. The plot of the anime revolves around a game of survival, in the course of which all participants have to kill each other until only one remains. Yuno kills many of them, but most of them are at best anti-heroes, and at worst villains and anti-villains. However, she also kills three good people who are actually heroes, namely Kamado Ueshita, Yomotsu Hirasaka and Akise Aru.
• Ga-Rei -Zero- has Yomi, who takes the position early by killing the entire cast of the first episode, who were advertised as the main characters, and only gets worse from there.
• Lord Enorme's faction from Gushing Over Magical Girls proudly declare they have taken out several magical girl teams across the country. While initially it’s a bit ambiguous if they actually murdered them or just crippled them and destroyed their Transformation Trinkets, Berserga's flashback implies that there was a body count.
• Neferpitou the first and strongest of the Chimera Ant Royal Guards from Hunter × Hunter. In his debut, Neferpitou killed Kite just to test his strength. Later, he forced Gon to invoke a Deadly Upgrade to defeat him, an act that nearly cost Gon his life.
  • Meryuem, the Chimera Ant King, is the biggest threat that has appeared in the series. Netero dies in their fight.
• In Inuyasha, there is Naraku who slays the monk Miyatsu and the priestess Kikyo (twice).
• Many of the Big Bads in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure earn a frightening reputation among the heroes by taking out some of them prior to the final confrontation.
  • During Part 1, Dio Brando kills Dire during their battle, and then Jonathan Joestar, The Hero hinself, in the final encounter. When he returns in Part 3, the heroes know that he is an enemy to be feared.
    • During the final battle of Part 3, DIO adds Kakyoin and Joseph to his body count (although the latter was resurrected with DIO's blood).
    • Vanilla Ice also deserves a mention. He might be just a loyal minion of DIO, but for these standards two hero kills (Avdol and Iggy), and a near-victory over Polnareff are impressive.
  • In Part 4, Diamond Is Unbreakable, Big Bad Yoshikage Kira manages to successfully kill off the entire main cast with his Time Master ability "Bites the Dust", although Hayato manages to Set Right What Once Went Wrong.
  • In Part 5, Golden Wind, Diavolo turns up, and justifies his name by killing Bucciarati, Abbacchio, and Narancia, with Polnareff almost joining them. That's half the good guys team!
  • Part 6, Stone Ocean, brings us Father Enrico Pucci, who kills Foo Fighters and Weather Report prior to the final battle. And during said final battle, he kills every single remaining hero except for Emporio.
  • Near the end of Part 7, Steel Ball Run, we have Funny Valentine, who's killed Wekapipo, Diego Brando, Hot Pants AND Gyro Zeppeli, the latter three of whom were thought to be characters with at least a certain degree of Plot Armor, and one of them was the Deuteragonist.
  • From Part 8, JoJolion, there's a two-way share of hero kills from Tooru and Satoru Akefu^*Actually Tooru's Stand, Wonder of U.. The ability of the Wonder of U Stand is to inflict calamity onto anybody who dares to even think about pursuing its user, which causes Kei Nijimura to die from getting Satoru's cane lodged in her eye and Rai Mamezuku to die from being accidentally struck by Josuke Higashikata's Spin ability. Thankfully, Kaato Higashikata kills Tooru before he can do any more harm by transferring her grandson Tsurugi's Rock Curse onto him, but Satoru still isn't dead, causing him to kill off Kaato before Josuke makes him explode.
• In Jujutsu Kaisen, Mahito is responsible for the deaths of Junpei, Kokichi Muta, the sorcerer behind Mechamaru, Nanami and Nobara; the latter two happening during the Shibuya Incident arc.
• La Seine No Hoshi: Hans has had it out for Duke de Forges before the start of the story, because he spurred him from exploiting Simone as a baby. After years, he tracks him down and kills him in front of his son.
• In Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam not only is Yazan Gable one of the few pilots who can threaten the life of Kamille Bidan, a fact that terrifies Kamille, but by the end of the series he's managed to kill Jamaican Danigan, Katz Kobayashi, Henken Bekkener, the entire crew of the Radish, Emma Sheen, and Reccoa Londe, than opens Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ by cutting down Saegusa.
  • Rakan Dahkaran, the Yazan Gable expy of Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, naturally also reaches this status. He's one of the few pilots who can regularly give Judau a run for his money, the protagonists typically flee rather than engage him, and he takes out both Mashymyre Cello and longtime Gundam veteran Hayato Kobayashi towards the end of the series.
  • Whenever Ali al-Saachez of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 shows up, you can be sure there will be much asskicking towards the heroes involved. Towards the end of the first season, Ali kills off a total of three named pilots, capping off his killing spree by defeating The Hero of Celestial Being, Lockon Stratos, in mech combat. By the second season, however, Ali al-Saachez has been downgraded from Infinite effectiveness to only High, thank to his first defeat at the hands of his enraged mortal enemy, Setsuna F. Seiei. Eventually, his threat against humanity ended for eternity with his Karmic Death at the hands of the second Lockon Stratos.
• In My Hero Academia, Stain is often just referred to as "the Hero Killer" due to the number of professional Heroes who have been murdered or maimed by him (the latter category includes Tensei Iida). He's a Knight Templar who sees most "Heroes" as selfish individuals in it for fame and riches; he'll actually spare those whom he deems truly deserving, including Midoriya, and says that All Might is the only Hero worthy of killing him.
  • All For One makes his entrance during the Hideout Raid arc by blasting away an entire team of heroes without breaking a sweat before blowing a hole through the torso of Rank 4 hero Best Jeanist (though all manage to survive). He still has enough energy left over to fight All Might to a standstill, and almost succeeds in killing him before All Might gets a Heroic Second Wind and puts All For One down for the count. It's noted later that All For One has killed every previous bearer of One for All (including All Might's mentor Nana Shimura) except for the Fourth Wielder, who actually died from premature aging, and as he's been around since Quirks started being a thing he probably has plenty of kills under his belt.
  • All for One's successor, Tomura Shigaraki, gains this reputation in later arcs. Upon awakening after gaining All for One's Quirk, he unleashes a massive decay wave in Jakku City that kills a number of Pro-Heroes, among them X-Less, whose cape he takes for himself, and the Number Six hero, Crust. He later manages to kill Star and Stripe, America's Number One Hero.
  • Muscular, an insane super-strong serial killer, has his own share of heroes on his body count, two of them being the Water Hose duo, whose deaths caused their son Kota to hate heroes for a time.
  • Overhaul deals Sir Nighteye fatal wounds during their battle which kill him in the hospital later on.
• Tobi aka Obito Uchiha from Naruto. He's responsible for the deaths of Naruto's parents, Hiruzen's wife, Itachi's teammate, Danzo's bodyguards, Konan, Neji, Mabui, Shikaku with Inoichi and a large number of allied ninja troops. By claiming Madara's name as an alias, he gains enough clout to force the entire Ninja World into the Fourth Shinobi World War.
  • Madara Uchiha himself also has the right to be one. He puts both Naruto and Sasuke on their deathbeds in just two chapters. It didn't stick, but that doesn't change the fact that he did it. He also would have possibly killed the five kages if Karin and Suigetsu didn't heal Tsunade.
  • Pain is a suitable example as well. He killed one of the most influential mentors to Naruto, Jiraiya, destroyed the Leaf Village, and brought Tsunade to a coma. He also killed numerous named characters, such as Kakashi, Fukasaku and Shizune, led Kakashi to his death, and nearly killed Hinata, though these were reversed with his redemption, save Jiraiya.
  • Hidan is a standout as he not only kills Asuma, but he's one of the few villains who is a complete Jerkass and not in any way redeeming.
  • Orochimaru is the original example of this in Naruto, given that he killed the first Big Good of the series, Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage. To be fair, it was via the Third's Heroic Sacrifice, but Sarutobi would've died straight-up if he'd kept fighting normally.
• The nine Mass Production Evangelions in End of Evangelion managed to kill Asuka and Unit 02.
  • While Zeruel didn't kill anyone, he provided the biggest curb-stomping in the series up to that point, actually physically breaching NERV headquarters and defeating all three EVAs. It took Unit-01 going berserk, achieving 400% synchronization (causing the pilot to temporarily lose his physical body) and eating Zeruel alive to finally do him in.
• One Piece:
  • During the Paramount War, Admiral Akainu and Blackbeard gain this status by killing Portgas D. Ace and Whitebeard respectively, shattering One Piece's non-flashback-named-character Plot Armor.
  • Kaido, one of the Four Emperors, is this due to his invulnerability and that it is said that you must bet on him in a one-on-one fight. In his first full appearance, he defeated the Supernovas Kid and Killer due to being set up by Apoo and forced Hawkins to join him knowing he is likely to survive while the former two were forced to be jailed or work as a subordinate to his crew or the Shogun Orochi. In his next appearance after showing off his Devil Fruit power, he No-Sell Luffy's strongest attacks in Gear Fourth which only sobered him up and knocked Luffy out in ONE HIT. The only reason he doesn't kill Luffy after knocking him out was his urge to add more strong pirates to his crew by breaking their wills. In the past, he was the one who defeated Kozuki Oden, but with Kurozumi Higurashi's help much to his anger, to the point he killed her for interrupting said worthy fight and having to execute him. In the present fight, even though Luffy was able to find a way to hurt Kaido with Conqueror's Haki which the strongest characters are capable of doing, he still beats him to the point that he's knocked unconscious and falling off the floating Onigashima island right into the sea. And in a case of History Repeats, after Luffy immediately gets back into the fight, Kaido nearly kills him, this time with the unwanted help of a CP-0 agent, and despite his chagrin he boasts Luffy's death to everyone. Then Luffy happens to awaken his Devil Fruit...
• One-Punch Man has Garou, a martial artist who targets the Hero Association out of a desire to become a "Monster" in his own right. He defeats over a hundred heroes, and almost never loses even against the insanely powerful S-Class ones. Subverted, however, as it turns out that he never actually kills the heroes he defeated, and his true goal is to be the Big Bad who unites the world against him through fear for him.
  • This changes in the manga remake however, when Garou was given "divine power" by the true Big Bad, God, and became Cosmic Fear Garou who emitted enough deadly cosmic radiation that those without enough resistance to it began to collapse and die just from being in his presence. This included Garou's Morality Pet Tareo. Then, in order to draw out Saitama's full power, Garou killed Genos by removing his core. Though after seeing that his actions had resulted in Tareo's death, Garou realised the error of his ways and gave Saitama the means to travel back in time so he could prevent the damage he was about to cause.
• Rosario + Vampire: Kuyou. In his very first appearance, he immolates Tsukune and very nearly kills Inner Moka; in the case of the former, it's only thanks to a Superhuman Transfusion from Moka that Tsukune didn't stay dead.
• Sailor Moon:
  • The Super S part of the first anime was Lighter and Softer until a certain Monster Clown showed up, sent by Zirconia rather than the Amazon Trio. He kills the Amazon Trio as they're on their way to their Heel–Face Turn.
  • Towards the end of the anime, Sailor Galaxia kills Mamoru and Princess Kakyuu.
• In Shakugan no Shana, Sabrac is known for having killed nearly every Flame Haze who had ever crossed his path.
• In Tokyo Ghoul, a pair of these exist to contrast each other and have even clashed with each other during the finale of the original series, until it is revealed that they were secretly working together.
  • Kishou Arima is a legendary Ghoul Investigator famous for being undefeated and called "CCG's Grim Reaper". He is responsible for killing Yomo's older sister, and finally makes his grand appearance on the battlefield during the finale — appearing standing calmly among piles of corpses. He follows this up by fatally wounding Kaneki, resulting in his status as an Amnesiac Hero in the sequel. Arima's mere presence on a battlefield will turn things in the favor of the CCG every single time.
  • The One-Eyed Owl, the leader of ghoul-supremacist group Aogiri Tree, is famous for having carried out a string of brutal attacks, slaughtering many Investigators including the wife of Kureo Mado and the father of Kuki Urie. This rampage was finally ended through the efforts of the legendary Iwao Kuroiwa and Kishou Arima, but the Owl ultimately escaped, and emerged a decade later. When he appears again during the finale, he proceeds to mortally wound Yukinori Shinohara and leaves many Investigators dead or wounded before being driven away by Arima. And he, or rather she, still got what she came for, and laughs the whole thing off. Shinohara is left in a coma, as a result of his injuries, while Eto goes on to kill much more people until Kaneki finally defeats her.
• Lord Darcia from Wolf's Rain becomes this in the final episodes.
• X/1999 has Fuuma Monou, Kamui's childhood friend and Kotori's brother, who ended up being the "other twin" of Kamui once he chose a side. He's probably the only character with the highest kill count though this only in the anime and movie. In the anime, he killed Kotori, Daisuke, Sorata, Nataku and Kamui while in the movie, he killed Kotori (again), Kusanagi, Yuto, Kanoe, Sorata (again) and Arashi. In the manga, he only killed three people (Kotori, Daisuke and Nataku) so far unless you count destroying the entire Ginza area.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V has a few characters who fulfill this roll. The Obelisk Force start the trend off during their first phase as Elite Mooks, taking out minor heroic character Michio among a few other non-heroics. During the later arcs B.B also takes out several heroes via carding, among them Tsukikage and Crow and nearly taking out several others. The biggest hero killer of them all however, is Yuri, whose list of victims include Asuka, Yugo and Yusho, between beating and kidnapping many others.

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