Jerks Are Worse Than Villains in Anime and Manga.
Examples:
- Berserk: An example specific to the Lost Children arc is Zepek, Jill's truly loathsome father. In a series full of complete bastards like Griffith who, despite their disgusting actions, still manage to be surprisingly compelling and have an aura of coolness, Zepek somehow stands out among them due to being abusive, cowardly, and a Miles Gloriosus of the highest order. By contrast, the main Apostle Rosine is a mass-murdering Enfant Terrible monster who has caused massive terror and carnage for her selfish fantasies, as well as transformed dozens of poor children into insectoid minions, but she still has fans for her sympathetic backstory, friendship with Jill, awesome design, and the brutal fight she gives Guts despite being a little girl. Zepek, meanwhile, has none.
- There are many despicable characters from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, from The Big Bad Muzan to Enmu, but Kaigaku is up there despite human at first. A bully and a coward who only looks out to save his own skin, he spent all of his time berating and bullying Zenitsu who looked up to him. It gets worse when we find out that as a child he sacrificed the lives of other orphans to save himself from a demon. When confronted by a stronger opponent he pathetically pleads for his life and begs to become a demon and when he finds out that his Master committed seppuku out of shame, his only reaction is to sneer in indifference.
- In Dragon Ball Super, we meet Barry Kahn. He acts much like Sai'aku as a human analog to Frieza without any of the cool, interesting, and/or fantastical traits that make the latter so popular. All it takes is somebody denying specifically what he wants to set him off to the point he actively tries to arrange bodily harm upon those people, even if that wasn't the intention. Specific examples include changing a scene during a dangerous stunt to make it look cooler, threatening to ruin the stuntman's career if he doesn't participate all with the douchiest smirk on his face, and later trying to destroy Gohan and Videl's marriage just because the latter civilly turned down getting Barry's autograph. What truly cements Barry as human garbage is when an alien parasite infects him and brings all the evil within his heart to dominate his personality, causing him to kidnap baby Pan and lure out Gohan so he can murder the latter in public. That's right; he's so vile a human being that even Gohan lost his patience and slammed the scumbag into a wall... and that was just before the parasite made him snap.
- Elfen Lied has several mass-murdering villains from the Villain Protagonist Lucy (who has a sympathetic backstory) to Director Kakuzawa and his facility of Mad Scientists, but the most notorious Hate Sink is the bully Tomoo, who only appears in Lucy's flashback and who’s only kill is her dog. He doesn't live to regret his jerkassery in-universe either.
- Eureka Seven has Holland Novak. Throughout the first half of the series, he abuses and belittles Renton out of petty jealousy for being Eureka's partner, and his ineptitude as a leader has gotten the Gekkostate in trouble on multiple occasions. Even after his Character Development, this earned him more hatred than his brother, Dewey, who uses Tyke Bombs and initiates False Flag Operations to gain public support for a genocide against the Coralians.
- Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Despite their brief screentime, CIA agents Suzuki Sato and Tanaka Watanabe stand out as particularly detestable. Because they tried to manipulate Section 9 (especially Batou) into killing Marco Amoretti in order to cover-up a brutal covert operation in South America and just by being smug assholes, you will hate them more than Amoretti (even though he kills women by skinning them alive). They later return and kill Hideo Kuze. Kuze himself is a rather likeable Anti-Villain who makes it clear he has standards.
- The Great Mission to Save Princess Peach!: As this is a Super Mario Bros. film, fans went in expecting Big Bad King Koopa to be villainous, and if not despicable, still Laughably Evil in his villainy. The most hated character is instead Kibidango, the Wiggler-like dog that accompanies the Mario Bros. on their adventure, for being considered The Load of the team as well as acting somewhat obnoxious. Kibidango is revealed at the end to be a prince under a curse as well as estranged from his fiancee (who turns out to be Peach) because of it, so when his curse is broken and he gets together with Peach as Prince Haru, leaving Mario heartbroken but encouraging, fans saw it as rewarding him for his behavior.
- Gundam:
- Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack: While Char is clearly the villain, with trying to destroy Earth with a Colony Drop, arguably the most reviled character is Hathaway Noa, a Tagalong Kid who kills Chan Agi in retaliation for killing his Love Interest Quess Paraya. While the situation was a result of Poor Communication Kills and Hathaway was trying to convince Quess to make a Heel–Face Turn, it still doesn't change the fact that he killed Chan because she did what a soldier was supposed to do in battle. It doesn't help that Hathaway was not punished for his actions (at least, until Hathaway's Flash, which ironically is also the work that made him more liked in the fanbase).
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED has Flay Allster, who started prejudiced against Coordinators but made an exception for her friend Kira Yamato. But after watching her father be killed by Coordinators and Kira fail his promise to protect him, Flay emotionally and sexually manipulates Kira into killing Coordinators as well as turning him against her fiancé (as well as Kira’s friend) Sai Argyle. Despite these mitigating circumstances and even after she comes to regret her behavior, many still saw her as a poor girlfriend and racist bitch. Meanwhile, two of the antagonists are far more popular than her;
- Muruta Azrael has a major fanbase even though he's even more racist than Flay herself. Azrael was willing to harm allies (slaps Flay after she tries to warn the Archangel crew, shoots Natarle Badgiruel when she tries to stop him, and would’ve killed everyone onboard the Archangel had Mu La Flaga not stepped in) as well as young teenagers (such as the aforementioned slap and his treatment of the Biological CPU boys) for far less understandable reasonsnote on top of being a misogynistic bastard.
- Rau Le Creuset is beloved for being a Manipulative Bastard while also being a Tragic Villain. Despite his horrible childhood, he lashed out against the entire world (including those who had nothing to do with it), desired to see it burn based on his belief that Humans Are Bastards, and even killed Flay (who had grown to see him as a substitute for her late father) just to mess with Kira. Flay herself is treated like an Asshole Victim by the fanbase while Rau’s death at Kira's hands is seen as an Alas, Poor Villain moment.
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny: Lord Djibril is a near incompetent, bigoted sociopath carrying on Azrael's work, and Gilbert Durandal is a manipulative yet well-intentioned Social Darwinist. Both do incredibly awful things to draw ire, such as Djibril unleashing WMDs on innocents, and Durandal trying to make the world bend to his ideals with his own Kill Sat. However, it's Decoy Protagonist Shinn Asuka who tends to get a much harder time from the fandom for his hypocrisy, refusal to admit his own faults, and Innocently Insensitive remarks. It doesn't help matters that he was set up to be a promising Anti-Hero only to descend into villainy based on his desire for revenge against Orb, becoming no better than one of Durandal's Co-Dragons (with Rey Za Burrel) as a result.
- Mobile Suit Gundam 00: The Big Bad, Ribbons Allmark, and his main Dragon, Ali Al-Saachez, are loved by the fanbase despite being responsible for innumerable murders and lack of care for anyone besides themselves. However, fans aren’t fond of the following characters.
- Louise Halevy started as something of a Comic Relief character, until the bombing of her cousin's wedding by Nena Trinity, where she loses her whole family and her arm. Following this incident, she ends up joining the A-Laws to get revenge on the perpetrator, though she lashes out at Celestial Being as a whole, since Nena's technically a part of it. Despite the fact she's remorseful for what she did during her time and wants to make up for it, a number of fans are not willing to forgive her.
- Andrei Smirnov, Sergei’s estranged son is loathed for hating his father Sergei for his mother (and Sergei’s wife) Holly’s death despite the fact that he had no control over it. He even goes so far as to kill his own father because he believed he was taking part in a coup, then attempted to manipulate Louise, whom he had a crush on, to murder her loved ones as well (namely Saji Crossroad, Louise's estranged boyfriend; this shows Andrei is a Yandere for Louise's affections). Fans usually ignore the fact that he later comes to regret it, or that he later atones for his mistakes, even dying in a Heroic Sacrifice to protect Earth from the ELS aliens.
- Wang Liu Mei is extremely traitorous and regularly helps factions that will help her with her selfish goals. She regularly treats her butler Hong Long (who is also her brother) like crap, and has no problems selling him or anyone else out. Even Ribbons himself, who is a sociopathic and heartless monster of the highest degree, becomes tired of her.
- The Trinity Siblings — Johann, Michael and Nena — aren’t exactly well-liked, either. Despite their horrible upbringing and the fact they don’t realize what they’re doing won’t help in the end, they are still remembered for causing many incidents of unnecessary carnage and ruining Louise’s life. Nena in particular is disliked because of the aforementioned wedding incident, and her brutal death at Louise's hands is widely agreed to be one of the most satisfying moments of the show. As is the deaths of Michael and Johann at the hands of Ali, which is also considered Ali's best moment in the entire series.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable:
- Three of the most hated characters in this Part are Tamami, Hazamada, and Shigechi, people with rather unpleasant personalities who end up on the heroes' side after being defeated. Meanwhile, the main antagonist, Yoshikage Kira, is a Serial Killer who has killed many people, including Shigechi, and is rather popular.
- Even more hated are three high school girls who find Shigechi as he's dying but refuse to help him because they think he's creepy. The girls are some of the most widely despised characters in the series due to leaving a middle schooler to die just because he looks weird. Fans blame them more for Shigechi's death than Kira, the one who directly killed him.
- Kakegurui: You’ll likely enjoy the Student Council and Momobami Clan more than Jun Kiwatari. The latter mistreats Housepets, including harming Nanami Tsubomi simply because he wanted to know what it was like to cut long hair. Both groups in contrast are considered by fans as Evil Is Cool.
- Johan Liebert from Monster is widely respected by audiences for being a very creepy and complex villain, and for how effective he is at pulling his schemes off. It's a lot easier to hate Director Heinemann, Dr. Oppenheim, and Dr. Boyer from the first two episodes, for being greedy, corrupt doctors who endanger the lives of their patients and try to destroy Tenma's career purely out of spite, so it's no surprise to see most fans siding with Johan when he kills the three.
- Midnight Horror School: Although Yumyum, Tubee and Usop are technically the shows antagonists, they still have their moments of kindness and have standards with their bullying, but some of the students are probably even worse than them.
- Docky is shown to be mostly aloof and even goes into the Not So Stoic trope on occasion, the worst example of this was in 'Noisy Noisy' where he lashes out at Noisy for trying to protect him (Even though he apologized for it later) and raged out at Yumyum, Tubee and Usop for trying to frame him for throwing books off the shelves in the library by using his whirlwind on them, sending them into the elevator.
- Genie is probably the worst, He caused two fires in 'Rosso the Crybaby', Went after Liddy in a creepy way in 'Genie in Love' and tried to curve Kabo's (who's supposedly a little kid) behavior by giving him behavioral adjusting jellybeans in 'Day of the Great Pumpkin' (Even though Chaps and Vincent were also involved, Genie was the one to put the plan in motion).
- Whenever Liddy falls under the Jerkass Ball trope, she can be just as worse as the bullies via her treatment of Spimon and her bad mouthing Yumyum for failing to present his Wonder properly, which caused him to run to the roof crying.
- My Hero Academia:
- Despite the series having a gauntlet of villains who range from mass murderers to Omnicidal Maniacs, Endeavor is particularly despised by a good portion of the fandom for what he did to his family. He put his five-year-old son Shouto through such hellish training that the boy was left vomiting and crying on the floor. He mistreated his wife to the point where she snapped and scarred her son by pouring boiling water on his face. And there's the emotional neglect of his oldest son Touya (albeit in a misguided attempt to help him) that resulted in him apparently dying and the fallout of which sent much of Endeavor's abuse into overdrive. These fans reject Endeavor's Character Development and hope Dabi, a known mass murderer who has since been revealed to actually be Touya himself now Ax-Crazy, slowly and painfully burns him to death.
- Despite being one of the heroes, Minoru Mineta is more reviled by the fandom than any of the villains. He's a shameless pervert who constantly makes unwanted advances on his female classmates, though usually not doing anything more than spying on them and making lewd jokes. At one point, he even goes so far as to make a pass at a traumatized six-year-old. Despite not being a villain, Mineta's slimy, lecherous demeanor makes him come off as a more realistic individual to hate.
- A major reason why Katsuki Bakugo is a Base-Breaking Character lies with this. For the half that dislikes him, they are repulsed by his treatment of Midoriya early on in the series, which involves bullying him, blowing up his belongings in broad daylight, and suicide baiting him in the very first chapter. Numerous popular fanfics have author bents that vilify or otherwise brutally punish him, under the belief that he's a Karma Houdini even after his Character Development from a Jerkass into a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Some writers commonly have him expelled or removed from Class 1-A as a karmic punishment, even going as far as to have his quirk stolen by All For One, resulting in some cheers despite the latter's reputation as a Card-Carrying Villain who murders For the Evulz.
- Although he's the true Big Bad of the entire series and is responsible for grooming Tomura Shigaraki into the hero-hating monster he is today, All For One is still less hated than Kotaro Shimura, Tenko Shimura/Tomura Shigaraki's abusive father. While All For One really isn't that much better of a father figure to Tenko/Tomura, he's still an Evil Is Cool villain who is an amazing planner and strategist, so it's hard not to admire his villainy even in spite of his actions. Meanwhile, Kotaro is much more realistically despicable as his abuse of his son is responsible for getting his entire family killed and allowing Tenko to fall into All For One's arms in the first place. While a grand Card-Carrying Villain such as All For One wouldn't likely exist in real life, people such as Kotaro definitely do and have ruined lives due to their mistreatment of their family.
- Pokémon: The Series: A handful of minor antagonists whom Ash and his friends encountered qualify as worse than the show's main antagonists Jessie, James and Meowth of Team Rocket who are mostly Plucky Comic Relief and Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains.
- Damian, one of the show's early antagonists, was an asshole who abandoned his Charmander, displayed a horrible Lack of Empathy when told it could've died in the rain, and only came back when he saw Charmander could be useful. Despite Team Rocket appearing just to inconvenience Ash, Damian was the most wretched character of the episode. He deserved that Flamethrower that Charmander gave him.
- And then there's Koji from "Good 'Quil Hunting", who's introduced making it clear that he's entitled to any Cyndaquil in the area, just because. When Ash captures one first, Koji makes him battle for the right to keep it — and even when Ash wins and Cyndaquil makes it clear that it chooses him, Koji tries to steal Cyndaquil. Just like Damian, he gets a well-deserved Flamethrower.
- Following the pattern, there's Shamus, Tepig's former trainer, who appeared in "Evolution by Fire!" Like Damian, he left Tepig tied to a post after he lost to a Deerling, only for the poor thing to accidentally muzzle itself after chewing itself loose. He also likes to intimidate the trainers he beats into giving him their Pokémon, and after Tepig evolves and defeats his Emboar, he has the gall to ask him to come back. Just like Damian and Koji, he gets a brutal Flamethrower to the face for his trouble.
- Pretty Cure:
- Out of all the characters in Yes! Pretty Cure 5, people seem to loathe Milk the most, particularly in the first season when she constantly causes trouble for the Cures and goes out of her way to inflict backhanded remarks towards Nozomi. She's also overly protective of Coco and Nuts to the point of obstruction, and, early on, would often emotionally manipulate others into following her way. Though this seems to have died down once GoGo rolled around, with her being upgraded to Milky Rose gave her some much needed Character Development.
- The main villains of Doki Doki! PreCure are the Selfish Generals, who can manipulate the darkness in people's hearts to turn them into the Monster of the Week that destroyed an entire kingdom prior to the start of the series, with their leader Bel going as far as to indirectly murder the princess of said kingdom by trying to invoke a Face–Heel Turn with her. Despite this, none has earned the ire of the fandom more than Sixth Ranger Aguri/Cure Ace has, due to the callous way she treats her allies by putting them down at their emotional lowest, with her even going as far as to try and kill one of her allies when they were standing up for one of the villains who was suffering from amnesia at the time, while never being called out for her jerkass behavior. It's not uncommon to find people online who wish the writers went through with letting Regina go through her Heel–Face Turn instead of her being Put on a Bus for most of the second half.
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Although the Witches and even the Hate Sink Incubators have their own supporters and redeeming qualities, especially after what episode nine reveals, the same can't be said for the Straw Misogynist duo on the train in episode eight who do nothing to the story but talk politically-incorrect smack about their girlfriends and serve as the final catalyst for Sayaka's transformation into a witch by shattering what little faith she had in her idealist mission in protecting Earth.
- Sailor Moon:
- Most of the villains stand out for being so over-the-top and amusing. Even the more serious ones manage to stand out for their Evil Is Cool status. The most divisive character in the series is Chibi-Usa, a Bratty Half-Pint who constantly treats Usagi, her future mother, like dirt, despite the fact that Usagi has constantly put her life on the line to protect her from danger. It doesn't help that she stole the spotlight in SuperS. Fortunately, in Sailor Moon Crystal, her bratty characteristics have been greatly toned down.
- Haruka Tenoh (Sailor Uranus) and Michiru Kaiou (Sailor Neptune) are also divisive for their status as The Load, being smug and condescending towards the Inner Guardians despite their own lack of initiative, which results in a lot of preventable troubles. Their attempt to kill Usagi after Pharaoh 90 is defeated hasn't helped either. Like Chibi-Usa, these negative traits are almost non-existent in Sailor Moon Crystal, which faithfully adapts the manga where these traits did not exist.
- School Days features an entire cast of unstable teenagers with our male lead, Makoto Itou, being the target of a Psychotic Love Triangle between two Yanderes, Kotonoha and Sekai, one of whom kills him by the end only to be murdered by the other. But the most hated character in the series, and one of the most hated anime characters of all time, is Makoto himself, who doesn't kill anyone but who is a total sleazebag. He enters a relationship with Kotonoha only to cheat on her with every attractive girl he can get his hands on, strings all the girls along with their love for him only to discard them when he gets tired of them, and only cares about his sex drive. Kotonoha and Sekai, meanwhile, gain a lot of sympathy from fans for being the victims of Makoto's philandering ways, which winds up triggering their instability, and Sekai killing Makoto is frequently viewed as completely deserved. And while the anime Makoto is at least an intentional Hate Sink, even his other, less intentionally-callous incarnations tend to get the same level of hatred for their mistakes (while the still-yandere girls do not), due in part to the anime being an Audience-Coloring Adaptation.
- Spy X Family: Donovan Desmond is the main focus of Operation Strix, but what little is known of him makes him Ambiguously Evil at best. That is why the operation is set to be a long-running one to find out his exact motives. And despite his influence apparently being great enough to re-ignite the war between Ostania and Westalis easily, he is nowhere as hated as Housemaster Swan. He is a Sadist Teacher who takes his personal feelings over his divorce out on families, mocks Yor for not being a proper housewife because she doesn't do any cooking, needles Anya long enough until she bursts into tears, and even seems to relish in this. He also became a housemaster simply because he is the son of the former principal of Eden College, a fact he parades around, too. Many were delighted to see Mr. Henderson punching him to the ground 'quite elegantly' after Anya's admission exam.
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann:
- While Rossiu wasn’t exactly hated at first, he wasn’t considered as memorable in comparison to the other main protagonists. In the Time Skip, he infamously uses Simon as The Scapegoat, putting him through a Kangaroo Court and sending him to death row. Even though Simon has the answers to battling the descending aliens. Even after apologizing and revealing he wasn’t proud of it, fans refuse to forgive him and sees him as a huge jackass who almost sent off the guy who was nothing but a loyal friend to death. Meanwhile the main antagonist of the Time Skip, the Anti-Spiral is a beloved character and is seen as somewhat tragic despite his genocidal intentions and brainwashing Nia into working for him.
- Rossiu may have lost some fans due to his actions during the Time Skip, but at least it was revealed that despite sending Simon to be executed, he was secretly torn up about it. And at least he did get some comeuppance for his actions with a punch to the face from Simon. However, the entire human population of Kamina city can be just as if not more unlikable than Rossiu; simply just for being entitled and ungrateful to Simon in spite of everything he has done for them. Unlike Rossiu, they never get any sort of punishment.
- In the Touhou Bougetsushou manga, the Watatsuki Sisters of the Lunarians are hated by a lot of fans, mostly for easily curb-stomping the protagonists and established characters while acting smug, condescending, and racist towards Earthlings. Ultimately, though, they're the Hero Antagonist who are only doing their job of protecting the moon. In contrast, the subsequent Touhou Project game Touhou Kanjuden ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom introduced another Lunarian, Sagume. Despite being responsible for two atrocities and having a plan to annihilate all life in Gensokyo, she acts much more amicably towards the protagonists, and so is much better received among the fandom than the Watatsukis.
