Clockwise from top left
- Akumaizer 3 has the Akuma Clan, a militaristic society of demonic cyborgs who live in the center of the Earth and seek to invade the surface. They're obviously very different demons in a number of respects, including that they aren't Always Chaotic Evil; in fact, the titular protagonists are a trio of demons who decided enslaving humans wasn't cool and defected.
- Despite Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel ostensibly taking place in the same universe, demons had a drastically different role in the two series, and indeed this meant that by the end of it things shifted drastically. In early Buffy, demons are Always Chaotic Evil - always - while representing the fears and traumas of high school teenagers. In early Angel, demons represent the downtrodden. Sometimes. Except when they're Always Chaotic Evil. By the end of things, "demon" basically just meant "extra-dimensional alien" (except for the ones who were from Earth but pre-dated humanity, so it was still pretty confusing...)
- This is justified arguably by the fact that all living demons are actually hybrids, so while some might be Always Chaotic Evil, others might just be chaotic neutral. The only true demon we ever see is the Mayor after his ascension, aside from the "top surface" demon coming out of the Hellmouth in the season 1 finale and in "The Zeppo". We never see the whole thing, though. We do get to meet one of the Old Ones (Illyria), but only after she uses Fred's (human) body as a vessel. Her true form is only shown in an illustration. The Scourge claim to be pure-blooded, supported by the fact that a machine designed to kill anyone with human blood didn't affect them. This may be because they have a sufficiently low percentage of human blood; as stated, there are no truly pure demons remaining on Earth.
- It may be that more of the demons in Buffy were Always Chaotic Evil than in Angel because Buffy takes place in Sunnydale, a town built on top of a Hellmouth and specifically founded to be a feeding ground for demons, while Angel takes place in Los Angeles, which has a greater diversity in the evil to demon ratio.
- Given that Buffy's demons and magic are frequently a metaphor for growing up, the demons going from appearing as Always Chaotic Evil to being more varied in their portrayals could simply be a metaphor for the realization that life is not always as black and white as we think it is when we're young. Case in point, Clem. Appearing in seasons six and seven, he's a nice guy, with the exception of liking kittens.
- Truth be told, a lot of demons in later Buffy episodes seem to be more Always
Chaotic Neutral or Always True Neutral. Take Anya's vengeance demons for example. They're not explicitly malicious, and in many ways act like bureaucrats of the demon world. They have hopes and dreams and desires, and if it means they have to make a man's penis explode in the course of their jobs, so be it. Most of Anya's relatives at her wedding are actually quite friendly, and only turn on people once Xander's dad starts acting like a complete asshole. Really, like in Angel, the implication seems to be that demons just have different standards of goodness than humans do. - There are several instances where Angel kills a horrible-looking demon monster only to learn that he was actually on the side of good, and assuming him to be the enemy. There are guardian demons, protector demons, empath demons, healer demons... Most look quite monstrous regardless of their profession.
- Charmed uses demons as the main antagonists for most of the series. Generally, the term "demon" is used for any magical person or creature who uses their powers for evil. Initially, many demons had odd, otherworldly appearances as well as coming in more human-looking varieties, but budget cuts in later seasons led to ALL demons basically looking like humans with a penchant for either black leather or sharp suits. (While being justified in-universe as only weak demons can't disguise as human, and the sisters have leveled up enough to be fighting upper-level demons who can.) At times, warlocks are also treated as low-level demons.
- In Crazyhead, demons possess ordinary humans and go about unseen by most, save for seers such as the protagonists. They seemingly can transfer from body to body when injured and kill the host upon being exorcised.
- In Diablero, when not possessing a human body, demons appear as a sizzling black smoke that can be contained in soda bottles.
- In From Dusk Till Dawn, demons are residents of Xibalba, the Mayan underworld, and they come with many shapes and powers that vary from individual to individual. It's also established that formerly human souls can be transformed into demons (as with the case of Itzpa and Zolo). The culebras are also revealed to be minor demons, or more specifically, a slave caste in Xibalban hierarchy.
- GARO has the Monster of the Week known as Horrors, who feed on the darkness of humanity.
- The Good Place establishes its "demons" (stated to be a not-quite-accurate but close-enough term in-universe) as the administrators of The Bad Place; many are there to carry out the actual torture, while a select few are Architects who devise the torture in the same way that Good Place architects create personalized paradises. They also "wear" humanoid bodies in order to get a better understanding of what being a human is like, and thus what causes them to suffer. There are also different types of demons, though in their human suits they all look the same. Todd is a giant monster made of flaming rock (who complains that the human suit is itchy), Michael is a 6000-foot-tall “fire squid with spikes everywhere”, and a massive slug-like demon is briefly seen in the Bad Place. As for personality, demons tend to act like the sorts of people who get sent to the Bad Place, delighting in all sorts of petty evils like misogyny and breaking rules for the fun of it. They take delight in constantly annoying everyone around them in every way possible, in addition to more traditional brutal torture. The demons find this all hilarious.
- Kamen Rider Wizard has the Phantoms, demons summoned by a dark magic ritual which included a Human Sacrifice. They're born when a person with magical potential called a 'Gate' crosses the Despair Event Horizon and seek to repeat the process with others so Wiseman can perform a ritual called the Sabbath.
- Kamen Rider Revice runs on the basis that all humans have a naturally occurring inner demon within them, usually born/fueled by their negative emotions. The villains are a demon-worship cult that encourage the use of special stamps called Vistamps for humans to make a Deal with the Devil with their inner demons and bring them to life as Monster of the Week called Deadman, while further evolution allows humans to fuse with said Deadman.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Morgoth, Sauron and the Balrog are former Ainur who fell into Evil. Morgoth is portrayed as a Tin Tyrant, Sauron is a powerful shapeshifter and Evil Sorcerer, and the Balrog of Moria is quite bestial and demonic in appearance.
- Lost Tapes, despite being about mysterious animals, has a few supernatural demons appear in it. Mainly, the Hellhound and The Jersey Devil. It also features the "Dover Demon" - no one knows what the hell that one was.
- Reaper's demons have horns and can shapeshift, but mostly look and behave a lot like normal humans. Some of them even want to bring down the devil for non-selfish reasons. By planting flowers. Don't knock it, it probably would have worked in about 400 years or so.
- Star Trek: Picard: In Romulan mythology, there are at least two different types of demonic creatures; the twin sisters Seb-Cheneb and Seb-Natan are khalagu ("demons"), and the former can summon ch'khalagu ("very bad demons") who will ferociously devour all living beings.
- Supernatural:
- The demons, both the low-level ones and the high-level ones like Azazel, Lilith, and Alastair, are human souls that have been twisted by Hell's torments, Lilith being the very first human soul Lucifer corrupted. Demons are essentially ghosts with a few extra tricks, and similarly can be killed by salting and burning their bones. They have telekinetic power, superstrength, are invulnerable to ordinary injuries, and can possess human hosts. They can leave the host either willingly or be forced out with an exorcism. Salt and holy water are weaknesses, and one can trap a demon in a sigil circle. This is just a basic overview; higher level demons have more powers, and there's a wide variety of them. Interestingly, when killed demons go to the Empty along with angels, rather than Heaven or Hell like normal ghosts. Whatever Lucifer did to them, they're The Soulless.
- Demons in the Christian mythological sense exist too, in the form of Satan, though his host of rebel angels is conspicuously absent. However, within the show's cosmology Lucifer is depicted not as a type of demon (his own creation) but an archangel, thus making him one of the most powerful entities in all of Creation. He also uses host bodies to walk the Earth, but due to his celestial origins he requires his host's consent, which demons do not.
- Cain is a third type of demon, cursed directly by God instead of twisted by Hell. The Knights of Hell may or may not be a semi-separate variant related to his mark as well.
- Of course, It is incredibly common for Super Sentai/Power Rangers to use Demons and Youkai as the Monster of the Week. The Big Bad of Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger is called "Dai (Great) Satan", though he's just a giant floating head.... who yells a lot. Not exactly what one would think of when thinking about Satan. (Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers dropped that whole aspect and turned Dai Satan into Lokar, a random monster who served Rita.)
- The main villainous group of Kyūkyū Sentai GoGoV are the Saima Clan, a family of demons intent on bringing their mother Grandiene back; to do so, they need to generate negative energy, which they do by way of causing disasters. In Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue, the demons (here largely unrelated to each other) are accidentally unsealed from their tomb by nomads, and plan to destroy the city of Mariner Bay because it was built on the site of their palace and they want to rebuild it before Queen Bansheera returns. (Ultimately, by the end of the show, Bansheera changes her plans and instead attempts to open the Tomb of Forever to let all the deceased demons and monsters loose over Earth.)
- Samurai Sentai Shinkenger/Power Rangers Samurai has demons form the entirety of its villains. Known as the Gedoushu or Nighloks, they are described as evil spirits from the Sanzu River (the Japanese answer to the River Styx) formed from the sins of deceased humans entering the realm of the dead. Their appearances hybridize Youkai and other figures from Japanese myth with sea life in the most nightmarish manners, and they can enter our world through any crevice to create the suffering that sustains and empowers their realm. Worst of all, a human can become a Gedoushu by sacrificing their own humanity for eternal life.
- The Ultra Series has had demons or demon-like creatures as Monsters of the Week many times.
- Aboras and Banila from the original Ultraman are referred to as demons by some, but they appear more like giant dinosaur-like creatures, so it might just be a way of describing their malevolence towards humanity.
- Yapool, the Big Bad of Ultraman Ace is an alien entity from Another Dimension described as being similar to Legion or Satan. He's the collective consciousness of an entire alien species with a thorough hatred for the Ultras, the ability to perform Demonic Possession, and a love for toying with or manipulating humans to perform evil acts.
- Enmargo from Ultraman Taro is a sword-wielding Sealed Evil in a Can whose appearance is inspired by Chinese and Japanese demons, as well as Enma the ruler of Hell in Japanese belief.
- Ultraman Leo: One episode had an alien named Akumania whose name (from "akuma", meaning "demon"), horns, singular eye, and supernatural abilities are meant to make it resemble a demon. Another episode had a two-faced demon-like alien named Ashuran, who was partially based on the Asuras of Buddhist belief.
- Devilon from Ultraman 80 is a malevolent Sealed Evil in a Can with Demonic Possession abilities, but rather than a supernatural creature, it's an alien entity.
- The Kyrieloids of Ultraman Tiga, who are often compared to the Devil and have the Boss Subtitles "Infernal Warrior". A race of impossibly ancient Humanoid Abominations implied to be Ultraterrestrials, they see themselves as the saviors of the human race and oppose Ultraman Tiga because they see his protective nature towards humans as weak.
- Ultraman Dyna: An episode titled "The Girls Who Call Up the Darkness" features a group of schoolgirls who dabble in summoning a demonic spirit named Bishmel, who is speculated by one character to be the basis for Satan. Later on, Dyna faced a demon called Mozui, which was a Mirror Monster that fed on the fear of humans was prayed to in the past by soldiers desiring courage in war.
- Ultraman Cosmos: One episode featured an evil spirit called Renki, who although really the ghost of a pair of Star-Crossed Lovers, was often called a demon by the characters, matching with Japanese ideas of ghosts and demons. A later episode featured a demon-like youkai named Mahagenom.
- Ultraman X: The Big Bad of The Movie Zaigorg is a hulking reptilian creature described as (and confirmed by Word of God to be) a demon, with several of its design motifs incorporating Japanese ideas on Hell. The series' first Monster of the Week, the saurian Demaaga, is described as "the Iron Demon" and stated by Word of God to have similar origins to Zaigorg too.
- Night Fang from Ultraman Taiga is a Cthulhu-like alien creature that came to Japan during the Middle Ages and behaved much like a demon there, decimating its surroundings and forcing villagers to sacrifice people as appeasement before being sealed away by a miko. It's debut episode is even called "To the Demon's Mountain!"
- Yonderland: Negatus' minions (Jeff, Neil and Rita) are small, red, vaguely humanoid creatures not dissimilar to Elf, with large wings and ears.
