Punch Clock Villain / Anime & Manga

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• Most incarnations of Pluto from Astro Boy. He has zero enthusiasm for his work, or anything else for that matter, because he was only programmed to follow his master's directions.
• Baccano! has Tick Jefferson, sure he may be the scissor-wielding Torture Technician of the Gandor family, who's so well-known and feared that just the mention of his name could force someone to talk, but he's not that bad a person. He just happens to be a guy who's good at his job, and likes scissors more than most. He rarely holds any ill will towards his victims and keeps up a friendly attitude while working, sometimes even talking about himself while he works.
• Most of the cast of Black Lagoon fall under this. In the city of Roanapur, anyone who tries to kill you, fails, and survives your retaliation is probably a good business contact. They'll also probably try to kill you again, when the price is right. Nothing personal, Just Business.
• Most of the Thirteen Court Guard Squad Captains during the Entry arc of Bleach would qualify as this. Especially Shunsui Kyoraku, the captain of Squad Eight.
  • Later on, Espada member Coyote Starrk is a borderline if not outright example.
• In Brave10, Hattori Hanzo tries to claim he was one in the sequel, saying he doesn't hate the Braves or carry grudges, he was just a ninja who was doing a job without personal investment. Understandably, the Braves have a lot of trouble swallowing this.
• In A Certain Magical Index, there's most of the members of Academy City's Dark Side, who mostly just do what they are hired to do and lead fairly normal lives when not on a job. Teitoku Kakine is like this most of the time, but if he runs into Accelerator, he'll abandon his job to try to kill Accelerator or at least make his life a living hell.
• In City Hunter, Umibozu is introduced trying to kill Ryo's current charge (in fact Ryo had been hired specifically to protect her from him), but they are good friends, and not even being paid for what basically amounted kill each other prevented them from sharing a breakfast and find a way to not have to kill each other.
• In Code Geass, a couple of the Knights of the Round are Punch-Clock Villains. The first example is Gino Weinberg, Knight of Three. He is definitely one of the best, but even in combat he comes off as one who fights only when necessary; off the job he's very sociable if a little odd due to sheltered upbringing. The other is Anya Alstreim — a leaky memory has led to a person who barely cares about anything, and is even harder to read, so killing people is simply something she does because people tell her to. As for the rest, three are very serious about their job: Knight of One Bismarck Waldstein, a Knight Templar completely loyal to the Emperor, Knight of Ten Luciano Bradley, an Ax-Crazy Blood Knight, and Knight of Seven Suzaku Kururugi, one of the main characters. The other three active members don't have enough characterization to tell.
• Almost everyone on every single side in Darker than Black. Most of the rest are either Well Intentioned Extremists or misinformed. Well, except Wei. And later, Genma.
• This applies to most of the Shinigami in Death Note. It really is only their duty to take humans' lives, and they only truly qualify as "evil" insofar as the occasional decision to kill a human earlier than intended — and doing so to save another is an offense for which death is punishment.
• While the arbiters in Death Parade are the protagonists and mostly believe that they're unbiased, impartial observers, if viewed from the point of view of the episodic guests who believe they have to play a simple bar game or face potentially fatal consequences, their manipulative acts come across as downright evil at times. The only exception we see is Ginti, who seems to genuinely enjoy what he does. Everyone else is fairly blasé towards their work and behave mostly respectably.
• In D.Gray-Man, Tyki would sometimes rather slack off and play poker than work on missions from the Earl. When he's off duty and in his ordinary form, he's a nice guy, even to enemies.
  • However, when he is on duty, it might cross with Psycho for Hire.
• Ax-Crazy Shin and Genki Girl Noi from Dorohedoro. Both are quite friendly when off the job and are often seen in restaurants. However, Shin seems to enjoy his job a little too much, and Noi remains cheerful while killing (and occasionally makes it a contest with Shin), so they both demonstrate the thin line between this trope and Psycho for Hire.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Zarbon. In contrast to Dodoria, who seems to be a ruthless Psycho for Hire, Zarbon is more sympathetic. In fact, he just seems to follow the orders of Freeza because he says that he will kill him if he does not.
  • The entire Ginyu Force, but it's obvious that they do enjoy their work and see fighting and killing as a type of game.
  • Androids 17 and 18 as well, at first. Although violent sociopaths in Future Trunks' timeline, in the main timeline they only want to kill Goku out of boredom and end up abandoning that anyway. They're also shown to have never actively tried to harm anyone, either, at worst committing petty crimes like carjacking and shoplifting.
  • The Saiyans are this for the most part. They are soldiers to Freeza doing everything he wants them to. Like the Ginyu Force, they do enjoy all the fighting and killing so it's a job they love. At the same time, they're shown to be more than barbarians with the ability to socialize and even joke among themselves like normal people. Bardock in particular stands out for being nurturing to his wife and their children, something that is extremely rare for Saiyans since most only mate to have kids and then leave their children to fend for themselves.
  • Beerus in Dragon Ball Super fits this as well, as while he is a Jerkass he doesn't destroy things for evil purposes. He destroys planets in order to keep balance with the Supreme Kais, who create new planets.
  • Dr. Hedo in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero was Dr. Gero's grandson and a Reluctant Mad Scientist who only worked for The Remnant of the Red Ribbon Army because they were the only ones willing to hire him. After his Heel Realization at the end of the film, he's recruited by Bulma to work for Capsule Corp instead.
• Fist of the North Star: While the mercenaries hired by Amiba assissted him in his experiments, they only did so because he was pretending to be Toki. Once they learn that he's merely an imposter, they lost all interest in him and they let his hostages go.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • Sloth from the manga version and Brotherhood anime. If it wasn't for the fact that he was created by Father, and is threatened with his siblings' wrath (pun not intended), he wouldn't be even bothered with digging a tunnel around Amestris in the shape of an alchemist's circle, for, well, obvious reasons.
  • A good chunk of the Amestris military qualifies, because, despite the repeated atrocities through-out the country's history like the Ishvalan genocide, the manga shows that they are just ordinary people following orders. One of the manga's themes is the fact that good, normal people can still do horrible things.
  • The chimera working for Kimblee stand out since they weren't really so bad after all.
• Edelhi Bootsvorz from Future GPX Cyber Formula. He works for Smith and Missing Link in order to steal Asurada and its system, but he does it only because he's following his orders, and off-work he seems to be a decent guy. When their plans fail multiple times by several characters, Smith tries to kill him for their many failures, and to take out Knight Shoemach as well. Bootsvorz decides to repay his boss by pulling a Car Fu on his helicopter, sending the helicopter down and killing him.
• In the Get Backers manga, Gouzou "Mr. No-Brakes" Maguruma is somewhere between this and True Neutral. He's the only character who has no problems working with Kuroudo "Doctor Jackal" Akabane and Ryuudo "Undead" Hishiki, the former being someone the eponymous heroes can work with if absolutely necessary, but the latter is the only opponent they go out of their way to avoid. Someone usually hires him to transport the item someone else hired Ban and Ginji to get back, but when he's not been specifically pitted against them, he's perfectly willing to loan them his taxi or give them a lift if they ask for it. Notably, too, he doesn't actually fight anyone. Unlike his fellow transporters Himiko and Akabane, he has no combat skills and is just a Badass Driver. Ginji reacts with his "happy fans" whenever they see him.
• Good Luck! Ninomiya-kun has a squad of generic military personnel who threaten the cast around Episode 6. In one scene, a soldier who was hunting down Mayu helps her out of a trap she fell into, and has a friendly conversation with her before she trips another trap that knocks him out. In contrast, similar soldiers were brutalizing a captive Shungo just two scenes before that.
  • They aren't really even working for "villains", anyway, just people with an Omniscient Morality License.
• Gunslinger Girl has Bruno, who works for the Padania by disposing the bodies they rack up. He mentions at some point that ideals are nice, but they don't feed your family.
• Oh boy, GUN×SWORD's villain group runs on this. So, if they're not planning for a Utopia, they're like a normal family, with The Claw as the 'kind father', Carossa and Melissa as normal twin kids, Fasalina as their Cool Big Sis, Michael as the new 'adopted son' who's trying to fit in (much to Carossa's chagrin), and MAYBE Gadved as their uncle. For some reason, Woo prefers to be left out.
  • So, he's the Aloof Big Brother? It does work. Kinda. Sorta.
• Kyouko, one of the enemy espers in Haruhi Suzumiya, has nothing against the protagonist Kyon, and disapproves of her organization kidnapping Mikuru, though she still took part in the deed. She's a perfectly congenial person as long as you aren't in favor of letting Haruhi keep her godlike powers.
• Hayate the Combat Butler has a team of three Yakuza enforcers, who, in the first chapter, attempt to capture Hayate to sell his organs and cover his parents' debt. They later meet again after Nagi has squared his debt. The lead yakuza explains that he was just doing his job and admits that he actually likes people like Hayate, going so far as to offer to treat him to lunch.
• Hunter × Hunter has the Zoldyk family. They may be a notorious family of assassins, but they do it as a job, not as a hobby.
  Zeno: Do you think we do this for fun? I'm not risking my life if I'm not getting paid.
• Vice Commander Renee in Innocent Venus is a Punch Clock Villain, which predictably leads to a Heel–Face Turn.
• In La Seine No Hoshi (an anime created to cash on the interest over the French Revolution caused by The Rose of Versailles) there's Zaral: commander of a French Guards group detached to police Paris, he serves as the primary antagonist, but that's only because it's his job to enforce the orders of the court. As long as you aren't targeted by said orders or don't break the law, the worse he does is a few empty threats. In one occasion he even let the Black Tulip go in spite of him being a wanted criminal and a personal hate for him because the Black Tulip had brought him a much worse criminal, only remarking he was supposed to arrest him too and that it would be easy to do it in the Guards' barracks.
• Caldina, pre Heel–Face Turn, in Magic Knight Rayearth. She was just a paid mercenary and did not even know what Zagato's true motivation was — only that it was not to take over Cephiro, as the girls had assumed.
• Semi of Maoh: Juvenile Remix, who, although initially sent to kill the main character, is actually fairly nice to him when off-duty.
• Mega Man Megamix interprets the eight Robot Masters of Mega Man 5 as these. While this series was made by Dr. Wily specifically to fight for his nefarious schemes, in Megamix, they end up working part-time at an amusement park entirely out of their own volition as Wily is evidently strapped for cash after several failed attempts at world domination. They take their jobs as the "Hourly-Pay Squad Part Timers" with complete sincerity, showing zero antagonism towards the heroes or any of the park guests during their visit — even Napalm Man, who has grenades on his shoulders and missile launchers instead of hands. He works the reception table.
• Miss Kuroitsu and her organization in Miss Kuroitsu from the Monster Development Department all do their best to defeat the hero Blader, conquer Japan, and eventually conquer the world, but they don't dedicate their lives full-time to villainy, with all of them having mundane civilian lives when off-the-clock. This extends to not terrorizing civilians, even having it as a rule to never do so, simply planning to take out Blader and other heroes before conquering, and in fact many members have friendly relationships with the general populace who don't know their true identities.
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Many of the people fighting for the Principality of Zeon just soldiers doing their duties. One of the most notable examples would be Ramba Ral, who even manages to have a friendly conversation with Amuro before he finds out he's the pilot of the Gundam, with the intent behind his character being to show how good people can be swept up to fight for bad causes.
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans: While Gjallarhorn itself is run by corrupt aristocrats, a good number of the people working for it aren't evil at all, having joined either out of a sense of duty or because they had little other options.
  • Vidar in Season 2 could almost be considered a hero when his full motives are taken into account, he just wants revenge against McGillis for backstabbing him and leading his other friends to their deaths. The issue is he joined up with Rustal Elion, who is much worse than the person he has a grudge against.
• The Wire Master in Mouse has this, where both he and the main character enjoy a drink together because it was a Sunday, and they didn't wish to work on a Sunday.
• Sergei Wang from My-Otome is a personable Joe when he's not on the clock. He just happens to work for his much-more-evil leader in order to do what he thinks is best for his country. However, his loyalty to his adoptive daughter Nina trumps that of his boss, and he almost gets killed trying to subvert Nagi's Evil Plan.
• Three Akatsuki members from Naruto belong here, believe it or not. Itachi, Kakuzu and Konan all had their ulterior motives, besides catching the Tailed Beasts. For Itachi it was challenging and protecting Sasuke, Kakuzu was a part-time Bounty Hunter, for his desire was money. Konan just wanted to protect Nagato, despite the unfortunate outcomes to follow.
• Subverted: Mana Tatsumiya, the gun-wielding mercenary shrine maiden from Negima! Magister Negi Magi, only pretends to be a Punch Clock Villain; in actual fact, she joined up with the antagonists during a particular story arc because she truly believes in their cause. She's still getting paid.
  • Canis Niger (the gang of bounty hunters that Negi kicked the crap out of), however, truly qualify. A dozen or so chapters after Negi wrecks them, he runs into them in the bath house, where they promptly reassure him that they won't hurt him unless someone pays them to. The worst that they do is a lot of Skinship Grope, courtesy of their female member. Remember the perverted tentacle guy? It's not a guy. But she still really loves boobies.
  • Tsukuyomi actually starts as one, leaving the battlefield as soon as she earns her pay and acting rather polite even when fighting. But the Magic World arc starts, and we see her taking a horrific shift towards Psycho Lesbian or, better said, Depraved Bisexual...
  • Also: Demons. Even the one who turned Negi's village to stone is implied to not have done it out of his own will. Or at least to have gotten no pleasure from it.
• One Piece:
  • Some members of Baroque Works, most notably Mr. 2 Bon Kurei. He easily befriended the protagonists before he knew they were his enemies, but later fought them with all he had because it was his job. After his organization fell apart, he allowed himself to be caught to help the protagonists escape.
  • Miss All-Sunday/Nico Robin. On the clock, she did whatever Crocodile instructed. When off duty, however, she seems to do whatever she can to actively help the heroes, including offering an eternal pose to Nanimonai Island and saving Luffy when he was Buried Alive in the desert, eventually joining the crew after Crocodile is defeated.
  • Although there are plenty of genuine rogues in the Navy, ranging from General Ripper Admiral Akainu to Dirty Cop Nezumi, many Marines are this trope. Most particular of these is Smoker, who is shown from his introduction to actually be a very kind person to those he is not pursuing.
    In fact, if pirates (albeit kind ones) weren't the protagonists, he could be considered a good guy; he's proven that he cares more about his view of justice than orders from the higher-ups, to the point that he and his troops allied with the Straw Hats at one point. Two points as of the Time Skip, and much more Enemy Mine-ish the second time.
  • Captain T-Bone of the Navy is the most heroic character in the whole story, who cares greatly for his troops, offers to use his parts of his cape as a bandage for them, weeps openly whenever someone gets hurt, abhors violence, and has a strong enough resolve that he would chase a train going full speed on foot, through a giant storm, in the middle of the ocean. Zoro cuts him down, since he was standing in the way of their train and was NOT going to move for some pirate.
  • Aokiji also fits as well. As an Admiral, it is his duty to hunt down and destroy pirates. However, he seems at the very least to be morally conflicted about it. He does his job, but, especially in the latest chapters, seems to half-ass it and apologizes when it actually inconveniences people.
  • CP9, surprisingly. Despite the fact that they were the main antagonists at some point, doing horrible things in the name of the government, they were still taught to defend justice and peace. That was also their motivation during the arc, albeit in a twisted way. None of them outright mistreats Robin, aside from their Bad Boss, and they were under orders to defend him and her from the Straw-Hats. It is shown during their title-page story that they function well enough in society and defended a port from pirates when they didn't stand to benefit. It just so happens One Piece has an Anti-Hero Team made by Lovable rogues as protagonists.
• Most of the Siberian Railroad from Overman King Gainer, Jaboli, Kajinan, and Enge in particular are usually obsessed with getting promoted for a higher pay.
• "Pokemon only do bad things because Master bad." — Ekans (with Koffing), the original Pokémon of Jessie and James of Team Rocket. This was said because Meowth tried to order them to capture Ash's Pikachu when they all got separated from their masters; since Meowth isn't their master, Ekans and Koffing refused.
  • Jessie and James themselves sometimes go back and forth between this and Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain. Some episodes, they seem to simply take the day off to work side jobs like selling food. They usually stop stealing when Jessie enters a Pokémon Contest.
  • This is probably because Giovanni has given up on trying to make them do or actually accomplish anything, and just lets them roam around (well until he gives them actual jobs later as a reward, which they prove to be surprisingly competent at).
• Porco Rosso has a whole set of these. In fact, every single one of the seaplane pirates that form the closest thing to antagonists that the first half of the movie has is very much a Punch Clock Villain. They all put on a tough show of hating "that stinkin' pig", but as a collective, they're about as evil as a box of kittens and are just out to make a quick buck.
• In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Kyubey turns out to be one of these, and is willing to go to some pretty serious lengths in order to meet his "quota" of magical girls. Also a rare Big Bad example, since they are the mastermind behind the events of the story, but are doing it to gather energy to save the universe from heat death.
  • To further elaborate the point, in the restructured universe after Madoka's wish removes the need for witches, he is much more open and cooperative, but simply states that is because it is the best way for them to work. He even says that, were things the way he'd been told they once were, he would totally behave the same way.
  • In fact, in The Movie, Kyubey delivers on this by attempting to bring back the witch system using Homura as an Unwitting Pawn before being thwarted by Madoka again.
• Rebuild World: Since a majority of the cast are Private Military Contractors called hunters working for a Cyberpunk MegaCorp, the protagonist Akira ends up fighting a number of hunters hired to kill him, for whom it's just a job like any other. Once Akira kills a respected leader of such an expedition, Gerges, some of them decide to go Avenging the Villain before The Cavalry take them down, and it still causes some bitter feelings from Gerges' surviving teammates like Xellos whom didn't take part.
• Kahlua from Rosario + Vampire seems to be a deconstruction of this trope, with a severe dose of Psycho for Hire. She will take any job, regardless of who she has to kill or the toll it takes on her body, and will not stop unless ordered to do so. Despite this, she hates killing, and she will cry the whole time as she does so.
• Sailor Moon:
  • The villains in all the later arcs have the same MO:
    • Do minimal research who the Victim of the Week should be, like taking a quick look at a magazine they have lying around.
    • Quickly check out out the victim. Realize it only has a MockGuffin.
    • Unleash the Monster of the Week. Don’t check if it is having any effect but just leave.
  • In the fourth anime season, the Amazon Trio, Quirky Miniboss Squad of the Dead Moon Circus, always longue around their own personal bar between evildoing, drinking, talking about various things, complaining about the stress of their jobs, and generally regarding their villainy as a bothersome intrusion to their circus performing.
  • Their successors, the Amazon Quartet, are a strange subversion....unlike the Trio, they do truly care about the mission to capture Pegasus; however, it's not for the same reason as their boss....they just want to ride it.
  • Gets lampshaded by Iron Mouse in the fifth season (Episode 178):
    Iron Mouse: Today’s business is over now! Are you paying me for overtime?
    Sailor Moon: Agent of love and justice!
    Iron Mouse: Hey, are you even listening? (...) See you! I’m leaving!
    Exit Iron Mouse
• Saiyuki's Kougaiji and his entourage. They're under orders to kill the main character and take his sutra, but when they haven't specifically been sent after him, they're known to ignore his presence in the area completely or even help him. These ones are quite Affably Evil, and when the two groups do fight, they usually have fun doing it.
• Samurai Champloo features a kindly assassin in the second episode hired to kill Jin but after his employer is killed by another of his own lackies for crossing the Moral Event Horizon he calmly sheathes his blade and walks away from the fight explaining that he wouldn't be paid for finishing the job now anyway.
• In Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, Condor Joe rescues a young woman from a car crash on a racetrack in one episode, and she turns out to be a Devil Star after he throws a feather shiruken at her while trying to escape from a failed assassination operation, and the shiruken pierces her chest. Joe later learns from her fiancé that she had actually wanted to leave Galactor but wasn’t allowed to because her parents and siblings all worked for Galactor.
• Shimoneta: Oboro is the newly appointed head of Tokioka Academy's 'Decency Prefects', so opposing SOX's ero-terrorist activities is literally his job. So it's fortunate that he's friendly and a somewhat of a ditz. But, as SOX soon learns, do NOT underestimate him. Ever.
• Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle: Almost none of the demons in the series are truly malicious, and largely only kidnapped Princess Syalis out of tradition as opposed to actually wanting to hurt anyone. On the few occasions they do attempt to be evil, it's for the sake of keeping up appearances, and rarely if ever goes past Poke the Poodle levels.
• Tsujido, Makabe, and Niihari from Speed Grapher are not particularly evil, and are only villains because of their personal loyalty to Suitengu, whom they owe their lives to.
• Florsheim in Tentai Senshi Sunred are completely this trope. Sunred himself is a bit of a jerk, so the group has to work around their Monster of the Week's work schedules, see when a good time to schedule a fight with Sunred is, and still talk about life on the side. One-off characters consistently treat "vicious monster working for an evil organization" as a totally normal job.
• Tiger Mask has Mr. X. He's out for the title character's blood, but that's because he skirted on his payments to Tiger's Cave (and initially he even gave him a chance to pay back what he owed), and he acts remarkably nice for someone with his job, only selecting other Tiger's Cave wrestlers to get him killed quickly on the ring instead of giving him an horrible death as had happened to others who had skirted their payments. He even showed a measure of sympathy for Tiger Mask's reasons (he needed the money to save the orphanage he had grown up into), and only resorted to kidnapping a child when his latest failure threatened to cost him his life, with the full intention to release the child once Tiger Mask was dead.
• Main character Thorfinn spends the first arc of Vinland Saga as this. As a young boy he essentially becomes adopted into a band of mercenary raiders in order to survive and in the hopes that he can take revenge on the man who killed his father. Over the course of the next 10-12 years he uses his increasingly formidable battle skills to aid those raiders, which means a lot of killing and plundering. While shown not to take part in the atrocities that the rest of the band commit (like lots of rape, enslavement, etc.), and not enjoying battle or killing the way many other Norse warriors do, Thorfinn does kill a lot of people and cause a lot of harm during the course of that time, something he becomes horribly guilt ridden over in later arcs.
• The World of Narue has a team of gynoids who are only "villains" because they follow orders. Then they start disobeying orders because they realize they like the protagonists.
• The Dragons of Earth in X/1999 are not particularly evil after hours, they just happen to be on the opposite side of the Dragons of Heaven. Their goal is one of Well Intentioned Extremism.
• The ending credits of the 2008 remake of Yatterman strongly suggests that the Doronbo (Skull) Gang are of this type with a romantic montage of Doronjo in civilian clothes walking in the rain, window shopping, etc.
  • In fact, in one episode, they are seen using a punch clock to sign themselves out of there hideout and into their normal lives.
• Most of the Card Professors from Yu-Gi-Oh! R have nothing against Yugi or his friends even as they block their rescue mission, and duel Yugi only to collect the bounty placed upon defeating him in the duel. The first one is even nice enough to loan her duel disk to Jonouchi after Yugi defeats her. On the other hand, the concept of an innocent girl being sacrificed for their boss' project doesn't seem to trouble them, either.
• Jaden had a lot of opponents in the second season of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX who could be considered "villains" only due to their membership or allegiance to the Society of Light; other than that, they weren't malignant towards him in the least. The most prominent examples were Princess Rose, Bob Banter, and Dr. Zweinstein.
• In the original version of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, Fortune Cup contestants Jill deLauncebeaux and Professor Frank are secretly members of Yliaster. In the dub version, however, this is not true for Jill; he's merely hired help.

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