Then Let Me Be Evil / Anime & Manga

SPOILER WARNING: The nature of this trope means that spoilers abound. Tread carefully.

Then Let Me Be Evil moments in Anime and Manga.

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• Attack on Titan kept lauding the statement that the Titans, also called the Subjects of Ymir, are evil and will destroy humanity if they are not eradicated. This message eventually evolves into specifically calling Eren Yeager the devil Titan that will cause the end of humanity. Said character was already going through a phase of Sanity Slippage over the past few years, and the latest rendition of Eren Yeager as the devil that will destroy the world results in them going through with their attack and killing innocent civilians. The world wants to see them as the devil? They will be the devil and start up the Rumbling to ensure that the people he grew up with in the Walls will finally live in peace and without fear of being hounded.
• Diva from Blood+ was locked like an animal in a tower, and used for various experiments. It certainly did a lot to make her evil.
• Played with by Lelouch of Code Geass, especially towards the end after things go south for him. He says this after the death of Euphemia.
  • His mindset when he begins his scheming. He is willing to commit evil if it means taking out greater evil in so doing, or when pushed past the brink. Ultimately, after the Black Knights betray him on suspicion of using them for sport, he loses all restraints and allows himself to become the most despised person in the world... so that the world would focus all their hatred on him... so that his death would remove that hatred and provide a chance for the world to rebuild more positively. One of the best ways to unite the world, he figures, is to give them a common enemy to kill, and since by this point he feels he has lost his reasons to live...
• Played with during the climax of Devilman Lady. Lan Asuka, having revealed herself as the real Big Bad, has transformed into a godlike being, brainwashing most of the world into loving her. Meanwhile, protagonist Jun Fudo/the Devil Lady has been cast into a giant (possibly metaphorical) pit, but she manages to rally her strength and declares that if Asuka is "the Child of God", then Jun will become the Devil to destroy her. She is still the Nice Gal she always was, she just fully embraces her dark image to combat the angelic Asuka.
• Dragon Ball Super:
  • A flipped version occurs during the Future Trunks Saga, in that it's the villains deriding Future Trunks for his time-traveling turning into Nice Job Breaking It, Hero. Goku Black and Future Zamasu declare that their genocidal rampage against mortals is all Trunks' fault because he went back in time and saved Goku from the heart virus, breaking the gods' time travel taboo in the process; had Trunks just let Goku die as he was originally supposed to, then Goku never would have met Zamasu, Zamasu would never have stolen Goku's body, and Black himself would have never existed. Hearing this, Trunks hits his Rage Breaking Point and reaches a new level of power, outright saying:
    Future Trunks: You say my choices make me evil, THEN THAT'S WHAT I'LL BE!!!
  • Parodied during the Universe Survival arc when Ribrianne labels Android 17 as a villain for attacking her mid-transformation and eliminating two of her teammates. He proceeds to ham it up and present himself as a Card-Carrying Villain for all future fights with the maidens, just for shits and giggles.
• As a child, Lucy from Elfen Lied is bullied/persecuted mercilessly for being a Diclonius, a horned, superpowered girl who may one day destroy the human race... Yeah. Nice going there.
• Fairy Tail has the Black Wizard, Zeref. Supposedly the most powerful and most evil mage in history, in reality a self-hating, Really 400 Years Old Bishōnen Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds who desperately wants to die. The most brilliant student at the Mildian Magic Academy, the only reason Zeref even bothered with black magic was to find a way to bring his deceased younger brother Natsu back to life. To that end, he pissed off the god Ankhseram in the process, and had a Curse placed on him as a result. The more he valued life, the more everything around him would die; the less he valued life, the more control he had over his powers, but because he didn't value life, he would probably end up killing people anyway. Isolating himself away from humanity due to facing constant rejection, having his life's work be misused, and witnessing the human race making the same mistakes over and over again eventually pushes him over the edge in the current storyline, and he finally decides to take over as the Big Bad to wipe out humanity. Chapter 450 reveals that the last straw was Mavis' death — having finally found someone who understands his pain and suffers as he does allowed Zeref to believe that there was someone he was finally allowed to care about. Her kindness and willingness to stand beside him and find a way to break the curse causes him to fall in love with her, culminating in The Big Damn Kiss. However, since Ankhseram is intent in making sure he can never be happy, his love for her is enough to bypass her curse and kill her. For the first shred of happiness he has ever had to be so cruelly taken away from him and so quickly too... one cannot blame Zeref for finally snapping after that.
• Though he was already an antagonist from the start, Raoh from Fist of the North Star didn't exactly agree with this at first, taking an interesting spin on this trope. Believing himself to be a savior who would reunite the ruined world and aspiring to become powerful enough to challenge the heavens, he went on an endless conquest with his army. However, the combination of his army's frequent corruption and his questionable sense of morality led his name to become feared worldwide, particularly among the people of Shura (who feared that he would one day cause their genocide). When Kenshiro popped up to challenge him and acquired the powers of Musou Tensei, Raoh realized that he would have to become a demon in order to fulfill his ambitions and defeat Kenshiro. However, he eventually reforms after his final confrontation with Kenshiro, when his defeat allows him to admit that he still had some compassion left inside him.
• The protagonist of Great Pretender, Makoto, was constantly dragged down by his father's reputation as a human trafficker and tried to live an honest life as a salesman. Unfortunately, the company he worked for committed fraud, and nowhere else would hire him due to the criminal charges put on him for his role in it. Eventually, he got so sick of everyone assuming he was a swindler and not giving him a chance that he decided he might as well become a real one.
• Sports manga and anime Haikyuu!! is prone to exhibiting dramatic tropes in the most low-key way possible, since it is just about high school volleyball, and its villains do nothing worse than wanting to win at sports, while being kind of mean about it. A good example of this is Tendou Satori from Shiratorizawa— he is shown in a flashback to be made fun of apparently for being weird/creepy looking, and then deciding to fulfill this by purposefully being mean and acting the way they expect him to. This only extends to matches, however, and he is shown getting along with his teammates well.
• In Higurashi: When They Cry, Shion does this to herself. During her Roaring Rampage of Revenge in Meakashi-hen, she kills Satoko only to remember a promise she made to Satoshi to protect her. She immediately decides that since she's lost any chance of happiness, she may as well become a demon.
• The titular hero from Inuyasha has been maltreated by both youkai and humans throughout his life because he is a hanyou. This eventually led to his personality changing to evil. He was never severely evil, and Kikyo initially dragged him back into somewhat neutral before her first death. And after finding true friends, he becomes a real hero.
• Liliruca from Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? is badly treated by her family, and eventually develops an aversion to adventurers. In an arc, this becomes particularly clear. But with the help of Bell she finds herself back on the side of the good.
• Saruhiko Fushimi in K. The side he switches to before the series isn't evil, but to his now-ex-best friend Misaki Yata, they are. Misaki sees him as a dirty, evil traitor, and Saruhiko's feelings for Misaki end up making him see himself that way until Misaki gets over it at the end of Season 2. Whenever he sees Misaki, he brags about how much more power he's been able to gain from switching sides, and how he doesn't care about friends, he just wants to control people (all lies).
• In Magi: Labyrinth of Magic, Hakuryuu Ren does something like this. The young prince had a terrible past; watching his brothers die in a revolt, and learning it is his own mother who orchestrated the massacre. Needless to say, he has been plotting his revenge against her ever since. Then years later, when he confronted the physical manifestations of his conscience while trying to conquer a dungeon, he was told that no matter the tragedies he suffered, he should simply accept it, forget his vengeance, forgive his wrongdoers, and move on, since that is how the world works, and that is his destiny. Angered by this, he curses the world for his suffering, and chooses to fall into depravity instead, while stating that if the world will reject his revenge, then he will destroy the world and recreate it in his image.
• In Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, we have Wu Fei, who comes from a very martial space colony and is the epitome of Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy... so naturally he has a few personality conflicts with the other Gundam pilots and their Martial Pacifist ally, all of whom want to end the cycle of war, peace, and revolution. So in The Movie, Wu Fei sides with the bad guys and comes into direct conflict with the other pilots. He even outright says it:
  Wu Fei: I need to determine for myself whether or not peace at the expense of lives can really be defined as peace! And I will become evil itself to find out!
  • The midquel manga add a bit more information to this; in Battlefield of Pacifists, Wu Fei befriends an OZ soldier who believes that war drives humanity to new heights, and his personal goal is to encourage deep space exploration by setting a Mecha-Mook factory in the outer solar system. When said soldier is killed, Wu Fei promises to become "the threat that makes humanity grow".
• Gentle from My Hero Academia wanted to be a superhero, but failed the license exam four times, and the one time he actually tried to save someone, he not only failed but interfered with an actual hero's rescue attempt, landing him a criminal charge for obstruction. The failure of his lifelong dream, coupled with a crippling fear of dying without accomplishing anything, led him to switch from hero to villain.
  • To a certain extent, Stain as well, through a combination of a Quirk that didn't seem particularly heroic and his wishes for a better world going unheeded for years. There's room for debate on if he's truly evil or acting For the Greater Good.
  • Hitoshi Shinso, one of the students at UA, steadfastly rejects this idea. His quirk lets him take control of anyone who answers a question he asks, and throughout his youth, people would comment on how it sounds like a great power for a villain.
• My-HiME: Subtle, and brief. Shizuru believes being a lesbian makes her "wicked." When she's forcibly outed to Natsuki, and witnesses Natsuki recoil in horror (Natsuki had just overheard Yukino accuse Shizuru of doing something to her in her sleep, and Shizuru hadn't denied it), Shizuru determines to defeat the other HiME, slaughter District One, and make Natsuki her own. Four episodes and a Big Damn Kiss (which Natsuki initiated) later, a speech from Natsuki about how she does love her, in her own way, a brief bout with death, and she's a weeping, repentant mess begging for Forgiveness (which she immediately receives).
• Naruto:
  • Gaara was originally a sad, lonely boy who simply wanted a friend. But the villagers feared his power, and hated him because of its source. Finally, after Yashamaru tried to kill him, on orders of Gaara's father no less, Gaara becomes exactly what Yashamaru and the villagers had always said he was: A monster that loved only itself. Fortunately, Defeat Means Friendship, and after fighting Naruto and losing, Gaara eventually regains his sanity and learns to trust and love other people again. He later even becomes the new Kazekage, and is now revered by the villagers as a hero.
  • In the Fourth Ninja World War, Gaara's father, the 4th Kazekage, has been brought Back from the Dead... and revealed that Yashamaru never believed a word of his Hannibal Lecture. He only told Gaara that nobody ever loved him, and that even his own mother hated him, because they thought the shock would make him easier to kill, an order given only because they thought he was too unstable because of the demon placed within him. When the Kazekage sees all that his son has accomplished in spite of all this, he tells him that both Yashamaru and his mother always loved him, that he is sorry for ruining his life, and that he has never been prouder of him and should have had the faith in him that his mother did.
  • This may be part of Madara Uchiha's motivation for his Face–Heel Turn after having co-founded the Hidden Leaf Village with Hashirama Senju. Tobirama constantly made moves to limit the power of Madara and the Uchiha clan, which convinced Madara that the old hatreds wouldn't die out. After reviewing the legend of the Juubi, Madara decided to follow a different route to peace.
    • And later, the Uchiha clan as a whole followed in his footsteps. After the Nine-Tailed Fox attacked Konoha, the village leaders concluded that the Uchiha had to be responsible (as the Sharingan can influence Tailed Beasts).^note An Uchiha was responsible... but one that everyone, including his clan, believed to have been long since dead. While outwardly, the clan still seemed to still have a position of influence and power, they were being marginalized behind the scenes and feared being driven out of the village. They decided in response to seize power in a coup, something that had been feared by some (such as the Second Hokage) since the day the village had been founded. This... did not end well for the Uchiha clan.
  • The Tailed Beasts are heavily implied to have originally been peaceful beings, but being unable to control their massive powers, were either feared or treated as weapons by humans and so grew to hate them and live up to the reputation of being monsters.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion has a downplayed example. Years of abuse and torment, compounded with most of the main cast using, manipulating and abusing him, leads Shinji Ikari to give up on all of humanity. When given control of Third Impact, his exact words are "Nobody loves me, so they can all just die." Instrumentality follows shortly afterwards, and it's horrifying. It's downplayed in that Shinji technically didn't kill anyone, and left the door open for humanity to come back, if they have the will.
• One Piece:
  • Trafalgar Law, in his childhood, became bent on destroying as much of the world as he could before his death. This, after his friends and family were killed and his home country of Flevance was destroyed by its neighbors out of fear of contracting Amber Lead Syndrome, which was not even contagious in the first place. This drove him to fall in with Donquixote Doflamingo, who took a liking to Law due to reminding him of himself in his own childhood and sharing a similar goal. Doflamingo's brother, Rosinante, spends a lot of time trying to find a cure for Law, which eventually mellows him out.
  • A child named Charlotte Pudding snaps after being called a monster one too many times over her Third Eye. During the appropriate flashback, she cries Berserker Tears as she chases the bullies with a knife.
  • Downplayed because she's only "evil" from the perspective of the World Government who writes the rules, but in her climactic fight with Black Maria in the Wano arc, Robin has spent their entire fight being goaded about her epithet: Demon Child. After re-affirming her resolve Robin proudly states that she would even become a true demon to see Luffy become King of the Pirates and keep her crew safe, followed by her literally developing a new technique that makes a demonic Hana-Hana No Mi clone of herself, and taking Black Maria out of the fight with a bone-obliterating grapple hold that is easily one of the more brutal ways a Straw Hat has taken an enemy out of the fight.
• Though a bit of a meta-example, this is what happened to Momonga and his guild members in Overlord (2012). Originally, he and his guild of heteromorphic-race players believed that having a guild that was exclusive to non-human PCs was a fun idea merely because it was cool and set them apart. However, over time the other players of YGGDRASIL came to view Momonga's guild (Ainz Ooal Gown) as being evil and monstrous. As Momonga and his friends were heavily into role-playing, they felt it was only proper to respect the other players' feelings and start acting evil and monstrous. Eventually, this led to them becoming one of the most well-known and respected guilds in the game.
• Princess Tutu: When her Kraehe persona resurfaces, Rue initially fights back, struggling to maintain her identity as a human being. However, Fakir continually fights her and treats her as a villain, until she finally snaps and lets the Crow Princess take over.
  Kraehe: That's right. I am a crow.
• This is a major reason people judged to be "latent criminals" in Psycho-Pass become actual criminals. The culprit in the first episode specifically mentions that since he was scanned with a high enough Psycho Pass, his life is ruined at this point, so he might as well beat and rape his hostage.
• Rave Master gets hit with this two to three times. The first Big Bad, King, is a questionable case. He starts off more as a Well-Intentioned Extremist before the government rather harshly puts a stop to him, spurring him to go into full on terrorism. Lucia and Doryu make for much clearer cases. Despite being a demon lord, Doryu came to the human world hoping to create a place where all species could live in harmony. When Fantastic Racism became too severe and he was locked away by the people he sought to help, he lost it. Lucia had a similar fate. Coming from a family with a history of villainy, the Empire decided to get it over with and preemptively arrest him. When he was six. That he went to prison because he was expected to become a villain is, ultimately, his motive for becoming a villain.
• Trigun's Livio seems to have reached this point due to the confluence of a Superpowered Evil Side that got him rejected everywhere and...uh...torturous retooling at the hands of a Murder, Inc.. It took murdering his childhood friend repeatedly as he burned his body out regenerating the damage while giving him a Shut Up, Hannibal! for a volume and a half to get him to Heel–Face Turn again. And then Wolfwood was dead, and Livio and Vash ate spaghetti.
• Lilu in Watashi No Messiah Sama. It's made a bit worse by the fact that she was in fact originally supposed to be the Priestess of Salvation, but because of a wish Haruna made, she had the position stolen from her and forced into the role of Priestess of Domination. Said wish was made by her best friend, the original Priestess of Domination, and forced her into a life of horrible treatment, at the end of which she just snapped.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V:
  • A lighthearted version plays out in the second episode. After Yuya created Pendulum Summoning, he draws a big crowd to where he and Yuzu are dueling. The crowd all came for Yuya and couldn't care less about Yuzu and they end up disliking her over her chewing out Yuya for getting a big head. This leads to Yuzu declaring herself the villainous heel of the game, and allows Yuya to trade quips with her.
  • A far less humorous example is Zarc, who was Judai-level nice before entering the Duel Tournament because of an accident in which he hurt his opponent; the public wanted more danger and violence, so he gave them what they wanted, leading him to become Supreme Dragon King Zarc and destroy the world in a 'Duel'. The roaring masses who cheered for him wanted an unbeatable Duelist, so Zarc warped his very nature to become said being.

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