NOTE: Since this trope reveals a villain being responsible for other events in the series (potentially even after their own demise), expect spoilers.
Villainous Legacies in Anime and Manga.
- Digimon Data Squad: Even after Kurata is defeated, his genocide of Digimon makes Yggdrasil believe all humans are evil, and thus he attempts to destroy the human world to protect the Digimon world.
- Dragon Ball:
- Great Demon King Piccolo expels an egg from his mouth mere seconds before his demise. This egg eventually hatches and gives life to a reincarnated Piccolo., who consciously seeks to conquer the world and avenge his "father's" death. Fortunately, he makes a Heel–Face Turn in Dragon Ball Z, where he becomes an important ally.
- In Dragon Ball Z, long after Goku destroyed the Red Ribbon Army, its (initially unmentioned) lead scientist Dr. Gero continues his work to defeat Goku, to the point where he still uses the Army's insignia on his androids. Gero himself has a legacy even after his death; after the destruction of his laboratory, a supercomputer in his lab's basement (which survived the destruction) continues to work on his final creation, the biomechanical android Cell. In Future Trunks's timeline, two of his creations go on to rule the world with fear and power for well over a decade.
- Fairy Tail has Zeref the Black Wizard. It's been 400 years since his death, and people are still fighting against demons and other evil artifacts he made back then. And it turns out he's still alive, and intends to wage war on humanity. At this point in the series, he finally takes up the role of the overall Big Bad.
- The Big Bad of The Garden of Sinners, Araya Souren, is killed by Shiki in the fifth chapter/movie. The remaining two chapters are driven by lesser villains, who never got a chance to play their intended parts in his Evil Plan before it was foiled, and so they went independent.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has main villain Dio Brando; even after his death, his shadow looms over the Joestar/Kujo Clan, causing them and the world much trouble. Even he, however, is a result of a much more ancient evil from Mesoamerica, and the Big Bad of Part 5 was the one who indirectly granted him the means to gain his Stand. Though Dio dies in part 3 of JoJo, the initial enemies of Part 4 are a direct result of his actions, Part 5's protagonist is his son, and Part 6's Big Bad is a devout follower trying to continue Dio's master plan.
- Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine had the death of Count Almeida happen before the series began, but their influence is felt by one of the experimental subjects continuing his work under his name long after his death.
- Mobile Suit Gundam's Big Bad, Gihren Zabi, might have died at the end, but the state that he and his family built continues to antagonize the world for years afterwards, with both Haman Khan's Axis-Zeon and Char Aznable's Neo-Zeon laying claim to the name and legacy of the Principality of Zeon.
- The damage that Rau Le Creuset and his unwitting pawns, Patrick Zala and Muruta Azrael did in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED has yet to be undone by Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny. Grudges from the war they started continue to drive new conflict, Azrael's successor Djibril has taken over his terror organization, Zala faction loyalists continue to launch terrorist strikes against ZAFT and the EA alike, and Gilbert Durandal, the new Big Bad, plots to unite the world under himself so that no one can ever do what Le Creuset did again. Durandal's own legacy is what drives the plot of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom as Foundation seeks to implement their own version of the Destiny Plan, something that Durandal tried to do.
- Happens in My Hero Academia:
- Once All For One, the resident Chessmaster, gets defeated by All Might, his pupil and recurring bad guy Tomura Shigaraki properly becomes the series' Big Bad.
- Similarly, "Hero Killer" Stain is defeated in battle and captured fairly early on, but his rhetoric proves to be very popular among villains, and membership in the Villain League rises noticeably in the wake of his rampage.
- The villain Destro was captured and subsequently committed suicide, but people still respond to the ideals detailed in his autobiography and his child is trying to continue the Meta Liberation Army he founded in his name.
- This is zigzagged in Naruto. For a while, it appears that a still-living Madara Uchiha is behind most of the plot, though it's a bit odd that he always wears a mask. Then, during the War Arc, Madara gets revived as a zombie, proving that the man behind the mask is simply pulling a Dead Person Impersonation, thus playing this trope straight. But it's then revealed that the real Madara actually passed down his plans/ideals to the masked man (revealed to be an Evil Former Friend of one of the protagonists) and planned for his successor to eventually revive him (though said successor didn't intend to do so) and left a few failsafes to make sure he was revived (though they didn't work as planned). So ultimately, this trope is zigzagged in the sense that Madara WAS dead for most of the series, but was still manipulating things in an indirect way. But even the real Madara himself was a pawn of the true mastermind, and though said mastermind was defeated by Naruto, her people are trying to continue where she left off and cause trouble for Boruto and his friends...
- One Piece:
- Arlong is defeated fairly early in the series, and the audience only learns about his motivations much later in the series. Years later (two in-universe, eleven outside), a pirate crew/insurrectionist movement in Fishman Island arises following Arlong's example, and taking it to a grander scale.
- Played with in regards to Mother Carmel, a slave trader who died long before the series began. While her true nature was never revealed to the public, she nonetheless continues to blight the world through another, far more dangerous villain: Charlotte Linlin, aka Big Mom. It's an interesting example because Linlin is also completely unaware of Carmel's true nature — rather, she idolized her for the kind facade that she put on, and the false dream she espoused to maintain it. After Carmel "disappeared", Big Mom took that dream and made it as her own, only to have it twisted by her insanity, selfishness, and cruelty, all of which were enabled by Carmel so she could exploit her destructive behavior as a talking point for a potential sale. The end result is a pirate Emperor who terrorizes the seas for the sake of ideals that were never real in the first place.
- Roughly thirty-eight years prior to the main story's beginning, there was Rocks D. Xebec, who gathered together one of the most powerful pirate crews ever known, including many members who would themselves become world-renowned many years after his death, such as Big Mom, Kaido, Whitebeard, Shiki and Captain John, among others. Even the event where he was finally defeated would help propel his opponents, Garp and Roger, to infamy, granting the former his title of "Hero of the Marines". It's been implied that Blackbeard, one of the main candidates for overall series Big Bad, views himself as Rocks' successor the way that Luffy is Roger's.
- A subversion occurs in Sword Art Online with Akihiko Kayaba; while his actions do result in over four thousand innocent people dying in The Most Dangerous Video Game and his influence is felt long after his death, the impacts are largely beneficial afterwards.
- A virtual remnant of himself is what allows Kirito to turn the tables on Oberon at the climax of Fairy Dance.
- The World Seed he created with data gathered from the Aincrad server is ultimately what allows VRMMOs to continue to exist after SAO and the first ALO server are shut down, thus setting up the events of all the following arcs.
- At the end of Mother's Rosario, it's revealed that he was the original designer of the Medicuboid system that made it possible for Yuuki Konno to have a high quality of life in VR while her health rapidly deteriorated due to AIDS.
- Symphogear:
- G: The villain organization F.I.S. was originally created and led by Finé, the Big Bad of the first season. After Finé's death, F.I.S. have resurfaced with a new successor who is presented as a future vessel for eventual Finé's reincarnation. They also use Solomon's Cane which was previously owned by Finé, allowing them to summon Noise on demand.
- AXZ: The Bavarian Illuminati use the Alca-Noise as foot soldiers, the latter being previously the foot soldiers of Carol in GX who created them. Part of why the Bavarian Illuminati have beef with S.O.N.G. (the hero organization) is because they view the Symphogears as Finé's legacy, whom they consider their greatest rival.
- XV: The trio known as Noble Red is a remnant of the Bavarian Illuminati and also continue to use Carol's Alca-Noise as foot soldiers.
- Although he's very much alive, Duke Bahurst from Trash Skill Gacha is almost entirely sidelined from the plot after banishing his youngest son, the protagonist Crest, to the [Lower World] in a tantrum because the boy he'd been abusing his entire life and blaming for every misfortune couldn't use his god-given [Gacha] skill on command and one-sidedly accusing him of "lying". His four remaining sons take over the plot by going after Crest, as the king is so desperate for Crest's return due to a divine prophecy that proves Crest's words to his family were true and predict a horde of monsters invading the kingdom so fierce that Crest is one of the three [Heroes] needed to defeat them. The duke's four remaining sons act as borderline sociopaths, either trying to dominate Crest because the king promised Crest the title of duke and the authority to punish the family for in exchange for his return, or simply trying to eliminate him, out of a self-righteous rage at imagined slights when they were the ones who abused him instead.
- Magnificent Bastard and CEO of the Heel–Face Revolving Door Seto Kaiba managed to be indirectly responsible for virtually all the conflict across the Yu-Gi-Oh! timeline.
- He instigates the plot of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX by founding the Academy of Adventure and sending Judai's cards into space.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, his obsession with the game led to him creating the Wretched Hive of Neo Domino City and its oppressive Yu-Gi-Oh-based caste system. The man invented duel taxes and duel police and everyone's so used to his batshit antics that it goes unquestioned.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, sending Judai's cards into space is shown to not only have led to an alien civilization finding them, but basing a religion and their entire development as a society around them, kicking off the plot. The real kicker was that this was exactly his plan. In his own words, "'Cause I figure, if there is intelligent life out there, then let's teach 'em how to duel.
" The man even finishes his sentence with an Evil Laugh! - In Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, his research pioneered the Hard Light technology used by the Greater-Scope Villain Zarc.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! R Dark Bakura never appears, but killing Pegasus in the Duelist Kingdom arc is what fuels the motivation of the Big Bad, Yako Tenma, to resurrect Pegasus, since Yako was his adopted son.
- In the anime adaptation of YuYu Hakusho, Sakyo's plan to open up a tunnel between the demon and the human worlds during the Dark Tournament arc is explicitly stated as the inspiration for Sensui's plan to do the same thing in the Chapter Black arc. The only difference is that Sakyo intended to do so with money while Sensui believed he could build his tunnel with the power of a psychic.
