Designated Villain / Anime & Manga

• Sio is this in Afro Samurai: Resurrection. Let's overlook what she does to Afro directly. Name one thing that Sio does to earn her the Informed Attribute of wickedness given to her by Professor Dharman. (Go on, we'll wait.) Afro Samurai runs on Grey-and-Gray Morality anyway, however, given all of the heinous things that Afro does in his quest for revenge, and given how Sio wound up the way she did, it's hard to say that anything she does to Afro in particular makes her evil. Hell, she lied about torturing Afro's father: she doesn't even keep her word when she's talking about hurting people she hates. That said, the runner up for evil things that Sio did in the story is her sexually humiliating an evil person who wanted to be sexually humiliated. This is really a victimless crime any way it's viewed. She can't even get Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds status, because she doesn't perpetrate villainy against anyone other than Afro. Sio is such a designated villain, that in any other story (or if the screentime focused on her more than Afro), she could arguably be an anti-hero.
• An In-universe example in Akuyaku Reijo ni Koi wo Shite: the world has a will of its own and outright forces the citizens to view both the Windhill siblings, Vincent and Ariel as villains, no matter what they do, say, or think, twisting each and every little thing they do into horrible character destroying rumors until Vincent is executed for treason, and Ariel is sold into slavery, rescued by Rion, who then marries her and becomes the Baron of a distant land, thus meeting the world's desired "scene."
• Mami Yagihara of Blue Flag. Readers don't have a good vibe from her due to being an Alpha Bitch character that would potentially wreck havoc upon the story, but as far as an Alpha Bitch go she's not even that bad; being slightly hostile towards Taichi's group after Toma's injury is fairly reasonable for someone that can be immature, and while In-Universe the other girls dislike her for hogging up Touma for herself, it turns out that Touma never clearly turned her down & gave her the impression that she still has a chance.
• Humanity itself is eventually portrayed this way in Blue Gender, where the Earth itself is spawning the Blue, horrific monsters, for the sole purpose of killing all humanity for daring to develop technology that elevated humans above the natural order (and also overpopulating). In particular, the leaders of the space colonies, Chairman Victor and the High Council, are demonized and portrayed as the Big Bad for the grave crime of wanting to leave the bug-infested Earth (which had apparently decided to kill them all itself) behind for good and wanting to keep technology around, while Seno Miyagi and his group of humans who try and flee Earth to settle on more hospitable planets elsewhere in the galaxy are portrayed as the worst of the worst, and all of them wind up going insane and “karmically” dying.
• Digimon Adventure tri.: The DigiDestined turn against Homeostasis in Coexistence because it's trying to kill Meicoomon to restore harmony. We're supposed to believe that Homeostasis is unjustified, but Meicoomon is shown to do more harm than good if she were to be kept alive any longer as she spreads her infection that drives other Digimon berserk just by existing. Not helping is that the DigiDestined here are portrayed as jerks who do not have a valid point in keeping Meicoomon alive other than she's Meiko's partner, and some of them like Kari will even do things like crudely telling Meiko that they don't care despite she literally asked them to slay Meicoomon to put her out of her misery and are somehow still treated as justified by the narrative despite it's anything but in the audience's point-of-view. To put insult to injury, the DigiDestined also end up mercy-killing Meicoomon-as-Ordinemon, so Homeostasis gets exactly what it wants anyways.
• Dinosaur King:
  • The Alpha Gang in the first few episodes, actually. We don't actually see them doing anything evil until it's revealed that they brainwash the dinosaurs they capture. Before then, it just looks like all they're doing is reclaiming the cards that are rightfully theirs, and the heroes appear to be rushing into battle without even bothering to try to communicate with them.
  • Dr. Z in any of the episodes involving the secret dinosaurs. All he wants to do is reunite with his creations, he just doesn't know how to approach them and didn't know he was overworking them back when he raised them.
• King Gurumes, the villain of Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies. He ruled his land with tyranny because he became addicted to blood rubies. So Goku and his friends try to stop the evil king from gathering the Dragon Balls and making his "terrible wish" of wishing himself free of the blood ruby hunger... which would solve the problem itself!
• Goku is hit with this in Dragon Ball Super's Universal Survival Saga. The Gods of Destruction and their Supreme Kais are angry that they're being forced to fight for their very existence and since they're scared shitless at the idea of calling out Zen'o, they've all turned their attention to Goku as he's the one who reminded the two Zen'os of the tournament idea, not the fact that Zen'o was already planning on wiping out those universes, so Goku actually gave them a chance to live. Admittedly, Beerus and Shin do call the others out on this, and Goku really doesn't help his case when he openly admits to caring more about fighting strong opponents than the whole universal destruction thing.
• Earwig and the Witch: Bella Yaga can come off as this. While she's far from a loving mother, all she really wants is for Erica to assist her with chores. Aside from having to work outside during the rain, most of it is shown to be tedious rather than back-breakingly difficult. And while she did use the worms, Erica was explicitly told that it would happen if she didn't do as she was told. Ultimately, Bella Yaga feels less like a Wicked Stepmother and more like a strict but understandable person who just wants a bratty girl to behave.
• Donan Cassim in Fang of the Sun Dougram. The reason why he's so determined to keep the colony planet a part of the Earth Federation is that he wants to use the manpower and technology to develop two nearby mineral-rich planets and save an exhausted Earth, but he's the local authority figure and therefore the villain. At some point, the authors themselves realized that he's a little too sympathetic and installed his aide, the genuinely evil and loathsome Helmut J Lecoque, as the Big Bad instead.
• Clair Leonelli in Heat Guy J. First, he starts off as a puppy-kicker with Joker Immunity, then inexplicably disappears for a while. Then, when he comes back still holding the Villain Ball, another Designated Villain grabs the Villain Ball, and Clair goes into an Angst Coma. When he comes out of the coma, he has a Heel–Face Turn and is now an Anti-Hero, and the real Big Bad (whom we, until a few episodes ago, thought was Clair) reveals himself. In the manga, he belongs in the first category above; all he does is Kick the Dog for the sake of kicking the dog.
• Diego Brando from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run. He acts like a Smug Snake, but contrary to what the narrative wants you to think, that's about the worst thing he ever does. He's a talented jockey in search for the Corpse Parts, but that's literally what every other contestant in the Steel Ball Run race is doing, and although it takes a while to get to this point, he eventually assists the heroes in attempting to defeat the main antagonist, Funny Valentine. There's a rumor that he married an old woman, then killed her to inherit her fortune, but throughout the story, it was never proven. Really, compared to his original universe counterpart, Dio Brando, a complete and utter psychopath, there isn't anything Diego does to fully warrant his reputation as an antagonist besides being a bit full of himself.
• Katarina Claes from My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! is a rare self-designated version of this trope. Upon regaining her memories of her past life as an otaku in modern Japan, she realized that she was the chief villainess and Hate Sink of the otome game Fortune Lover. Ever since, she has been unshakably convinced that she is still the villainess and will face the same doom as her fictional counterpart, and is entirely oblivious to the fact that her kindness and friendship have her regarded as a living saint by every major character in the game and a good chunk of the background characters.
• Hachiman Hikigaya of My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, as I Expected invokes this trope on himself when dealing with social problems. He does this on the idealogy that conflicts are unable to be resolved unless both parties focus on a single enemy, i.e, him. This becomes defied later on during the field trip to Kyoto when Hachiman confesses to and subsequently gets rejected by Hina in Tobe's stead. As a result, Yukino voices her comtempt for Hachiman's methods while Yui tearfully asks him why he does not understand the feelings of others.
• One Stormy Night: While they don't seem like a very nice bunch in general, the wolves are still primarily portrayed as villains for doing what wolves do: eating meat to survive. Though they may have crossed the line when they decided to chase after Gabu and Mei out of spite alone.
• Pokémon: The Series: An Orange Islands episode involving a school of wild Lapras has, as its villains, a team of what are essentially pirates who are leaving the local police on edge by tracking a herd of wild Pokémon and then... weakening them with Pokémon they already have and tossing Poké Balls to capture them. In other words, exactly the same thing every trainer ever does. All the episode has to go on for why this is a bad thing when these pirates do it is mention of a "no-capture zone". Not even that Lapras are rare and endangered and need to be left alone to keep from going extinct, which would make sense with what its Pokédex entries have mentioned - no, just an arbitrary no-capture zone in the middle of the ocean with no actual reason specified for its existence.
• Invoked in Ratman in that Hero and Villain are official designations in the society. The Protagonist/Hero is made into a villain due to a Xanatos Gambit and is forced to work for a villain group. So he's only a villain due to red tape.
• An in-universe example from Re:CREATORS (in which fictional characters come to life) would be Yuuya Mirokuji, who was supposed to be the main villain and leader of a street gang in his original work, but turns out to be a friendly, caring and intelligent guy. Eventually, he acts more like a Cool Big Bro for the rest of the Created group than his designated Anti-Villain role.
• The Empire^note Essentially Imperial Germany from The Saga of Tanya the Evil comes across as this with respect to the war. The rest of the world vilifies them for their brutally efficient tactics as the war rages on, ignoring two important facts. First being that while the tactics they begin to use are brutal none breach international law,^note For example, they cannot fire upon civilians so they warn civilians first to evacuate, those who do not are then legally designated as illegal combatants and the whole thing kicked off because one nation violated an international treaty and tried to invade the Empire. The world treats them as villains because of the fact they successfully fought off a war of aggression.
• Star Driver has a bit of this. Yes, the Glittering Crux Brigade kidnapped the maiden to allow them to summon giants to Earth for some reason that probably involves fighting since we never see anything else happen, but when they aren't wearing their masks, they're pretty nice guys. Even the leader of Adult Bank, President, who is a schoolgirl wife who kisses men other than her husband through the glass because her husband is never around - Openly! Like, in class! - only has a massive boat to live in, not because she's uber-rich and spoiled, but because she's pretty sure that volcanoes will explode when they succeed, and wants to evacuate everyone off the island, so no one dies. After asking why else she would possibly have such a thing, both of her subordinates - who give her drinks and massages whenever she wants - simply stare at her, bewildered. The only true villain in the series turns out to be Head who was manipulating the rest of Glittering Crux from the very beginning.
• Luc displays an odd case of this in the Suikoden III Mameanga, where he goes to considerable effort to hide the fact that he's trying to save the world (through mass genocide, but still). When the hero finds this out, he even rants about not needing sympathy for his actions. He was a Jerkass even when he was a good guy.
  • He got his Poor Communication Kills from his mentor, who when he asked if there was any way to save everyone without killing everyone, just looked at him and was silent. Lady Leknaat might have realized the comedy of errors in the ending when she asked the world to forgive them all.
• In-Universe example in Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs. Upon reincarnating in the Otome game world, Leon quickly realizes that Angelica was this, as her original role in the game was to oppose Olivia for undermining her engagement to Julius. Leon later acknowledges that from an outsiders' perspective, anyone would have gotten angry if put in her shoes. Likewise, many of the things she's accused of are not directly her fault: the people who harassed Marie and Olivia did so without her permission, but used her as an excuse when confronted by others, and since some of those people were followers of hers as well, she had little choice but to take responsibility. Leon quickly realizes that the game's Protagonist-Centered Morality makes her seem like the villain, but he gets to know her and sees she's not an evil person at the core. It helps that due to Marie hijacking Olivias' story, it allows for Angie and Olivia to develop more as individuals after taking Leons' advice to focus their efforts on self-improvement over seeking revenge. Other characters who get a similar treatment are Clarice and Queen Mylene, whose only "crimes" were being obstacles for the romance with Jilk and Julius respectively, the former acting as a Disposable Fiancée much like Angelica, and the latter being worried about how her son's decisions could easily throw the kingdom into chaos.
• Dinosaur Ryuzaki (Rex Raptor) from Yu-Gi-Oh! is more of a "villain by proxy", as his best friend (only in the anime) is the downright rotten Insector Haga (Weevil Underwood). He is shown helping Jonouchi (Joey) on occasion, and is more just a jerk than an actual villain, but ends up selling his soul for power in the Doma arc anyway (also only in the anime, and filler no less, making this a case of Adaptational Villainy).
• Gauche and Droite (Nistro and Dextra) from Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL debut as villains because they want to expel Tokunosuke (Flip) from the World Duel Carnival tournament. Why did they want to expel Tokunosuke from the tournament? Because he was swindling people out of their Heart Pieces. He was breaking the rules of the tournament and directly screwing over other people. Even if the punishment (confiscating his deck and expelling him from Heartland City for life) was pretty excessive, Gauche and Droite were just doing their jobs. Even though the moral of the franchise has been that Cheaters Never Prosper since day one, we're expected to root for Yuma when he comes to Tokunosuke's defense, because he's Yuma's friend (and even that's a pretty dubious title) when, if that weren't the case, Yuma would almost certainly be the one dueling him.

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