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The frequency of light-associated characters' villainy in anime and manga highlights the cultural differences between Western and Japanese audiences, as in East Asia, black is typically worn by heroic characters and white by antagonists.


  • Akame ga Kill!: General Esdeath of the Imperial Army is a beautiful young woman who wears a white uniform, has bright baby-blue hair, Icy Blue Eyes, and porcelain skin. She is also a sadistic, war-mongering psychopath who has actively encouraged her men to literally Rape, Pillage, and Burn at times and sees no problem with what she does. No matter how many endearing moments she's given, we're always eventually reminded of how ruthless she is.
  • One of the major themes of the manga Angel Sanctuary. God Is Evil, and many of the angels are fanatical, murderous, lunatics. And with which group does the hero side? The demons.
  • Baccano!:
  • In Bastard!! (1988), the only Angel willing to fight to protect humanity instead of wiping it out is the fallen angel Lucifer, AKA Lucien Renlen.
  • Berserk:
    • Griffith is a godlike demon who would willingly offer his best friend's life for power (he has, in fact, having sacrificed the Band of the Hawk in order to become a Godhand) and is said to bring about an "age of darkness" which definitely does not sound nice. He appears to people in dreams as a hawk surrounded by light and is appropriately called the Hawk of Light by the Pope of this world. Through Griffith's recent fusing of the planes of existence together with the mortal world using the Skull Knight's dimension-warping attack, the "age of darkness" is now here. It's worth noting that the fusion of the worlds was achieved thanks to the light produced during said event, further strengthening Griffith's connection to light.
    • Inquisitor Mozgus is a Knight Templar to the book, who believes the absurd level of sadism (with good measures of masochism) he reaches brings him closer to (probably non-existent in Berserk) God. He's also given light powers — specifically, angelic wings and a light Breath Weapon — by a ragtag false God who's a servant to the false God Griffith (who probably works for another False God... although it's possible it is the real "God").
    • In a chapter that was later stricken from the books and archives because it "conclusively determines its range [and] might limit the freedom of the story development", it is revealed that God is actually a manifestation of humanity's negative emotions. Therefore, God is indeed evil. You can find the original chapter online in some places.
  • In Birdy the Mighty: Decode, the Ryunka, a superweapon capable of destroying whole planets, manifests itself as a glow emanating from its host, and its true form can emanate bright white beams that cause massive amounts of destruction. It also kills people by turning them into glowing crystal which then shatters and melts. This is likely because it's meant to be an analog to nuclear weapons, which are also this trope, and the main villain who's chasing it, Shyamalan, compliments it nicely by being a Knight Templar himself.
  • In Black Butler, Ash is the main villain of Season 1.
  • Black Clover:
    • Licht. He is a glittery and bright Bishōnen who uses some kind of light magic, often brightens an area simply by being there, and is dressed in white. He's also a dangerous leader of the Eye of the Midnight Sun, a group of would-be revolutionary terrorists.
    • Lucius Zogratis is an even straighter example. His "demon host" form is angelic and he has the ability to purify demons into sacred power and impart them onto humans, his host of troops are consisted of angelic Paladins consisted of people he brainwashed and/or resurrected, and he is by far the most destructive and ambitious villain in the manga who seeks to end the Kingdom's inequality and elitism by annihilating all of humanity and recreating them into angelic superhumans.
  • Xargin of Blassreiter may look like a wandering evangelist... but his message is genocide, and he will disintegrate you in your own best interests, with that darn perty smile on his face.
  • Bleach:
    • The main antagonist for most of the Soul Society arc was Byakuya Kuchiki. As a Captain, he wears a white haori over his black uniform. His power is defined by his white Reiatsu which transforms into pure white attacks when his sword releases.note 
    • Maki Ichinose's ability was the power to manipulate light. However, he betrayed Soul Society to side with Jin Kariya who wanted to destroy the Shinigami. He does a Heel–Face Turn after losing to Kenpachi and getting "The Reason You Suck" Speech, but is killed by Kariya.
    • Sosuke Aizen and his army of Arrancar all wear predominantly white clothing, though unlike the Quincies below, this relates to white being the color of death in East Asian culture as it is the color of bone (which Hollow masks resemble). When he fuses with the Hogyoku, he assumes several One-Winged Angel forms with a majorly white appearance.
    • The Quincy uniform is pure white, although their leader, Yhwach, hides that uniform behind a dark maroon colored cape. He wields the power of Light, but every time he brings forth the Light, it's to kill. The most significant use of his Light is used to destroy the Quincies themselves, calling back their power so he can redistribute it among himself and any living Quincies of his choice. During the Wandenreich's second invasion, he briefly swaps his maroon cape with the usual white-colored white cape worn by the Quincy before changing it back when he prepares to invade the Soul King's Palace. When he assimilates Mimihagi and the Soul King, he completely abondons the light-themed colors of the Quincy in favor the powers of darkness he received from the Soul King.
  • Blood+:
    • Solomon is an angelic blonde bishounen that more often than not wears a white suit. Needless to say, he's also one of Diva's chevaliers. Though he quickly falls in love with Saya and, after trying to protect her by disuading her from killing Diva pre-timeskip, he actively helps her post-timeskip even if Saya is still wary of him.
    • Diva as well. Pale pretty girl with blue eyes, wears white Victorian clothing, is an opera singer and often described as an angel. Bad side? She is a century-and-a-half-old Chiropteran Queen who has killed thousands of people, participated in an experiment to create a virus to turn others into chiropterans, had figures such as Gregory Rasputin and Martin Bormann as her chevaliers, meaning she was involved in, if not being the mastermind of, the Romanov Massacre (as she also impersonated Anastasia) and WWII, raped a 14-year-old boy to get pregnant and then killed him, all for the sake of pissing off her sister. Also, when she sings, people turn into monsters.
  • Arthur Auguste Angel, the current paladin of an order of exorcists in Blue Exorcist. He is described by Shura as "a saint on the outside and a devil on the inside", and at best he's a Jerkass who puts Honor Before Reason and has a bad case of Fantastic Racism. His Moral Event Horizon was arguably when he cut off Rin's foot just to keep him in place. Rin is fifteen.
  • In Brave10, Saizo's ninja tricks are themed after Marishiten, Shinto goddess of Light. Given his vocation, he's a ruthless, cold-blooded killer, no matter how gold his heart is behind the facade.
  • Valkyria from Brynhildr in the Darkness is a white-haired woman wearing white who is as Ax-Crazy as she is powerful, and she is very powerful.
  • Buso Renkin: The head of an organisation of man-eating monsters, Dr. Butterfly also has a strong association with light as all of his costumes invoke a lot of white and the concentrated form of his Buso Renkin, Alice in Wonderland, uses light to effect an opponents sense of sight in order to create hallucinations. His great-grandson, Papillon, also mentions that he is more of a moth than a butterfly as he was attracted to the light of Victor.
  • A Certain Magical Index:
    • Accelerator is very handsome, has white hair, wears brightly colored clothing, and can even sport an angelic appearance. He's also enormously insane who enjoys fighting others and is easily angered. However, it has appeared that he's pulled a Heel–Face Turn, and may be slightly closer to Light Is Good.
    • Then there's his rival, Teitoku Kakine, who can sprout angel-like wings and generate weaponized light, but is one of the most despicable villains.
  • Chainsaw Man:
  • Aion of Chrono Crusade dresses in all white, and comes with white hair. Underneath his disguise however is a total bastard. Prone of long winded speeches and making your life a total misery.
  • Code:Breaker: When we see Ogami's Terrorist Without A Cause, possibly Social Darwinist brother "on camera" for the first time, he has white hair and a white outfit and an ice-cold body in contrast with Ogami's black hair, black uniform, and FLAME ON! abilities.
  • Code Geass:
    • The sinister "White Prince", Schneizel.
    • Also, after taking control of Britannia and becoming the next Emperor, Lelouch starts wearing a white suit, as opposed to Zero's and the Black Knight's black outfits.
    • And then there's Mao, a Pretty Boy whose power is Telepathy which enables him to "see through" the "shadowy personality" of Lelouch (and most of the other characters). Oh, and he's also one of the purest-hearted and most innocent characters in the entire show, who prides himself on using his mind-reading skills to Mind Rape and ultimately kill people he sees as "bad." He may not be the only other one, either, since most antagonists in Code Geass (including Mao and Schneizel) are Knights Templar, and thus in theory light-aligned by default.
    • Suzaku Kururugi has shades of this, as well. Known as the White Knight, and later as the "White Grim Reaper" in the places he helps conquer, he actually started out with noble morals and an honest belief in reforming the system. A few traumas later, and he was willing to do anything to maintain what he saw as peace and reform over violent revolution. This trope is played deliberately in his case, much like Scheizel and Mao, since he's an antagonist of Lelouch. Meanwhile, Lelouch's mother and father are both portrayed as Light in their own ways (his father is the Emperor, and while not overly white in the same vein as Schneizel, still has shades of it, his mother was treated by all who knew her as a saint, and nicknamed "The Flash"). In the end, both were sympathetic in their very ultimate goals, but were veritable antagonists who wished to destroy the Gods as part of an Assimilation Plot, and their twisted love for their kids was their main motivator.
  • Crane Bahnsteik from Cyber Team in Akihabara is the White Prince, and also The Man Behind the Man to Principal Wasshu.
  • Da Capo and its sequels have the Giant Sakura Tree and its ever-blossoming kin. There are some truly terrifying scenes in the animes when everything is going horribly right we see beautiful cherry blossoms budding up and blossoming to life even as the characters beg for the trees to die.
  • Knight-Commander Martel from Dawn of the Seeker is a Templar in Shining Armor and one of the conspirators who betrayed The Chantry.
  • Death Note:
  • Deltora Quest:
    • Gorl is a literally a shining golden knight who ironically dwells in the darkest part of the forest. Gorl slaughtered his brothers to get the Lilies of Life which were said to grant immortality but Gorl missed his chance and so guarded the Lilies for hundreds of years encasing the area in thorns and bent trees blocking out sunlight which was the one thing that would make the Lilies bloom.
    • Ols unlike most monsters in the series are white and blobby, but thanks to their shape shifting powers are the most deadly servants of the Shadow Lord.
    • Thaegan has sliver hair.
    • Oacus is blonde white and has classic anime pretty boy looks, and is evil as hell. Oacus is also very creepy overtones having a tendency to hug and follow onto young girls and enjoys burning things with his powers and at one point forces Jasmine to watch while he nearly burns Lief to death while asking how she feels.
    • Dain is pale skinned polite fragile looking pretty boy, in direct contrast to his mentor Doom who has the Faceof A Thug. But Doom is good man underneath his bitter exterior while Dain is actually a level 3 Ol who was lying and scheming all along, and upon being discovered Dain begins to unravel and become more monstrous.
  • In The Demon Girl Next Door, the "war" between the Light and Dark clans sounds more like a one-sided slaughter in the Light's favor, with the Light clan hunting down Dark Clan members — often cases of Dark Is Not Evil — just for points. The demons in town have only been kept safe by the barrier.
  • Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba:
    • The Spider Family have mostly white features, with the Daughter, Mother and Rui dressed entirely in the color. Each one is a powerful demon on their own, with Rui being the strongest among them. Sadly, they're an example of both a vicious and tragic gathering that turn an entire forest into their hunting ground.
    • Daki from the Entertainment District Arc as well. Her true hair color is white, and is severely prideful and sadistic. She and her brother, Gyotaro are both Upper Moon Demons causing one of the most violent fights of the series.
  • In Descendants of Darkness, Muraki Kazutaka has a lot of "light" symbolism surrounding him. (In the anime, he was even first encountered in a church by the hero.) The manga takes this even further, in his final appearance he is saved from dying by a giant ball of light "so strong and evil it could burn your eyes out". He may have inherited this trait from his mother, who may have been the one who saved him. That manga arc was really vague in some areas.
  • Ryo Asuka from DEVILMAN crybaby wears nothing but white clothes, his apartment and car are completely white in color, and his angel form consists of purely white skin and wings. However, sociopathic, has no capability of feeling empathy, is driven purely by logic, doesn't think highly of humans, and has shades of bloodlust. It doesn't help that he's the Big Bad of the series, and turns out that he's Satan.
  • D.Gray-Man: Despite being demons, Level 4 Akuma most closely resemble angels, complete with glowing white halos and wings. The Noah themselves avert this trope by gaining white skin when not in "horrifying evil" mode.
  • Digimon:
    • Lucemon from Digimon Frontier was most definitely a version of this. He's an insane Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist who claims that he loves humanity and Digimon and will destroy and remake them to create a better world, but he's a power-hungry tyrant who wants everyone to bow down to him like the lowly lifeforms they are. He also had Darkness-based powers, but started out pure Light and uses both together in his second form. The Royal Knights, being Holy Knights with light-oriented powers who serve Lucemon, also fit.
    • SlashAngemon from Digimon Fusion would be another example. He executes Digimon just for criticizing his methods.
    • One of the Digimon of the Week near the end of Digimon Ghost Game is a ClavisAngemon, a Digimon who is explicitly from the Angemon line. Not only very few antagonists in the series are angelic Digimon like him, the Angemon line is also usually more in-line with morally white Digimon. It's actually nowhere near as bad as the other in-franchise qualifiers of this trope though, since the worst he does is to settle inside an apartment alongside a huge group of Digimon and letting them freak the original tenants out.
  • Krad from D.N.Angel fits. He's the villain, but he's got all the light-related imagery, white wings and all that, while the good guy is Dark.
  • Dragon Ball Z:
    • Frieza's main colors are pink, purple, and white; in his final form, he's like a bastion of whiteness. In regular demeanor, he's completely regal, and he is indeed the leader of an intergalactic organization of planet pirates responsible for multiple genocides, including at least one of a race that worked for him at the time. However, Frieza is more of a subversion in his second form, since he has a much more diabolical appearance than in its final form, with a resemblance to Satan.
    • Broly, in terms of movie villains (prior to his first canon appearance in Dragon Ball Super). Adorned in holy-looking clothing. Apparently mild-mannered and harmless. An incredible mass of repressed unstable rage and monstrous power which bursts open and crushes everything in sight including his own father once he's seen Kakarot (Son Goku) again for even ten minutes.
    • In terms of Broly, his father Paragus applies as well. Dressed in a white cape, sporting a damaged eye, introducing himself as a humble servant of Vegeta, and presenting Vegeta a new planet to rule over as its king and restart the Saiyan race — just as soon as he defeated a "Legendary Super Saiyan". His true intentions are to leave Vegeta stranded on this planet, which is a complete ruins beyond the supposed throne city and is about to be bombed by a comet, so that he can restart Saiyan dominance for himself on Earth and rule over it with his Legendary SSJ-potential son as his instrument of power.
  • Fairy Tail:
    • Initially an antagonist, Jellal Fernandez used a wide variety of light and heaven themed magics.
    • Angel of the Oracion Seis appears in a feathery white dress and pretty much lives up to her codenamenote  in appearance. In terms of personality, though... not so much. It's taken up a notch in the Key of the Starry Heavens arc in the anime, where she summons literal angelic beings to do her bidding with golden coins in a flash of white light.
  • Fist of the North Star:
    • Jakou is addicted to light, to the point of capturing slaves to operate his light-generating machinery. Justified by this being caused by his utter terror of Raoh and Hokuto Shinken practitioners in general, who (with the exception of Toki) are very much darkness-aligned and whose martial art is, according to Shin, the Yin (Dark) side of the art of killing.
    • Jakoh's generals all use Gento Koken, a fighting style that focuses on the use of Ki Attacks. They all have a Red Baron name called after the color of the ki aura the user manifests, as in "Solia of the Purple Light" or "Falco of the Golden Light". The anime adaptation of the Tentei/Gento arc adds two more generals, Boltz and Taiga (both modeled after Solia), changes Shoki into yet another general (with his color being red) and gives Solia additional villainy by making him destroy Mamiya's village and kill its elders to lure Ken out and changing his motives to make him not act directly under Falco's orders. All the Gento generals are villains except for anti-villains Shoki (in the anime, who openly wants to rebel against Jakoh but ends up being knocked out by Falco) and Falco (who is directly coerced by Jakoh under threat of killing the Emperor, who's kept captive in a location unknown to Falco), and they all end up opposing Kenshiro and/or his friends Bart and Ein at some point.
    • Special mention goes to Falco himself, the strongest of the Gento generals, who is called by his soldiers "The Light That Moves Our Hearts". All of his soldiers are completely devoted to him, to the point that many sacrifice themselves to protect him from a big explosion. As a Gento fighter, most of his techniques are shining blasts of yellowish light energy. He proves to be Ken's equal in battle by fighting him to a grueling standstill, but is later revealed to be an honorable man forced to oppose Kenshiro by Jakoh, who has the Emperor captive and is willing to kill her if Falco doesn't obey his orders.
    • Other examples come from the evil Nanto Seiken practitioners. Their martial art is stated early to be the Yang (Light) side of the art of killing, all but one of the known Nanto Seiken practitioners are clearly light aligned (Souther going so far to declare himself an holy emperor, and having the phoenix as his symbol), and Shin, Yuda, and Souther are three massive jerks.
  • Kurei from Flame of Recca was made to believe he carried the cursed flame when he really carried the sacred Phoenix flame.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist:
    • Father is a noble-looking old man with white hair and who dresses all in white, and in the Brotherhood anime actually seems to glow with white light. That being said, his true form is an Eldritch Abomination Living Shadow, so he's actually more like Dark Is Evil. He later succeeds with his plans and reshapes his body into looking like a young Hohenheim, meaning that he became a long haired, angelic-looking male teenager, going back to playing this trope straight.
    • This trope is also present in the form of certain religion-related characters. For instance, the first villain faced is a priest, Father Cornello, who maintains the guise of a kind old man when his real intentions are quite megalomaniac.
    • Scar probably fits as well, as he's described as a warrior priest who casts judgement into State Alchemists involved (or not, which unfortunately includes the Elric Brothers) in the Ishvalan massacre by using incomplete alchemy; though he becomes an Anti-Hero.
    • Another example is that of the Affably Evil Mad Bomber, Zolf J. Kimbley. Kimbley wears a pure white suit, has a pair of alchemical circles drawn on his hands that involves the sun and moon, both symbols of light, and his fighting style creating quite a bit of light as a side-effect.
    • In the first anime, there is Hohenheim of the Light, a man who for centuries murdered countless people to either steal their bodies or make philosopher's stones, before ultimately reforming.
  • Miaka and the Suzaku senshi are the main characters of Fushigi Yuugi but it's not until Eikoden do we see how selfish and uncaring Suzaku and the other Beast Gods are, concerned only with maintaining their immortality by taking the souls of the girls who become their priestesses.
  • GaoGaiGar loves this trope, especially in FINAL, where the mostly black Genesic GaoGaiGar faces off against a so-white-it's-glowing Palupalrapa Plus.
  • In Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Kuze has a cybernetic body with white skin and hair, and usually dresses completely in white. His followers see him as a savior, but he's also Japan's most dangerous top terrorist. Slightly subverted, as it later turns out that he's actually the most noble and kind character in the entire franchise, even though he has turned to extreme measures to bring an end to injustice. Probably emphasized further by the fact that he becomes a lot more sympathetic character after he gets rid of his white getup permanently, and switches to brown leather jacket and blue jeans.
  • Gundam:
    • Paptimus Scirocco of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam wears an immaculate white uniform as a visual contrast to the black-and-red-wearing jackbooted thugs he works beside.
    • The angelic, brightly-coloured Wing Zero from Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, a terrifying engine of destruction that is responsible for some of the worst massacres in the series, and has a nasty habit of mind-raping its pilots. Becomes an Anti-Heroic Light Is Good when Heero obtains and keeps it for good.
    • In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, we have Rau Le Creuset. Adorned in white from head to foot, he has blond hair, blue eyes, pilots a mecha entitled the Providence... and is absolutely out of his mind. His Unwitting Pawn Muruta Azrael wears a light-blue suit, has a religious name... and is even worse.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam 00:
      • Team Trinity are a group of Gundam meisters with biblical surnames, and they wear white clothes. Of course, they turn Sixth Ranger Traitor. However, of them, Johann is more of a Dark Is Evil example, since his Gundam looks more dark-based.
      • The Alvaaron is bright, shiny gold, and is shaped like an angelic knight. It is also piloted by a guy who wants to destroy and recreate human society as he sees fit.
      • The Innovades also wear white... outfits. Their leader and Big Bad Ribbons Almack pilots a white Gundam.
    • The titular Gundam of Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, which has a nasty habit of going all Superpowered Evil Side when there are other Newtypes around, which is a bit of a problem if the pilot doesn't want to reduce them to a bloody smear across the cosmos. Becomes Light Is Good when Banagher was able to fully control it and unlocks its green psycoframe form.
    • Some members of Vagan from Mobile Suit Gundam AGE. Fezarl Ezelcant is dressed in white and has some gold on his headgear, and even his spacesuit is white with some gold on the helmet. There's aslo Zeheart Galette, mainly after Lord Ezelcant revealed his plan to have Zeheart become a light that will illuminate humanity's future. As for Leil Light... well, his last name speaks for itself.
  • Hellsing:
    • Alexander Anderson, a Catholic priest/paladin dressed in white who's kind to children and puppies. However, you even mention the word "vampire" in front of him, and he turns into a homicidal psychopath who won't hesitate to chop up normal humans in his path to purify the world of "evil".
    • The Crusade that is assembled when the Nazi Vampires destroy most of London. They not only look like a cross between the historical Knight Templar and members of the Ku Klux Klan, but their mission isn't to eliminate the vampires and save London, it's to eliminate the vampires and kill every Protestant in England.
    • The Major wears white and has blond hair. This could be attributed to Phenotype Stereotype, however. He is still ein Sturmbannführer des Dritten Reiches,note  despite having become one of the most solid examples of Always Chaotic Evil and Blood Knight existing in manga or anime.
  • In Hetalia: Axis Powers, Russia manages to curse Japan using the power of the Orthodox Church. Apparently even White Magic is evil if Russia is involved on it. Somewhat subverted with England's "Brittania Angel" mode, which is merely creepy when he's not being hilarious.
  • High School D×D: The first enemies the Gremory Group faces are the fallen angels, immortal beings who can create weapons of light. This light is incredibly strong to the devils, the story's main protagonists.
  • The majority of Paladins from How Not to Summon a Demon Lord are extreme zealots of the Church of Celestials, who consider their actions as holy and just, despite how twisted their actions are.
  • Michael from Innocents Shounen Juujigun is an innocent looking young man from the church who wears all white, believes himself to be chosen by God, and preaches forgiveness and obedience to the Lord. He's also a self-centered, arrogant, vicious little monster who likes to kill "heretics" by impaling them through the midsection, and is single-handedly responsible for the death of the actual chosen child.
  • Inuyasha:
    • Priestess Kikyo, the antiheroine of the story. Her resurrection is clearly ungodly. She comes back to life with a mind full of hatred and vengeance and does both good (helping people in need, feeding the hungry, taking care of kids) and not-so-good deeds (antagonizing Inuyasha and Kagome, stealing the souls of girls to keep herself alive). Yet obviously, she retains her old holy powers.
    • Even more strikingly, the Living Buddha Hakushin uses his holy powers consciously to erect a barrier to protect the Big Bad Naraku. This barrier prevents people who have demonic blood, like Inuyasha, Koga and Sesshomaru, from entering Mount Hakurei and attacking Naraku.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Kill la Kill:
  • Kurohime: Yashahime is a beautiful young woman who frequently wears long, stylized kimonos and flowers in her hair, is rather graceful with her White God Tree katana and is the High Goddess of Earth. She also has a rather obsessive crush on the Grim Reaper (who's not so nice himself) and is batshit crazy. Oh, and she's really a tree monster.
  • The Guild in Last Exile. Aside from the customary white clothing, Guild ships are very bright and full of sunlight, particularly in contrast to the Silvana.
  • Friday Monday from Madlax wears white clothes, has white hair, and a golden mask. His base even looks like a church.
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS: While the series as a whole usually goes the Light Is Good (and Dark Is Not Evil) route, StrikerS has two exceptions. The Big Bad, Jail Scaglietti, wears a white lab coat. Meanwhile, one of his Co-Dragons, the sadistic and borderline sociopathic Quattro wears a white cape over her Latex Space Suit.
  • Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, which has the evil angel Michel with his six white wings, white clothing and constant glowing.
  • Johan Liebert of Monster is so bright and beautiful looking that he could almost be mistaken for an angel, and indeed, the aura he gives off is one of almost unmistakable lightness. He's also the title character and his deeds fit his name, as he goes around killing tons of people and manipulating others into villainy For the Evulz.
  • Naruto:
    • The Hyuga clan often dresses in white, and many of their names have to do with the sun or other sources of light. However, the leadership of the clan oppresses the branch house with a curse mark that can cause great pain or kill those with it when it's activated, and some members of the branch house possess resentment toward the head family that can be potentially murderous. Despite this, it is implied that Hiashi, current head of the clan, is rethinking the role of the main and branch families, especially after Hizashi sacrificed himself for the sake of his brother and village rather than the head family, and the current heiress, Hinata, is a kind individual who cares for the members of the branch family.
    • Orochimaru and later Kabuto have deathly white skin to mimic the traits of a white snake. However, they were among the most conniving and formidable villains of the series, so it's understandable that trusting them after their apparent Heel–Face Turn doesn't come easily.
    • Kurama the Nine-Tailed Foxes' yang half has lighter fur color, but he actually is more antagonistic than his yin half and was intially presented as the Superpowered Evil Side of his host Naruto, but during the Fourth Shinobi World War he has Heel–Face Turn after Naruto befriends him, and finally managed to work together.
    • Dust Release/Particle Style is this by ability alone. It's a very exclusive transformation of earth, wind and fire elements, forming a shapeable beam of light. Mostly it was wielded by the Tsuchikage, as a devastating One-Hit Kill as it literally vaporizes the victim completely.
    • During his time as the Ten Tails' Jinchuriki, Obito is clad almost completely in white, which also becomes his skin and hair color. When Madara becomes the Ten-Tails' Jinchuriki, his face and hair are white and his clothes are also almost completely white. The trend of a white-clad villain is later continued by Kaguya, the series' Greater-Scope Villain.
    • Most members of the Otsutsuki clan are this since they are aliens with mostly white skin and almost completly white clothing and are the mostly serve the main villains of the series, with a few exceptions of course.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion:
    • The angel Arael is a beautiful bright bird that looks somewhat like a bunch of wings or branched out lights/leaves. It is, however, one of the most horrifying angels. It's the Trope Namer for Mind Rape and launches a brutal assault on Asuka's mind, which ends up putting her in a catatonic depression. How does the Angel penetrate her mind? By shining a bright light on EVA-02 (the beam is literally just light). And yet it's regarded as the prettiest and brightest of the angels. It's engulfed in a glowing white light. It's chilling.
    • Armisael (a halo made out of pure white light) and Ramiel (a perfect blue crystal that attacks using a Wave-Motion Gun) aren't much better. In fact, taking the name 'Angel' at face value, all of the Monsters of the Week are this trope.
    • The first Angel, Adam, is referred to as "The Giant of Light" occasionally. His form lived up to that name.
    • The Mass Production Evangelions from The End of Evangelion are painted white with an angelic-looking appearance, with cartoonish faces and giant flapping wings. Yet they aid SEELE's brutal assault against NERV, kill Asuka and cannibalize her Eva, and feature prominently in the notorious horror sequences that make up the latter-third of the film.
  • One Piece:
    • Marine Admiral Kizaru's abilities via the Pika-Pika Devil Fruit give him power over light. He can move/attack at the speed of light, focus light into lasers, and also use blinding flashes. This isn't also including the basic advantages of his type of Devil Fruit, which cause solid objects to pass right through him. Though whether this is an aversion, playing straight, or subversion depends on your point of view, as One Piece has pirates as the protagonists, making Kizaru the enemy, even though he's on the side of "Good" as far as the OP-verse is concerned.
    • A lot of the Marines and World Government-affiliated play with this trope, from the white uniforms of the Marines to the Five Elders (in the original Japanese, the last syllable of Gorosei can be translated as Stars), the leaders of the World Government. The Tenryuubito (Heavenly/Celestial Dragons) who provide the authority behind the World Government are also like this, heavenly titles, revered as gods, all referred to as "Saints" who live in a Holy Land, and most of them are utterly irredeemable. Then there's the Greater-Scope Villain Imu, the true ruler of thw world who even the Five Elder Stars bow to and call a 'God' who decrees divine punishments.
  • In Overlord (2012), morality and fashion sense/powers don't always mesh:
    • Shalltear Bloodfallen wields powerful divine light magic as a Holy Valkyrie. She's also a very evil and depraved vampire.
    • Lupusregina Beta is a cleric with healing abilities. She's also one of the most viciously evil members of the Pleaides.
    • The first opponent in New World Ainz faces is Nigun Grid Luin, leader of the Sunlight Scripture, who summons Angels into battle. He's a despicable Dirty Coward who has no compunctions killing entire villages full of innocent people.
    • Zero is a monk who draws power from shamanic tattoos. He's also the depraved leader of the Six Arms, the elite warriors of the Eight Fingers criminal organization.
  • Pokémon:
  • Psycho-Pass has Makishima who dresses in white (including his hair) and has a clear Psycho Pass/low crime coefficient, but is a Well-Intentioned Extremist at best.
  • In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Kyubey is a small, white adorable creature. He also tricks innocent girls into becoming witches, to stop the universe from being destroyed by entropy.
  • In Ragna Crimson, the “Winged Progenitor” Ultimatia is an angelic looking, soft-voiced young woman dressed all in white. She’s also a dragon who razes entire countries to the ground in service of a deranged vision of “god’s will” and regularly does violence to her own allies.
  • Byakuran in Reborn! (2004) wears all white, decorates his office with white flowers and apparently consists on a diet of marshmallows. At the end of the manga arc, he also sprouts huge white wings and glows. Granted, he's glowing with stolen flames, but the flames turn into white light, according to the anime's current opening credits.
  • In Saikano, Chise glows a bright white when she uses her abilities, which, along with the techno-wings that often sprout from her back, make her look downright angelic. Unfortunately, being "The Ultimate Weapon", this frequently ends in lots and lots of people dying and/or cities being reduced to dust.
  • In Saint Seiya, Virgo Shaka fits. Whilst he's more of an Anti-Hero, he's very deceptive-he's an incarnation of Buddha, but in the first series has aligned himself with the very evil Pope and is only too willing to Mind Rape and maim the main characters. He also happens to be an angelic-looking blonde with bright blue eyes and very long hair. Who glows. In the dark. His Expy from Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas does a similar thing, as does Virgo Fudo from Saint Seiya Omega. Both Shaka and Fudo have Heel-Face Turns and fight on Athena's side in later arcs of their series.
  • The Seven Deadly Sins:
    • All Living non-exiled members of the Holy Knights with the exception of the titular sins have shown themselves to be anything but holy. In one instance, one knight insulted and then shut down a town's livelihood for no other reason than a thought passing through his head. In another case, a group of knights having no trouble kidnapping a little girl for blackmail material against her father, and killing said father when the poison he gave Meliodas failed to kill him and raining acid on the town to eliminate a target.
    • Later on, the Supreme goddess assumes a villainous role and is known to possess brainwashing abilities.
  • The Ineffectual Loner brigade "X Laws" in Shaman King all had angels as their spirits. And they did some pretty horrible stuff, being Knight Templars who beat and kill people just so they wouldn't join Hao, so much that if you just question their ways, you're just another of Hao's flunkies for them. Also, in the manga and 2021 anime, one of their original founding members defects to join Hao... and this defector used the angel Lucifer as his spirit.
  • Shinzo: Queen Rusephine has a very angelic look about her, being a winged humanoid, conventionally attractive, and wearing a light-colored uniform. She's one of the Evil Overlords who wiped out humanity, and is introduced destroying the city that the heroes had just saved out of spite for losing her Dragon.
  • Slayers:
    • Spoofed when Amelia, right in the middle of a villain's grand appearance, declares that he can't possibly be the bad guy because he's wearing white, whereupon the other characters collectively facepalm.
    • The Sword of Light. Slayers Try reveals that it is actually one of a set of five weapons from another dimension that are that dimension's equivalent of the Five Dark Lords.
  • Smile Pretty Cure! has Bad End Happy, a dark and evil version of Cure Happy. She has light powers just like her and even has dark version of the Happy Shower called Bad End Shower.
  • In Stray Dog, the villainous bounty hunter mage makes use of light-related powers in the very first fight scene.
  • Trigun: Millions Knives, the Big Bad, is a Bishōnen decked out in white, who created the "Angel Arms" — super-guns of highly destructive light-beams. The manga takes this to an extreme, when Knives starts absorbing the Plants, he is the center of a writhing mass of angel wings and limbs.
  • Trinity Blood is another classic example of this: The "Enemy of the World" is a blond Bishōnen with six white wings, who dresses all in long white robes and is first seen standing atop the enormous cross which hovers over the Vatican. The hero, in contrast, is a white-haired pretty boy with black wings who dresses all in black and wields a scythe made of his own blood.
  • Tweeny Witches:
    • Wizard Kingdom is the shining capital city of the Warlock Realm, surrounded by Everything Is an iPod in the Future aesthetics. The populace wears bright colors, mainly white and sometimes gold, in contrast to the witches and wizards who wear dark/earthly colors. It's also home to the military dictatorship of the warlocks, which not only oppresses the wizards as the remnants of the old magical order but also plans to destroy the Human Realm with dark magic in hopes of making a new home for their species to escape the eventual destruction of the Magical Realm.
    • Grande wears white and gold with a wing-like cape, giving him an angelic appearance. He's also the military dictator of the warlocks, ruthless enough not only to plan the destruction of the Human Realm but also to kill Sigma's father in front of the boy for disagreeing with his plans.
    • Sigma has white hair and dresses in white. He's also Grande's Enigmatic Minion and a manipulative Enfant Terrible with the philosophy of The Social Darwinist.
  • Umineko: When They Cry: A few of the witches qualify.
    • Big Bad Beatrice is known as the Golden Witch, and appears with pretty golden butterflies. She is also a Wicked Witch who loves giving a Cruel and Unusual Death to her victims. She is actually a Superpowered Evil Side to Sayo Yasuda, who is more-or-less an aversion who wants Battler to defeat her.
    • Eva-Beatrice, her successor, is also decked out in light and has a golden staff. She is also every bit as cruel and sadistic as her predecessor.
    • Lambdadelta is a bright blonde with a pink outfit and candy-related powers, and one of the true villains, second only to Bernkastel in villainy.
  • Voltes V:
    • Both Heinel and Katherine have light-blonde hair and and the latter wears a light blue dress, but are major figures of the Boazanian Alien Invasion of Earth. Heinel is a violent Warrior Prince, while Katherine, while a Nice Girl, also holds bigoted views on humans and hornless Boazanians.
    • Emperor Zambajil is a Narcissist who sentenced his own cousin to slavery because he posed a threat to him getting the throne. He despises Heinel because he's a threat to the throne as well, and ever since he was born, has been planning to dispose of him. He only sent Heinel to invade Earth because he hoped he would die in battle. He has light blonde hair that's rolled into curls.
  • Raijin in Yaiba is the God of Thunder, but hinted to be quite evil. Kaguya is the Moon Princess, but is at least a Well-Intentioned Extremist at worst. Also Plasma the Light Demon.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!:
    • Yu-Gi-Oh!: Seto Kaiba dressed in white with his LIGHT Mons, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, pitted against a leather-clad spirit named Dark Yugi and his Dark Magician (with the rest of their decks tending to match the Light and Dark themes of their signature monsters). However, Kaiba was the Jerkass and Yami Yugi barely hit Anti-Hero. (Of course, Kaiba had a lot of Dark monsters too, and many were fiendish creatures, if not actual Fiends.)
    • Two of the seasonal Big Bads in the original series, Noa and Dartz, were also light-aligned. Noa had a six-winged angel, Shinato, with regal robes and a halo as his Deck Master, who's name in Japan is Shinato, King of Heaven, and merges with it temporarily, and Dartz's whole deck was light-themed, meant to be around the Orichalchos.
    • Moving to Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, the driving force behind the first season were the Sacred Beasts, sentient cards of incredible power which were Obviously Evil. (They were called Three Phantom Devils in the original version.) One of them, Hamon, Lord of Striking Thunder, is a LIGHT-Attribute Monster.
    • In the second season, there is the Society of Light. One could argue that the Society of Light are a deconstruction of the idea that anyone who loses to the light sees their point of view, since anyone who loses a duel against them instantly defects to their side, just like is traditional for villains to do upon losing to the protagonist under the rules of Defeat Means Friendship.
    • The driving force behind the Society of Light is the Light of Ruin, a Cosmic Entity described as a sentient "white hole" (the opposite of a black hole) which Pegasus compared to a "giant volcano of light". Throughout history, the times that its foul light has shined upon the world were dark times where tyrants ruled and bloody wars were fought, as it seems to feed off of hatred and despair. It is virtually Made of Evil.
    • In the manga version of GX, there's Reggie MacKenzie, The Dragon (more or less) to Tragoedia. Her deck contains Fairy-Type monsters and celestial beings like Athena and The Splendid Venus, but as far as the villains in the story go, her sadistic nature is second only to Tragoedia himself. (In fact, while she was originally Brainwashed like the rest of his servants, it is implied that she eventually regained at least some of her free will back.) Ironically, the character with the biggest reason to hate her is Midori Hibiki, a sweet, kind, and helpful teacher, who happens to use a deck full of sinister-looking Darklords, the biggest case of Dark Is Not Evil in the story.
    • Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds: Lucciano, Placido, and José, who wear white ropes and cloaks, and whose Machine Emperors tend to be brightly coloured. Their fused form, Aporia, also counts, clad in all white and having an Ace monster that's white and described as a god. Z-One also qualifies, taking the form of a white, armored magatama, and using a deck based on the Sephirot.
    • This carries over to the cards themselves - the two cards linked on the page for Eldritch Abomination are both LIGHT monsters.
    • In Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, Eliphas is the angelic, godlike ruler of the Astral World and the enemy of the Barian World, but has become so arrogantly dedicated to Law that he fails to see that his goals are almost identical to that of his genocidal enemies. In addition, some fans think that Yuma's ability to use Shining Draw in ZEXAL Mode pushes the limits of fair play, but you can excuse him, seeing as the villains cheat worse. Eliphas, however, you cannot. His godlike powers and authority over the Astral World let him use the Shining Draw ability any time he wants (the equivalent of magical deck-stacking, turning the ability into blatant cheating), as opposed to Yuma, who can use it at most twice per duel, and only in ZEXAL Mode. Eliphas is also might have resorted to Mind Rape on Yuma and Astral and quite possibly was willing to destroy the Earth if he had not been bested.
    • In Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS, Lightning the Light Ignus views humanity as the enemy as he himself caused the destruction of the Cyberse World. This is in contrast with Ai the Dark Ignus siding with humanity.
    • Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS:
      • Roa is a narcissistic Jerkass willing to use underhanded tactics to get his way. He uses the Light-Attribute Fiend-Type Royal Demon's archetype, which has a playstyle that requires using even your ace monsters as sacrificial pawns.
      • Neiru seeks to destroy Rush Duels by preventing Yuga and every other good character in the series up to the point of the second arc from ever dueling again for no other reason than he thinks he does a better job running the game of Duel Monsters than Yuga could. He uses a deck full of Light-attribute Cyberse-type monsters, and his ace monster Yggdrago is dubbed "The Heavenly Emperor".
      • Played the most straight in the series so far with Yuuou, the Goha Sibling themed after the Light Attribute. The above two examples have conflict with the heroes in their respective arcs that could be attributed to a difference in perspective and they both become nominal good guys without too much convincing. Yuuou is the first antagonist who most fans would actively describe as "evil". He's power-hungry and conniving, and has zero issues of forcing his own siblings out of their family's shared position as President of Goha Corporation so he can take full control over the company for himself.
  • YuYu Hakusho:
    • Sensui, Big Bad of the Chapter Black Saga, is a former Spirit Detective who has the ability to use Holy Chi.
    • The true villain of the manga? King Enma, the lord of the Spirit World, who was catching weak and innocent demons and brainwashing them to be evil so that he could justify the Spirit World's more questionable actions as being for the sake of protecting the Human World. In fact, the last battle in the manga was against the more fanatical members of the Spirit World, who was appalled at the thought of humans and demons living in harmony and was planning to do some cleansing by causing Armageddon. Ultimately, Enma is overthrown by his son Koenma.

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