Summary
The internet often highlightsmorally ambiguous— or outright flawed — male characters in anime. Take Eren Yeager, for example. He wasn’t exactly a standard “true” hero, especially in the latter half ofAttack on Titan. His circumstances pushed him away from being a conventional hero and into what some might even call a monster. Yet, he remained the central figure of the story. Similarly, plenty of other anime explore their versions of male antiheroes, with characters like Light Yagami fromDeath Note, Lelouch fromCode Geass, Ainz fromOverlord, and even the relatively subdued Shinya Kogami fromPsycho-Passfitting the bill.
However, what the internet doesn’t talk about nearly enough is this exact trope expanded to female characters. There are plenty of anime out there with incredibly multidimensional female antiheroes who make bold, often outlandish choices that don’t necessarily paint them as good people — but that’s precisely the point. They’re odd, flawed, and definitely not the best role models, yet their complexity is what makes them so unique.
The Executioner and Her Way of Lifeis a yuri action anime set in a world with one of themost innovative and unconventional settingsin anime. The story unfolds in a parallel world that has merged almost unrecognizably with human culture, thanks to centuries of visits by “Lost Ones” — humans from Japan who have supernatural powers and accidentally stumble upon this world. However, their presence has brought more harm than good and has triggered multiple calamities.
This forces the people of this world to employ ruthless, cold-blooded assassins to kill the Lost Ones. The main character, Menou, is one such assassin tasked with killing the Lost Ones before they can do more harm. She’s cold, emotionless, and single-minded, and sees her work as necessary, even noble. While she does occasionally feel bad for killing them, Menou ultimately doesn’t care if the Lost Ones she kills are innocent. She just knows their existence is a threat, and nothing matters more than erasing it.
Cyberpunk-themed post-apocalypse is a very niche trope, hard to find not only in anime but generally in all forms of entertainment. However,Ergo Proxycame to be famous for not only its previously mentioned setting, of course, but also the way it tackled its complex premise withheavy philosophical themesregarding human nature and sentience. It’s set in a world where normal survival isn’t possible and humans live and work in massive dome cities that separate them from the ruined outside world. Humans, alongside their robots known as AutoReivs, solely live to ensure healthy human survival.
The main character, Re-l Mayer, is a 19-year-old intelligence agent who is known to be one of the most unconventional protagonists in anime. She’s cold, detached, and has this superiority complex that makes her downright exasperating at times. She’s not the strongest person in the anime but has a way to herself that makes her manipulate certain situations in her favor. She’s also very controlling and is a perfectionist, which makes her obsess over the tiniest details of her life — and occasionally others' lives.
Black Lagoonis a 2008crime anime following a groupof pirates notorious for smuggling items in Southeast Asia. They do most of their jobs on a PT boat called Black Lagoon and have connections with all sorts of crime syndicates around the area pertaining to their not-so-legal jobs. The group consists of four members, including Rebecca Lee, the team’s loose-cannon weapon.
Rebecca Lee, or Revy, is a Chinese-American character who’s marked by being excessively loud, egocentric, ruthless, and almost sadistic at times when it’s required of her. Despite initially coming as a generic “maniacal character who loves unprovoked rampages,” Revy has a highly complex and multifaceted personality that goes layers deep. Her obsession with power and destructive tendencies are rooted in a traumatic past, which fuels her violent rampages. Beneath her tough, deadly exterior, she struggles with deep-seated confidence issues and positively loathes herself for what she is, and what she’s become.
Jormungandis a crime thriller that follows a group of mercenaries traveling around the world to sell and smuggle illegal arms to massive crime groups and/or countries. The main character of the show, Koko Hekmatyar, is an arms dealer working under a massive shipping corporation that essentially does the arms dealing and smuggling as an illegal side business.
Koko Hekmtyar, for the lack of better comparisons, might be considered somewhat of a female version of Gojo Satoru — not only for the way she looks (white hair, light eyes) but also for the way she acts. She’s outwardly a relentlessly peppy woman whose childish antics border on the obnoxious. She’s loud, immature, and annoying to her team, and is almost treated like a kid at times. However, that’s only a front she puts on to look unassuming and non-threatening to her enemies. Koko is actually a very level-headed, mysterious, and downright cruel person who gets the job done no matter how hard it is. She’s smart to a fault and has been shown to manipulate her way into some pretty grim deals. She’s also completely unfazed about herself dying, or death in general.
Like how the previous entries illustrate, a character is usually considered an anti-hero if they’re brutal, eccentric, loud, and short-tempered. However, Enma Ai fromHell Girlis not a conventional anti-hero if one considers the above qualities as a description. She stands out as a different kind of anti-hero, one defined by unsettling stillness rather than chaotic intensity.
Hell Girlis a dark fantasy anime withan episodic format that is mostly concluded in a single episode. The story revolves around the cost of seeking revenge — individuals can send their oppressors to hell, but only by sealing their own fate to follow after death.
Enma Ai, the protagonist of the story, helps mistreated and oppressed individuals take revenge on their oppressors by sending them to hell — only on the condition that the person initiating this contract would also go to hell after death. Enma’s job isn’t for the faint of heart, yet even the cruelest jobs leave her completely unfazed — to the point of her indifference being downright alarming to the viewers. She’s cold, silent, and completely emotionless even in the grimmest of situations and has canonically sealed off her emotions for her work. The only emotion she does occasionally use is hatred, which she uses as fuel to keep her work going.
TheHellsingmanga, which gave birth to the anime and the OVA episodes of the same name, can easily be regarded as one of the darkest action fantasy shows to ever grace the entertainment world. The premise follows Count Dracula’s defeat at the hands of a human and his subsequent forced loyalty to the family of said humans as they work to eliminate other undead threats infesting their world. The leader of this human organization, Hellsing, is Sir Integra Hellsing, the granddaughter of the notorious Abraham Van Hellsing.
Sir Integra Hellsing is very different from a conventional hero, especially considering her ability to control and manipulate Alucard — the king of vampires. Given how malevolent and even demonic Alucard himself is, keeping him in check requires a certain moral ambiguity from his master, and Integra has that in spades. She’s a cool, rational, and extremely smart individual who plays her cards almost perfectly. She’s commanding, intimidating, ruthless, and willing to do anything to prove her loyalty to the crown.
Leave it to anime to come up with some of the most unconventional world-building and storylines. For those unfamiliar,Kakeguruiis apsychological thriller setin an elite high school where students are ranked solely by their gambling abilities. The entire power dynamic of this elite academy is shifted when a seemingly normal freshman, Yumeko Jabami, enrolls.
But Yumeko Jabami is far from ordinary. Initially, she appears friendly, cheerful, kind, and a bit slow, giving the impression that she’s just another typical high schooler. However, that’s just a mask she wears. In reality, Yumeko is a brilliant, compulsive gambler, driven by the thrill of the game. Her true nature only emerges when she’s gambling, and it’s anything but conventionally pretty. She’s ruthless toward her opponents and takes every opportunity to raise the stakes, simply for the rush it gives her. She’s completely unhinged and is not bound by any rules or regulations, — and frankly doesn’t care — which makes her the biggest threat to the school and its administration.
