Anime adaptations of manga give animators the opportunity to adjust the original material for the screen. But these changes, especially when involving a popular villain, may not be approved by fans. While some animes like Fairy Tale or Demon Slayer are known for their commitment to making the anime and manga align, there are many anime adaptations that have chosen to significantly change the villain’s character or role within the series.
Whether it’s removing gore, adding additional arcs, reducing a villain’s impact, or taking them out of the anime completely, changing the manga can significantly change the character. For better or worse.
8 Death Note
Death Note follows the journey of Light Yagami, who, despite being the main character is quickly revealed to be a calculated, cold-blooded killer. Throughout both the anime and Manga, Light’s goal is to use the Death Note to change the world by removing anyone he deems evil. However, there are some key differences in Lights' character between these mediums.
In the anime, for instance, Light is portrayed as much darker and more corrupt. He is shown to hate his classmates and everyday life as well as feeling no remorse for his actions when using the Death Note to kill. Death Notes' manga, on the other hand, gives readers a much softer Light who is simply bored with his life. He is even shown losing weight and struggling to sleep, displaying much more remorse for his actions than in the anime.
7 One Piece
One Piece is an incredibly popular anime with 20 seasons and even more manga for fans to enjoy. One of the biggest differences between consuming One Piece as a manga compared to the anime is the level of violence and gore the villains display.
Arlong the Saw, for example, is considerably more gruesome in the manga than his character in the anime. He kills Bell-mere, an ex-Marine and the adoptive mother of both Nami and Nojiko. In the anime, this is shown with a shot to the chest, but in the manga, Arlong shoots her through the head in a much more graphic and disturbing scene.
6 Dragon Ball Z
Garlic Jr, the reincarnation of Garlic, is a villain within Dragon Ball Z who is the target of both love and hate from fans. As a main antagonist in the Dead Zone and the Garlic Jr. Saga, Garlic Jr plays a large part in the anime, as well as the movie Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone.
However, this villain cannot be found anywhere within Akira Toriyama’s manga. Garlic Jr and the whole Dead Zone arc are completely original to the Dragon Ball Z anime.
5 Soul Eater
Soul Eater contains a number of villains who differ significantly in the anime compared to the manga. Crona’s storyline, for instance, is notably different. Corona has a difficult childhood with Medusa as her mother, this is made clear in both the anime and the manga.
However, in the anime censorship issues meant that many scenes were softened and made less monstrous. This includes changing the bunny that Crona is made to kill into a dragon, which was believed to be less gruesome. Additionally, in the anime, Crona turns on her mother and is seriously injured. Whereas in the Soul Eater manga she is an antagonist for much longer and ends up killing Medusa.
4 Tokyo Ghoul
Within Tokyo Ghoul, a key turning point in the character of Ken Kaneki was his torture at the hands of the villain Yamori. However, Yamori’s actions and the resulting consequences were altered when making the anime. Yamori was the alias used by Yakumo Oomori the founding leader of the White Suits. In the manga, Yamori tricks Kaneki into going with him, claiming that he would free a captured mother and child. Instead of keeping his word, Yamori spends ten days torturing Kaneki and makes him choose between saving the mother or her child.
This betrayal by Yamori massively impacts Kaneki, and the manga makes this clear by including a gruesome scene where Kaneki rips at his skin and eyes. In the anime, this scene is left out entirely. Additionally, Yamori doesn’t trick Kaneki and instead kidnaps him forcefully, which makes the betrayal less impactful. Many fans of the Tokyo Ghoul manga were disappointed with the way this pivotal moment was handled in the anime. Believing that it muted the impact this event had on the main character’s psyche.
3 Twelve Kingdoms
An interesting difference between the Twelve Kingdoms anime and its manga is the character Yuka Sugimoto. Within the manga, Sugimoto is rarely mentioned. The small part that she does play paints her as an outcast who criticizes Youko, but is too timid to defend herself from the teasings of the other girls. Additionally, when Youko disappears, Sugimoto admits that she never liked her and shows no sign of concern.
Sugimoto plays a much larger role in the anime. Her character becomes one of Youkos key rivals, as she believes she is more worthy to be in the Twelve Kingdoms. Because of this belief, Sugimoto is convinced to fight Youko by the King of Kou and continues to try to kill her after being sent to Heki Rakujin.
2 Naruto
Naruto is a particularly famous anime that has a seemingly endless stream of content for fans to enjoy. Because of its length, Naruto has become well known for its filler arcs, which are used to give the manga time to catch up to the anime. This has left a number of key differences in Naruto villains. Gaara is a great example of this. This character is one of the Three Sand Siblings as well as being the shinobi of Sunagakure. Although Gaara eventually alleys with Naruto, he starts out as one of the main antagonists of the series.
This character is loved by many Naruto fans due to his character development. However, fans of the manga may find it a lot harder to warm up to Gaara due to the more violent way he is portrayed in the manga. The anime did not include many of Garra’s more violent scenes and glossed over the sheer amount of people he killed along the way. This made his redemption much easier to accept in the anime than in the manga.
1 Hunter X Hunter
One question Hunter x Hunter anime fans may be asking is what happened to Gyro? The ex-king and founder of Neo-Green Life, or NGL, was an antagonist with a tragic past. His goal was to spread evil and chaos and he did so through the D2 drug he created.
The anime goes into a lot of detail about Gyro’s difficult childhood, but after The Chimera Ant arc, he is not mentioned again. In the manga, however, Gyro is killed, eaten, and then reborn as an Ant. He still has his human memories and leaves the hive in order to rebuild the empire that he lost. This is never covered within the Hunter X Hunter anime.