Highlights
- Isekai anime often struggle with creating compelling villains, which can harm the overall quality and impact of the series.
- Villains with a sad past and understandable motivations are more compelling to audiences, as they exist in a gray area that sparks questions.
- Memorable isekai villains with good backstories are rare, with most focusing on ambition rather than vengeance or grief.
Talking about villains in isekai anime tends to get controversial very quickly. Truth is, it's one of the most criticized aspects of the genre. Isekai villains often disappoint or don't add what they were supposed to add to the story, fail to have a compelling arc or motive, and ultimately affect the overall quality and impact of a series. As charming the protagonist might be, or as interesting the world might be, the friction and tension of a well-written antagonist fuel any show, and among a genre famous for lacking memorable villains the ones that actually have a good backstory are definitely going to stand out.
What is more compelling than a villain with a sad past? Someone who had to go through a lot and whose motivations can be understandable to some extent, moving into a gray area in which fans can question if the villain's behavior is understandable. That is the best type of villain and one that rarely comes by in isekai, often centered around ambition rather than vengeance or grief.
7 Glass - The Rising Of The Shield Hero
Glass is one of those characters who were portrayed as villains at the beginning but weren't really that villainous at the end. Her life certainly had ups and downs but was defined by having to make tough decisions over and over again. Early on in her life, she suffered a Naruto-type discrimination because of her birth, and pretty much everyone hoped that she would die trying to wield the vassal weapon.
Rejected by her people, Glass ended up moving to the country of her only friend, Kizuna. This didn't last for long as Kizuna was sealed away, which left her alone to deal with the coming of the Waves of Calamity. Despite everything, when facing with the destruction of her world and having to give more value to their lives than the lives of other worlds, she endured and tried to save everyone that ostracized her in the past.
6 Grease - The Eminence In Shadow
Although not a long-time antagonist of the series, Grease is one of the easiest examples for this list. Grease represents the story of a man who had everything but lost it and was forced to become something he wasn't in order to protect the one he loved. He had the perfect life alongside his daughter, Millia, until she became a victim of a Demon Possession. The Cult of Diablos saw this as an opportunity to blackmail him.
Of course, he would do anything he could to save Millia, the cult promised him that they would return her daughter to a normal state if he played along and worked for them. In the end, both he and his daughter died in what was a worthless effort to begin with, a tragic life that came to an end due to fake assurances. A mere puppet on a bigger stage.
5 Orsted - Mushoku Tensei
Orsted's life was meant to be a life of struggle from the very beginning. The son of the First Dragon God and Lunaria, a human woman, his story kicked off with the mysterious murder of his mother that led his father to war against the other worlds. This was a war in which his father lost himself and revealed treason after treason. During his father's last moments, Orsted, who didn't even receive a name before, was sent into the future with the mission to Hitogami, his father's murderer.
He was placed into a completely different era and carries a curse that makes every living being hate and fear him, which more often than not, also leads to wanting to kill him. Without having much time to grieve the passing of his parents, he found himself in a strange world and irreversibly alone.
4 Tanya von Degurechaff - Youjo Senki: Saga Of Tanja The Evil
Around every villain, death always follows. However, it does not follow in as many different meanings as it does with Tanya. During his first life, he was an ordinary salaryman who worked at Human Resources laying people off - a job that proved to be dangerous. After firing a certain employee for incompetency, that same employee murdered him on his way back home pushing him into the coming train.
At the time of his death, he encountered Being X, but he just expressed his total absence of any kind of faith and even questioned this being's management of human life. As a response, Being X reincarnated him in another universe as an infant girl named Tanya living in a wrecked world consumed by war. Tanya is threatened by this being to change her mind or face perpetual death. Her brutal killing just feels a consequence rather than her own desire, which ultimately, was just having a quiet life, and being rich.
3 Oliver Schtrom - Wise Man's Grandchild
Known as Oliveir von Schtradius before everything went south, he was the head of a duke family with the right to inherit the throne of the empire. He was always trying to help his citizens and improve their livelihood. He was also a very devoted husband to his wife Aria, a rarity among the novelty. All this caused a great deal of admiration towards his persona, including people from all over the Empire trying to move to his territory. But, with this also came jealousy from the other lords.
They conspired against him and framed him human abductor. In case that wasn't enough, they also burned his house down with his pregnant wife inside. It was right after this moment when he completely lost control over his emotions and turned to the wrong side of things, understandably so.
2 Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti - Re:Zero
Re:Zero is considered one of the best isekai series of all time and a big factor in its popularity is its well written characters, especially the villains. Petelgeuse is special even by these standards. As a member of the Moderate Faction of the Cult, he developed a strong relationship with Emillia and her aunt Fortuna in the Elior Forest. However, Regulus and Pandora, members of the Radical Faction, attacked the forest, and in order to save them, he used the Witch Factor of Sloth, which ravaged his body, making him suffer excruciating pain and crying tears of blood.
Despite that, he lost against Regulus, got his right arm severed and his legs decimated. Right when he was going to be killed, Pandora intervened. She then removed Regulus from the forest to fulfill her own wishes. In a battle against Petelgeuse and Fortuna, Pandora tricked him into thinking Fortuna was her, and he killed him with his own hands. The last of his sanity went away after that moment. He lost himself, embraced the Radical Faction, and became as cruel as anyone out of complete anger and desperation. A wicked character that wasn't always like that.
1 Dilandau Albatau - The Vision Of Escaflowne
Dilandau was the second name of Celena Schezar. She was the princess of the kingdom of Asturia, but around when she was 5 years old, she was captured by the kingdom of Zaibach and placed under the care of beastman Jajuka. After years of severe abuse and experimentation, she turned into a boy and created an entirely new personality, Dilandau Albatau. However, her traumatic past didn't completely disappear, sometimes coming back in the form of breakdowns and a strong fear of being alone.
As time went on, the two personalities started to alternate, reflecting a split identity and a growing mental instability. When Celena takes over, she seems trapped in a childlike state, like prior to being abducted. This whole plot represented through many disturbing scenes leaves a lasting impact on the audience. A suffering that goes as far as to completely lose yourself certainly needed to top the list.