They went to the Dark Side and never looked back. Join Ashley as we look over the times anime protagonists embrace their inner evil
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00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the Top 20 Anime Heroes
00:14Who Gave Into Darkness.
00:2220.
00:23Bam!
00:24Tower of God
00:25One glance at little Bam over here and you wouldn't think butter would melt in his mouth.
00:29He's got a smile that'll soothe your heart, and a fierce loyalty to his friends.
00:34But what happens when that loyalty is betrayed?
00:38Well, he falls down to the depths of despair, and has to claw his way back up.
00:43Approached by the members of F.U.G., Bam is given an ultimatum.
00:48Join them and kill Jihad, or each of his friends will be picked off one by one.
00:58Despite this, he embraces his role as Veal, and is willing to brutalize any other tower
01:04climbers that may get in the way of his mission.
01:07F.U.G. has given him terrifying new powers, and he's no longer too nicey-nicey to use
01:13them.
01:1519.
01:18Chibi-Usa, Sailor Moon
01:22Despite being a cheeky little brat at times to Usagi, Chibi-Usa is a sweet and kind girl.
01:28Unfortunately, the main antagonist of the season, Wiseman, manipulates her by claiming
01:41that no one loves her.
01:43This leads to Chibi-Usa becoming his perfect pawn, absorbing the Black Crystal and transforming
01:49into a grown-up form known as Black Lady.
01:57As you'd expect, it's up to Usagi, as always, to set things right.
02:01But that isn't before Black Lady does some serious damage to each member of the Sailor
02:06Scout.
02:0918.
02:14Yami Yugi, Yu-Gi-Oh!
02:16Duel Monsters
02:17For the most part, this spirit of a bygone pharaoh has always been about using the heart
02:22of the cards in order to defeat ancient evils.
02:26Unfortunately, he somewhat crapped the bed when he decided that, in order to best Motorcycle
02:37Lackey Number One, aka Raphael, he should use the one card that can seal away the soul
02:44of the user should they lose a duel.
02:59Blinded by hate, the pharaoh still goes ahead and plays it, which of course results in him
03:05eventually being defeated, with little Yugi offering up his own soul in exchange for his
03:11friend's.
03:19Damn it, Yami, you went full Kaiba.
03:21You never go full Kaiba.
03:2917.
03:31Kagome Inuyasha
03:33Love can make us do crazy things.
03:36It seems that even a pure-hearted maiden like Kagome harbors some darkness within her
03:41heart.
03:42A darkness that is utilized upon by the demon child known as The Infant.
03:55As one of Naraku's vessels, this nasty baby utilized Kagome's jealousy towards Inuyasha
04:01and Kikyo's relationship in order to attempt to utterly crush her spirit and take control
04:07of her mind.
04:13And hey, it worked too, as Kagome gave in to said envy entirely, until of course, Mr.
04:19Demon Dog himself turned up to the scene, breaking Kagome out of his spell and making
04:24her realize she actually loves the dude.
04:27See?
04:28Silver linings.
04:2916.
04:30Kai, Beyblade
04:31Let's be honest, any one of us would turn to the dark side to get our hands on this
04:45badass Beyblade.
04:47When Kai and the gang head to Russia, he's approached by his old tutor, Boris.
04:53He's given the opportunity to gain the strength he craves by utilizing the insanely powerful
04:59and evil Black Dranzer.
05:06He embraces this opportunity and uses the Bey the way it was intended, by smashing up
05:11all his oppositions.
05:20It ultimately leads to him taking on the combined force of his Blade Breaker teammates, who
05:25really don't fare that well against his might.
05:3315.
05:36Sadako, Hikarashi When They Cry Go!
05:40Sadako went through a lot throughout the original Hikarashi series.
05:44After everything that happened with her uncle and the damned Hinamizawa Syndrome, it's
05:49no wonder she came to rely on her best friend, Rika.
05:52But, when their friendship took a turn in the Private Girls Academy, Sadako snapped.
06:04She was approached by Yua, with a means of once again starting a time loop in order to
06:09get Rika to change her mind about going to school.
06:13However, she didn't go about it in the friendliest of ways.
06:16With these new time-manipulating abilities, Sadako got more and more violent with each
06:22loop in her quest to dissuade Rika from living her dream.
06:32That means a whole lot of mind-breaking, and a whole lot of violence.
06:3814.
06:42Gilmon, Digimon Tamers In the conversation of Sweetest Digimon Around,
06:47Gilmon is definitely a high-ranking contender.
06:51But, he would do absolutely anything Takato told him, even if he was blinded by rage.
06:57After Leomon is slain at the hands of Beelzemon, Takato becomes irate.
07:08Incensed by Jerry's despair, and fueled by his desire to get strong enough to beat
07:13the former Impmon, he demands Gilmon ascends to the next level.
07:17And when he does, the consequences are severe.
07:31The newly-named Megidramon is strong enough to go toe-to-toe with his opponents, but he
07:36is also a mindless killing machine.
07:39Watching this once-adorable little fella turn into such a hellish beast breaks not only
07:44Takato, but all of us watching at home, too.
07:5013.
07:51Sonic, Sonic X The story in Sonic X's third season takes
07:56a much darker turn, and this scene in particular reflects that greatly.
08:01After seeing an unconscious Chris and terrified Cosmo, the combination of the Dark Chaos Emerald's
08:07negative energy and Sonic's rage cause him to undergo a transformation into a new, dark
08:14form.
08:21Black Narcissus proceeds to unleash two powerful robots against him, but they're absolutely
08:26no match for Dark Sonic.
08:42Even though Sonic's sudden turn to the dark side was very brief, it's a moment that still
08:47remembered fondly within the fandom.
08:5212.
08:54Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
09:06Nothing will come between this guy and his ambition to become the next Emperor of Xing.
09:12That being said, allowing your body to become a home for a homunculus might be a bridge
09:18Regardless, Link's blind avarice for power allows the newly resurrected Greed to bond
09:33with his soul, creating a hybrid that eventually turned into one of the show's most awesome
09:39anti-heroes.
09:45Of course, there was also a lot of murder and other wicked deeds between point A and
09:50point B for Greedling over here.
09:5411.
09:55Saber – Fate's Day Night's Heaven's Feel, Pre-Sage Flower
09:59Yeah, we know, this route is all about Sakura.
10:03But did it have to involve everyone's favorite servant becoming corrupted in the process?
10:16Unlike the events of the Fate route or Unlimited Blade Works, Saber doesn't exactly emerge
10:22as a triumphant heroine unfazed by her own inner demons.
10:27After Assassin tries to take her heart for himself, the former King of Camelot instead
10:31chooses to face her own darkness and, as a result, ends up becoming Alter Saber.
10:43While Black certainly looks good on her, it's clear that this iteration of the character
10:48has decided to stray away from the path of gallantry.
10:5510.
11:00Meliodas – The Seven Deadly Sins As the Dragon Sin of Wrath and the original
11:06leader of the Ten Commandments, Meliodas' sins are greater than most.
11:19Despite his chipper personality and laid-back approach to life, the captain certainly isn't
11:25to falling into his old habits.
11:32Whether it's letting his darkness run wild, going berserk and destroying an entire kingdom
11:37in the process, or when he mercilessly killed Frowdlin, we'd say that it's only a matter
11:42of time before Meliodas once again lets the demon out the back and goes on a rampage.
11:499.
11:51Ken Kaneki – Tokyo Ghoul Series To be fair, getting your body parts pulled
11:57off and having a centipede shoved in your ear is bound to ruin anyone's day, so it's
12:02not like we can blame Kaneki for giving in to his ghoul half.
12:09After Yamori brutalises him to the point where his hair changes colour, the one-eyed wonder
12:14finally relents, letting his hunger take hold before proceeding to slaughter the Jason wannabe
12:21with ease.
12:27He may have had no choice in the matter, but our boy went from innocent youth to unrelenting
12:32savage.
12:368.
12:39Homura – Madoka Magica The Movie Rebellion Out of all the magical girls, it's fair
12:45to say that Homura had the worst time.
12:48Sure, she never turned into a witch or had her head bitten off, but she did have to witness
12:53her friends dying over and over and over again.
12:57After travelling to the past numerous times in order to prevent Madoka from signing a
13:01contract with Kyubey, and often failing, you can see how so much trauma could lead to Homura
13:07lashing out.
13:15Just when she was moments away from uniting with her beloved companion, Homura decided
13:20now would be a great time to steal Madoka's god powers, rewrite the universe, and turn
13:25into a psycho devil.
13:367.
13:40Griffith – Berserk You can always count on the White Hawk to
13:43get everything wrong.
13:52While he'd never hesitated when it came to killing in order to achieve his goals, we
13:57still held the belief that deep down, Griffith was still ultimately a good person who would
14:03always do right by his comrades.
14:05At least until Guts left, wherein he suffered the mother of all meltdowns.
14:14He hooked up with the princess, got himself imprisoned, left the Band of the Hawk to be
14:18branded as criminals, and that's all before he submitted to the God Hand.
14:25After you sacrifice your friends, become a demon, and do what you did to Kasuga, there
14:30really is no coming back.
14:336.
14:35Ichigo Kurosaki – Bleach Who doesn't love hollow Ichigo?
14:40Ever since the twisted reflection of our favorite Shinigami made himself known, we
14:45always knew that there was a risk of Ichigo's literal demon coming out to play.
14:55This eventually came to a head after Ukiyura blew a hole in his chest and threatened Orihime.
15:05Fueled by the determination to protect his girl, Ichigo ended up transforming into a
15:10beast stronger than any Espada, who then proceeded to rip Ukiyura to pieces like it was going
15:17out of style.
15:21Sure, he eventually snapped out of it, but not before he'd hacked off a limb or two.
15:315.
15:33Jaiden Yuki – Yukio GX When Jaiden told us to get our game on, we're
15:39pretty sure he didn't mean this.
15:41After losing his friends one by one, Jaiden breaks down and gives into the dark side,
15:46unlocking his dormant powers and becoming the Supreme King.
16:02With his ability to wield gentle darkness and a vast army under his command, Jaiden
16:07absolutely wrecks house for the following episodes.
16:15Jaiden is only freed from his dark side once his friend Axel manages to use Eye of Orichalcum
16:21after drawing in a duel against the Supreme King.
16:304.
16:34Gon – Hunter x Hunter Throughout most of the Chimera Ant arc, Gon
16:38searches for Kite, who bravely fought against Pitou so that his students could get away.
16:44Unfortunately for Gon, Pitou reveals to him that his teacher has been long since dead
16:50and has been reanimated as a training dummy.
16:57The dark emotions that suddenly overwhelm Gon lead him to sacrifice all of his Nen,
17:03obtaining all the power he'll ever have, known as Limitation Transformation.
17:17In this new form, the once-kind Gon has absolutely no qualms as he devastates Pitou into a bloodied
17:24mess.
17:303.
17:35Vegeta – Dragon Ball Z Turns out that the Prince of Saiyans can only
17:39keep his jerk-switch off for so long.
17:49Despite being a pretty chill husband and father for a number of years, Vegeta couldn't resist
17:55the opportunity to turn back to his old villainous ways, letting Babidi take control of him in
18:01order to harness the Martian's powers for himself.
18:11It's a bitter decision, but thankfully it gave way to one hell of a rematch with Goku.
18:16Not to mention one of the most iconic moments in the franchise, when Vegeta chose to redeem
18:21himself via explosion.
18:282.
18:30Sasuke Uchiha – Naruto Series Turning criminal may not have made this ninja
18:36any friends, but it sure made for one hell of a character arc.
18:46In order to gain the strength needed to kill his brother, Sasuke abandoned his old life,
18:52hopped aboard the revenge train, and never looked back.
18:59From nearly murdering Naruto and Sakura, joining forces with Orochimaru and then the Akatsuki,
19:05all the way to plotting to destroy the Leaf Village, Sasuke got himself quite the rap sheet
19:11during his antagonist phase.
19:22No worries though, considering he made amends with both his bro and Naruto, we'd say he
19:27came out the other side with only a minor slap on the wrist.
19:531.
19:54Eren Jaeger – Attack on Titan How far would you go to protect your friends?
20:04Give up all your money?
20:06Take a bullet?
20:07How about kill 80% of the human race?
20:10Too far?
20:11Well, not for Eren Jaeger, who, after learning of what would happen in the future with his
20:15Titan abilities, orchestrated the most devastating event in human history, the Rumbling.
20:28In his own words, he's an idiot.
20:30He was unable to find a peaceful resolution with access to his foresight, and instead
20:35turned down one of the darkest paths imaginable.
20:39Even though his intentions were pure in protecting his loved ones, he'll always be remembered
20:44as a monster.
20:51Which hero do you think should give in to darkness?
20:54Let us know in those comments below.