Top 10 Anime Heroes Who Gave Into Darkness

Nothing will come between this guy and his ambition to become the next Emperor of Xing. That being said, allowing your body to become a home for a Homonculus might be a bridge too far. Regardless, Ling’s blind avarice for power allows the newly resurrected Greed to bond with his soul, creating a hybrid that eventually turned into one of the show’s most awesome anti-heroes. Of course, there was also a lot of murder and other wicked deeds between Point A and Point B for Greedling over here.

Yeah, we know, this route is all about Sakura, but did it have to involve everyone’s favorite Servant becoming corrupted in the process? Unlike the events of the Fate route or Unlimited Blade Works, Saber doesn’t exactly emerge as a triumphant heroine unphased by her own inner demons. After Assassin tries to take her heart for himself, the former King of Camelot instead chooses to face her own darkness, and as a result ends up becoming Alter-Saber. While black certainly looks good on her, it’s clear that this iteration of the character has decided to stray from the path of gallantry.

As the Dragon Sin of Wrath and the original leader of the Ten Commandments, Meliodas’ sins are greater than most. Despite his chipper personality and laid-back approach to life, the Captain certainly isn’t immune to falling into his old habits. Whether it’s letting his darkness run wild, going berserk and destroying an entire kingdom in the process, or when he mercilessly killed Fraudlin, we’d say that it’s only a matter of time before Meliodas once again lets the demon out of the back and goes on a rampage.

To be fair, getting your body parts pulled off and having a centipede shoved in your ear is bound to ruin anyone’s day, so it’s not like we can blame Kaneki for giving into his Ghoul half. After Yamori tortures him to the point where his hair changes colour, the One Eyed Wonder finally relents, letting his hunger take hold, before proceeding to slaughter the Jason wannabe with ease. He may have had no choice in the matter, but our boy went from innocent youth to unrelenting savage.

Out of all the magical girls, it’s fair to say that Homura had the worst time. Sure, she never turned into a witch or had her head bitten off, but she did have to witness her friends dying over and over and over again. After travelling to the past numerous times in order to prevent Madoka from signing a contract with Kyubey, and often failing, you can see how so much trauma could lead to Homura…lashing out. Just when she was moments away with uniting with beloved companion, Homura decided now would be a great time to steal Madoka’s God powers, rewrite the universe, and turn into a psycho devil.

For the most part, this spirit of a bygone pharaoh has always been about using the heart of the cards in order to defeat ancient evils. Unfortunately, he somewhat shit the bed when he decided that in order to best motorcycle lackey No. 1, aka Rafael, he should use the one card that can seal away the soul of the user should they lose a duel. Blinded by hate, the pharaoh still goes ahead and plays it, which of course results in him eventually being defeated, with Little Yugi offering up his own soul in exchange for his friend’s. Dammit Yami, you went full-Kaiba. You never go full-Kaiba.

You can always count on the White Hawk to get everything wrong. While he’d never hesitated when it came to killing in order to achieve his goals, we still held the belief that deep down Griffith was still ultimately a good person who would always do right by his comrades. At least until Guts left, wherein he suffered the mother of all meltdowns. He shagged a teenage princess, got himself imprisoned, left the Band of the Hawk to be branded as criminals, and that’s all before he submitted to the God Hand. After you sacrifice all your friends, become a demon and violate your bestie’s lover, there’s really no coming back.

Who doesn’t love Hollow Ichigo? Ever since the twisted reflection of our favourite Shinigami made itself known, we always knew that there was a risk of Ichigo’s literal demon coming out to play. This eventually came to a head after Ulquiorra blew a hole in his chest and threatened Orihime. Fuelled by the determination to protect his future baby mama, Ichigo ended up transforming into a beast stronger than any Espada, who then proceeded to rip Ulquiorra to pieces like it was going out of style. Sure, he eventually snapped out of it, but not before he had hacked off a limb or two.

Turns out that the Prince of Saiyans can only keep his asshole switch off for so long. Despite being a pretty chill husband and father for a number of years, Vegeta just couldn’t resist the opportunity to turn back to his old villainous ways, letting Babidi take control of him in order to harness the Majin’s powers for himself. It’s a bitter decision, but thankfully it gave way to one hell of a rematch with Goku, not to mention one of the most iconic moments in the franchise when Vegeta chose to redeem himself via explosion.

Turning criminal may not have made this ninja any friends, but it sure made for one hell of a character arc. In order to gain the strength needed to kill his brother, Sasuke abandoned his old life, hoped aboard the revenge train and never looked back. From nearly murdering Naruto and Sakura, joining forces with Orochimaru and then the Akatsuki, all the way to plotting to destroy the Leaf Village, Sasuke got him himself quite the rap sheet during his antagonist phase. No worries though, considering he made amends with both his bro and Naruto, we’d say he came out the other side with only a minor slap on the wrist.