You don't have to watch horror anime to have nightmares. Sometimes, watching some of the main dark anime characters will give you a sleepless night.

But a dark character doesn't necessarily have to be evil or manipulative. They can be crazy or do things that make you question your sanity. They can be twisted in some way, or they can be good characters who have gone bad.

Here we have compiled the top 15 dark anime characters. Before you dive in, get ready for a thrilling ride and put on your spoiler-free glasses.

1. Madara Uchiha (Naruto Shippuden)

Very few would disagree with this. UchihaMadara Naruto is one of the darkest villains in anime. Naruto fans have a love-hate relationship with this character. They love him for his fighting skills, calculating mind, and arrogance. They hate him for his cruel and manipulative nature.

Madara's goal of achieving peace is righteous and no one can refute that. The methods he uses are questionable and blunt.

He manipulates all the events that led to Rin's kidnapping. Then Obito watches her die at the hands of his best friend, Kakashi. Madara arranged all of this to break Obito's naivety and make him easy to control. He also placed a forbidden curse on Obito's heart so that he could not defy him.

Madara's twisted mindset stemmed from growing up in war and losing his family members one by one. The final nail in the coffin was losing what was left of his brother, Izuna. This caused him to lose hope in humanity. So he chose to walk the path of darkness and evil.

2. Eren Yaegar (Attack on Titan)

In the beginning, Eren was a talkative, hot-tempered boy driven by revenge. He had only one wish: to avenge his mother and free the world from the Titans.

However, by the beginning of the fourth season, Eren had completely changed. He was no longer the naive and kind boy he once was. Now he was calmer and much more determined. So much so that he killed more than 80% of the world's population to achieve his goal.

Eren played the role of a necessary evil, so Eldia and Marley joined hands to kill him. He even tricked his friends, so they wouldn't hesitate to be his enemies. And his plan was a success.

3. Sosuke Aizen (Bleach)

Sosuke Aizen is a very strong, very handsome, and very dark villain by villain standards. Furthermore, his calm nature and genius mind make him one of the darkest characters in the anime.

Sosuke had the ambition to kill the Soul King and stand above everyone. To achieve his goal, he did many very dark things.

He deceived everyone in Soul Society for years without revealing his true intentions. Everyone except himself was a pawn. No one realized that he faked his death using Kyoka Suigetsu. And impaling Momo, his vice-commander and greatest admirer, without remorse was just the tip of the iceberg of what was to come.

4. Shogo Makishima (Psycho-Pass)

Shogo claims to be on the side of humanity. He loves them or the dark aspects of them. So he wants to free society from the control of the Sybil System, which is turning people into mindless machines.

Shogo has no qualms about using forceful measures. He will kill anyone who gets in the way of his goal, whether it be himself or using subordinates. His unmatched charisma and calculating mind allow him to manipulate people into doing his bidding.

He used Akane's best friend Yuki to lure Kogami into a trap, ultimately killing her in front of Akane when she failed the test.

5. Light Yagami (Death Note)

Light starts out as a normal, bored high school student. He received the Death Note thanks to his encounter with Ryuk, a Shinigami, which changed him for the worse.

At first, Light wanted to make good use of the Death Note. He killed people who were evil and deserved to die. However, soon, contaminated by his newfound power, he declared the world rotten. And he must reshape it by killing evil and unjust people.

Light is a villain who shows us how a person can become intoxicated with power and ruin himself. Even so, he still remains one of the most popular dark anime characters.

6. Mahito (Jujutsu Kaisen)

Mahito is a cruel and sadistic cursed spirit born from people's hatred for each other. He believes that humanity needs to be eradicated and that cursed spirits should rule the world instead of humans. For this cause, he would do anything.

Due to the nature of his birth, Mahito is extremely skilled at understanding and manipulating humans. He exploits their insecurities to make them do his bidding.

That was how he convinced Junpei to become a sorcerer. Junpei didn't realize until the end that he was being manipulated as he died in tears at Itadory's feet.

Mahito finds joy in playing with human emotions and seeing them suffer. Perhaps that is why he is a dark character hated by everyone.

7. Donquixote Doflamingo (One Piece)

Donquixote Doflamingo is the opposite of someone you'd expect to be dark. Or at least his flamboyant appearance would suggest that. However, his cruel and merciless nature makes him a character who deserves to be on this list.

Doflamingo has an arrogant and sadistic nature stemming from his celestial dragon bloodline. He killed his own father when he was only ten years old and later his brother without feeling any remorse.

If that wasn't enough, he controlled the king of the Dressrosa Kingdom, King Riku, using the Devil Fruit. Then he made him go berserk, killing everyone in sight. When all seemed lost and everyone began to despair, Doflamingo made a heroic entrance to stop the mad king. The people accepted Doflamingo as their new king without knowing anything.

Worst of all, everyone who challenged him was turned into toys. Talk about dark.

8. Gaku Yashiro (Erased)

Sometimes you'll see characters that everyone hates. Gaku definitely falls into that category.

This is reasonable, given that he is a sadistic and psychotic person who enjoys killing. Initially introduced as a kind teacher at Satoru's elementary school, he is later revealed to be the perpetrator of all the murders in the series.

He attempts to drown Satoru after being discovered, which results in Satoru being in a coma for 15 years.

The source of his desire to kill began in childhood, when he tried to drown his pet hamsters. He saw a hamster standing over dead people, where they had spider webs above their heads. Then, as an adult, he began seeing those spider webs above the heads of specific children and felt compelled to kill them.

Killing children and getting pleasure from it? Now that's dark.

9. Shiro (Deadman Wonderland)

You can't help but feel sorry for Shiro as a character, even though she's done a lot of terrible things. She was experimented on to become the first dead man, which caused her body to deteriorate and fall apart frequently.

The nanomachine experiments performed on Shiro left her with unforgettable trauma. Trying to deal with the unbearable pain, her second personality was born, called Wretched Egg or Red Man.

The Wretched Egg caused a natural disaster as a form of suicide. However, she failed.

You might want to sympathize with Shiro, but that doesn't change the fact that she's one of the best dark anime characters of all time.

10. Alucard (Hellsing)

By nature, Alucard is a sadistic and cruel person. He loves to torture and humiliate his opponent in a fight while despising him. Each of his fights is bloody, earning his place on this list.

Alucard is essentially an immortal vampire. As such, he doesn't care about his well-being in a fight. In fact, he often uses himself as bait to make his opponents lower their guard. Alucard has two large-caliber guns as weapons. But for victory, he won't hesitate to use his fangs to rip out his enemy's flesh.

Fulfilling the mission given to him by Integra is Alucard's first priority. Everything else is irrelevant, whether it's killing his opponents with a smile or leaving them humiliated.

11. Shou Tucker (Fullmetal Alchemist)

Shou only appeared in one episode, but he is definitely one of the most vile and dark characters in the anime.

At first, he is seen as a soft-spoken, well-mannered, and kind person. But in reality, Shou is a selfish, vile, and manipulative person. Advancing his research and showing results appropriate for an alchemist is the only thing he has in mind.

To do this, he uses his own wife and 5-year-old daughter as sacrifices. Worst of all, after his actions were discovered, he showed no remorse.

12. Griffith (Berserk)

A pretty face, pretty enough to be mistaken for a girl. Griffith will most likely go down in anime history as one of the darkest anime characters.

He is a narcissist who believes himself to be superior to everyone else. That is why he did not mind sacrificing others to achieve his goals. However, knowing Guts changes everything. Your thought process and even your life long goal of becoming the ruler of a kingdom.

Then, Griffith began to hate him. So much so that he chose the path of becoming a demon and desecrating Casca in front of him.

13. Keyaru (Redo Of Healer)

Redo of the Healer is definitely an underrated anime. But the darkness of Keyaru, the protagonist, cannot be underestimated. He is a cruel and twisted hero turned villain – who wants revenge on everyone who has wronged him.

Not that you can blame him. Imagine being summoned to another world only to be betrayed, imprisoned, drugged, and molested to the point of insanity. By some stroke of luck, he manages to regain his sanity and return to the time he was summoned to using the philosopher's stone.

He doesn't care about his methods, as long as he can exact his revenge. In one case, he exacts his revenge by contaminating and brainwashing the main perpetrator into loving him. And that's not even the darkest part. He turns the knight captain responsible for his older sister Anna's death into a woman. Then he orders his brainwashed subordinates to rape him.

14. Yuno Gasai (Future Diary)

At first glance, Yuno appears to be the perfect girlfriend; kind, sweet, and feminine. But beneath that facade lies a ruthless and calculating person who will do anything in his power to ensure her safety, and more importantly, Amano's.

She has no qualms about using violent means or taking advantage of others to achieve her goal—her and Amano's survival.

Yuno has yandere tendencies and will go to extremes if anyone tries to hurt Amano or take him away from her. She once considered using violence when she thought about whether Amano's mother would object to their relationship. Fortunately, that didn't happen.

15. Hei (Darker than Black)

Hei is probably one of the darkest anime characters, despite not having a dark and evil nature. Everything about him, from his blank and expressionless face to the way he carries himself, has a dark vibe.

Known by the codename BK-201, Hei is an assassin who kills anyone given an order. He silences targets who are dangerous to his organization, the Syndicate.

Hei, however, is a loner at heart. He never wanted to be a killer, but he had to take up arms to protect his sister, Bai.

After Bai disappears in the Heaven's Gate incident, Hei becomes colder and no longer hesitates to kill people, even if they are children.

What makes Hei special is that he never rationalizes his death. It's his job, so he does it. That's why he's such a lovable character, despite being dark.

There you have it, the 15 best dark anime characters of all time. Did we miss anyone? Let us know in the comments.