So, I had a really hard time coming up with an answer to today’s prompt… In fact, I almost decided to skip it altogether, but then a light bulb went off in my head and I knew just which villain I was going to write about!
I’m the type that likes my villains to be completely evil, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever! I mean, what’s the point of being a villain if you’re going to have a change of heart in the end? I feel like doing that ruins the purpose of a villain, which simply put is oppose his or her protagonist while stepping on as many little people as they can along the way. Well, I think I outdid myself with this pick, this villain is equal parts crazy and equal parts despicable! My pick for best anime villain is…
King Hamdo from the 1999 anime series, Now and Then Here and There. Anyone who has seen the series Now and Then Here and There, knows that this is not a series to be taken lightly. Literally everything that can go wrong does, characters are pushed to their limits, nothing is safe from the cruel grip of tragedy in this thought provoking series. For a show that pushes boundaries like Now and Then Here and There, you need an equally dynamic villain. That’s were King Hamdo comes in, he is by far the most disgustingly evil villain I have come by in all my years of watching anime.
Before I go into what makes Hamdo the best of the worst, I have to first give some background on Now and Then Here and There. The follows a young boy named Shu, who witnesses a young girl, Lala-Ru being attacked by a mechanized dragon. In an attempt to protect her, he finds himself accidentally transported to a desolate futuristic world, where water is a scarce resource. He learns that Lala-Ru possesses a pendant linked to a water reserve along with the ability to manipulate water itself. Because of her abilities, Lala-Ru is sought after by Hamdo and his band of soldiers, who seeks to use her powers to control the world.
Hamdo is obsessed with water and by extension Lala-Ru herself, stopping at nothing to realize his goal of total world domination. Hamdo and his men raid and pillage neighboring villages for resources, they even abduct children to add to their army. As if child abductions weren’t bad enough, Hamdo suffers from extreme mood swings. One minute he’s a calm and composed man, able to curry the favor of his supporters and troops. The next he’s an erratic tyrant, blindly lashing out at anyone that stands in the way of his goals, be they friends or enemies. Even now I still remember the scene when he lets loose his anger on a poor defenseless cat *shudders* it’s pure nightmare fuel!
Throughout the series Hamdo alternates between various manic episodes interspersed with brief lucid moments, which all but disappear as the series reaches it’s conclusion. Hamdo is the kind of villain that just makes you feel dirty, there is nothing redeeming about this guy. Sure you can make the argument that his actions are the result of his psychosis, but that wouldn’t be altogether true, Hamdo was corrupt long before his madness took hold. In a series know for being tragic, Hamdo is by far one of the biggest tragedies of them all.
What do you think of my choice? Who is your favorite anime villain? Feel free to let me know in the comments section! As always THANK YOU for reading!!!
This is a really interesting choice. So you feel he’s the best choice because he is completely and totally evil? There are a lot of those villains out there. Is there some personal choice to this, too?
It’s a personal choice, but I do feel like he was totally evil.
If you don’t mind my asking, who would you have picked?
I was thinking of that while I was reading. I’m not totally sure. I think the best villains are those that aren’t necessarily evil, but are willing to do any means to achieve what they want. Immoral, if you will.
I’m watching this show right now called Hyouge Mono, and while there’re no established antagonists, there are some characters who are willing to manipulate others into murdering for the sake of changing reality to match their ideals. I was gonna name a character off of that show since it’s fresh in my mind, but I think I’ll hold off until I finish it.
Let me… check MAL for a second here… Ohhhh! Y’know what? I think I’ll go with Deishuu Kaiki from the Monogatari series. He’s a pretty good villain, I think.
Hmm, that’s a valid perspective. I’ve not seen either series, but I’ll add them to the list of shows to look into.
Thanks for sharing! 😀
This is a tough question. I’m going to go with Vegeta, just because of his evolution throughout the series. His character growth made him a far more compelling character during the Z sagas, and I think he’s great for it. I also really liked Cell as a true villain in the series, but Vegeta is one of the best characters, whether you consider him one of the villains or not.
Lol its funny, I never thought of him as a villain. I have absolutely no idea why though…
Thanks for sharing!
wow I’ve never heard of this anime series but it sounds like a good one with a villain like that!
Oh it is! You should definitely watch it if you ever have the chance
Wait…he beat up a cat? THAT FIEND!! He should be cooked alive with his own turkey, and buried with a stake of holey in his heart!!!
I believe he drowned…how ironic
Lol…that is the definition of irony
Never heard of this anime 😱😱 /crawls back into the hole where she lives
I like villains where they’re evil but also feel like the antagonist/dual protag, while being twisted and having twists. Might be why I was so fond of Sephiroth as a youth (and even now) and it’s not all related to the long hair and the naked pecs 😂
But I like all kind of villains, so it’s really hard to say. I tend to like 3d characters the most. Death Note was such a good show for showing the descent to madness and how power corrupts ლ(́◉◞౪◟◉‵ლ)
You have to watch Now and then Here and There, it is an amazing series!!
Sephiroth is an awesome choice! (Sure, it had nothing to do withe hair and pecs lol😉)
Death Note definitely did a good job of showing Light’s fall from grace so to speak….
I’ll add it to my pile then, to check it out!
Ofc it had nothing to do with that…at all…
I really do prefer when villains have reasons and not just insane/crazy/mental health issues ugh
Yeah, it did!
So I just found your blog (I’m one of your fb friends) and I have to say I did not expect to see Hamdo here, but as I think about it he’s a great choice. You are right in that he’s almost frightening as a villain in that there’s no shade of complexity to this guy. He’s obsessed with water/world domination and the terror he’s able to exact from that is really quite distressing to behold. I think it’s also helped by the fact that, with the exception of Lala-Ru’s water power and the fact that water can be used as fuel, NTHT is a relatively down-to-earth series. Characters don’t really have powers, the conflicts are resolved with fairly mundane tech and, notably, the large amounts of child soldiery that comprise the cast as they have to survive in Hamdo’s bizarre dystopia. Good choice!
Well, welcome! Yeah NTHT is not a series that gets talked about often so I definitely wanted to include it in this challenge. Not to mention that Hamdo gives me the creeps, because he was a realistic villain. It’s not hard to imagine a man like Hamdo in power in the real world…