Villains that are better than the Hero.

Kind of a role reversal, since the protagonist is actually a thief (good hearted, but that still makes the law the antagonist), but I've always greatly preferred Inspector Zenigata to Lupin III's group of thieves.
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Honestly I think these days all villains are better than their heros. Heroes these days are op goody goodys and they are often the self insertion of the writers. Just look at the new warriors Gotham high or really any "popular "comic, the heroes suck so much but their villains have end goals, are the underdogs, are often made to be as hateable as possible according to that the writer considers traits of a bad person, and it makes them more likeable than the heroes.
 
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Guts Gets Some said:
Kind of a role reversal, since the protagonist is actually a thief (good hearted, but that still makes the law the antagonist), but I've always greatly preferred Inspector Zenigata to Lupin III's group of thieves.
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Zenigata's the heart and soul of the Lupin series. The rest of the characters could die and I'd still watch a movie/TV series if he were in it.


Tim Curry's so charismatic, he made the Devil look better than the heroes. Milton would have been proud.
 
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Tohru Adachi is my favorite villain not beacuse his powerful, cool or charismatic but beacuse his what can happen if you give a average Joe thats down on his luck a bit of power. i loved the thematic between him and yu (the mc) being polar opposite of eachother. adachi could have been the main protagonist if he decided to form bonds with others but his obsession with success and not seeing being send to Inaba as a way too start over but as a reminder of his past failure was his downfall. the speech he gives on people being born with talent still resonates with me alot.
 
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Gus, the man spent many years getting his revenge for his "Partner's" death. He ran a successful meth empire with multiple laundering operations. He was neat, he was to the point, and he kept things going strong. Even though he did win in the end, he ironically didn't get to enjoy it very long.
 
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Jasonfan89 said:
Honestly I think these days all villains are better than their heros. Heroes these days are op goody goodys and they are often the self insertion of the writers. Just look at the new warriors Gotham high or really any "popular "comic, the heroes suck so much but their villains have end goals, are the underdogs, are often made to be as hateable as possible according to that the writer considers traits of a bad person, and it makes them more likeable than the heroes.
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This is by no means new (although less excusable these days, when back issues / episodes are available). My dad, with whom I watched Saturday morning cartoons as a kid, still wishes "those enterprising, resourceful guys" would win against "those lazy sewer-dwelling bums". "They had a space base! And then it was at the bottom of the ocean!"
 
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Kingdom Hearts. Easy target I know, but the one-dimensional villains were always more engaging and likable to me than the bland Mary Sues and damsels the "heroes" were supposed to be.

Say that on the fandom and they fucking explode with rage tho.
 
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Fargo is filled with them.

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Billy Bob's Malvo never gives a single fuck from his introduction being storming into a guy's workplace in broad daylight and dragging him out kicking and screaming on camera to threatening a cop to his face and getting let go to the one-man army he pulls against the mob. His only real love seems to be in trolling the fuck out of random people he comes across like the motel employee or the child that moves into Lester's old house. You never knew what he was going to do next but you appreciated how fun he was going to have with it.

"See you later, Lester! See you soon!

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Then in season 3 we had Varga, the mysterious antagonist who used his overwhelming charisma to get his hooks into Emmit and whose ultimate goal remained a mystery for most of the season. He wasn't the wild card that Malvo was but he was no less fun to watch.

Honorable mentions to Wrench, Numbers and Hanzee as well. Fargo has a lot of really fun villains.
 
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Kill all whales said:
Would reinhard von lohengramm from logh count? I found him to be better than yang despite his flaws.

He began life as a lower rank noble.
Rose through the ranks and toppled the goldenbaum dynasty, becomimg kaiser.

He reforms the empire to benefit the people.

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I doubt he's considered a villain by any narrative convention. He's unquestionably a noble man at heart, and he follows a pretty typical hero's journey. LOGH always had this weird structure where we're actually following two protagonists, Yang and Lohengramm, and their respective attempts to serve/reform their nations. Even then, that line is blurred because there's just so many supporting characters, each with their own motivations.

But to continue the theme of villains, I actually found the last Goldenbaum Kaiser to be fascinating. At some level, while he's always hated by Lohengramm, he's always shown to be a very morally grey figure. There were hints throughout the start of the series that he knew Lohengramm to be trouble, but he simply didn't care. This same man outright stated that "what right does Goldenbaum dynasty have to continue to live?" As a minor antagonist, he was actually very benign, and any harm he caused was due to neglect rather than any real malice.
 
friedshrimp said:
Kingdom Hearts. Easy target I know, but the one-dimensional villains were always more engaging and likable to me than the bland Mary Sues and damsels the "heroes" were supposed to be.

Say that on the fandom and they fucking explode with rage tho.
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Nobody Xenahort was a douche I was glad to beat the holy shit out of in KH2.
 
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An awful lot of antagonistic species in Star Trek were far more interesting than the Federation. I thought concepts like a society based on extreme capitalism, where aggression is a virtue or one where individuality doesn’t exist are all much more mind-bending than “we’ve conquered all our vices.” To be fair, by DS9, I think the writers had realised this too.
 
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Stringer Bell from The Wire. Yeah he was a gangster, yeah he got people killed, but he was trying to clean things up, make things more organized and get everybody playing nice and to not fight. He even wanted to go legitimate and get into real estate but kept getting cockblocked.
 
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Both of the WW2 story arcs in 9 Chickweed Lane unexpectedly made the Nazis more moral, nicer, and civilized than the Allies who are willing to betray the Allied cause for singing lessons, desert the war, and mutilate a teen in cold blood (for example). While the Nazis "are perfect gentlemen", give cigerettes to women in a war zone, and are willing to give up the women they love.
 
Gaius van Baelsar from FFXIV. In a world where people summon gods that corrupt everyone around them and ineffectual leaders that depend on morally corrupt people to retain their rule, you do kinda see his point, The fact that he had the same flaw is something he even agrees with later.
 
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