Ranking the 20 Best Anime Characters of All Time

Ask a room full of fans to name the best anime characters and you will not get a list. You will get into an argument, and it will run until someone's voice gives out. Half the fun is the argument itself. Greatness in anime was never about who hits hardest, and the endless strongest-character power-scaling wars miss the point completely. The best anime characters are the ones who would still matter with their powers switched off: the writing, the growth, the moments that quietly rearranged how you think about a story.

So this is a ranking built on that idea. Not raw strength and not raw fame, but writing, growth, and the kind of presence that outlives the show. The question of who is the greatest anime character of all time never really settles, and honestly it should not, but some names belong in any serious version of the conversation, and we are going to make the case for each of them.

What follows is a full countdown, ranked one through twenty on writing, depth, and staying power, and built less as a list of popular anime characters sorted by vote count than as a case for why each of these twenty endures. Reasonable fans will reorder the middle. The names themselves are hard to argue with.

The 20 best anime characters, ranked

Every ranking like this is a snapshot of an argument in motion, so treat the order as a strong opening bid, not gospel. Every argument about the best anime characters ever eventually circles back to these names, ranked on the strength of their writing, the depth of their arc, and how much they still matter as characters (not how famous they got). The top 10 anime characters of all time sit up front, and the rest of the top anime characters of all time follow right behind, each earning the spot on the same terms.

1. Guts

Anime: Berserk

Guts begins as a mercenary with nothing and becomes the definitive portrait of a person who refuses to let suffering have the final word. Nobody in anime has been put through more, and nobody keeps getting back up quite like him. Strip away the giant sword and the dark fantasy and he is still the most complete character study the medium has produced, which is exactly why he takes the top spot.

2. Lelouch vi Britannia

Anime: Code Geass

An exiled prince wages a one-man revolution so layered that his final act still starts fights over whether he is a hero or the grandest villain of his own story. Every scheme, every mask, every sacrifice is plotted with a precision most shows never even attempt. Lelouch is what happens when a writer trusts the audience to keep up.

3. Light Yagami

Anime: Death Note

A straight-A student finds a notebook that kills and slowly talks himself into playing god. Light's rot from idealist to monster is some of the tightest writing anime has ever produced, without a wasted scene in the descent. You watch a brilliant boy argue himself into damnation and follow every step of the logic.

4. Vegeta

Anime: Dragon Ball

The road from genocidal prince to devoted family man is the finest redemption arc shonen has ever attempted, earned across decades instead of handed over cheap. Vegeta never stops being proud and never stops being difficult, and that stubbornness is exactly what makes the growth land. He changes without ever betraying who he is.

5. Edward Elric

Anime: Fullmetal Alchemist

A boy pays for his arrogance in actual flesh and then spends the whole series earning his way back toward something like peace. Every beat of Ed's story is built on a rule the writing refuses to break, and the result is the most thematically airtight arc on this list. Equivalent exchange, all the way down.

6. Eren Yeager

Anime: Attack on Titan

A boy wants freedom so badly that he walks straight into becoming the thing he hated. Eren's arc is bleak, divisive, and unforgettable, the rare shonen lead whose ending fans will keep arguing about for as long as the medium exists. Love it or loathe it, nobody else attempted anything this bold.

7. Monkey D. Luffy

Anime: One Piece

Across more than a thousand episodes, Luffy has never once gone stale, because his freedom-above-everything code makes every choice land the same way (pure) and the writing never betrays it. He is proof that consistency, done right, is its own kind of greatness. Nobody has carried a story this long without wobbling.

8. Itachi Uchiha

Anime: Naruto

Itachi turns one revealed truth into anime's most gutting reversal, a character the whole fandom mourned the instant they understood what he had actually done. Recontextualizing an entire person with a single flashback is a trick most writers never pull off. He is still the gold standard for the tragic double life.

9. Levi Ackerman

Anime: Attack on Titan

Humanity's strongest soldier is a man of few words and enormous loss whose restraint does more character work in a single glance than most leads manage across a whole season. Levi never leads his series and still walks off as everyone's favorite, and it is the writing, not the sword work, that earns it.

10. Goku

Anime: Dragon Ball

Goku is the foundation the rest of shonen was built on, and leaving him off a list like this would be dishonest. His greatness runs more on heart than depth, and that is not a knock: he is not the most complex character here, and he was never trying to be. He is the purest version of the never-stop-climbing spirit that shaped everything that came after.

11. Griffith

Anime: Berserk

A charismatic dreamer makes a single choice that becomes one of the most devastating betrayals in all of fiction. Griffith is hard to even discuss without flinching, which is the real measure of how well he is written. Few characters ever make you understand a monster this completely.

12. Frieren

Anime: Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

An elf mage outlives everyone she loves and spends her story learning, far too late, what those people actually meant to her. Frieren flips the whole hero's-journey formula on its head, and her quiet grief is some of the most mature storytelling anime has ever tried. Proof the medium is still writing genuinely new kinds of characters.

13. Naruto Uzumaki

Anime: Naruto

Naruto turns being the outcast into the most resonant underdog story in anime, a kid screaming into the void until his whole village finally hears him. The loneliness sitting under all that noise is what makes him land. Take away the ninja powers and the ache is still real.

14. Shinji Ikari

Anime: Neon Genesis Evangelion

The most psychologically raw protagonist anime has ever centered a series on, a frightened kid whose refusal to be a hero became one of the medium's most honest studies of depression and self-worth. Loving him is not easy, and understanding him is the entire point.

15. Satoru Gojo

Anime: Jujutsu Kaisen

The rare character whose swagger is the mask rather than the man, the strongest sorcerer alive written with a buried loneliness and a fate that recontextualizes every cocky grin he throws. Gojo is the modern great who proves charisma and real depth were never opposites.

16. Killua Zoldyck

Anime: Hunter x Hunter

That rare best-friend character written with far more nuance than most leads ever get, an ex-assassin kid slowly learning how to choose his own heart. Killua's quiet fight against everything he was raised to be is one of the most tender arcs anime has to offer.

17. Sosuke Aizen

Anime: Bleach

A mastermind so composed he makes ten seasons feel like they went precisely according to his plan. Aizen earns his spot on pure audacity, the villain who was always five steps ahead and somehow made you believe it. Presence is a writing skill, and almost nobody has more of it.

18. Kakashi Hatake

Anime: Naruto

The mentor everyone wishes they had, the mask-and-one-eye enigma whose easy calm hides far more grief than he ever lets show. Kakashi carries an entire tragic backstory in his body language, and the restraint is exactly what makes him unforgettable.

19. Denji

Anime: Chainsaw Man

The anti-Goku: a broke, hormonal, deeply human teenager who just wants a normal life and keeps getting handed a chainsaw instead. Denji is more relatable than any polished hero could hope to be, and that lowness is the point. Greatness does not have to look noble.

20. Power

Anime: Chainsaw Man

The blood-fiend chaos gremlin who rounds out the new class, proof that a character can be selfish, loud, and completely ridiculous and still wreck you when it counts. Power is the rare comic-relief character whose best moment leaves the whole room silent.

Greatness outlasts the power level

Run back through the whole list and the strongest characters are almost never the ones people cry over. That is the quiet truth sitting under every version of this debate. The best anime characters of all time endure because of what they mean, not what they can lift, and the argument over the best anime characters ever will keep raging precisely because greatness refuses to fit inside a tier list. Guts, Lelouch, Luffy, Vegeta, and the rest earned their place by making us feel something no power level, and no popularity ranking, could ever measure. Pick your own number one. Just be ready to defend it, because everyone else already picked theirs.

If breaking down what actually makes a character great sounds like a good time to you, you will feel right at home at Kaminari. Our newsletter drops the week's anime news, reviews, and character deep-dives straight into your inbox, free, over at Kaminari. Come argue about the rankings with a few thousand fans who care about this stuff as much as you do.

Frequently asked questions

Who is the best anime character?

It depends on what you weigh most, but if best means the strongest writing and the deepest arc, which is how we ranked it, Guts, Lelouch, and Light Yagami lead the pack. Goku is the most influential and probably the most famous character anime has ever produced, though fame and influence are their own axis, separate from who is actually written best. The honest answer is that the best anime character is the one whose story hit you hardest, and the debate is half the reason we love this medium.

What makes an anime character the best?

Not raw power. The characters who last are the ones with strong writing, real growth, and a presence that shapes the story around them. A great design and a memorable voice help, but the deciding factor is whether you still think about them long after the credits roll. Strength fades from memory; a well-written arc does not.

Are the best anime characters the same as the strongest?

Almost never, and treating the two as one thing is the most common mistake in these rankings. The strongest anime characters are a power-scaling conversation about who wins a fight, while the best anime characters are about craft and meaning. Plenty of the greatest characters ever written would lose a straight brawl to some reality-warping newcomer, and still be remembered long after that newcomer is forgotten.

Who are the best modern anime characters?

The current class is stacked. Satoru Gojo, Frieren, Denji, and Power lead the way, alongside names like Makima and Yuji Itadori. They are proof that the medium is still minting all-time greats rather than coasting on the classics.

What are the top 5 anime characters of all time?

By our ranking, the top 5 anime characters of all time are Guts, Lelouch vi Britannia, Light Yagami, Vegeta, and Edward Elric. Reasonable fans will swap a couple of those out, and that is exactly how it should be.