Anime keeps viewers guessing with its creative and often strange characters, which include a host of terrifying villains. Every single one seems to have their own methods, motives, and weapons, and it takes a brilliant combination of animation, voice acting, and writing to make them equal parts scary and sympathetic.
Some of the most intimidating villains say very little, or in some cases, they don’t speak at all.Animeis filled with monsters, robots, and other kinds of creatures that are often voiceless, but many villains from anime are just humans, and for their own reasons, they never speak. In the spirit of anime, many of the characters that take the role of villains aren’t so evil after all, and sometimes that’s why there’s little or no dialogue.
7Femto (Berserk)
Griffithnever had much to sayin the first place, being a believer in speaking softly and carrying a big lance, and that served him well as the leader of the Company of the Hawk. He was adored by his followers and treated like a hero, but he had a deep, dark secret, and became one of the most notorious villains in anime history.
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At the end of the original series, Griffith sacrifices his followers to become Femto, a demon lord, and rises to the role of the tyrannical king with only Guts to stop him. He had lost the power of speech before his metamorphosis, however, when his vocal cords were cut as part of a torture session that lasted almost two years.
6The Gynoids (Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence)
Mokoto makes an observationthat these dolls didn’t have voices, and therefore couldn’t talk about what was happening to them. To be fair, one does say a single chilling phrase in the opening sequence, “Help me,” but none of them ever say anything else.
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The Gynoids aren’t built for fighting, but since they’re entirely robots, they’re lethal in any kind of fight. Even Batou is scared of these things. The closing scene, in which a small army of them goes rogue and attacks their own ship, is one of the bloodiest scenes in the history of anime that nobody talks about.
5Akira (Akira)
Was Akira really the villain of this story? It’s a question the viewer asks themselves throughout the movie,and that’s part of the point. How closely was Tetsuo connected with Akira? Did he act entirely on his own, or was he being manipulated by the titular character?
Either way, as the horror of this modern dystopia unfolds, Akira doesn’t appear until the very last moments and never says a word. He has spent most of the story in pieces, dissected by the scientists that were terrified by his immense power, and since then has moved beyond the need for vocalized communication.
4The Angels (Evangelion)
Discovering that the Angels ofEvangelionwere inspired by Biblical images of the Apocalypse makes them even more terrifying. Although some of them make noises, none of them speak, and instead communicate in more demonstrative ways. That means destruction on a global scale and the end of human life, at least as humans understand it.
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Part of the mystery ofEvangelionis what the Angels want, and nobody seems to know because they aren’t talking about it. Adam, the First Angel who’s hanging in Gendo’s basement, is silent until the last moments of the series. This is another story in which the Angels might not be the villains depending on how the viewer sees it.
3No Face (Spirited Away)
At first, he doesn’t speak, because he doesn’t have a voice to use.Then he eats someone who does have a voiceand uses theirs. It’s just as sordid as it sounds, but in this haunted bathhouse, it’s not as uncommon as it might seem.
After No Face gets a voice, he starts giving gold to everyone and making outrageous demands, turning the already busy bathhouse into a chaotic mess. After Chihiro feeds him the River God’s sour dumpling, he throws up everything he ate, including the frog creature that he was using as a voice. He’s then reduced to a voiceless but harmless entity once again.
2The Red Bull (The Last Unicorn)
The original Greek myth of Talos was not of a human, but of a bull that guarded the secret island where the smiths of Olympus hid their treasures. The gatekeeper graduated to a villain inThe Last Unicornwhere the Red Bull roams the countryside at night, hunting and gathering unicorns for his master, King Haggard.
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The scene in which the Red Bull first appears gave plenty of kids nightmares. He rises from a pool of red moonlight to seek his prey as she’s sleeping on the road, and only a wizard’s clever trick saves the Unicorn from his pursuit.
1Kuma (Afro Samurai Resurrection)
The popular seriesAfro Samuraiprompted a movie sequel with several of the same characters. This one began as Jinno, one of Afro’s closest friends in the series. After he became Kuma, he didn’t have much to say, at least until the teddy-bear head came off.
Part of the plot in the first movie was the story of how Jinno became Kuma. He was saved from death by a mad scientist who rebuilt him, and he returned after vowing revenge. In the second movie, part of the drama is that he’s degenerated even more deeply intoan emotionless cyberneticdoll state and has even less to say than before. The sight of Afro losing a battle to his resurrected father’s corpse at the end is what causes Kuma to become Jinno again, and get his voice back long enough to scream his friend’s name.
