40 Strongest Anime Characters of All Time

Some of the longest-running conversations in the fandom center on ranking the strongest anime characters, or who would win in a fight. These debates are likely to go on for as long as new anime air every season. Anime can tell a broad range of stories, and the nature of animation allows anime to tackle just about every genre of fiction, from slice-of-life to sci-fi. However, combat-focused anime (usually in the shonen category) tends to be some of the most popular and commercially successful anime around.

With so much combat in anime, it’s no surprise that debates about which character is stronger than another are a staple of the fandom. Of course, with more anime airing than ever before and heroes of ongoing tales constantly receiving power-ups, these debates can change from day to day. It may be impossible to say for sure who would win in a one-on-one fight, but the most powerful characters in anime can be ranked when they are at their strongest and most capable.

40

Ken Kaneki

Character From Studio Pierrot’s Tokyo Ghoul; Based On The Manga By Sui Ishida

Over the course of Tokyo Ghoul, Ken Kaneki goes from a timid bookworm to a figure of worship known as the One-Eyed King. In exchange for only being able to consume coffee and human flesh, Kaneki gained superhuman strength and the ability to regenerate limbs and even his entire body.

After transforming into a half-Ghoul and training his body, he’s able to destroy entire cities easily and command legions of monstrous beasts that can transform others into Ghouls. This makes Ken Kaneki a borderline undefeatable fighter who only grows stronger with each injury he sustains.

39

Muzan Kibutsuji

Character From Ufotable’s Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba; Based On The Manga By Koyoharu Gotouge

Muzan Kibutsuji is the progenitor of the Demons of Demon Slayer, who gained his own powers when experimented upon by a scientist with a rare blue spider lily over 1,000 years ago. Muzan is capable of turning others into demons and his blood will outright kill those who are incompatible with it. He can shape and mold his body to form weapons and is an absolutely vicious killer.

Muzan’s only weakness is sunlight; as a demon, he’s unable to go out during the day, and he’s spent most of his long life desperately searching for a cure for this one flaw. When in the dark, however, Muzan’s ability to regenerate is nearly unlimited, and as a result, he’s killed many, many demon slayers over the years.

38

Yoriichi Tsugikuni

Character From Ufotable’s Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba; Based On The Manga By Koyoharu Gotouge

Not only was Yoriichi one of the first Demon Slayers, he was also arguably the strongest. Yoriichi invented the sun breathing style that all of Demon Slayer’s other breathing styles derive from. As the base breathing style, Sun Breathing alone is incredibly powerful and effective against demons, making Yoriichi an absolute nightmare to face for any of Muzan’s followers.

In addition to the power of Sun Breathing, Yoriichi is also just a strong fighter. His skill with a sword is second to none and he was in peak physical condition even in his eighties.

37

Chainsaw Man

Character From MAPPA’s Chainsaw Man; Based On The Manga By Tatsuki Fujimoto

Fans of the anime series might not know it, but Chainsaw Man’s titular hero ranks among the strongest characters in all of anime and manga. Before Pochita merged with Denji, he was the original Chainsaw Man and was one of Hell’s most feared creatures for good reason. In addition to his incredible strength endurance, and regeneration, the original Chainsaw Man was capable of warping reality by ‘eating’ devils and erasing them from existence.

As a result of Pochita, major events in world history have just been erased from existence. Though Denji’s longing for connection makes him easy to manipulate, his potential power as Chainsaw Man could make him one of anime’s strongest characters if and when the series returns.

36

Korosensei

Character From Lerche’s Assassination Classroom; Based On The Manga By Yusei Matsui

Koro-sensei is an “alien” who wields dozens of incredibly powerful tentacles, which make up the bulk of his body. Koro-sensei is unbelievably fast, able to zip across the world on his lunch break and dodge streams of bullets coming out of machine guns without breaking a sweat.

Koro-sensei can only be killed by special “anti-sensei” material, which is harmless to ordinary humans even when made into weapons. Koro-sensei is also a master assassin, skilled in various forms of combat–an ability that comes in handy even without a humanoid body. While his stamina isn’t limitless, it’s incredibly high, so if Koro-Sensei weren’t specifically training people to kill him, he’d be nigh unstoppable.

35

Tetsuo Shima

Character From TMS Entertainment’s Akira; Based On The Manga By Katsuhiro Otomo

Tetsuo Shima, the de facto antagonist of Akira, awakens his immeasurable psychic powers after a collision with another psychic. His powers quickly grow in strength, and before long he runs the risk of obliterating the entire universe. Thankfully, before that can happen, he warps himself to a place outside of reality and the force of his psychic explosion gives birth to a whole new universe. All of this adds up to making Testsuo anime’s strongest psychic, and that’s no small achievement.

Few other anime characters possess the ability to both create and destroy reality, and that’s what ranks Tetsuo among the strongest characters in the medium.

34

Eren Yeager

Character From MAPPA’s Attack On Titan; Based On The Manga By Hajime Isayama

Attack on Titan’s protagonist Eren Yeager is a very powerful character who has the ability to transform into a 15-meter-tall Titan with incredible regenerative abilities. However, the reason he ranks so highly among the strongest anime characters is because of his ability to command legions of Titans with the power of the Founding Titan.

Using this ability, Eren can bring entire nations to ruin with a simple command that summons thousands of 50-meter-tall Titans to action. Entire armies could not stand against this ability, and that makes Eren deserving of a spot as one of the most powerful characters in anime.

33

Sung Jinwoo

Character From A-1 Pictures’ Solo Leveling; Based On The Novel By Chugong

The protagonist of 2024’s breakout hit Solo Leveling, Sung Jinwoo is his world’s strongest hunter and a major force to be reckoned with. Not only does he have incredible physical attributes like strength, speed, and durability, Jinwoo also has the incredible ability to substantially increase his powers after the end of each battle. More than anything else, this ability to grow and develop is what propelled Jinwoo to the spot of top hunter.

Sung Jinwoo might be one of the newest anime heroes, but it’s already clear that he has the potential to rank highly among the strongest anime characters of all time.

32

All For One

Character From Bones’ My Hero Academia; Based On The Manga By Kohei Horikoshi

The big villain of My Hero Academia, All for One is a villain from the dawn of Quirks, who has used his personal power to gather Quirks that enhance his power and allow him to live indefinitely. Over the time since the dawn of Quirks, All for One has collected hundreds of different powers, ranging from physical attacks to radio wave emission to regeneration.

All for One is also able to redistribute the Quirks he steals, allowing him to gain favor by providing underlings with new power. All for One’s shrewd social manipulation is actually one of his most dangerous traits, and the reason why it’s taken 9 generations of One for All users to even come close to bringing him down.

31

Mob

Character From Bones’ Mob Psycho 100; Based On The Manga By One

Mob Psycho 100’s Shigeo Kageyama, more commonly known as Mob, is an ultra-powerful esper who can destroy anyone or anything with a simple thought. His powers are so intense that he has to shackle his emotions to keep them from running wild, meaning that he doesn’t often put them to use. However, if he feels something too strongly or falls unconscious, his psychic powers come rushing to the surface.

In his ???% state, Mob wields powers on par with large-scale natural disasters. Not only does the nature of his abilities make them impossible to guard against, but the strength behind them is also so great that even the strongest psychics in his world buckle beneath them. Mob is among the strongest anime psychics, though he isn’t quite the strongest.

30

Isaac Netero

Character From Madhouse’s Hunter X Hunter; Based On The Manga By Yoshihiro Togashi

The former chairman of the Hunter Association, Isaac Netero is one of the strongest martial artists in anime history. After subjecting himself to training that was supposed to end him, Netero gained incomprehensible speed and strength, able to throw punches faster than the speed of sound. His ultimate ability is the 100-Type Guanyin Bodhisattva, the manifestation of his Nen powers at a level that no other character in the series even comes close to matching.

Even if he should somehow lose, though, he has a small nuclear bomb implanted in his chest that will obliterate whoever manages to end him and poison anyone who manages to survive the blast.

29

Zeref Dragneel

Character From CloverWorks’ Fairy Tail; Based On The Manga By Hiro Mashima

Zeref Dragneel is the titular, final antagonist of Fairy Tail, known as the Black Wizard because of his powerful Black Magic. Zeref’s magic is often seen bringing instantaneous death to anything it touches and has also been used to create countless catastrophic demons seen throughout the series. A side effect of this magic is that Zeref is not only immortal but also possesses powerful regeneration.

However, Zeref’s strongest magic by far is his Time Magic, which allows him to cast a powerful spell called Neo Eclipse that can completely reset time, completely erasing the world of the current timeline and replacing it with a new one.

28

Jotaro Kujo

Character From David Production’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure; Based On The Manga By Hirohiko Araki

Jotaro Kujo is the main protagonist of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders. As a person, he’s as smart as he is tough and able to discern and counter the abilities of anyone who would challenge him. His stand ability, Star Platinum, is one of the most physically powerful Stands in the series, despite its short range.

After going up against Dio, Jotaro also learned how to stop time for several seconds, allowing him to wail on enemies as they stand helpless. Those without Stands can’t even see them, so Jotaro could easily defeat any character without a Stand, without so much as cluing them into what just happened.

27

Anos Voldigoad

Character From Silver Link’s The Misfit Of Demon King Academy; Based On The Light Novel By Shu

Though a newer series in comparison, the Misfit of Demon Academy‘s Anos Voldigoad has quickly joined the ranks of the strongest anime characters. As the reincarnated Demon King, Anos not only possesses incredible strength and speed but, unsurprisingly, also wields powerful magic that allows him to destroy anything just by looking at it.

His Magic Eyes of Destruction can destroy even gods and his magic is often seen wreaking havoc on a meteoric scale.

26

Monkey D. Luffy

Character From Toei Animation’s One Piece; Based On The Manga By Eiichiro Oda

Monkey D. Luffy took a bite of Gum Gum and developed the power to stretch his body, at the cost of being able to swim. That might seem like a big downside for a pirate, but Luffy has made it seem like no big deal over the years. Luffy trained for ten years to master this power, and all that training paid off big time.

Luffy’s special transformations go from “Gear 2” to “Gear 5,” and each features a radically different way of using his rubbery nature to enhance his battle ability. Luffy is also a master of Haki, a means of utilizing spiritual power for both combat and non-combat purposes. Though these abilities might not seem so strong on the surface, Gear 5 gives Luffy the powers of a god as he warps reality into a cartoonish parody of itself. These abilities make Luffy one of the strongest shonen anime heroes of all time.

25

Alucard

Character From Graphinica’s Hellsing Ultimate; Based On The Manga By Kouta Hirano

A character based on a legend like Dracula has to be able to deliver in the power department, and Alucard in Hellsing Ultimate does just that. Functionally immortal at the beginning of the series due to the number of souls inside of him, and then literally immortal by the end of it, Alucard cannot be ended. He has super strength, speed, and incredible durability, putting him far above the level of a mere human.

Alucard can manipulate and control blood in addition to a plethora of other odd powers, like the ability to pass through walls. His dual pistols are also essentially cannons, and he is able to summon the souls of those he’s eaten to form an army of servants. As if those abilities aren’t enough, Alucard also has an army of demon dogs at the ready that can tear nearly any enemy it shreds in an extremely painful instant.

24

Satoru Gojo

Character From MAPPA’s Jujutsu Kaisen; Based On The Manga By Gege Akutami

Gojo is continually touted as Jujutsu Kaisen’s strongest sorcerer for good reason. While already incredibly smart and strong, what truly puts him over the edge are his cursed techniques Limitless and Infinity.

With Limitless, Gojo can essentially control space, giving him incredible offensive and defensive capabilities. With Limitless, Gojo also has the technique Infinity which makes it so that any attack launched against him can only ever get infinitely close to him but never touch him in an astoundingly literal take on Zeno’s Paradox. Gojo might not be impossible to defeat in Jujutsu Kaisen, but his raw power makes him one the series’ strongest by a wide mile.

23

Lucy

Character From Arms’ Elfen Lied; Based On The Manga By Lynn Okamoto

Though dissociative identity disorder means Elfen Lied’s “Lucy” has many voices that make up her character, Lucy tends to be the strongest of the bunch. It’s Lucy who most often utilizes the character’s numerous abilities. Lucy is both a deft fighter and a near-perfect marksman, but it’s her telekinetic abilities that most often stand out. She makes use of psychic “vectors,” which act like invisible arms she can use to extend her reach and power.

At her strongest, Lucy’s vectors can be used to sink landmasses the size of small countries. She could, conceivably, destroy the whole world, securing her a rank among the strongest anime characters.

22

Gilgamesh

Character From Ufotable’s Fate/stay night; Based On The Visual Novel By Kinoko Nasu

Gilgamesh is an Archer-class Servant who appears in nearly every installment of the Fate franchise and is indisputably the strongest Heroic Spirit in the verse. Also known as the King of Heroes, Gilgamesh is the oldest-known hero, making him and his myth the origin of all other heroic myths. As such, Gilgamesh’s Noble Phantasm, the Gate of Babylon contains the Noble Phantasms of every Heroic Spirit, including the ones that have killed these heroes.

That said, what truly makes Gilgamesh the strongest is his unique sword Ea, which can tear apart the fabric of reality itself. Ea can only be owned by Gilgamesh, and cannot be replicated even by Shirou Emiya due to its unusual properties which are impossible to comprehend.

21

Satan/Ryo Asuka

Character From Science Saru’s Devilman Crybaby; Based On The Manga By Go Nagai

Few anime characters came to regret their incredible powers as much as Devilman Crybaby’s Ryo. Though Akira’s best friend spends much of the anime series behind the scenes plotting, it is eventually revealed that Ryo is actually Satan.

As Satan Ryo commands a massive army of demons that wipe out all of humanity as well as the more powerful devilmen. No slouch in combat himself though, Ryo as Satan actually takes out the series’ titular devilman, Akira in a tragic brawl that leaves the heroic devil cut in half. Ryo’s misanthropy and raw power ended up costing him the only person he ever loved, making Devilman Crybaby’s Satan one of the most tragic and powerful anime characters.