Many of the strongest anime characters have elemental powers, such as control over fire or water, but one of the most underrated of these is the power over plants. The traditional Japanese elements are earth, water, fire, wind, and void (the concept of pure, quintessential energy), all of which are derived from Buddhist beliefs about the natural world. The qualities associated with each element originally applied to styles of martial arts and came to extend to representations of superpowered characters’ personalities as well. Once viewers know what they are looking for, they will see it in many media including plenty of the best shounen anime.
Characters with powers over earth are often depicted as determined, highly stable, and relying heavily on physical power to achieve their goals. Those with more refined powers over plant life usually have softer, kinder personalities and often a strong connection to nature. The best characters of this sort not only use their powers creatively, but use them both offensively and regeneratively, reflecting a plant’s capacity for growth, hardiness, and venom if necessary.
10 Grass Type Pokémon - Pokémon
Grass types are one of the most common types of Pokémon, but they’re popular enough among Trainers to be one of the three types offered as starters. Even anime watchers who aren’t fans of Pokémon probably know of cute green critters like Bulbasaur and Turtwig. What they might not know is how with proper training and battle experience, those little guys can grow up into powerhouses!
Grass type Pokémon start out small and soft like saplings, but can grow massive and sturdy as an old forest. They’re weak to fire, but thrive in the sun, and Grass type attacks are also some of the most underratedly powerful in the world of Pokémon. Not only can the highest level attacks such as Solar Beam pack a wild punch, but moves like Leech Seed take a stealthier approach to battle, latching on and slowly draining hit points from opponents, like any parasitic plant.
9 Plant Type Digimon - Digimon
Plant type Digimon aren’t as prevalent as Grass type Pokémon, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t pack just as much of a wallop. Among some of the best-ever Digimon, Plant types are shaped like oversized flowers, trees, cacti, and more. Their abilities are as varied as their body types. For instance, Digimon like Floramon and Palmom, which are modeled after flowers, use pollen to attack their opponents. Sturdier Digimon like Woodmon and Cherrymon have strong bodies impervious to harm, and use vinelike protrusions in battle. It's a lucky Digidestined that gets to partner with such a versatile type.
8 Vash The Stampede - Trigun
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There’s a good reason why Vash is one of the only people on Gunsmoke able to communicate with the alien Plants: he is one of them! He can easily pass for human most of the time, which helps him stay on the down-low while he goes around spreading love and peace, in one of the best anime for beginners. But his true nature becomes clear when he’s in battle or interacting with a less humanoid Plant.
Though Vash spends most of the show exhibiting his talents in gunplay, his real powers lie in his nonhuman nature. Not only can he communicate with other Plants, but he can regenerate from any injury if he chooses to and the Angel Arm within him is more destructive than any human weapon in existence. He does his best to use his power for good and is dedicated to never killing or allowing anyone within his reach to be killed.
7 Kurama - Yu Yu Hakusho
Kurama might look like an unassuming human, but like a simple plant with a massive array of roots under the earth, there’s a lot going on under his skin. One of the best main characters of Yu Yu Hakusho, Kurama is a thousand-year-old kitsune who’s been possessing the body of his human host since that host was a fetus. Having internalized the morals of his human mother, he is no longer interested in demonic crimes and helps Yusuke as the Spirit World’s form of community service.
Normally calm but thorny when provoked, Kurama isn’t as flashy as his teammates, but he doesn’t have to be. He has a reputation for being cold and vicious, with even the worst of demons cowering in fear of his whip. His power to manipulate plants would be terrifying enough on its own, but Kurama also stays scarily prepared to use them in any situation, such as keeping seeds in his hair and altering the grounds of the Demon World Tournament arena centuries ago, just in case he’d need it to bloom for him later.
6 Ren Hakuryuu - Magi: The Labyrinth Of Magic
The Djinn Zagan doesn’t just give Hakuryuu one of the coolest outfits in Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic. Zagan’s dungeon was full of deadly vegetation and plant-themed monsters, and capturing it grants Hakuryuu similar powers to create and control plant life. Zagan tells Hakuryuu that what makes him a true king candidate is what he does with the power after conquering a dungeon, which the vengeful prince takes to heart.
Hakuryuu can use his powers regeneratively, replacing his lost limbs with wooden prosthetics. However, he primarily uses it to get a leg up on his stronger cousins in the Kou Empire’s war of succession. He isn’t a terribly good leader, but is terrifying on the battlefield: using Zagan’s power, he summons wooden dragons and acid-spewing fungus monsters to fight, and he combines Zagan’s seeds with Belial’s mind control abilities to fuel his brainwashed soldiers with bloodlust and hatred. Like invasive vines, he’s hard to see coming and even harder to beat.
5 John Steinbeck - Bungou Stray Dogs
Bungou Stray Dogs’ powerful Ability users include some of the strongest shapeshifters in anime, reality-bending manipulators, and other devastatingly powerful fighters. John Steinbeck, a Guild member working to provide for his family, is named for the American author. His Ability, The Grapes of Wrath, brings a more literal meaning to the title of the original Steinbeck’s famous novel.
Steinbeck has the power to use his own body as a garden of sorts for the grapevines he fights with. Unfortunately for him, gardens don’t materialize out of nowhere: he must cut his own neck open and plant seeds into the incision to let the vines grow and spread. Once they’re in place, though, Steinbeck not only becomes a nightmare of body horror in battle, but can connect his vines to outside plants to augment his power.
4 Hashirama Senju - Naruto
Wood Style is a powerful kekkei genkai formed from a mix of Earth and Water Styles. It allows the user to create strong, flexible wood and manipulate it in any way. It is also ridiculously rare, only ever occurring naturally in one person: Hashirama Senju, the First Hokage and one of the most powerful characters in Naruto.
Hashirama’s affinity for Wood Style jutsu is one of the reasons why his cells are in such high demand in the shinobi world. Orochimaru in particular was so eager to get a shinobi capable of Wood Style under his control that he gladly killed dozens of abducted Leaf Village children in experiments infusing them with Hashirama cells. The sole survivor, Yamato, instead grew up to use Wood Style the way Hashirama intended: protecting his comrades and the Leaf Village.
3 Admiral Ryokugyu - One Piece
Usually, characters who have a strong connection to the earth and an easygoing nature like Ryokugyu’s are good guys, or at least peaceful. However, one of the strongest characters in One Piece is far from it. When confronted with any non-ally of the World Government, even a nonthreatening one, he’ll be burning to annihilate them.
Ryokugyu ate the Woods-Woods Fruit, which gave him the ability to create, control, and transform his body into plants in any way he wishes. He hasn’t eaten food in years: his powers allow him to subsist on nutrients sapped from various vegetation or very unlucky people. If he wanted, he could travel the world restoring destroyed environments, but sadly, he prefers to destroy others with his powers instead.
2 Mimosa Vermillion - Black Clover
Kind and honest Black Clover fans tend to gravitate towards Mimosa Vermillion, one of the nicest members of Golden Dawn. Though she works hard to become more skilled in direct combat magic, her true talent lies in the art of healing. She is always happy to help others in any way she can with her Plant and Recovery Magic.
Mimosa is a prodigy who was mastering difficult spells at a young age, but remains humble and highly compassionate towards others. She heals injuries by conjuring magical flowers for them: a very advanced version of medicinal plants! As she branches out into the field, she learns to use her plants to fight as well, as she demonstrates with a powerful flower cannon.
1 Giorno Giovanna - JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure
Disgusted by the rampant drug trafficking and child abuse done by Italy’s criminal underworld, Giorno chooses to dismantle it using one of the scariest Stands in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Though Giorno is fueled by the pursuit of justice, like Jonathan Joestar, he also inherited his father Dio Brando’s ruthlessness and capacity for destruction. This is reflected in his Stand ability, Gold Experience.
Gold Experience gives Giorno power over life energy itself. He prefers to use it to heal wounds and grant life to inorganic objects, experienced enough in his plant transformations that he can perform them much faster than he transforms animals. However, nothing can save the person who threatens his teammates or hurts the innocent in front of him: he can use Gold Experience to tear someone apart as easily as he can use it to restore them. All of this means that Giorno isn't just one of the strongest anime characters with plant powers, he ranks among the strongest anime characters of all time!
Plant powers might not seem like much when compared to powers over primal forces like fire, but the real strength of any power comes down to how creatively they're used. More than just manipulating vines or trees, the strongest anime characters with powers over plants find creative uses for their abilities, resulting in some truly monstrous threats.
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