Most characters in Japanese anime follow some basic rules about balance and power scaling to make each combat scene tense, exciting, and meaningful. Protagonists will start off weak and use training and experience to get gradually stronger, while the villains start off powerful, but not so much that the hero stands no chance. Then, there are overpowered anime characters who break all the rules.
Some anime series feature a hero or a villain who is totally overpowered, meaning they are vastly stronger than everyone else and are nigh-unbeatable. This creates completely unfair battles and other scenarios with a character who can't lose, but if written correctly, even these OP anime characters can be highly compelling and entertaining to watch. Their unmatched abilities might also move the plot forward in ways no other character could ever do.
Update on August 22nd, 2023 by Louis Kemner: Plenty of outstanding anime series feature at least one character who is vastly stronger than everyone around them, either with infinite strength, reality-bending abilities, or divine powers. Normally, OP anime characters upset a series' combat system, and they create little suspense or tension about whether they'll succeed or fail at anything. When written correctly, however, overpowered anime characters can be a breath of fresh air, unrestrained by balance and fairness and doing whatever they like. This list has been updated to meet CBR's current formatting standards, as well as to introduce five more OP anime characters who don't have to play by anyone's rules.
15 Ryuk
Death Note
Even when the brilliant antihero Light Yagami was at his prime, he could not compare to how unfairly powerful Ryuk the shinigami was. Ryuk could do everything a human Death Note user could do and more, from seeing people's names with his eyes to having unlimited pages in his notebook.
Ryuk was also immortal, so long as he kept harvesting his victims' lifespans, and no physical attack could ever harm him. Ryuk, and all other shinigami for that matter, are OP because they're physically indestructible and can turn himself and his notebook intangible at will. Also, Ryuk is invisible and impossible to hear in most cases, so no detective can even try to hunt him down.
14 Shigeo Kageyama
Mob Psycho 100
Ordinarily, Shigeo Kageyama is a dandere schoolboy who tries to avoid trouble and live an ordinary, quiet life. He doesn't throw his powers around nearly as often as other OP anime characters, but if his enemies push him too far, Shigeo/Mob will go wild with peerless psychic power.
Over time, Mob's emotions will scale up from 0 to 100, and when he reaches 100, Mob's enormous psychic powers erupt, turning him into a true warrior. Mob can easily crush any person, monster, or spirit with his gifts throughout the Mob Psycho 100 anime. Before his meter reaches 100, Mob is still fairly powerful as a gifted psychic, but not OP.
13 Azusa Aizawa
I've Been Killing Slimes For 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level
I've Been Killing Slimes For 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level is a fairly standard fantasy isekai anime featuring Azusa Aizawa, a lovable and totally overpowered magical girl. Azusa aimed to live a peaceful and stress-free life in this isekai realm, but over time, she built up a noisy found family and went on adventures after all.
Azusa doesn't like combat, but if she must, Azusa can use her titanic magical powers to defeat anyone quickly or solve any problem, and no one can compare to her vast power. As the anime's title suggests, Azusa spent three centuries grinding XP to become max level, making her an untouchable magical girl with all the time in the world to goof off.
12 DIO
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Most Stand users in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure have powerful abilities with one or two key weaknesses or deficiencies. Still, DIO the villainous vampire is distinctly overpowered with The World by his side. The World isn't just a melee powerhouse — it can stop time for everyone but DIO.
The World can create a completely one-sided battle where DIO may kill his enemy with impunity, such as by throwing knives at them or pummeling them to death with punch attacks. Only by imitating The World's time-freezing power did Jotaro Kujo stand even the faintest chance against this unfair power.
11 Makima
Chainsaw Man
Protagonist Denji thought he met his savior when the mysterious kuudere Makima found him and gave him work, but he actually met his worst enemy, the control devil. Makima can easily control other people to do her bidding, but her OP powers go far beyond that. She can even cheat death by transferring her wounds to random people across Japan.
All that made her nigh-unkillable, and Makima also had enormous offensive power that could work either in person or remotely to slaughter her foes with chilling ease. Makima also has strong charisma to keep her subordinates under her thumb, and the world's fear of her only makes her stronger.
10 Rimuru Tempest
That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime stars one of the isekai industry's most overpowered anime characters of all time, the blue-haired Rimuru Tempest. He was once a salaryman in Japan, then got stabbed to death and was reborn in a fantasy realm as a slime.
Rimuru Tempest quickly amassed enormous power, mostly through his Predator skill, becoming a one-man army who always has the right ability or spell for the job. He can even defeat demon lords and consume giant monsters to steal their magical traits, and he's practically immune to damage as well.
9 Griffith
Berserk
For a time in Berserk's chronology, the charismatic mercenary commander Griffith was simply a highly effective leader of men, but he soon became much more. After betraying the entire Band of the Hawk to join the God Hand, Griffith became one of the most OP anime characters of all time as a man reborn.
Griffith gained supernatural powers and became nigh-untouchable, with even the mighty Guts unable to scratch him. Griffith practically redefined plot armor as well, being the fabled hero of his own story who can do no wrong and overcome all odds. He practically had Kentaro Miura on his side, and it doesn't get much more OP than that.
8 Saitama
One-Punch Man
The caped superhero Saitama is one of the industry's most overpowered anime characters who does not have any supernatural or magical abilities. As the OP star of One-Punch Man, Saitama thrills and amuses viewers with his one-hit victories in fight after fight, but at least Boros the alien warlord was a decent challenge.
Saitama won't explain how he became so vastly OP aside from mundane exercises, but the results are clear. Saitama has seemingly divine strength, speed, agility, and endurance, to the point that he can survive getting thrown onto the moon and flatten the landscape just from the air pressure of his punches.
7 Satoru Gojo
Jujutsu Kaisen
Jujutsu Kaisen's hero, Yuji Itadori, is fairly balanced as a young man who wields Sukuna's power, but his goofy mentor, Satoru Gojo, is distinctly overpowered by comparison. Satoru Gojo is famous and often feared for his staggering powers based on infinity itself.
Satoru can block any attack by creating infinity between himself and his opponent, as Jogo found out the hard way. He can overload anyone's mind with infinity via his domain expansion. Satoru is also a formidable melee fighter, even if he doesn't use his infinity abilities.
6 The Evangelist
Fire Force
Little is known about the Evangelist, not even her true nature or origins, but it's still abundantly clear that she ranks among the most overpowered anime characters to ever exist. She is the ultimate antagonist of the Fire Force series, though in the anime, Shinra Kusakabe and his friends have yet to actually fight her.
The Evangelist is mainly OP outside of combat, being a borderline divine being who can grant Grace to characters who have the Adolla Link. That enables them to bend the laws of physics with incredible feats of pyrokinetics, such as Shinra moving faster than light itself for short periods. Only the most OP anime characters can grant awe-inspiring powers like that.
5 Haruhi Suzumiya
The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya stars a bizarre antihero in Haruhi Suzumiya, a seemingly ordinary high school girl with brown hair, a bright yellow hair ribbon, and hidden supernatural abilities. Haruhi runs the SOS Brigade, a school club, to find supernatural occurrences.
Ironically, Haruhi failed to find anything supernatural with her club, so her own latent abilities created new realities where such things could happen after all. She can even create time loops and entire alternate realities, prompting some characters to think an actual god gave Haruhi these incredible, reality-bending abilities.
4 Misogi Kumagawa
Medaka Box
Medaka Box is a somewhat obscure anime compared to Jujutsu Kaisen or One-Punch Man, but it still features one of anime's most overpowered characters of all time. Despite lacking combat powers, Misogi Kumagawa is vastly OP because he can wipe anything he chooses from existence.
Misogi can select any item or even concept and erase it completely, never to return, which can even include colors. This ability, called All Fiction, allows Misogi to turn anything real into mere fiction, hence the name, and that gives him the potential to obliterate the entire world if he's not careful.
3 Yhwach
Bleach
Bleach's first supervillain, Sosuke Aizen, was incredibly tough to beat with his kido spells and his illusion-based shikai, but not even Aizen can compare to the Quincy king, Yhwach. After suffering defeat at the Soul Reapers' hands, Yhwach is back for another war, and he has the power of The Almighty backing him up.
Yhwach is enormously powerful with his own abilities, but with The Almighty, he is beyond reality itself. The Almighty allows Yhwach to see and navigate all kinds of futures and parallel realities. He can foresee and avoid any attack or switch to another reality to avoid harm.
2 Simon
Gurren Lagann
On his own, Gurren Lagann protagonist Simon is just a flesh-and-blood young man, but in the cockpit of his mighty Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann mech, he is easily one of the most OP anime characters of all time. For a while, Simon's power in Gurren Lagann scaled smoothly, but when the Antispirals attacked, Simon grew exponentially stronger.
When Simon faced the lead Antispiral in combat, Simon blew far past the limits of physics and grew his robot suit to mind-boggling proportions. At one point, Simon was throwing entire galaxies at his oversized enemy, and his final attack, Super Tengen Toppa Giga Drill Break, actually wiped the Antispiral Universe out of existence.
1 Zeno
Dragon Ball
The overall Dragon Ball franchise is packed with notoriously strong fighters, from protagonist Son Goku to Jiren and Broly, but one character stands above them all: Zeno. Even the gods of destruction like Beerus know they are no match for this all-powerful being, the lord of all existence.
Zeno, as the omni-king, doesn't even need to fight at all. He can instantly erase anything from existence, from a person or a planet to an entire galaxy or even a universe. There was even a time Zeno wiped out six universes when in a bad mood, leaving just 12 behind, as Whis once explained.
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