Some of the longest-running conversations in the fandom center on ranking which anime characters are strongest, 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) tend to be some of the most popular and commercially successful anime around. With so much combat-focused content 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. These characters are by far rank among the strongest in anime history.
20 Ken Kaneki – Tokyo Ghoul
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 him a borderline undefeatable fighter who only grows stronger with each injury he sustains.
19 Ichigo Kurosaki – Bleach
As the main hero of Bleach, Ichigo wields a diverse set of powers that come from just about every group seen in the series. His Soul Reaper abilities allow him to wield a spiritual weapon known as a Zanpakuto, while his Hollow abilities give him mastery over the dark energies of the monstrous Hollows. Ichigo even demonstrates some Quincy techniques, such as the Blut Vene which can protect him from attacks, and at one point was also capable of wielding Fullbring, a special type of spirit power that only a small percentage of humans (like Chad) can acquire. While Ichigo surely has far more abilities at his disposal than were ever seen on screen, his return for the Thousand-Year Blood War anime has given him another chance to show off.
18 Alucard – Hellsing Ultimate
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. He can manipulate and control blood as well, and has 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.
17 Muzan Kibutsuji – Demon Slayer
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 in 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.
16 Lucy – Elfen Lied
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 spot on this list.
15 Isaac Netero – Hunter x Hunter
The former chairman of the Hunter Association, Isaac Netero is one of the strongest martial artists in anime. 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.
14 Eren Yeager – Attack on Titan
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 on this list is because of his ability to command legions of Titans with the power of the Founding Titan. Using this ability, he 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.
13 Mob – Mob Psycho 100
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 (his so-called “explosion” point, measured by percentage) or falls unconscious, his psychic powers come rushing to the surface. In his 100% 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.
12 Jotaro Kujo – JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure
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, an immortal vampire with the ability to stop time, 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 in to what just happened.
11 All for One – My Hero Academia
The big villain of My Hero Academia, All for One is a villain from the dawn of Quirks, who has used his personal power, All for One, to gather Quirks that enhance his power and allow him to live indefinitely. Over the century or more 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.
10 Simon – Gurren Lagann
Gurren Lagann’s Simon is a simple earthling who incorporates spiral power into the attacks of his giant mecha, to devastating results. Commanding a mech so large it spans galaxies, Simon can create a drill with the ability to rip reality apart and destroy literally anything that stands in his way. With a nearly god-like command over life and the afterlife, as well as reality itself, this metaphysics-bending warrior is nearly unstoppable and can obliterate the universe itself if he chose to. Only beings with the ability to destroy entire universes could even hope to stand a chance against him.
9 Luffy – One Piece
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 1” 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.
8 Giorno Giovanna – Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
Giorno is the protagonist of Jojo‘s fifth part, Golden Wind, wielding a Stand ability that goes by the same name. Golden Wind allows him to invigorate both living things and inanimate objects with life energy, which can cause them to temporarily come to life or increase their power immensely. However, Giorno’s true power isn’t seen until the end of the series, wherein he’s struck by the Stand Arrow and his Stand evolves, becoming Golden Wind Requiem. Golden Wind Requiem becomes a rare Stand capable of operating independently of its master and can cancel out actions taken against it, removing them from causality. Once struck by Golden Wind Requiem, a person is trapped in a state of reliving their death over and over again for all eternity–a chilling and terrifying power that no one would want to go up against.
7 Broly – Dragon Ball Super
The Legendary Super Saiyan himself, Broly canonically debuted in the Dragon Ball Super film of the same name, and proved that he still lived up to his reputation from the ’90s. Broly was so powerful that even Golden Frieza, Super Saiyan Blue Goku, and Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta were only barely enough to keep him busy. Goku and Vegeta had to fuse into Gogeta and use their Super Saiyan Blue abilities to defeat him, but even that wasn’t enough to kill him. Broly was later seen training with Beerus on his homeworld in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, suggesting that this Saiyan’s power is only going to become greater with time.
6 Koro-sensei – Assassination Classroom
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. And, while his stamina isn’t limitless, it’s incredibly high. If he weren’t specifically training people to kill him, he’d be nigh unstoppable.
5 Kaguya Otsutsuki – Naruto
Fans often think of Naruto as the most powerful character in his anime, but even he can’t defeat the series’ ultimate villain on his own. Known as the Rabbit Goddess, Kaguya is one of the most powerful villains in the Naruto franchise, and may well be the most powerful woman in anime. Not originally from Earth, Kaguya travels to the planet in order to take the fruit of the God Tree. Her plan was to unite people by making them fear her, which is not hard when you can read minds, manipulate memories, travel through space, and control the elements. Once she partakes of the God Tree’s fruit, she’s also able to heal her own injuries, making her nearly indestructible.
4 Tetsuo Shima – Akira
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. Few other anime characters possess the ability to both create and destroy reality, and that’s what makes Tetsuo one of the strongest characters in the medium.
3 Rimuru Tempest – That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime
Getting reincarnated as a slime was the best thing that ever happened to Rimuru Tempest, turning him from a lonely salaryman into a force to be reckoned with in his new fantasy world. Rimuru forged an alliance with a powerful dragon, who shared with him a large portion of his power. This allowed Rimuru to build a following by naming monsters, which granted them new powers, and in turn, allowed Rimuru to grab new powers as well. Rimuru receives guidance from the Great Sage, an AI-like being that offers advice and evaluates scenarios. Rimuru also possesses the incredible ability to take power from anything he devours, a fate that many a villain has fallen to. Rimuru doesn’t just have physical power, though; he wields an impressive amount of political power as the leader of the monster kingdom.
2 Zeno – Dragon Ball Super
Fans would likely expect Goku to be the strongest when it comes to Dragon Ball characters, but he can’t exactly control all of reality. Zeno is the ruler of the multiverse in Dragon Ball Super, and he can both create and destroy all of existence in a single instant. He doesn’t have any techniques or special moves; he is simply an all-powerful god that commands space and time with youthful abandon. Zeno singlehandedly destroyed Future Trunks’ entire timeline without even exerting himself, wiping a villain who had integrated himself into the fabric of reality out of existence with the wave of a hand. Even Dragon Ball Super‘s destroyer gods fear Zeno. There is no way to stand against this god, and only one other anime character even has a chance of beating this god in a fight.
1 Saitama – One-Punch Man
Saitama from One Punch Man is the strongest character in anime, period. Even with new anime launching all the time, no one can hold a candle to him, because he’s designed around the concept of being the strongest. In that sense, One Punch Man is quite different from most other battle anime, as the protagonist is already the strongest person around, rather than striving to reach that goal. After three years of (not particularly) rigorous training, he can withstand any blow and defeat any enemy with a single Serious Punch.
However, this unbeatable strength leaves Saitama depressed, and the series explores the emptiness that follows achieving a life-long goal. Saitama is the most powerful character in anime because the entire point of his character is that the pursuit of strength is more fulfilling than being the strongest.
Anime has no shortage of strong anime characters, but raw power alone doesn’t make a character interesting. In the wong hands, such absurd strength can invalidate challenge and make battles fall flat as one hero or villain consistently demolishes everything and everyone in their path. Ultimately, the strongest anime characters prove that good writers can make anything interesting.
