The world of Naruto, while idealistic, has plenty of villainous characters... and some of them manage to be in a league of their own.
Manga, anime and movies[]
- Orochimaru, the series' original Big Bad, was very much portrayed as this trope in the original series, in sharp contrast to his Denser and Wackier iteration in Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth and the Retired Monster seen in Boruto. With virtually every appearance in the series, another irredeemable crime is added to Orochimaru's long list. From his introduction (where he's shown literally wearing the face of a ninja he'd just murdered) to killing two of his own lackeys (who were children, no less) just to anger the Third Hokage, he becomes more and more of a monster. Things are only ramped up in Shippuden, as his body's abilities become increasingly monstrous and it's revealed that he'd previously performed genetic experiments on infants... and out of them, only Yamato survived. Having long ago shed any redeeming qualities he had, Orochimaru shows how low even those with once-good intentions can fall, having reached the point where he does not even remember them anymore, and only desires absolute power for himself and the total destruction of all his enemies.
- Haido, Big Bad of the second film, was seemingly a friendly Well-Intentioned Extremist who wanted to create a utopia. However, this was just a facade, as his true goal was to find the legendary Stone of Gelel and use its mystic power to Take Over the World. He attacked Temujin's village and had everyone slaughtered save for Temujin himself, whom he made his servant. When Temujin eventually finds out that it was Haido who murdered his parents, his former master mocks him for having not figured it out sooner. To make matters worse, he turned many of his servants, including Temujin's friends, into mindless armored soldiers who would obey his every command, many of whom were also children from villages he attacked. In the climax, he forcibly removes a piece of the stone from Temujin's body that he gave him, rendering the boy weakened, and proceeds to beat him and Naruto to near-death. A power-hungry and manipulative sociopath, Haido cemented himself as one of Naruto Uzumaki's most depraved adversaries.
- Anime-only Filler Villain he may be, but Shiranami of the Tsuchigumo Clan is one seriously nasty piece of work. He murdered his own father in an attempt to obtain the forbidden jutsu which his father had been protecting just for the money it could get him, nonchalantly enslaved an entire village, pretended to sympathize with Hotaru's (the container of the forbidden jutsu) loneliness, and offered to help her restore their clan before revealing that he doesn't care about Hotaru or the clan at all, forcibly activated the forbidden jutsu inside the poor girl (which she had been trying to get rid of, but he manipulated her into keeping it) and considered her a mere "tool" that he wants to use to "steal the world" for himself. He cheerfully describes the act of killing his father to Hotaru and tells Naruto and Utakata that the main reason he killed him is simply because he's greedy. Nonetheless, Shiranami thinks that, compared to Utakata, who doesn't care about his own village either but still cares about Hotaru, he's a "pretty fine" person. He admits that they don't need to worry about Hotaru because she will live on with him in the world he hopes to create, but she will spend the rest of her life as his "tool" with no free will of her own. Oh, and episode 150 ends with him forcing the forbidden-jutsu-activated!Hotaru to fight Naruto and Utakata against her will. He then tries to murder everyone who'd try to prevent him from accomplishing his insane goal, which includes Utakata, Naruto, Sai, Yamato, Tonbee and Sakura.
- Another Filler Villain who qualifies is Kazuma (AKA Furido) of the Land of Fire. A former friend and comrade of Asuma Sarutobi and Chiruku in the Twelve Guardian Ninja, he saw the Hokage, and by extension the entire Hidden Leaf Village, as a threat to the figurehead Fire Daimyo. Originally, he convinced half of his comrades to try and assassinate the Hokage before Asuma seemingly killed him. Years later, after it's revealed that he implanted Kurama's chakra into his son Sora to create a weapon that's capable of destroying all of Konoha, he attacks dozens of border towns with his men. After killing thousands of people, he ransacks the tombs of his former comrades and uses a forbidden jutsu to resurrect them so they'll make a Weapon of Mass Destruction that Kazuma plans on using to incinerate every man, woman and child in Konoha, all the while constantly beating Sora and manipulating him into turning on his new friends. The people he killed in the border towns are then used to create a small-scale Zombie Apocalypse around Konoha to distract, and trap, everyone in the village. Finally, when Kazuma's plan falls apart, he triggers his son's Super-Powered Evil Side and sends him to destroy Konoha. As he dies by Asuma's hand, Kazuma's last thoughts are of how the Land of Fire is doomed without him.
- There's another Filler Villain named Disonasu, who initially appears to be the kind leader of Hachō Village. In reality, he is a Serial Killer who once collaborated with the aforementioned Orochimaru on the Edo Tensei technique. Desiring power after a defeat at the hands of Nagato "Pain" Uzumaki, Disonasu teams up with Kabuto Yakushi in order to acquire the ancient device known as the "Ama no Hoko", ordering and participating in a massacre on the nearby Tonika Village to gain the "Sounds" necessary to activate it. When he finds two of the "Sounds" missing, Disonasu orders Kabuto to attack his own village to find them, resulting in a battle that nearly destroys the whole town in the process. In spite of being aware of the world-destroying power of the "Ama no Hoko", Disonasu activates it anyway for the simple reason of wanting to regain the power that he lost long ago.
- Out of all the Akatsuki's members, Hidan is the worst of the bunch. He has no sympathetic backstory, no Freudian Excuse, nothing. He's simply a morally-depraved, serial-killing maniac who revels in the bloodshed that he causes. A foul-mouthed, murder-obsessed psychopath hailing from the Hidden Steam Village, Hidan hated the natives of the village for their peaceful ways and slaughtered his neighbors before fleeing the village. He soon began to worship Jashin, the god of murder, bloodshed and depravity, and murders in the name of his Religion of Evil. The first time he's seen as an Akatsuki member, he and his partner Kakuzu corner Yugito Nii, the jinchūriki of the Two-Tailed Beast, and deliver her to their boss Pain so she can have the beast forcibly extracted from her, killing her in the process. He then goes on to attack a temple and slaughters every monk inside, not caring in the slightest about the fact that he only needed to kill one of them. However, what he does to Asuma Sarutobi is easily the worst act he commits: he initiates a religious ritual that binds his soul to Asuma's, and proceeds to slowly torture him to death through self-mutilation. This is Hidan's favorite way of killing people, and thankfully, the sick bastard meets an especially nasty end when he tries to inflict the same fate upon Shikamaru, only to end up decapitated and buried alive, unable to die due to his immortality. Kishimoto has stated that Hidan will eventually die due to being unable to kill, but it'll be a long time until that happens.
- And then there's the series' ultimate Big Bad, Madara Uchiha, and his Dragon, Obito "Tobi" Uchiha, who seek to destroy the entire world so that they can be in control over all life that remains.
- While Madara uses the excuse that he wants to make a world where there is no more struggling and everyone is equal, delving into his backstory and motives makes it pretty clear that he just wants to become a god amongst men because he's unable to get over his defeat against Hashirama Senju, to say nothing of how he cursed his entire clan as well.
- 13 years before the series started, Tobi unleashed the Nine-Tailed Beast on Konoha, which resulted in the deaths of Minato Namikaze and his wife Kushina Uzumaki, as well as Iruka Umino's parents. Years later, Minato and Kushina's orphaned son Naruto becomes one of his main targets due to him being the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki, as well as the only guy who can become strong enough to stop him. He is not above threatening a newborn infant and attempting to kill Kushina right after she gave birth. His evil plan is basically an Assimilation Plot in order to enslave the entire world and alter reality to how he sees fit. And then it's subverted - while Tobi is quite the MEH-crossing bastard, he's revealed to be Kakashi's former best friend Obito Uchiha, who was horribly broken before the aforementioned Madara got to him, and is actually more of a VERY angry mix of Psychopathic Manchild and Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds. His cruel Dark and Troubled Past is still an explanation rather than an excuse for all the horrendous shit he has pulled through the years, though, and even the All-Loving Hero Naruto clearly states that Obito is too far gone to be saved.
Boruto[]
- Momoshiki Ōtsutsuki, the main antagonist of the Boruto movie and True Final Boss of the series, not only matches them all in heinous crimes... but has zero Freudian Excuses, being a power-hungry madman who truly believes that hard work is for losers, preferring to absorb and steal other people's powers instead. Momoshiki and his partner Kinshiki set out to succeed where Princess Kaguya failed and harvest all of humanity's chakra in order to create a new chakra fruit so they can achieve godhood. Invading Earth for this reason, they attack and absorb Killer Bee's chakra, nearly killing him in the process. They then make their way to Konoha's Chunin Exams, causing wanton destruction to the place in an attempt to kill Naruto, Sasuke and their children. At one point, Momoshiki even launches an attack powerful enough to destroy the entirety of the Land of Fire, Laughing Mad about innocents dying in the process. He later takes Naruto to his dimension and tries to kill him by absorbing all of Kurama's chakra, and when the other Kages show up to stop him, he decides to absorb Kinshiki in order to kill them all, forcing a near-dead Naruto to watch. To top it off, when Boruto uses a Rasengan to free them all, Momoshiki is enraged at his garments being damaged and attempts to brutally murder Boruto just for that.
- Isshiki Ōtsutsuki came to Earth intending to create a new God Tree in order to unleash his full power and wipe out humanity. After being betrayed by Princess Kaguya, Isshiki hijacked the body of a young monk named Jigen, keeping him as a prisoner in his own mind for a thousand years as he formed Kara. Being responsible for the deaths and experiments of Kara, including the horrific deaths of almost all of his prospective vessels, Isshiki later emerges to try and take over Kawaki's body, planning to restart the God Tree's creation. After Jigen's body is destroyed, Isshiki becomes a malevolent Spirit Advisor to Code, the sixth member of Kara's inner circle, telling him to continue his plans and exact revenge on Jigen's killers.
- Kara Actuation Arc:
- Victor, the fifth member of Kara's inner circle, poses as a seemingly genial businessman so he can cultivate a new God Tree in order to achieve eternal life. Having his own researchers experimented on and murdered, Victor later cultivates the incomplete God Tree with an attempt to feed all of his company's workers to it so it may bloom its Chakra Fruit, intending to unleash it on the Land of Valleys in an attempt to prolong his life.
- Deepa, the seventh member of Kara's inner circle, is involved in the cultivation of the God Tree's fruit, intending to help Victor unleash it so he may taste it and then run rampant along the world, killing as he goes. A sadistic killer, Deepa is introduced having massacred everyone in a restaurant before killing everyone in his way of getting to the stolen Hashirama cell that Victor also seeks. Later massacring another restaurant, something entirely routine for him, Deepa is shown to have no hesitation attempting to murder children or anyone who even mildly inconveniences him, all to savor the "flavors" of despair.
Other material[]
- The Light Novel Konoha Shinden: Steam Ninja Scrolls: The Jashinist Ryūki poses as a holy man seeking to help people connect to their loved ones. Behind a series of kidnappings while seducing young women into his sect, Ryūki brings them for a holy ritual, though he intends to poison and offer them as blood sacrifices in a large number to his god Jashin in order to achieve immortality. Despising the peaceful era he exists in, Ryūki gleefully intends to plunge the world back into chaos and slaughter, viewing the depraved Jashinist murderer Hidan as the only being worth emulating.
- Uzumaki Chronicles: Orochimaru is just as vile here as he is in canon. Seeking a jutsu capable of providing him a constantly reviving army, Orochimaru discovered and perfected a parasitic mist that slowly ate the victim from the inside-out and took over their mind. Countless people, dead or alive, including condemned prisoners and innocent Wind Gate villagers, were kidnapped and exposed to the mist, turning them into undead killing machines against their will. Orochimaru's ultimate goal with this experimental jutsu is to unleash his army on the Hidden Leaf Village to destroy it once and for all.
- The video game Path of the Ninja 2: Genshō Ryūdōin, alongside his Co-Dragons and brothers Jakō and Rokkaku, attacked and destroyed a village in the Valley of Evil in order to unseal the Spirit Beast, a giant catfish-like demon with enormous power. Genshō plans to use the Beast to destroy worthless nations and their peoples so he could rule the world. Unsealing the Beast also unleashed its evil spirits, which can make a person aggressive and obsessed with attacking other people until their deaths. When Jakō tells him the evil spirits will reach Konoha before the Beast is fully revived, Genshō gleefully replies that he can't wait for that to happen. The evil spirits eventually reached the Hidden Sand Village and Konoha, corrupting their inhabitants. After Genshō absorbed the power of the Beast, he thanks Jakō for buying him some time by killing him. He then forces Naruto to watch him kill his friends by slowly draining their strength.