Magnificent Bastard/Video Games/Ace Attorney

The Ace Attorney franchise is full of these in addition to the many Smug Snakes around. Sure, all the villains in this series get their comeuppance, but some of them were just better at getting their evil ways before their eventual Villainous Breakdown.


 * and in particular are quite worthy of this status for playing long-term gambits to ruin other people's lives.
 * in the post-game "Rise From The Ashes" episode in the original game's second edition. Despite his crimes,  operates with nothing short of whimsical good nature and accepts his own defeat with good humor, claiming that at the end, he can leave the defense of the law to his rivals and one day they will understand the need to rise higher by any means to protect the law as a whole.
 * Introduced in Justice For All, Shelly de Killer is (as his names suggests) a Professional Killer who's the third heir to a long line of assassins for hire. Always performing his jobs calmly and with precision, and always leaving behind a Calling Card so that the authorities know of his involvement and suspicion is not shed on his clients, de Killer was hired to murder actor Juan Corrida by Under the guise of a bellboy, de Killer lured Maya Fey away by alerting her of a phone call at the front desk so that he could abduct her, and gave Phoenix a transceiver for two-way communication, through which he demanded Phoenix get Engarde acquitted, holding Fey as ransom to ensure Phoenix complied.  Despite his nasty line of work and the terrible things he'll do to get a job done, de Killer is a calm, civil and polite individual with his own professional moral code, valuing the bond of trust between him and his clients above all else just as much as any good defense attorney.
 * A year later in Investigations 2, fellow Magnificent Bastard hired de Killer to
 * In Trials & Tribulations, manages to  He then  Then the only reason he's even caught is  and this is after
 * In the first Investigations game, is able to slide off most accusations with either a bored stare or a fit of laughter, and even though she eventually breaks down, she doesn't really break. In fact, rather then surrender after her confession, as every other villain does, she . Twice. She was the one who  She goes on to create another persona -  - while acting as a mole within Interpol and leaking information to the smuggling ring. When Quercus Alba murders the traitorous Manny Coachen, the spy creates a fire in order for the two to move the corpse between embassies to create confusion of where the crime scene occured. After Shi-Long Lang saves her life from Tyrell Badd, the spy gracefully accepts defeat and out of gratitude, gives information to Edgeworth to help him discover the truth about the case.
 * The second Investigations game gives us the nefarious yet affable In the first case,  In the second case,  In the fourth case
 * Spirit of Justice gives us who at first appears to only be executing the wishes of Sorin Sprocket's parents, but it later turns out he's a surgeon and had a hidden agenda.