Souten Kouro

Souten Kouro is a manga written by Hagin Yi and drawn by King Gonta, based on the Sanguozhi, a chronicle of the Three Kingdoms period. Unlike Yokoyama Mitsuteru's Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it portrays Cao Cao Mengde as the hero. It lasted for 409 chapters (published in 36 volumes), even after the writer died.

Adapted into a 26-episode anime, starring Miyano Mamoru as Cao Cao.

Provides examples of:

 * Anti-Hero: Cao Cao.
 * Anti-Villain: Liu Bei, who although definitely not the Knight in Shining Armour of his Romance of the Three Kingdoms incarnation still seems pretty good-natured overall.
 * Based on the scene where he meets Guan Yu (only to end up getting Guan Yu and Zhang Fei to join him), and then the later scene where, his motivation is to conquer the world "to see the people's smiles"...
 * Badass Grandpa: Cao Teng, Cao Cao's adoptive grandfather. He's a sweet old eunuch, but is known to sell official position at ten times the normal price. What really defines him as a badass is
 * Blood Knight: Lu Bu (not surprisingly) to such a degree that Cao Cao ends up commenting on it but is also able to exploit against Lu Bu, i.e. using himself as bait to lure Lu Bu into a valley, with an ambush set to destroy the troops diverted to support Lu Bu's pursuit.
 * Call Back: Liu Bei's sword dance in front of Cao Cao was suspiciously similar to the latter's in front of Zhang Rang many chapters previously.
 * Chaste Hero: Averted by Cao Cao. See Good People Have Good Sex.
 * His arch-rival Liu Bei is a Bishonen womanizer as well.
 * Clean Cut: Averted by Cao Cao. He's still a child, so the sword only goes halfway through the thug's neck. He proceeds to finish him off by jumping on the sword and making the thug's head fly off. Dang.
 * Deadly Decadent Court: Cao Cao is no slouch in court intrigue (that's why he lives past the first 30 chapters or so), yet ultimately prevalent corruption of Han court smothers all of his efforts.
 * Dude Looks Like a Lady: Zhuge Liang.
 * Fangs Are Evil: Thugs have a mouth full of them. Subverted when.
 * Gentle Giant: Xu Chu. He does attempt to kill Cao Cao with a bronze bell, but he is good-natured and helps at a monastery.
 * Girl-On-Girl Is Hot: Played straight by Zhang Rang. The fact that he  is Squick to say the least
 * Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: "Do you still not believe in Cao Cao Mengde's finger?"
 * Good Is Not Dumb: Cao Cao is serious about upholding the law, but he's not Lawful Stupid and knows a set-up when he sees it in his tenure as North Buwei of Luoyang (chief of police for the capital city's northern gate) in Chapter 24.
 * Good People Have Good Sex: Cao Cao. The catch is that he first had sex aged 13 and that by the time he turned 16, he had had sex with seven prostitutes. And they liked it.
 * Historical Hero Upgrade: Arguably Cao Cao. This troper is quite sure 10-year old kids didn't decapitate thieves back in the day.
 * Chapter 39 actually makes him the guy behind the banners declaring "Blue Heaven Already Dead" -- which in this story push Zhang Jiao from being against rebellion to leading the Yellow Turbans Rebellion, and thus Cao Cao is the one directly responsible for the event of the Three Kingdoms story.
 * Historical Villain Upgrade: Zhang Rang, leader of the 10 eunuchs. He manages
 * Likewise, Dong Zhuo is a major antagonist who was identified as the eventual despot by the child Xun Yu years before the Yellow Turbans Rebellion, and is himself a solidly-muscled man able to literally break down a wall with a hail of arrows, evade 's assassination scheme, and immediately realize that . Finally, in the anime (though not the manga).
 * Idiot Savant: Xu Chu can predict the weather based on the moon's phases. Xu Chu doesn't know that there's only one moon.
 * I Have You Now, My Pretty: Played straight with Zhang Rang and.
 * No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Applied by the thug in chapter 2 to Cao Cao. Who is ten. Cao Cao does get even, though.
 * Talking the Monster To Death: Subverted. Cao Cao has a whole debate with Li Lie and defeats him with rhetoric... which buys Xu Chu enough time to come and blow his brains out.
 * The Messiah: Toyed with in the case of Cao Cao's co-opting the Yellow Turbans of Qingzhou by embracing the role, while Liu Bei considers himself upon 's death to be "not the the good guy y'all think I am"... only for him to be taken aback when the peasants of Xu Province adore him as their savior and beg that he take up the governorship.
 * In Liu Bei's case it's subverted in that while he wants to conquer the world "to see the people's smiles," he has no real idea or concrete plan for how to do so, which he admitted to Guan Yu and Zhang Fei when asking them to join him -- and this comes back to bite him when.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: Both Cao Cao and Liu Bei ultimately strive to save the country, both don't mind the fact that they need to kill quite a few people to do so. After all, they'd both been leading armed forces before the events of the Yellow Turbans Rebellion, Cao Cao the Blast Gang (in addition to Xiahou Dun's own force) and Liu Bei the Demon Pouch.
 * Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Averted by the thief from chapter 2. He really didn't like Cao Cao staring at him.