Noble Demon/Anime and Manga

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Examples of Noble Demons in Anime and Manga include:

  • The title character of Inuyasha is this way when he is first introduced. He becomes a Jerk with a Heart of Gold approximately one chapter later.
    • Inuyasha's Aloof Big Brother Sesshoumaru and rival Kouga both display traits of Noble Demon (even though both have their moments of extreme ruthlessness). Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru's father is hinted to have been like this. Same goes for Sesshoumaru's mother, a yokai noblewoman.
  • Kyouya from Ouran High School Host Club insists that he is an egotist with nothing in common with White Prince Tamaki. Despite this, his long-suffering of Tamaki's antics, which includes wearing ridiculous costumes on a daily basis (as a female more than once), is noblity in itself. He says that it's all to keep Tamaki looking like a golden child, to the point where it costs Kyouya favor with his own father. That's a bit too self-sacrificing for the so-called Evil Lord, isn't it?
    • His father was a dick to begin with. Had his dad thought about the situation, he'd have praised Kyouya. Kyouya keeping the Host's financially sound despite the numerous things they do that expend money (Honey's candy costs, the costume costs, taking most (if not all) of the female school population to the BEACH) is nothing short of financial wizardary. His dad just couldn't see past the "managing a Host Club" part. It basically benefited him to work with financial morons like Tamaki.
  • Evangeline A.K. McDowell, the vampire mage from Mahou Sensei Negima, constantly tells the rest of the cast how hideously and irredeemably evil she is, explicitly comparing herself to a video game Big Bad. So they'd better not be getting the wrong idea when she's saving their lives, making sure they're okay, giving them proper training, helping the resident ghost girl not be feared, etc.
    • Though, given that she officially wants Asuna and Negi to be her video-game sub-bosses...Also, it might be that she simply took the "evil" name from the "good" mages, who don't necessarily seem all that good, compared to her. She just only cares about herself and the people she has chosen to care about. The rest, including the world, may go to scrapper.
    • Wilhelm is a literal Noble Demon, despite the fact that he petrified Negi's hometown (because he's forced to do it by the person who summoned him), he drops all sorts of hints that the petrification isn't permanent, and goes out of his way to not hurt any of the girls when he fights Negi, and even gives him some useful advice.
    • Fate as well. He's a rather pleasant guy to be around, civilized, and willing to talk things out. Granted, he does have six young girls working for him. However, he justifies this when it is revealed that five of the six of them are each the sole survivors of destroyed villages that he just happened across, whom he'd helped without question. The sixth is just a battle loving girl who's creepy. When one asks how he forced them into it, he states that the girls volunteered of their own free will. He's saved 57 others. What did he do with them? Kill them? Torture them? Perform unspeakable horrors upon them? Nope. He gave them applications to prestigious boarding schools so that they could grow up into a successful life.
  • Lelouch from Code Geass nearly defines this trope. He kills unimaginable amounts of enemy soldiers and a number of civilians, many of whom were killed in incredibly underhanded and dishonorable manners, and yet he does this all for the sake of his crippled sister, Nunally.
    • Of course, what prevents Lelouch from being the Trope Codifier is the fact that he's one of the heroes, a very dark Anti-Hero and a textbook Byronic Hero, but one of the good guys all the same.
      • Most of the civilian deaths came from a landslide that caused a LOT more damage than Lelouch anticipated. The rest happened after he jumped off the slippery slope.
  • Seto Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh!. The "noble" half is mostly due to his little brother, and the "demon" half is mostly due to his competition with his adopted father growing up.
    • Likewise, it took Edo Phoenix, Kaiba's third Expy in GX, quite a while to reluctantly admit he had become more "hero" and less "anti."
  • Vegeta from Dragonball Z initially sides with Goku out of necessity, simply because Frieza, the Big Bad, also stands between Vegeta, the Namek Dragon Balls, and immortality; later, he does a Heel Face Turn and marries Bulma, though he's still The Rival, and offers little resistance to being possessed by Babidi, since he knows that he didn't kick nearly as much ass as he did when he was still evil.
    • This created something of an Adaptation-Induced Plothole with the anime, which decided to give Vegeta, in one of his earliest appearances, a big Moral Event Horizon crossing while his full redemption in the manga was still two years off. In the episode, Vegeta deposes the cruel dictator of an alien planet... purely to torture the planet's residents by giving them a Hope Spot before killing them all. Many fans who had only seen the anime found his later redemption wholly unbelievable because of this.
    • Piccolo tried to invoke this when he was defeated by the androids, right before going off to fuse with Kami. No-one really fell for it, though...it was kind of half-assed.

Krillen: Wh-what's that look on your face? Do you have a plan?! C'mon, tell us! We're your friends!
Piccolo: Friends?! Don't press your luck. When do you think I became your friend? I'm a demon! Don't you ever forget that!! I'm merely using you-- to take over the world!! *flies away*

  • Zelgadis of The Slayers is self-serving but ultimately keeps coming back to the protagonists...no matter how much they tarnish his vaunted "cool and mysterious sorcerer-swordsman" image.
    • There is also one true demon Mazoku. "The power of the Monster race flows from... terror, anger, sorrow, despair." And he's still the most friendly and nice character in the series most of the time, despite his penchant for painful and infuriating pranks.
      • The novels make this clearer. Xellos sets a city on fire, just to convince Lina to take action. He also blames it on an enemy, to make her even MORE active. This is one of the scenes that proves him a Magnificent Bastard. He definitely appears to be one, though.
  • This trope is reversed and extensively played with in the Hentai OVA Viper GTS; the demons would all be fine upstanding citizens if their job didn't involve taking people's souls (one of them is even initially embarrassed by the idea of doing something dirty in public), while the angels are all ruthless, brutal Knight Templar types who wind up looking more demonic than the demons.
    • It is even mentioned at one point that the souls are only borrowed, to be returned later.
  • In Ushio and Tora, Tora is a tiger-like demon who seems like he'd be eager to eat Ushio if it wasn't for the magic spear he wields. However, the demon needs so little persuasion to help the boy fight various supernatural threats to humanity, you'd almost think Tora secretly enjoys being a defender of the innocent.
  • The protagonist, and some say titular character, of the anime Bastard!! follows this trope somewhat.
  • Black Jack is a milder example, deliberately cultivating a Dr. Jerk reputation but still managing to be a pretty decent guy in the long run.
  • Saiyuki's Kougaiji fits this very well, occasionally subverting the big bad or helping the heroes, despite fighting them throughout the entire manga and being willing to risk anything to steal the scriptures in question.
    • Indeed, Kougaiji (a literal Noble Demon, being a prince) is such a decent guy that he frequently makes the Sanzo-ikkou, nominally Our Heroes, look pretty bad by comparison. In his very first appearance, he not only rescues and forgives a subordinate who's failed her mission, but also refuses to initiate a brawl that Son Goku is spoiling for, because there are too many innocent mortal bystanders around.
    • Adding to his nobility are the facts that his primary motivation is the resurrection of his mother, and that he'll do damn near anything for his half-sister, Lirin, whose mother is the Big Bad, or his subordinates, Yaone and Dokugakuji. He's a very popular leader because he cares about his subordinates. (His kindness to them, in fact, is so diametrically opposite to Sanzo's caustic attitude toward the Sanzo-ikkou that they themselves sometimes rub the monk's nose in it, with predictable results.) In one Filler episode, at least a hundred men are willing to sacrifice their lives to let him summon a monster, cheering for him the whole time, and he even has fangirls. He's actually much more likely to voluntarily invoke The Power of Friendship than the heroes.
    • Part of the point of Sanzo's party is that they're so incredibly NOT the cliched heroes, as they attempt to hammer home a couple times when they meet villagers so utterly happy to meet the heroes purging the evil Youkai menace from the lands, so it's little surprise that Kougaiji often looks less evil than them.
  • Seikon no Qwaser has Katja and, to a lesser extent, Miyuri, who acts as a mean-spirited Ojou, but does not hesitate to step in front of a villainess when Mafuyu is threatened.
  • Yu Yu Hakusho's Hiei fits this trope to a T. Not only is he a demon, but he keeps insisting that he's bad to the bone and cares about nobody, but his actions keep on betraying him. By the end of the series, he's loosened up enough that he actually admits to having friends and he gets emotionally close to a female demon with a past even more ghastly than his.
  • Anything and everything involving Satan and his cronies as written by Go Nagai, including the infamous Devilman series. On the flip side, God is written as being anywhere from a Magnificent Bastard who enjoys toying with humanity to an unabashedly hate-filled cosmic entity who is offended by any life form that fails to prostrate itself before him, and alternates between mind-wiping the planetary populace or ejecting "sin-waves" over the surface, turning anyone with the slightest amount of impure thoughts into homicidal maniacs (the latter example comes from the latest reworking, Demon Lord Dante). The various Devilmen normally wind up fighting Satan's forces initially because he possesses humans in order to manifest on earth, and they can't get over the teachings they've learned prior. (Amon and Dante must be pretty weak mentally to keep getting overpowered by young boys like that.)
  • In Bamboo Blade's Show Within a Show, Blade Braver, Shinaider fits the classic noble demon archetype. Much as Tama considers Red Braver her favorite, her Rival, Rin, is a fan of Shinaider.
  • Saitou Hajime from Rurouni Kenshin is lawfully just and resolutely incorruptible, despite being a generally brutal character.
  • Darker than Black has the Contractor November 11 who frequently references his utter amorality but is unfailingly charming and friendly and protecting towards his co-workers. At the end of the series, when making a Heroic Sacrifice, his fellow Contractors ironically (or perhaps accurately) attribute his extremely altruistic actions to this same amorality/rationality.
    • Come to think of it, the protagonist, Hei, could also count as one of these, given the emphasis in the final episode of the first season on how he pretends to be the amoral, badass Black Reaper, but is actually a sensitive guy who is haunted by all of the killing and dubious acts he has to do.
  • Greed from Fullmetal Alchemist is a definite example of this, being, by far, the least violent of the homunculi and a Benevolent Boss in contrast to his "siblings'" egregious use of You Have Outlived Your Usefulness. This quality of his is probably more pronounced in the manga, especially with the second incarnation of Greed. Toward the end of the manga, he fights alongside the heroes and even rescues people, which he justifies with having nothing better to do/his desire to take power for himself.
    • Scar definitely counts as well.
  • A big part of the plot of the manga Devil and Devil involves the main character Sword desperately trying to avoid falling into this trope...and failing spectacularly. Notably, he was a powerful and vicious Blood Knight of a devil before being forced to occupy a human vessel to survive.
  • Raoh of Fist of the North Star demonstrates the traits of a Noble Demon throughout the series: sure, he'll subjugate the people of the wasteland to his will, but if his men are ruthlessly torturing villagers, then he won't hesitate to trample them to death atop his horse Koko-goh. Additionally, Raoh sheds a river of Tender Tears when his weaker, radiation-addled brother, Toki, cannot fulfill his childhood promise to stop Raoh's ambitions. Raoh openly shows respect for the bravery of the heroes who fall in battle, and notably orders his men to give Juza a Hero's Funeral for putting up an exceptionally valiant fight against him. He sheds further Tender Tears when compelled to kill Yuria, the final step in his transformation to godhood, yet could not because even a tyrant like him was deeply moved with respect for her kindness and nobility. The fact that he doesn't even kill Yuria but prolongs her life in spite of her radiation sickness so she can live on with Kenshiro shows his Vader-like redemption from Noble Demon to affectionate older brother.
    • Kenshiro's uncle, Kasumi Kenshiro, in the prequel Fist of the Blue Sky, is also this, only that he is a kind-hearted version as he is a loyal dragon to the drug gang Qing Bang.
  • Mugen of Samurai Champloo is a Heroic Sociopath who is open about not caring about anyone but himself and liking violence for its own sake. However, those same qualities make him unwilling to join with villains, scorning their self-importance and the idea of him following anyone. Moreover, despite his frequent complaints about her, he will always come to the rescue of Fuu when she is danger.
  • Viral of Gurren Lagann shows Noble Demon qualities, particularly in his battle against Simon and Yoko. He is appalled by the fact that he's being beaten by Simon rather than Kamina, but when he learns of Kamina's death, he allows Simon to let the injured Yoko stray to the sidelines before grappling with Simon's Gurren Lagann.
    • Because she's just SOOOO much safer on the floor in a room where giant robots are fighting instead of inside one of them.
    • "Stupid...but noble."
  • Madara from Natsume Yuujinchou is a powerful man-eating ayakashi who is next in line to inherit the main character's MacGuffin, and has repeatedly stated that he wants nothing more than for said main character to hurry up and die so he can claim it. Nonetheless, he follows Natsume around as a bodyguard and saves his life on numerous occasions. He usually gets very defensive when other ayakashi point out that he's essentially Natsume's servant, usually deflecting the accusations by claiming that the main character is his pet or his prey (hence why he'll beat the crap out of anyone else who tries to hurt him).
  • Most of the mafiosos and camorristas in Baccano!! are Neighbourhood Friendly Gangsters at most. Luck Gandor, in particular, lives this trope, with both Firo and Claire separately remarking that, deep down, he's too nice to really be cut out for a life at the top of a Mafia family. He pushes himself to act cold and ruthless in order to be able to properly fill the role.
  • Papillion from Busou Renkin is ruthless in his quest to become a homunculus, but this is just because he's sickly and dying, and wants immortality. Once he's become a homunculus, he's content to just observe, provide covert aid for the heroes, wear a disturbingly flamboyant costume, and, in the end, become an urban legend to schoolgirls. It helps that, due to his imperfect metamorphosis, he doesn't need to eat humans like other homunculi do.
  • Ashuraman in Kinnikuman is this both literally (he is the prince of the Demon World) and figuratively (the reason for his loss and concurrent Heel Face Turn in the Tag Tournament arc is because he's touched by the Power of Friendship). For that matter, his trainer, Samson Teacher, qualifies as this as well, planting the seed of friendship into Ashuraman through saving his life.
  • Haruo Nijima from Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple is a very complex character. A "close" friend (of sorts) of the titular character, Kenichi Shirahama, he is commonly referred to by various characters as an alien due to his likewise features: long pointed ears, sharp hooking nose, glaring eyes, and fanged teeth. He has even been known to be able to protude two arrow-headed antennas from the top of his head. As if that's not bad enough, he openly proclaims himself to be evil, and does nothing to discourage this belief amongst other parties. Worse, he dreams to one day rule the world (albeit not in a conquery sort of way); and to this end, he (somehow) formed a fighter group that he hopes would garner enough media attention to make his dream world conquest a reality. Basically, he is an ambitious power-grabber who relishes in bossing everyone around (mostly Kenichi). Despite this, as the key founder of the Shinpaku Alliance (which Kenichi and several other principal characters are part of), he seems to prioritize the well-being of his comrades more than anything else, and is not above resorting to being a living bait to lure danger away.
  • Mujuro from Ninja Scroll saves the two protagonists from precariously dangling over a cliff, just so that he can challenge Jubei, the male protagonist, to an honorable duel. He notably gets the cleanest and quickest death out of all of the villains.
  • Hyper Metal Sonic from Sonic The Hedgehog: The Movie.
  • Anubis from Ronin Warriors.[context?]
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
    • Part 2 has Whammu, who is extremely honorable and respectful of his foe Joseph Joestar.
    • Several members of Passione in Part 5, mainly the unnamed gangster Giorno saved when he was a child, Team Buccielatti and Giorno himself. They have a fearsome reputation from their criminal activities (that include murders) and don't want to be considered good guys (Buccielatti's initial opposition to Narancia joining the gang and refusal to be seen as a role model by him despite everything he does for him are quite telling) and yet are still in good terms with the rest of the population and seem to help them out more than they do harm. They have in common their disgust of drug dealing for the harm it causes to the community (and teenagers above all) and are on a crusade to end it.
  • Beezle from The Fantastic Adventures of Unico is an obnoxious little hellion and a Card-Carrying Villain, but he was raised by his father to keep his promises, to the point of swimming out into a stormy ocean (which is doubly dangerous for Beezle, as sea water is poison to devils) to save Unico from drowning.
  • Hild from Ah! My Goddess qualifies to a point. She is still evil, as proven by her efforts to make Belldandy into a demon or to break up Belldandy and Keichii just to see if she could piss the former off enough to do something evil, but Hild enforces an entire existence of somewhat-noble demons, demons that live by making pacts and are bound in an agreement to never kill goddesses (though they can still fight them). She genuinely loves her daughter, Urd (though that won't stop her from beating the crap out of Urd if Urd stands in her way), and is distinctly less evil than many in Niflheim, evidenced when those more evil revolted against her.
  • In A Certain Magical Index, early villain Accelerator becomes this after his character development and Heel Face Turn to Type IV Anti-Hero near the end of the first season. Although he secretly wants to be a hero, he still thinks of himself as a villain no better than the ones he now kills (and proclaims this loudly even to those he has rescued) since he doesn't believe he can be forgiven after slaughtering 10031 clones. Much later in the novels He ditches this trope and being a Card-Carrying Villain entirely and shifts to a Type III Anti-Hero, declaring that villainy was just not working out for him and instead moves to Beyond Good and Evil
  • Digimon Tamers: Impmon/Beelzemon is a weird example. He's prideful in his abilities, but as such, he's known for not attacking weak Digimon. The likely reason is that he feels it would be a waste of power, making this a subversion. Post-Heel Face Turn he becomes a literal noble demon. Still, when compared to the other Demon Lords...
  • Chrono from Chrono Crusade may count as a literal example of this.[context?]
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