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Uncover the stories of misguided anime characters like Suguru Geto, who begin as heroes but take a dark turn due to circumstances.
Sometimes, anime characters with the potential for goodness become misguided due to the circumstances they face in life. People perceive them as villains, but they are not inherently evil, like Suguru Geto from Jujutsu Kaisen. He did not start out being a threat to the heroes of the story. He saw corruption in the world of sorcerers and wanted to restore balance by taking things into his own hands. This approach led him to go astray and become a villain.
In this article let us explore characters similar to Geto and learn why they can be called misguided anime characters.
1) Sasuke Uchiha (Naruto)
Sasuke was the only Uchiha Clan survivor after his brother Itachi wiped out everyone, including their parents. After this loss, he begins his journey as a silent, reserved, and brilliant ninja student. He becomes a member of Team 7 with Sakura and Naruto, led by Kakashi. In his heart, the feeling of vengeance keeps on consuming him as he is not able to forgive his brother. This leads Sasuke to dedicate his life to gaining power by any means and seeking revenge against his brother.
Sasuke walks away from his teammates and joins a dangerous figure Orochimaru, and ultimately seeks to destroy Konoha. Emotionally misguided, Sasuke loses sight of right and wrong. Naruto never gives up on his friend and remains determined to bring Sasuke back. However, after all that effort, Sasuke chooses to stick with his ideology and spirals deep into the dark path, constantly ignoring his friends.
Sasuke, much like Geto, believes that the only way to reclaim justice is by being violent ironically was about to take the same path as his brother Itachi did.
2) Scar (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)
Scar begins his story with noble intentions, but vengeance corrupts his actions. He is a survivor of the Ishvalan War, where thousands of people of his nation were victims of this war and lost their lives. This makes him see the Amestrian alchemists as the enemy, so he goes on a quest to hunt them down and kill them in the name of justice for his people. He continues inflcting ruthless violence and stops believing that peace is an option in his life.
His anger is justified due to the genocide his people suffered, but his actions remain questionable. He fails to differentiate between those responsible for his loss and those uninvolved. Like Geto, Scar initially believes eradicating a certain group will bring justice but later realizes the flaws in his ideology.
3) Thorfinn (Vinland Saga)
Thorfinn’s life could have been better if revenge had not ruled over him. After witnessing the assassination of his father, he decides that he will dedicate his entire existence to avenging him. He believes that Askeladd’s crew members used him as a hostage to successfully kill his father, and he blames himself. He trains himself to become a warrior solely to challenge his father’s killer in a duel like his father and kill Askeladd. Thorfinn completely forgets about his father’s teaching as he transforms into a killing machine.
However, this pursuit robs him of his childish innocence and humanity, turning him into a hollow shell of a boy who is bloodthirsty and a ruthless murderer. His misguided belief is that revenge will bring him peace. Fortunately, Thorfinn realizes in time that continuing down this path would only bring more suffering before he could face death. So, finally he decides to lead his life in peace and follow Thor’s way of life.
4) Tsukasa Shishio (Dr. Stone)
Tsukasa Shishio was the main antagonist in the first arc. After petrification, he decided to revive humanity based on his beliefs. Shishio refused to revive adults and influential figures, believing they would continue the cycle of corruption and repeat past mistakes.
Meanwhile, he wanted to take the position of a leader to choose who gets to be saved from the petrified state. In his eyes, it was a golden opportunity to create a better world, a world where there would not be any shady business. These ideals, in their true essence, were not wrong, but Shishio eliminated those who did not fit into his vision. He replaced democracy with dictatorship, which was questionable and made him a misguided anime character.
5) Light Yagami (Death Note)
Light Yagami comes across Death Note, a book that can kill anyone whose name is written in it. After gaining this power, he decides to take up the responsibility of ridding the world of criminals and creating a utopia where he gets to be God.
As time passes, Light makes some questionable choices and changes his rules and ideals constantly as he sees fit. Light starts killing anyone who goes against him or threatens to reveal his secret identity. He becomes a ruthless dictator, and his intentions soon become corrupt. His god complex corrupts him beyond redemption and his elitist mindset sticks with him till his last breath.
6) Stain (My Hero Academia)
Stain, the infamous Hero Killer, is another character whose ideals, though not entirely wrong, are taken to dangerous extremes. He felt that hero society is not full of heroes who believe in justice, rather they join it for wealth and fame. It is true that the series had corrupt heroes, but it was not his place to take action violently against them.
His method was pretty extreme as murdered those he deemed unworthy—making him a villain. Somewhere the ideology got twisted as he began hunting them based on his assumptions. Like Geto, Stain was a character whose warped sense of justice led him down a destructive path. And this idealogy was flawed as it kept on changing as per his convenience.
7) Eren Yeager (Attack on Titan)
Eren Yeager had one of the most dramatic transformations in anime from a protagonist to an antagonist. He knew the pain of losing his family when a titan attacked his hometown. He decided to join the Survey Corps and fight for the freedom of his people. It made him determined to escape the walls and explore the world. However, as the truth about the Titans was uncovered and they realized that there was a world beyond Paradise, he became increasingly ruthless.
By the final season, he committed mass genocide, believing that wiping out almost all of humanity was the only way to secure a chance of survival for the people he cared about. He was willing to sacrifice himself and become a villain. Like Geto, Eren started with a noble goal but became so consumed by his ideology that he lost sight of his humanity.
8) Yukine (Noragami)
Yukine, a spirit in Noragami, struggles with his new existence as he is appointed to be Yato’s shiniki. Unlike the other misguided anime characters on this list, his misguided actions stem more from immaturity than grand ideals and being a victim of manipulation by Yato’s father.
As a soul, he constantly was jealous of the living and made some questionable choices, which led him to lose his purity and indulge in darkness. His negative emotions and acts of betrayal caused Yato to suffer. Basically, Yukine’s story is on a smaller scale as he experiences suffering and responds by acting out in ways that harm himself and others.
9) Shou Kusakabe (Fire Force)
Shou Kusakabe was the younger brother of protagonist Shinra. He was kidnapped as a child by the White Clad organization, all because he had Adolla Burst, a rare and powerful pyrokinetic ability. He fully believed in the Evangelist’s ideology and fought against his brother, as manipulation by the organization erased his memories of his true family. Furthermore, he suppressed his emotions and memories, ensuring his unwavering allegiance.
Shou was a victim of circumstance, who was influenced by external forces to be someone who acted against his own best interests.
10) Jellal Fernandes (Fairy Tail)
As a child, Jellal was kind and happy. This all changed when his captors threw him into slavery in the Tower of Heaven, where Ultear Milkovich manipulated him into giving him the task of ensuring that Zeref was resurrected. He became someone whose mission in life was to resurrect Zeref, no matter the consequence. Jellal betrayed his friends, including Erza Scarlet, to complete the task.
His actions became questionable as he went around betraying Ezra and treating her like a sacrifice. Jellal struggled with being good and evil. After his defeat, he began his path of redemption, giving himself a chance to atone for his sins. Unlike Geto, who had crossed so much and given into evil that his death was the only option.
Conclusion
Usually, all these characters started with good intentions but somewhere along the line became delusional, thus fitting into our list of misguided anime characters. Their choices in life never resulted in them having a happy ending. Characters like these teach us that having a noble thought is not enough; the approach also matters. The road to being righteous is very difficult, and if one loses sight of the goal by choosing an easy path they could enter darkness real soon.
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