Which Villains In Anime Immortality Plots Are Sympathetic?

Who doesn’t feel a twinge of sympathy for someone who’s been cursed with immortality? I’m the kind of fan who re-watches scenes to catch tiny details, and a few standouts always draw my empathy. Zeref from 'Fairy Tail' is a clear example—his curse makes him kill what he loves unintentionally, so his villainy feels like a tragic side effect of being unable to belong. He oscillates between wanting atonement and falling into despair, which humanizes him in a big way.

Then there’s DIO from 'JoJo's Bizarre Adventure'—pure charisma mixed with monstrous ambition. He’s a textbook villain, but his backstory and his obsessive hunger for power and survival make him oddly compelling. He isn’t someone I root for, but I get why he became what he is. Alucard from 'Hellsing' complicates things too: immortal, terrifying, but occasionally reflective about his endless existence. He’s monstrous and yet miserable, and that contrast is weirdly sympathetic.

I suppose my soft spot is for villains who aren’t just evil for evil’s sake. When writers give them fear, loneliness, or a cursed fate as the engine for their actions, I find myself thinking about mortality and empathy long after the credits roll.

If you ask me, the most sympathetic immortality-driven villains are the ones who are painfully lonely rather than purely malicious. Zeref ('Fairy Tail') tops my list—his curse forces him into isolation and unintended harm, and that sorrow makes him tragic rather than simply evil. Orochimaru ('Naruto') also gets my sympathy because his obsession with living forever comes from a genuine terror of death mixed with a scientist’s curiosity; it ruins him, but you can trace the steps.

Griffith from 'Berserk' is complicated: his sacrifice for transcendence is monstrous, but his yearning to realize a dream and the wounds that led him there make his fall almost Shakespearean. Muzan ('Demon Slayer') is more monstrous than many, yet his origins as a sick, frightened child and his obsessive wish to be human again give a sorrowful angle to his atrocities.

I’m not excusing any of them, but when a villain’s immortality plot is rooted in fear, grief, or obsession, I can’t help but feel for them. It’s that tension—human pain making monstrous choices—that keeps me hooked on these shows.

Sometimes late at night I’ll find myself replaying the scenes that made me feel weirdly sad for the ‘bad guy’—there’s something about immortality stories that zooms in on the loneliness of being unable to die. Take Zeref from 'Fairy Tail'. He’s done horrible things, but the core is a curse that makes him watch life die around him and causes death itself to react to him. That isolation, the accidental murders, and his longing for a normal connection—especially his relationship to Natsu and Mavis—turn him from a cartoonish villain into a tragic figure. I always end up sympathizing with his aching confusion more than excusing his crimes.

Orochimaru from 'Naruto' is another one I can’t help but understand. His experiments and monstrous decisions come from a desperate, obsessive fear of death and a ravenous curiosity. I’ve had friends who geek out about his science, but what really gets me is the way his pursuit of knowledge eats his humanity. Even his mentorship to people like Sasuke has these weirdly tender moments that make him feel less like a mustache-twirler and more like someone who lost his moral compass trying to outrun mortality.

Then there’s Father from 'Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood' and, in a different register, Muzan from 'Demon Slayer'. Father’s origin—being a fragment of something lonely, hungry for power to fill an existential void—reads almost like a cautionary tale about absolutism and emptiness. Muzan’s cruelty hides a pathetic, terrified human backstory, which doesn’t excuse him but gives an uncomfortable context to his fear-driven brutality. Villains who chase immortality are often more pitiable than purely evil, because the wish to keep living is so fundamentally human.

I don’t mean to forgive them, but these characters remind me how writers turn a universal fear—the dread of death—into complicated, heartbreaking motivations. They make the story richer, and they stick with me long after the last episode ends.