Anti Hero / Western Animation

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• Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time is a benevolent ruler who does whatever she has to for the Candy Kingdom, but her devotion to being the best ruler possible makes her distrustful and emotionally cold. She sometimes makes very morally dubious choices for what she considers the greater good and engages in sneaky political maneuvering. Most recently it's been revealed that she constantly spies on the entire world, including her most loyal allies and servants.
• The titular character of The Amazing World of Gumball is this. He's mischievous, excessively snarky, never learns from his mistakes, and thinks highly of himself (to the point where one episode reveals that there are other students at Elmore Junior High - it just that he thinks the world revolves around him, which causes him to not acknowledge them). However, he's a pretty nice person who loves his family and friends and can do good if he needs to.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force: All four main characters apply.
  • Master Shake, natch. Although he's the self-proclaimed leader and does have his moments, he's nothing but a vile, ruthless, self-serving, lazy, narcissistic, and cynical sociopath who takes great pleasure in tormenting his roommates, using others for granted, and is all around a loud-mouthed Jerkass with very few redeeming qualities.
  • Frylock isn't as bad as Shake and is a responsible leader who'll usually lead the way, but there are times where he will grab the Jerkass Ball and show how bad he can be when pushed too far. Just watch Season 6's "Fry Legs" and you'll see what we mean.
  • Meatwad, while the most optimistic and kind-hearted of the three heroes, is oftentimes too stupid to be useful, and is prone to acting like a Manchild. There are also moments where he'll dish out some revenge at Master Shake and grab the Jerkass Ball (such as "Balloonenstein" and "Bookie").
  • The Aqua Teens' neighbor, Carl. Although he's usually the voice of reason, he's a fat, grumpy pervert who is often annoyed by the shenanigans of the Aqua Teens (particularly with Shake) and acts like an asshole most of the time.
• Most of the main characters of Archer qualify for this, with the possible exception of Malory. They're barely competent, borderline sociopathic, and tend to cause more problems than they solve, but they're still usually on the side of good and are very much capable of saving the day - albeit by the skin of their teeth. This even extends to when they form a drug cartel, since they still wind up saving an unknown country from a nerve gas attack.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender
  • Prince Zuko is something of an anti-hero, albeit he's the secondary character. Dark and misunderstood, Zuko operates under the sole motive of regaining his lost honor, and not always admirably so. Although he turns himself around in the end. Since then, he fully plays the anti-hero role straight—he is impatient, uptight, and he thinks ideals should be forgone when facing the big threat.
  • Jet too. At first, he seems like a romantic, handsome, vigilante freedom fighter, but he's willing to go to horrifying extremes to defeat the Fire Nation. Later, he goes straight. Unfortunately, Redemption Equals Death.
• The Legend of Korra continues the Avatar tradition:
  • Before her Character Development, the eponymous character is this trope, due to certain merciless points of her personality:
    • Korra might be a bit brash, arrogant and hot-tempered, but her heart is always in the right place, she always fights for what's right, and always tries to help people out whenever possible. Push her too far though and she will show the ruthless side, as she did to Tarrlok whom she appeared ready to kill or seriously injure.
    • Really kicked up a notch in "Civil Wars, Part 2", where Korra publicly threatens to kill Judge Hotah when he sentences her father and a group of rebel southern water tribesmen to death, then later (after the sentence was reduced to life imprisonment) used Naga to intimidate him into reversing his decision. Once she discovered that the trial was a set-up, she threatened to have Naga eat him if he didn't spill everything he knew.
    • Goes even further in the finale of Book 3. Believing that Zaheer has killed her father and understandably enraged, Korra vows to kill every Red Lotus member in front of her, though she ends up focusing her attention on Zaheer.
    • Later in Book 4, Korra starts to grow humble as maturity and the lessons learned in her long fight against heavy metal poisoning cause her to moderate her aggressive impulses and attempt to solve things with peaceful negotiation first, using ass-beating only when that fails.
  • Mako has a dark side to him as well, having the capacity to kill or harm anyone who wrongs his brother and friends. This was particularly evident when he threatened an Equalist by raising a flaming fist when seeking information regarding Korra's whereabouts. Thankfully, he got better in the end.
  • Lin Beifong, Toph's daughter, becomes this after losing her men in Hiroshi's ambush. She promptly resigns from her place in the police to handle the Equalists in other ways. She ends up being reinstated in the following season.
  • Avatar Wan used to be this as he started off as a savvy Street Urchin who essentially stole firebending from the Lion Turtle. Eventually, he develops into a more proper hero.
• The eponymous character in the cartoon version of Beetlejuice is rude, gross, mean, perverted (though not as much as he is in the movie), and willing to scam even his own friends out of their money. His redeeming qualities? He cares deeply for Lydia and will do anything to make her happy.
• BoJack Horseman has quite a lot, actually. The main point of the series is to tear down any notion of a completely innocent person involved with show business, charities, agencies, etc. so it stands to reason some of the so-called "heroes" would have some less than savory characteristics.
  • BoJack Horseman is an abrasive, lazy, bitter older man that resists any attempts to change himself for the better when he can help it. But deep down, especially when he's sober, he's a surprisingly intelligent and thoughtful guy that really does care for the few people he can consider friends.
  • Princess Carolyn is a self-involved agent who will not hesitate to throw someone under the train if the person can be used as a scapegoat, not above using dirty tactics to get what she wants or attending funerals to fish some possible clients, but deep down, she's not a bad person. She'll handle you and get you jobs any way she can, even if she's keeping most of the fee and kind of mooching off you. You might call her an heroic Svengali.
  • Diane is a writer with a strong sense of morality, a no-nonsense attitude willing to fight for the overlooked, and apologize when she has gone too far. Nevertheless, she'll overstep personal relationships and privacy in her search for the truth embodied in her books, she tries to hype up her sense of worth through stories because of the crushing drudgery of everyday life, and she has an underlying fear that she may be part of the problem instead of the solution, or worse, that her work may not be important in the grand scheme of things.
  • Mr. Peanutbutter, opposite of BoJack, is outwardly friendly, has a nice disposition, loves to give money to new projects and tries to be a good friend to anyone he meets as well as a good boyfriend/husband to Diane. If taken at face value, he'd be an Ideal Hero. However, he's only willing to be generous to those willing to play it nice and easy like him, doesn't like to think about any sort of philosophical question and is jarringly dismissive of any talk about real problems.
  • Todd is a lazy slacker mooching off BoJack's wealth and loneliness to eat and sleep in his couch and who's first appearances could put Jeffrey Lebowski to shame. He's also plagued with indecision, guilt and a lack of direction in his life which often results in him jumping at the first opportunity to do something he deems good. Surprisingly, he's also the character with the biggest moral compass in the series.
  • Kelsey Jannings is a grumpy, cynical director whose passion for directing and writing in her projects has cost her by way of a divorce and custody battles with her ex-wife for their daughter Irving. Caring for the job and passionate about the projects, she nevertheless has adopted a darwinist approach to her career, especially in "director-for-pay" gigs such as the Secretariat biopic. When push comes to shove, she's one of the most honest people in the business as well as the one you might want to have in your team should you choose to try to go against the studio for the sake of making a good movie.
  • Ana Spanakopita is a Hollywood Hype Machine incarnated: promotion and PR mean everything to her since her job demands an Oscar winning assured for her customers. To get there, she's willing to twist arms and crack as many heads as possible without any hint of remorse. Insult and brutal honesty are just part of her world, yet she's shown to make a serious attempt at a serious professional/romantic relationship with BoJack and always stands up for her clients....as long as they're her clients, of course.
  • Officer Meow-Meow Fuzzyface is a cop dedicated to justice and police work in any way, jumping form scene to scene to catch his man. His methods often include screaming at people, pulling out his gun for little to no reason, making any kind of puns he can think in the moment and just generally being too Hot-Blooded to be considered nothing but a "loose cannon". Actually, the entire Hollywoo PD is this, spending more time bickering, arguing over the nature of its police officers and obsessed with image than doing the kind of police work they're good at.
  • Sebastian St. Claire is a Gentleman Adventurer who does charity work partially to feed his own narcissism and partially to shut up the "phantom cries" of the sick and dying that haunt him. That said, he is actually doing some good work, but his inability to reconcile his philanthropy with his egotism is what drives Diane to quit her job as his biographer.
• The Boondocks:
  • Huey Freeman dreams of a better society, but is not very tactful about it.
  • One-shot character, Agent Jack Flowers, is another example of this rule, being a secret agent who tortures and kills terrorists for a living. He seems ruthless at first, though he's actually morally conflicted about his job.
• Bugs Bunny may be the first fully realized anti-hero in animation, coming right around the time Ideal Heroes like Mickey Mouse were falling out of favor. Bugs goes from being a Heroic Comedic Sociopath to Karmic Trickster.
• In the 2017 animated series of Castlevania for Netflix, Trevor Belmont is the glaring example. Life has been rough on this guy, and he has become desensitized to the death and destruction. However, he is a Belmont, and when called to fight, he will still answer.
• Wallabee Beatles aka Numbuh 4 from Codename: Kids Next Door. He is brash, rude, and tends to think with his fists over his brain and likes to solve problems with fighting, but he is firmly on the hero's side and will turn all his fighting prowess into hurting whoever messes with his friends or family.
  • Numbuh 86 is one of these as well. She is the head of the Decommissioning Squad and tends to take her job rather seriously. She is also a Straw Feminist and will loudly yell at just about everyone, especially boys. However, much like Numbuh 4, she is still firmly on the hero's side and will admit when she makes a big enough screw up.
• Dan Vs.: Who else but the psychopathic, titular protagonist?! A lot of his revenge schemes are mostly instigated through minuscule provocations, and he makes absolutely no distinction towards the people who he declares vengeance against, whether they meant to cause him any harm or not. In addition, he doesn't treat his only friend, Chris, with much respect, and usually lets Chris suffer whatever misfortune he encounters just to have things go his way. Of course, most of the time, Dan's targets coincidentally end up to be out to get him after all, thus making them even worse than Dan himself, which makes many viewers root for Dan almost every time.
• Valerie Gray, a ghost hunter who targets Danny Phantom (despite the titular protagonist being an heroic ghost).
• The title character of El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera is a preteen super deciding between the heroic path of his father and the villainous one of his grandfather. Most of the time he stays as a good guy, but he's not above misdeeds like a prank or breaking the law for some selfish fun. Lampshaded in one episode when he's subjected to a machine designed to tell whether one is a hero or villain and it explodes!
• Stewie Griffin from Family Guy is an good example. He was originally a Villain Protagonist, but became increasingly nicer and evolved into a more-or-less good guy as the series progressed.
• Most of the cast of Futurama, except Bender, who is straight-up Nominal Hero. Fry and Leela are the nicest, but they're also very flawed people who often endanger their friends or threaten the greater good for their own ends.
• In Generator Rex, there's... well, the title character, who, while a good guy in his own right, has demonstrated reckless, utterly selfish behaviour.
  • White Knight is the nominally Big Good version. He can be reasonable, yet it's shown that he is a competent, if stern and cynical, leader.
• Mandy from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy is this at her best or straight up Villain Protagonist at her worst. Mostly, it's all about her and follows Pragmatic Villainy.
  • The Grim Reaper himself is also this, when the greater evil threatens the world or Billy and Mandy.
  • Hoss Delgado is the Good Is Not Nice flavor. He believes that all monsters are a threat, which causes him to murder any monster he ever sees, even innocent and harmless ones.
• In Home Movies, Brendon can be quite stubborn and brash, but he means well and he is a decent person underneath.
• Gaz from Invader Zim is an Anti-Hero, or even a Sociopathic Hero. Dib qualifies as well, though he often verges on Hero Antagonist.
• Viper from Jackie Chan Adventures becomes this after her Heel–Face Turn. From her second appearance onward, she is an ally, but not quite as heroic or law-abiding as Jackie.
• Heloise is this to the extent from Jimmy Two-Shoes.
• The titular character of Kaeloo is an interesting case of this trope. Despite being a good person as well as her All-Loving Hero personality, she seems to have a dark aspect of Hulking Out.
  • Stumpy may qualify as well. Despite having been proven to be a good friend to Kaeloo and the others, and having a good heart, he often does morally ambiguous things such as stealing money from his mom's purse to buy comic books, and he also sees Villain Protagonist Mr. Cat as his role model.
• Discord from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has become this following his Heel–Face Turn. Most notably in the season four premiere, where he knows exactly what's going on but doesn't tell our heroes anything or help them. Then again, he doesn't hurt them, he points them in the right direction, and teaches Twilight a lesson about princesses and friendship, but he does it in the most offensive way possible. In short, while he has since behaved himself, he is still mischievously naughty.
• Ready Jet Go!: Mitchell Peterson is this at his best moments. He's rude, condescending, and sneaky, but his Pet the Dog moments show that he's a good person deep down.
• In Samurai Jack, two of the titular character's most trusted allies are these in certain aspects:
  • The Scotsman is the Good Is Not Nice variant. He is quite a bit more unscrupulous than Jack, though he's still a good guy.
  • Ashi becomes this trope after her Heel–Face Turn. While firmly on Jack's side and desiring to do what's best for the world, she's way more ruthless and vicious than Jack, and has zero qualms about killing other humans (as shown with the Dominator and her own mother) who are her enemies.
• In The Simpsons, three members of the Simpson family are this to an certain degree:
  • Homer Simpson manages to be a combination of both a Classical Anti-Hero and an Unscrupulous Hero.
  • Bart Simpson is an Unscrupulous Hero example of this term. However, he can be a Pragmatic Hero on his good days.
  • Even Maggie Simpson demonstrates that she can become this with her competence with firearms and the ending to "Master and Cadaver" where she channels Alex DeLarge.
• All main characters from South Park verge on anti-heroism on occasion, though Cartman often verges on Villain Protagonist. Usually they learn their lesson at the end, however, and often are shown to be morally superior to the adults in town.
  • Played much more straight with Mysterion (who is later revealed to be Kenny.) When it comes down to it, he's a good guy who has made many a Heroic Sacrifice, but is often cynical to go along with it due to how often he dies.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • Squidward Tentacles is this at his best moments. He's rather cranky, sarcastic, and hates most people around him, but his Pet the Dog moments show that he's a good person deep down.
  • Mr. Krabs is also this, in an odd sense. As far as "anti-hero" goes, when fighting against a megalomaniac sea plankton he can come of as kind of heroic, sometimes. However, despite his Flanderization, there are some episodes that show he is still a good guy.
• Star Wars Rebels:
  • Hera Syndulla has no delusions about how difficult the fight about the Empire will be, and is occasionally willing to make difficult choices for the rebel cause, despite being The Idealist.
  • Sabine Wren may seem idealistic at first glance, but she's rather rough around the edges. In the pilot, she's willing to leave Ezra behind with the Imperials, under the (initially) correct assumption that he'd be used as bait, making the rescue futile. She's also quick to side against helping a Heel Realization Tua due to belief that it wasn't genuine and same reasoning as the aforementioned situation, and cast Revenge on Rau for nearly killing Hera, refusing to listen to Kanan's reasons for practicality.
  • Chopper may be on the side of good, but he's also the Token Evil Teammate.
  • After his Heel–Face Turn, Kallus becomes this. While he Took a Level in Kindness, due to both his position as The Mole and the methods he's familiar with, he's still willing to make sadistic choices if he has to, such as framing an officer who he'd been on good terms with so he isn't caught.
• In the 2012 version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, quite few of characters are this to some degree:
  • Raphael is mainly of the Pragmatic Hero variety, but in "Never Say Xever" he goes a bit more towards He Who Fights Monsters.
  • Slash is this after his Heel–Face Turn.
  • Alopex is gunning for Tiger Claw, but she's not above using cursed weapons on him to settle the feud...or testing said weapons out on would-be-obstacles in her way, like Casey Jones.
• Thomas & Friends:
  • Gordon the Big Engine is pompous, arrogant, and looks down on other engines, but in spite of his large ego, he has shown to help an engine in need.
  • Like Gordon, James the Red Engine is vain, conceited, and hot-tempered, but has his moments of helping out an engine in spite of his vanity.
  • In rare instances, Diesel is this. He is portrayed as an engine who wants to do good work and be recognized for his talents, but doesn't know the right way to do so and ends up hurting or upsetting others.
• Plucky from Tiny Toon Adventures.
• Both Tom and Jerry can be classified as anti-heroes; Tom, being a cat, is a natural predator, and he wants to protect his owner's house from being ransacked by Jerry—by tormenting and sometimes trying to eat him. Jerry, on the other hand, wants to survive and live life a little longer—by seriously injuring Tom.
• In Total Drama, some of the contestants stand out as this:
  • Gwen: If not for her anti-social attitude and awkwardness, she would be an Ideal Hero.
  • Duncan: A mixture of Pragmatic Hero and Nominal Hero. He enjoys being bad just for the sake of it, but is really a good person underneath.
  • Sierra: Type II in World Tour. She's far from your stereotypical, noble, selfless hero, and she's hated by most of the castdue to her weird antics. Almost all of her heroic deeds are done solely to benefit Cody, and she has also committed a few selfish and antagonistic acts for him as well. Aside from this, she's reasonably nice to the other contestants as long as they don't mess with Cody. Likewise, she helps the main cast regain their determination to get back to fame in the Total Drama Action special. During All-Stars, Cody's absence causes her to shift into neutral territory and she spends most of her time on the island obsessing over Cody and Cameron instead of competing seriously. For her troubles, though, she still gets placed on the hero team.
  • Shawn: Somewhere between the Disney and Classical subtypes. While he is certainly not a villain and is quite friendly to almost everyone, he has quite a few selfish traits, such as having a very self-centered survivalist style of thinking and being a bit of a coward. That said, he grows into an more selfless person from now on.
  • In Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race, MacArthur can resort to questionable means, and can often be quite rude, but usually remains on the good side.
• The Transformers series Beast Wars had a handful of characters who would arguably qualify, most notably (but by no means limited to)...
  • Dinobot, a Defector from Decadence who never lost his Predacon sense of warrior honour - but had a tendency to push for the more aggressive option.
  • Rattrap, a Jerk with a Spark of Gold, Combat Pragmatist and Lovable Rogue who gleefully insulted, lied, cheated and stole his way through the war (and was one of its few survivors) and yet remained a good guy (and occasional Maximal Commander) throughout.
  • Depth Charge, gritty loner determined to bring Protoform X to justice.
  • And, in Season 3, Blackarachnia, who joins the Maximals mainly to save herself, although Silverbolt's constant romantic/chivalric advances may have had something to do with it.
  • Later series have this as well, including Ultra Magnus in Transformers: Robots in Disguise and Starscream in Transformers: Armada.
• The Mask:
  • Stanley Ipkiss is nice, kind, sweet and polite but is weak willed and a doormat as he lets people walk over him along with being taken advantage of as well.
  • The Mask is a charismatic man who is nice, sweet, kind and polite to people, a Friend to All Children and also a Papa Wolf but he is a very lazy troll who likes to goof off half of the time and partying as well but he will get himself back on track and save the day. The Mask though annoyed by people at time genuinely cares about them so he will always do the right thing in the end showing himself to be a good-hearted man.
• In Xiaolin Showdown, Klofange is rather trigger-happy since his first appearance has him shoot explosives at Dyris when the Xiaolin Dragons just saved her from the freezing water, so they naturally defend her from him. He's also quite scary-looking. Once Dyris' true nature gets elaborated on, he's firmly in the right.
• Yogi Bear may qualify. He doesn't attack people, but just takes their picnic baskets.

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