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"Oh, monster of so little size... is that a parasprite before my eyes?"

Cute is Evil is Exactly What It Says on the Tin: cute-looking characters that are on the evil end.

This trope occurs because, similar to other tropes such as Light Is Not Good, it neatly subverts the audience's expectations and keeps them guessing as to where the plot will go and where characters fall under the morality scale. Plus, the contrast can be just plain funny.

The phenomenon of people losing the ability to think critically around cute things, so The Reveal that someone or something was Evil All Along can serve as a nice Plot Twist, especially if the work in question is aimed at a younger audience where one might expect this trope to be averted.

Cute is often evil in Darker and Edgier works. In extreme cases, cuteness is a sign of someone being secretly an Eldritch Abomination.

Very often the core of morally questionable, if not outright malevolent, children types such as the Creepy Child, Kids Are Cruel, Deliberately Cute Child, Spoiled Brat, Evil Orphan, Little Miss Con Artist and especially the Enfant Terrible, who exists mostly to enforce this trope.

If they succeed at causing death and destruction, this trope will likely overlap with Grotesque Cute or end up showing that Evil Makes You Monstrous.

Contrast Creepy Good and Beauty Equals Goodness. Compare Beauty Is Bad, a milder form. The Fake Cutie is what you get when this type of character pretends to be the legitimately cuddly and nice variant. Also see Killer Teddy Bear, Creepy Doll, Psycho Poodle and Monster Clown.

Compare and contrast Adorable Abomination, which may or may not be evil. In some cases it can be played as a near-inversion of this trope, by creating a cute, friendly version of an Always Chaotic Evil creature. Also compare Adorable Evil Minions, where the cute critters serve as Mooks for the Big Bad or another villain.

See also tropes such as Cute and Psycho, Corruption by a Minor, Killer Rabbit, Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon, and Crapsaccharine World.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Kohina Hiruko from Black Bullet, is the most adorable evil cursed child you can think of to the point that you just beg to be killed by her cuteness.
  • Black Butler: Ciel is absolutely adorable & looks like a weak androgynous dandy, but he's from a long line of folks who straight-up refer to themselves as Evil Aristocrats. The boy sold his soul to a devil in exchange for a shot at a years-long spree of murder. His crimes include fraud, first degree murder, second degree murder, arson, kidnapping, threatening a child with a gun, child endangerment, & child murder. If you want to be Ciel's friend, you have to be subservient to him & be willing to die for him, or he will either abandon or kill you.
  • For all their creepy qualities no one can deny that Hansel and Gretel from Black Lagoon are cute.
  • Deadman Wonderland is set in a prison that is also a theme park. The inmates stage shows for the visitors. This is mostly promoted by the... er... Promoter, who seems to run the place and is a Psychopathic Manchild who loves to put cute, evil props everywhere. Even the sadistic way they restrain the prisoners is this, every prisoner has a collar constantly pumping poison into their body, the prisoners can't run away or else they won't get the "bitter candy" a foul tasting cure in a candy wrapper. Also they have to do menial or sometimes life threatening things to get the in prison currency to buy the candies. They can die in the bright and colorful carnival, from doing nothing! It makes you wonder what the guards think since they don't bat an eyelash, the whole thing is a sugary sweet and disgusting spectacle like death race, convicts dying and suffering for entertainment, mostly the promoter's.
  • In D.Gray-Man, the Millennium Earl and Road Kamelot seem to have a theme like this going on.
  • Digimon Frontier: Lucemon is, in his first form, a small and adorable angel boy, who also happens to be the real villain behind Cherubimon, a total Knight Templar, and a Satanic Archetype. Averted with his more evil-looking second and third forms.
  • Dont Cry Maou Chan takes this trope to the extreme. The main character is so adorable that the heroes would much rather hug and fawn over her than fight her.
  • Majin Buu, the final major villain of Dragon Ball Z. The form that our heroes encounter first is an Ugly Cute, fat pink humanoid of mass destruction with the mentality of a toddler. He also has a massive craving for sweets. Sweets made by zapping his victims with his head antenna and transforming them into foodstuffs that are still completely conscious as they are being eaten. On the other hand, this is the version of Majin Buu that does a Heel–Face Turn later on.
  • In Elfen Lied, as a general rule, if you see a cute thing (especially if it's a young girl with pink hair), it's generally a good idea to run screaming in the opposite direction. Most of the cute characters you see are superpowered psychopaths who would just as soon tear you in half as look at you. Mariko, for instance, is a little Diclonius in a wheelchair, and can tear apart opponents without lifting a finger. Special mention to Nousou, who is drawn in an effeminate, Bishōnen style and is fawned over by some of the other cute characters, suggesting that he may just be a nice guy after all. He is then promptly shown overseeing a messy process of stripping the spinal columns out of skeletal torsos of diclonii that were killed for that express purpose. But the shining example is the Diclonius DNA Voice, the Enemy Within to all Diclonii and the source of their evil, an entity which seeks to destroy all humanity... and takes a form resembling Kaede, Lucy’s childhood self.
  • The Puchuus from Excel♡Saga.
  • Pride from Fullmetal Alchemist. He's an Eldritch Abomination that can effortlessly rip people apart with his Living Shadow, and he has the body of a small child.
  • Housing Complex C: Yuri Koshide is a Bespectacled Cutie little girl who turns out to be an Enfant Terrible and one of the culprits behind the murders afflicting the complex who really likes killing people.
  • Nui Harime from Kill la Kill. She's a complete psychopath, but will never stop smiling and being bubbly about everything even as she tells the protagonist how she killed her father.
  • Most Disas/Netherbeasts in Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka look like cute mascot creatures. Doesn't stop them from sadistically ripping apart humans in all its gory details.
  • Punie Tanaka from Magical Witch Punie-chan takes this trope and Crosses the Line Twice with it.
  • Nobunaga the Fool has Nell and Bianchi. They act like adorable children, but their idea of playtime involves murdering people and causing chaos.
  • Odd Taxi has a World of Funny Animals cast in which basically everyone is cute in kind of a Sanrio style. This doesn't stop them from featuring dangerous, murderous Yakuza and people driven to murderous extremes. And more to the point, the real villain of the piece is the saccharine-sweet Idol Singer "Yuki Mitsuya", actually Sakura Wadagaki, who's adorable in both human and cat form.
  • Paranoia Agent: Everything cute or sweet puts you in great peril and the series is social commentary on how cuteness is over-saturating Japanese society (particularly Otaku culture) to unhealthy levels.
  • Pokémon: The Series has featured both an evil Teddiursa and an evil Togepi.
  • Popotan being what it is, it still provides an example in the form of the little girl from episode 4. She appears to be a normal child at first, but is actually a ghost who wishes to trap people where she can be with them forever.
  • Puella Magi Madoka Magica:
  • The titular character of the Anime, Manga and light novel series The Saga of Tanya the Evil, Tanya Von Degurechaff. She joined the military at age 9 and spent the next 3-4 years becoming one of, if not the most frightening soldiers in the entire Imperial Army (terrifying both allies and foes alike). She is a blond-haired, blue-eyed little girl, who looks almost like a doll. Despite her cherubic appearance, she is an absolute nightmare on the battlefield (able to slaughter entire battalions/squadrons single-handed). She is cold, calculating and ruthless above and beyond the call of duty. She has a personal grudge against God (not figuratively, but literally). And she has demonstrated on more than one occasion to have no problems using her childlike appearance and qualities to gain tactical advantages that typically result in bloody victory. As one of her commanding officers says, "She is a devil/monster in the form of a little girl".

    Art 
  • While not "evil" per se, New York's Japan Society had an exhibit called "Bye Bye Kitty!!!", which is a reaction against the kawaii aesthetic.

    Asian Animation 
  • Happy Heroes: Terror (when she's not transformed) is probably one of the most prominent examples. She almost failed graduation because Big M. didn't think she was intimidating enough - or at all. Some of the other untransformed monsters also count as this.

    Audio Plays 
  • Big Finish Doctor Who: In Cuddlesome, the Cuddlesomes were the hottest must-have toys of the 80s: cuddly pink talking hamsters, sold as the perfect toy for children of all ages. They are also the product of a Wicked Toymaker and designed to kill any adult who had not loved them enough.

    Card Games 
  • Magic: The Gathering:
    • The Unglued set has a card called Infernal Spawn of Evil. With a name like that, you're expecting some sort of demon, perhaps an Eldritch Abomination. It's...a mouse enjoying hot cocoa.
    • In the sequel set, Unhinged, they introduce Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil, which is the same mouse, holding its cocoa in one forepaw, and its baby mouse in the other forepaw.
    • While the Infernal Spawn and his son skipped the next "Un-" set, Unstable, they both made a return in the Unsanctioned box set, along with the third member of the family, Infernius Spawnington, III, which is the same two mice, though the Infernal Spawn of Evil is elderly now, and the Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil is now an adult holding his own daughter.
    • On a more serious note, the non-joke set Ice Age included the Hyalopterous Lemure, which is pretty cute for a black card. Reportedly, the artist had never heard of a lemure (a minor evil spirit) and drew a lemur instead.
  • The horror-themed Munchkin Bites, where a fearsome high-level monster simply titled "The Evil" looks a whole lot like... a fuzzy little kitty cat. It's a reference to Sluggy Freelance.

    Comic Books 
  • Beep the Meep from Doctor Who Magazine is a bloodthirsty alien warlord who looks absolutely adorable. When around people who haven't heard of him he plays up his cuteness in order to manipulate them.
  • The Inventor from Ms. Marvel (2014). He looks like an anthropomorphic cockatiel, but he's also a mad scientist and criminal mastermind.

    Film — Animated 
  • Darla Dimple from Cats Don't Dance is an adorable child actress and a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Shirley Temple. She's also an obnoxious prima donna and a psychopath who's willing to take extreme measures to ruin Danny's life.
  • Yzma from The Emperor's New Groove is the main antagonist of the film and is later seen turning into a cat. In the sequel Kronk's New Groove, she turns into a pink bunny to distract the angry senior citizens after they learn that her potion was a lie.
  • In Hoodwinked!, a Little Red Riding Hood adaptation, the villain is Boingo, that little rabbit that follows Red around all the time. In the sequel, those dang "innocent" children they were trying to find.
  • Lotso Huggin' Bear from Toy Story 3, whose jovial facade hides the fact that he runs Sunnyside Day Care with an iron fist, letting his cronies boss around other toys who have to suffer being roughed-up by the rambunctious toddlers in the Caterpillar Room. He also has deep-seated anger and resentment issues from when his old owner replaced him.
  • Minuscule: Valley of the Lost Ants has an adorable, fluffy, big-eyed spider who seems scary at first, but turns out friendly. Cue the sequel, which has... an incredibly cute, fluffy, big-eyed, colourful spider dead set on eating the protagonists (they are ladybugs). But man, it's cute!
  • Exploited in The Bad Guys (2022). Because the general public won't expect a cute little guinea pig as being evil, this lets Professor Marmalade use this as a cover-up for his evil deeds.

    Film — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • In Artemis Fowl, Opal Koboi belongs to the subspecies of Fairies known as Pixies, well-known for looking child-like and absolutely adorable. She also happens to be an Ax-Crazy, greedy, deceptive, egomaniac Psychotic Womanchild and one of the major villains in the series.
  • A Fire Upon the Deep has the Aprahanti species. They are humanoid with soft features, big round eyes, butterfly wings, soft downy fur, and cute sing-song voices. They are also militaristic fascists who make their first appearance pushing around a shopkeeper and later take a flimsy pretext to attempt genocide on humanity.
  • Harry Potter:
    • Shortly before the release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Rowling released a teaser statement saying that the book included a character with "a personality like poisoned honey." This character turned out to be Dolores Umbridge, a government bureaucrat who ended up as possibly the most hated character in the entire series, up to and including Voldemort. Her many terrible traits are underscored by her self-expression: she wears pink at all times, has an office decorated in china kitten plates, even has an Alice band in her hair (and she's well into middle-aged at least), and talks in a simpering, sweet manner.
    • Hepzibah Smith, seen in Half-Blood Prince is a lesser example, an elderly, extremely vain woman who hangs desperately onto coquettishness and sweetness in an attempt to seduce Tom Riddle.
  • Baby Veil in Outcast of Redwall sends Bryony into paroxysms of Cuteness Overload, even when he's actively in the process of biting her. Unfortunately for him, it doesn't work when he's in his teens and starts playing with poisons.
  • "Mr. Widemouth": The titular Mr. Widemouth is an adorable little Furby-like creature that is also a repeat child murderer.
  • The Notha in Space Academy are four foot tall honey badger squirrel-esque aliens that have a more than passing resemblance to Ewoks. They're also The Empire and consider all other races to be nonsentient animals they can kill with impunity.
  • The Kicks from The Lost Fleet are a race of adorable four foot tall genocidal maniacs who every alien race in the galaxy fears, including the Enigmas and Dancers. Their resemblance to teddy bears and cows mean that Admiral Gerry finds it very difficult to convince the rest of humanity they are an existential threat.

    Live-Action TV 

    Music 
  • Eminem:
    "I'm sick of you little girl and boy groups
    All you do is annoy me
    So I have been sent here to destroy you..."
    • Slim Shady himself was adorable from 1999-2004, with soft, boyish features, platinum blond hair, enormous blue eyes, a high-pitched voice, and the straightforward, contrite mannerisms of a little boy. Part of his persona was that he was a Friend to All Children. Oh, and he's also a Heroic Comedic Sociopath who corrupts kids, uses slurs, and is the centre of the biggest moral panic in 2000s pop culture. Even as Eminem has aged, he still plays up his boyish mannerisms in his performances.
  • The Frank Hayes song "Little Fuzzy Animals" warns spacers of the dangers on a Death World planet. The little critters have big, sharp teeth and are nasty, brain-eating telepaths to boot.
  • A lot of the Vocaloids are this in their creepier songs. For example:
  • "Attack of the Radioactive Hamsters from a Planet Near Mars" by "Weird Al" Yankovic is about Exactly What It Says on the Tin. They initially looked and acted exactly like ordinary hamsters, until they got "a little too close to the microwave", causing to mutate into Kaiju who proceed to wreak the sort of havok one might expect from one... but the narrator has to admit they're still pretty cute.

    Newspaper Comics 
  • One Bloom County arc features an Alien Invasion by creatures called Zygorthians, who blast cities with death rays, enslave women, serve the entire Mormon Tabernacle Choir as hors d'oeuvres, and lock Pat Robertson in a room full of AIDS activists. When one of them is finally seen, he looks like a cute little puppy. (With antennae.)
  • Nermal in Garfield, sickeningly cute, and Garfield's mortal antagonist (Garfield keeps trying to mail him to Abu Dhabi). Nermal does tend to be downright mean to Garfield at times, and he admits in one strip that his is purposely stunting his growth with coffee and cigarettes in order to stay a baby, and admits to being a midget in another one.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • In 2017 Candy Cartwright and her "Cutie Pie Club" caused this trope to apply to SHINE Wrestling. Their earliest efforts to stink up and sabotage The Nova Tournament resulted in SHINE being the only WWN member where Priscilla Kelly was a face, and Kelly's opposition was not cute. While she doesn't care for Kelly's biting or weaponized pubic sweat, Cartwright's definition of "cute" is otherwise broad. She associates with the Ax-Crazy brute Dementia D Rose.

    Tabletop Games 
  • A few Dungeons & Dragons sources mention a monster called a julajimus created by Tharizdun. Its true form is clearly not cute (a huge demon that looks like a monstrous ape) but it has the ability to take the form of a cute kitten or other harmless animal. Humanoid races have legends of this creature that parents use to scare their children; the story starts with a child finding an adorable kitten, who his parents refuse to let him keep. The story ends with the child disobeying his parents and sneaking it into his room, only for it to transform into its true form of a julajimus and devour him. The moral is very clear, but the julajimus is a very real monster, as far as the game world is concerned.

    Toys 
  • Feisty Pets, created by William Mark Corporation, is a line of cute-looking stuffed animals whose faces turn monstrous when squeezed.

    Video Games 
  • Acrylic: Brittaney the Collage is a Cute Ghost Girl in an Elegant Gothic Lolita outfit and rainbow hair... who also happens to be a malevolent Vengeful Ghost, Serial Killer, and Serial Rapist.
  • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations: Dahlia Hawthorne looks and seems like The Ingenue and a Yamato Nadeshiko with a white dress, Parasol of Prettiness, and butterflies flying around her. But all that hides a bitter, hateful Serial Killer with Chronic Backstabbing Disorder who uses her cuteness to manipulate men. Her sister Iris is more genuinely nice while having similar looks.
  • BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm: Downplayed with Arianna, who is Affably Evil and an Anti-Villain, but she is trying to destroy the Internet, and is an adorable Moe Anthropomorphism of ARPANET.
  • The ghost children from Corpse Party are this in general until it's subverted because it turns out they're Brainwashed and Crazy, but the grand prize goes to Sachiko the Girl in Red, who torments people of her own free will.
  • B.B. Hood from Darkstalkers is an adorable Little Red Riding Hood, but is more depraved and psychotic than the monsters.
  • The flowers, teddy bears, and unicorns in Whimsyshire in Diablo III are every bit as vicious as the demons of Hell.
  • In The Elder Scrolls series, this is a trait of Vaermina, the Daedric Prince of Nightmares, especially her voice. In Skyrim, when she speaks to the player at one point, it's with the sweetest, most adorable voice you could ever hear... while she orders you to murder Erandur, a priest of Mara trying to rescue a village. In Online, she has even more dialogue. Her voice is still adorable, and almost childlike... while gleefully describing how she is going to spend the next century or so Mind Raping you for killing her Champion, whom she was apparently in love with.
  • Tonberry (If you're in any way experienced, it can manage a One-Hit Kill) and Cactuar (not so bad when they can just do 1000 damage, but they often can do 10000) in Final Fantasy.
  • Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach boasts the most kid-friendly-looking animatronics to date. This crew looks downright adorable compared to how off-putting the first-generation animatronics looked. Having said that, it's still the animatronics we're talking about so you still cannot let your guard down around them. With the possible exception of Freddy.
  • An advertisement for Globlins discusses this trope, which is also Played for Laughs: the titular Globlins form an Alien Invasion that take over victim's brains... but he struggles with the idea of popping them because they are just so cute!
  • Most of the enemies in the Kingdom Hearts series qualify to varying degrees, but the Nightmare Dream Eaters from Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] are the worst of the lot, being merely slightly more evil-looking versions of the very cute Spirit Dream Eaters.
  • In Kingdom of Loathing, one of the most evil, foul, reprehensible creatures of in the world is... seals. Adorable little seals. Naturally, one of the character classes is the Seal Clubber.
  • Kirby:
    • Marx from Kirby Super Star. If you thought all of the good characters in Kirby are cute and the baddies are ugly, you're wrong. Marx starts from being a really cute, armless jester-like being. He bounces on a really colorful beach ball, proving his innocence. Later, he turns out to be the main villain all along, but was ultimately defeated by Kirby himself. In Kirby Super Star Ultra, he transforms into the freaky-looking Marx Soul by the power of Galactic Nova, but was also defeated.
    • Aside from Marx, there is also Scarfy. Don't let its cute looks fool you; once you try to inhale it, you're in for a nasty surprise...
    • Waddle Dees on the other hand avert this. There are a few friendly Dees who help out Kirby on his adventures, most notably Bandana Waddle Dee, King Dedede's right-hand man.
    • Magolor in Return to Dream Land looks cute, but he is the Big Bad. In fact, he seems to have taken his inspiration from the aforementioned Marx. Unlike Marx though, he is implied to make a Heel–Face Turn of sorts after you defeat him. This was since then proven true in Kirby's Dream Collection: Special Edition, where he builds a theme park for Kirby for his 20th anniversary as an apology for what he did in the last game and even have fun little races with him, as well as "Magolor Epilogue" from the Return to Dream Land Deluxe Switch remake, where he goes on a quest to atone for his misdeeds.
    • And then there is Tick from Kirby's Dream Land 3 (and in later Kirby games). This innocently smiling little bastard is waiting for you to float above him, just so he can stab you to death, while revealing his Nightmare Face.
  • Model W in Mega Man ZX, the form that Dr. Weil from the Mega Man Zero series had been reduced to after his final defeat. Guess you wish you could collect it along with the other biometals, don't you? Of course, that only applies to the small form; the Core forms (the broken pieces of Ragnarok containing Weil's conscious) are Nightmare Fuel-incarnate.
  • Bob, the protagonist from Messiah is a cute little cherub; not truly "evil", but he's an Anti-Hero and Well-Intentioned Extremist at best, more than willing to commit murder to complete his mission.
  • Pilgrim (RPG Maker): Master Alice looks like a pretty cute little blonde girl when not making her Nightmare Face, and she tends to act like a cutesy little girl, but she is a possibly demonic entity that steals souls.
  • Pocket Mirror:
    • The various antagonist girls who serve as the Arc Villains are very cute with the game's anime-inspired designs, yet all of them are mentally unstable tyrants who rule with an iron fist over their subjects.
    • The Strange Boy, the Big Bad himself, is a small boy who's fairly adorable even with his weirdness, and his tiny goat form Flocke from Little Goody Two Shoes is even more so, charming Rozenmarine with his cuteness and prancing around. He's also a sadistic demon lord who eats girls and enslaves their souls, making literal theater out of their suffering.
  • Pokémon:
    • Beautifly looks like an oversized butterfly, with all the cuteness that comes with. But it feeds off of blood instead of nectar. Downplayed though, in that its less cute counterpart Dustox leaves the realm of predation by being outright destructive.
    • Gorebyss is a giant pink toothless fish with big eyes that feeds on plankton. Get too close to one and you'll find out it also has a taste for blood, and turns more vivid in color while it feeds on your body fluids. However, this is still downplayed, as it's less cute counterpart, Huntail, is more actively predatory.
    • The balloon Pokemon Drifloon looks cute, but it tries to kidnap children. (In fact, in one game, there's a park that you are only allowed to bring "cute" Pokémon into; Drifloon qualifies.)
    • Purrloin steals from humans out of the belief its cute facade will let it get away with it. In the event it does not, it will tear its accuser apart with its claws.
    • Litwick, which is a sweet little smiling candle that pretends to be a helpful guiding light but in reality is attempting to steal your life energy. Its evolutions are still pretty cute and even worse.
    • Frillish is a tentacled marine animal, which should automatically make humans wary, but it's cute and smiling, so one could be forgiven for thinking it is okay as long as one keeps their distance. Trainers are almost uniformly disturbed to discover it's a vicious predator actively hunting for people to drown, smiling gleefully while doing so. And then it evolves into a no less cute but outright terrifying form that is actually practicing aggressive mimicry! Jellicent's faces are incapable of changing from a "cute" expression, regardless of what they are feeling, and they build underwater castles out of sunken human ships.
    • Munna in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity until her Heel–Face Turn.
    • Tinkaton is a small, pink Fairy-type Pokemon that wields a giant hammer. How does it use it? To knock Corviknight out of the sky and then harvest the metal on its body to improve its hammer. This is why Corviknight taxis are not in Paldea, since it's likely that a Tinkaton might strike them down mid-flight, endangering the passengers.
  • A noticeable example is Courtney Gears of Ratchet & Clank. A beautiful robot diva whose music can brainwash robots into working for Dr. Nefarious.
    • And there is also Vendra Prog in Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus, though she is later forced to work alongside Ratchet to banish the Nethers back to their dimension following her brother's Heel–Face Turn.
    • We've also got Luna in Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters. It was built in the shape of a little girl to lure Ratchet into a trap; and is revealed to be a genderless puppet/spaceship with a male voice near the end of the game, who serves as The Dragon to the Big Bad.
  • The main villains of Raze's Hell are an army of cute creatures that decide to wage a genocidal war against the ugly creatures of the world.
  • Iris Zeppelin from RosenkreuzStilette, who, despite being an Ax-Crazy psychopath, is adorable in the most twisted way.
  • In the RuneScape quest "The Eyes of Glouphrie", the player activates an anti-illusion machine... and discovers that the fuzzy, white, bunny-eared ant-like creatures the gnomes have been keeping as pets are spy constructs for the exiled gnome city of Arposandra, disguised by the titular Glouphrie's illusions. Even the revealed "Evil Creatures" could pass for Ugly Cute; they look like black beetles with big glowing red eyes.
  • In Saya no Uta, the titular Moe Cute Monster Girl Saya is actually the Big Bad, a terrifying Eldritch Abomination aiming to convert humanity into copies of her species.
  • Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion has the titular Spooky, a Cute Ghost Girl who absolutely hates being called cute. Though she does a pretty bad job at being threatening until, as the game progresses, log entries reveal that she's the one that gathered all the specimens in the house with the purpose of being taken seriously.
  • Spirit Hunter has the respective Big Bad in both games:
  • Stellaris randomly combines ethics and portraits, so it's possible for painfully adorable aliens to be Fanatic Purifiers, as The Chapel will attest. Later made canon with the Prikkiki-Ti, an event-spawned species that is guaranteed to be Fanatic Purifiers and to look like adorable geckos.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • Lakitu in most games. He rides around on a smiling cloud, has cute glasses, is harder than hell to kill, and drops eggs on you that hatch into spinies when they hit the ground. The obvious exceptions are Super Mario RPG, where he's just another enemy, and the Kart games, where he actually grabs you if you fall off the track.
    • Super Paper Mario has Dimentio, both more cutesy and more evil than most Mario villains. How evil? Omnicidal Evil.
    • Mimi from that same game also qualifies. The form she takes for most of the game is a small blocky humanoid that wears many dresses. She's also deceptive and runs a slave labor camp in her debut chapter, and her true form is that of an eltrich mechanical spider. With her vindictive, petty attitude, she's the second-meanest of Count Bleck's minions.
  • Tak 2: The Staff of Dreams has the power parasites. They are cutesy in appearance and they sabotage JB's Planetarium by leaving large gunk.
  • Undertale:
    • Flowey the Flower, the tiny, smiling yellow flower you meet at the beginning of the game with cutesy speech mannerisms quickly reveals himself to be an Ax-Crazy maniac who tries to kill Frisk. Then he turns out to be the real Big Bad, manipulating Frisk into killing King Asgore so he can take the six SOULs he has and become a god, then kill all humans and monsters. However, this is averted with his other self, Asriel Dreemur, who is as fluffy and cute as he is a Nice Guy.
    • Chara Dreemur, a small child with Blush Stickers wearing a green sweater, is the Greater-Scope Villain who tried to take over Asriel's body and slaughter the humans in the above world, and in the Genocide route, resurfaces thanks to your murders of the monsters and pushes you to kill every monster there is.
  • The Chua of WildStar are as adorable as they are psychopathic, genocidal, and destructive. Which is to say, very.
  • Wild ARMs 3: Beatrice, one of the main villains and the final enemy, is a wicked Dream Demon who ravaged Filgaia, turning it into a desert planet, and is directly or indirectly responsible for every bad thing that happens. She also looks like an adorable, purple-haired little girl.
  • The Witch's House: When the titular Witch is finally encountered, she turns out to be Ellen, a seven-year-old (in appearance) Cute Witch with flowing purple hair and big eyes. Meanwhile, the demon who gave Ellen her powers is actually the tiny, adorable Black Cat. This doesn't stop them from being cruel, sadistic mass murderers who routinely kill children and screw over the innocent Viola- the Demon even more so as he is the one who corrupted and mentored Ellen in the first place.

    Webcomics 
  • In Awful Hospital, if someone is conventionally cute for any reason other than being a baby, then they are probably evil and definitely dangerous. Ducks are symbols of madness, dolphins are embodiments of sadistic violence, and bunnies are implied to be dangerous too.
  • In Captus Cinematic Universe, the pink cat girl known as Katsumi turns out to be a surprise villain who attacks the Planetary Protectors.
  • The failed Cthulhu Corp product 'My First Necronomicon' from Cthulhu Slippers is a cutesy, pigtailed, bunny-eared edition of the Necronomicon. It's the book your Mom reads in the bath.
  • Denma the Quanx: Dr. Yahwah. Its puppy shape is cute. But it does brutal things in Silverquick HQ. In fact, the puppy form is its avatar.
  • Mechagical Girl Lisa ANT: The pink and frilly magical girl, Pink Flash, is working for the aliens who want to conquer the world. (The hero is the girl in the full-body robot ant suit.)
  • Sluggy Freelance K I T T E N. Now in a compiled volume called "Little Evils", with Bun-bun featured front and center, brandishing his knife.

    Web Original 

    Western Animation 
  • Adventure Time:
    • One of the tasks Marceline gives to Finn in "Henchman" is to slay a cute, harmless-looking Dimple Plant. Finn is reluctant... until the Dimple Plant turns into a vicious Man-Eating Plant.
    • "Conquest of Cuteness" sees Finn and Jake being harassed by the belligerent Cute King and his army of "cuties". Subverted in that the cuties turn out to be more of a danger to themselves than to our heroes.
    • Me-mow, the cat assassin from "Jake vs. Me-mow", who tries to blackmail Jake into helping him murder Berry Princess.
    • The piglets from "The Pods", who go on a rampage with magic wands after tricking Finn (who suspected they were evil in the first place) into thinking they're harmless.
  • The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius special "Attack of the Twonkies" is all about this — cutesy little fuzz balls morph into pointy balls of terror when they hear music. And they're still kinda cute even then.
  • One episode of Archie's Weird Mysteries, in an obvious parody of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, had this as An Aesop: the cute cuddly alien is not only an evil intergalactic criminal, but he intentionally plays off his cuteness to take advantage of others. The "evil" aliens chasing him are actually cops.
  • Baby Doll of Batman: The Animated Series looks like a cute little girl but is a really a psychopathic adult.
  • Beetlejuice: Little Miss Warden, a little girl who's the warden of Neither-Neither-Land, the Neitherworld's jail system: a Candyland-like environment where prisoners are "rehabilitated" into cute, sweet, playful creatures. She likes frilly dresses, wears her hair in long blonde ringlets, and forces her prisoners to work on the "daisy chain gang." Those who try to escape are made to spend the night inside a Scary Jack-in-the-Box, where Jack plays videos for brainwashing.
  • Mayoi in Big Hero 6: The Series are adorable little green critters which everyone in San Fransokyo falls in love with, except Hiro, who is convinced they're a Sycorax ploy. And then it turns out they're Planimals, and direct sunlight will make them get bigger and bigger. And then it turns out Mr. Sparkles has the power to command and weaponise them. Their monstrousness gets reversed (by Sycorax, the whole thing being designed to cement Liv's Villain with Good Publicity schtick), but Mr. Sparkles continues to control them, even in cute form.
  • While not "evil", just very possessive, Courage the Cowardly Dog had "The Precious, Wonderful, Adorable, Lovable Duckling", who decided to Murder the Hypotenuse (Muriel) in order to make sure Eustace only paid attention to it.
  • Gosalyn once ran into what looked like a harmless alien pet named Wakko carrying a small, pickle like container that held a bunch of marbles in it in an episode of Darkwing Duck. He was even wearing a little bowtie. Naturally when a hulking cyborg alien showed up seemingly very eager to turn Wakko into a smear. Turned out the "bowtie" was actually a Restraining Bolt that prevented the shapeshifting Wakko from attaining his true, hulking form as an intergalactic terrorist and criminal. And those marbles were actually highly unstable explosives capable of leveling cities.
  • Dragons: The Nine Realms has the Bubblehorn. They look cute and act anything but.
  • On Drawn Together, we have a Strawberry Shortcake expy, whose people almost completely exterminated Wooldoor's. Since nobody but the two characters had ever heard of this, we can assume they have been extremely successful at denying it. Oh, and she tries to kill Wooldoor.
  • Jimmy, the effeminate squeaky kid on Ed, Edd n Eddy, generally isn't the most affable sort. But he has on occasion demonstrated Chessmaster prowess — and ruthlessness — to rival Machiavelli.
  • The Gigglepies from The Fairly OddParents!, who hypnotize people with their cuteness in order to sell their merchandise and destroy planets.
  • Berry from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, who's a pink, adorable imaginary friend who appears to be sweet and generous, but is actually an easily jealous and homicidal Stalker with a Crush.
  • In Freaktown, the Freaks are the good guys while Princess Boo-Boo and her lackeys, who want to scrub the freakiness out of Freaktown and make it as cutesy as the rest of Sweetlandia, are the antagonists.
  • Gravity Falls:
    • In the episode "Soos and the Real Girl", Soos buys a dating game where the love interest, Giffany, is an adorable Japanese school-girl... who becomes dangerously obsessed with anyone who plays the game.
    • Gideon Gleeful is a Deliberately Cute Child who projects an air of sugary adorability while psychologically abusing his parents, summoning demons, and attacking his crush's brother for "getting in the way."
    • And then there's Bill Cipher, the bright yellow triangle with stick-figure limbs, a dapper top hat, and a joke for every occasion... who's also an Eldritch Abomination out to destroy all of reality as we know it.
  • The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy has Mandy, who is evil on the inside and cute on the outside.
  • He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983): Orko ran a foul of this trope when he summoned Daimar the Demon after finding the guy's picture in a book. In fact Daimar is adorable, very small with stubby horns, a round face and even Cute Little Fangs, as well as a sweet and playful disposition. Unfortunately, this is Daimar's child form, and once free he eventually cocoons himself and becomes his adult form, a fearsome giant demon destined to open a portal to the Dark Dimension and allow for a demonic invasion of Etheria. However, in a twist, Orko is able to call back to the fun times the two had and Daimar decides he much preferred being good and picking his own destiny to just arbitrary destruction.
  • Arguably the worst villain on Krypto the Superdog is Snooky Wookums, an adorable kitten with an evil mind (and one of the few villains on the show that is not a pet of some human DC Comics villain).
  • Men in Black: The Series: Happens quite a bit considering some of the weird aliens the agents have to confront.
    • "The Vulture Syndrome" has J trying to protect a cute, teddy bear-like alien name Z-Ron from the bounty hunter Vulture. The guy even quacks whenever he hops around. However it turns out Vulture's story about Z-Ron being wanted for the murder and consumption of five hundred sentient organisms is true when L finds a hidden compartment in his ship full of bones. Z-Ron soon attacks J, transforming from cute and cuddly to a vicious ball of teeth and claws before being defeated. He's later likened to a cat, using his cuter form to disarm and play with his prey before devouring then.
    • "The Star System Syndrome" features the Astro-Tots, a quarter of adorable teletubby-like aliens who work on a saccharine sweet kids' show. They turn out to be the culprits behind a rash of disappearances amongst the alien stars in Hollywood, because the victims did not share the Astro-Tots' worldview of peace and happiness. Fortunately they're not quite evil enough to resort to murder, so MiB is able to save the day.
  • Adam Lyon from My Gym Partner's a Monkey has a run-in with the "Petting Zoo Kids" in one episode. These are a clique of doe-eyed miniature animals that use cuteness as a cover to pilfer unsuspecting victims who succumb to a "huggie". Adam loses all of his clothes following a few encounters and losing his good judgment around them. Eventually he turns the tables by cornering and shaving off their fur, removing their cute charm.
  • My Life as a Teenage Robot: Killgore, a pint-sized, big-eyed sentient wind-up toy with a high-pitched voice whose main problem is annoying Jenny... as well as calling the Cluster on her, and later resurrecting Armageddroid, a dangerous robot that can confiscate and dismantle any kind of weaponry. In-universe, he is considered one of the most adorable creatures ever.
  • The Flores from the My Little Pony 'n Friends episode "Fugitive Flowers" look like cute and harmless talking flowers, but are really monstrous invasive weeds who trick Posey into protecting them from the creepy-looking Crabnasties who are trying to capture them, then proceed to suck all the life out of Posey's garden, transform, and go on a rampage.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • This show has the parasprites from "Swarm of the Century". While they don't seem to be actively malicious, they're still adorable, multicolored bug/fairy critters who breed rapidly and devour all the food they can find. Basically, they are the unholy hybrid of tribbles and Horde of Alien Locusts.
    • A downplayed example in the same show can be found in Angel Bunny, who is, well, a bunny. While not evil he can often be an egocentric, spoiled Jerkass. He has gotten a fair amount of Pet the Dog moments with Fluttershy and has had Butt-Monkey moments as well.
    • Cozy Glow is an adorable little filly with disturbingly sinister plans.
  • The Owl House: One of the first creatures that Luz meets upon entering the Boiling Isles is an adorable fairy with a high-pitched voice, big sharp teeth, and a taste for human skin.
    Luz: Oh, hello little fairy. Are you going to tell me this is all a fantastical dream?
    Fairy: (reveals giant teeth) Give me your skin!
  • The Powerpuff Girls (1998):
  • The Real Ghostbusters once adopted a potential Scrappy named Victor, a blue imp that looked like it might have been drawn by Dr. Seuss. And then it turned into Mr. Hyde...
  • The Hugstables from Regular Show are adorable creatures with a death hug.
  • On Robot Chicken, in a Dragon Ball Z parody, the characters go to the North Pole. Their enemies? Little Drummer Boy, the Nutcracker, and Composite Frosty/Santa Claus. But the Big Bad is Mrs. Claus.
  • The Simpsons: Maggie Simpson, maybe. Depends how one interprets that look she had at the end of "Who Shot Mr. Burns (Part 2)" and Master and Cadaver segment of "Treehouse of Horror XXI."
  • The Woodland Critters from South Park, especially during the Imaginationland arc.
    Jason: Man, I do not want to meet the kid that dreamt those things up.
    • In the two-part episode "Pandemic", the world is invaded by giant, yet adorable looking guinea pigs wearing costumes. And the Big Bad turns out to be another cute live-action guinea pig wearing a pirate costume.
  • Imp from She-Ra: Princess of Power possesses several of the rounded features of a piglet, a rather excitable disposition, and very big and expressive eyes. He's also a nasty minded little sadist who has flooded Brightmoon, set fire to Beast Island, nearly got Kowl kicked out of the Rebellion (for spite no less), and is constantly spying on the Rebels themselves. Played with in that everyone already knows Imp in his normal form and so there's very little opportunity for him to play up his features to get guards down.
  • Star Trek: Lower Decks in the episode "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee" Beckett Mariner, Jack Ransom and new ensign Garry visit a menagerie - a space station zoo. There they encounter a Moopsy, an adorable looking marshmallow creature that can only say it's own name or make cute grunting noises as it shuffles around, however when it escapes it's enclosure the head researcher panics. It turns out Moopsys drink bones and will stop at nothing to get their next drink, all with a cute smile and still crying out it's name in the same endearing sounding voice.
  • Teen Titans Go! has the Twin Destroyers of Azarath, two beings that Raven had locked away in a small chest. When Starfire gives in to temptation, she opens it and finds that they're a pair of adorable green and pink imps, who are friendly at first until she gives them too much affection, causing them to turn into an egg and metamorphize into a giant, two-headed monster.
  • Clare of Titan Maximum, whose bio states "she loves cute things and desires to be the cutest thing in the entire solar system! Oh, and by the way, she’s completely evil."
  • On Total Drama Island, Duncan is afraid of Celine Dion music store standees.
  • Transformers: Prime has these cute little bug-sized robotic critters... who turn into an all-devouring swarm of death when Cybertronians are around. Nothing tastier to scraplets than the metallic flesh of robots! Their cute exterior opens up to reveal a zillion razor-sharp piranha-like teeth. And they're still cute, in a way.
  • Wander over Yonder:
    • Commanders Peepers looks fairly small and harmless, with a hilarious voice to boot (courtesy of Tom Kenny). He's the leader of Lord Hater's Watchdogs for a reason, however, and he can prove to be quite violent (as seen when trying to protect his job in "The Bounty") and ruthlessly cunning (as seen in "The Greater Hater" and "The Axe").
    • In "The Stray", Wander encounters a sad little kitten named Li'l Bits, who proceeds to cheerfully exploit Wander's hospitality and helpfulness at every turn, like forcing Wander to repeatedly rescue her headless teddy bear from a ferocious monster. Sylvia grows suspicious, and rightly so when it turns out Li'l Bits is not an orphan, but a bounty hunter who has literally hypnotized Wander with her cuteness in order to collect a big reward from Lord Hater.
  • Nom Nom from We Bare Bears is an adorable little koala who stars in viral videos. Behind the scenes, he's an egomaniacal diva who loves to antagonize and manipulate the bears for his own schemes to stay in the spotlight.

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