Yu-Gi-Oh! is considered one of the best anime and manga of all time, mainly for its characters, monsters, cards and stories. However, it does not mean that every character is liked or well-received by the fandom. While villains like Weevil Underwood (Insector Haga) and Keith Howard (Bandit Keith) are Hate Sinks, they, at least, are well-received by the fanbase because of their entertaining traits that make them villains that we all Love to Hate. This list has characters that are outright hated for all the wrong reasons.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!: Johji, Honda's baby nephew who tags along for part of Death-T, is the most universally disliked character in the entire manga. Comedy pervert characters are always a big gamble, especially in a series that's pretty low on that kind of humor, but when you add in a comedy pervert character who's a baby, and then make that character a Bratty Half-Pint, you have a recipe for an unusually repellant presence in what's otherwise considered a Growing the Beard arc. That one of his few instances of being helpful consists of pooping on a villain really doesn't help matters. Tellingly, halfway through the arc, Takahashi had him fall asleep and stay that way for most of the rest of it, he never appeared again after the arc ended, and the Toei adaptation removed him entirely, meaning that his sole appearance in any media since the conclusion of that arc in the manga is as a random opponent in the Dungeon Dice Monsters video game.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! (first anime series): Toei's take on Miho is nothing like her original manga counterpart and has put off a lot of fans for stringing Honda/Tristan along despite having no interest towards him and being a Satellite Character with a shallow taste for men. If anything else, she's designed to make sure that Anzu wasn't the only female character around.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters:
- Otogi/Duke's cheerleaders from the DDM arc got this treatment for acting like bullies instead of doing their job as cheerleaders: Aside from booing Yugi, they're not above badmouthing and beating up Jonouchi/Joey (who is forced to wear a dog costume after losing to Otogi in a Duel) in every chance they get, even though it was supposed to be Played for Laughs. Not helped by the fact that they got away scot-free after Dark/Yami Yugi bested Otogi in a DDM game.
- Dartz, the Big Bad of the Doma Filler Arc, is one of the most disliked villains in the Duel Monsters anime due to having one of the most broken decks in the entire franchise, with his Duel against Yami Yugi and Kaiba only being resolved with a Deus ex Machina. It doesn't help that his three subordinates are generally considered by fans to be more interesting than he is, since their motivations are explored better throughout the entire Story Arc—and the fact that Dartz also makes their motivations much less interesting by way of the reveal that he was behind their tragic backstories doesn't do him any favors. When he explains his actions and motivations, the plot holes he creates are so huge, it would surpass the infinite attack points his Divine Serpent had. It says something that Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series rescued him from the scrappy heap by rewriting his character entirely as a cloudcuckoolander with a wacky accent.
- Siegfried von Schroeder, the Big Bad of the Grand Prix Filler Arc, is widely regarded as a forgettable Filler Villain who recycles the traits of established characters (Pegasus being the most obvious). While he is meant to be shown to not be as clever as he thinks, the fact that the audience sees his plans were going to fail no matter what due to his lack of foresight causes him to be criticized as unnecessary for the plot. He is also hated for his overpowered deck and for knocking Jonouchi out of the tournament (which ended up being the latter's final Duel in the series), meaning audiences never got to see a rematch with him and Yugi, while also contributing to the arc's Flanderization of Jonouchi into a Straw Loser. Like with Dartz, Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series improved his character drastically by turning him into a wacky Funny Foreigner Sissy Villain.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GX:
- Chancellor Samejima/Sheppard is this for combining Adults Are Useless, Unwitting Instigator of Doom, and Horrible Judge of Character multiple times over the course of the series, to the point of being directly responsible for the villain's plot multiple times over. To whit: making the arrangements that allowed Kagemaru's plan to work, leaving the school in the hands of Chronos/Crowler and Napoleon/Bonaparte who were out of their depth and allowed the Light to get a foothold, making a plan to redeem Ryo/Zane that failed miserably, organizing a tournament that didn't accomplish any of its goals and gave Saiou/Sartorius access to a Kill Sat, giving the Obviously Evil Professor Cobra/Viper free rein of the school, and then taking a vacation when things started going wrong. To make matters worse, he is treated as a Reasonable Authority Figure and he never receives any comeuppance for all the trouble he caused. Even Napoleon, who was a Hate Sink for the entire second season, has more fans than he does.
- Despite being the Big Bad of the Shadow Riders arc, Kagemaru gets a lot of heat for being a Generic Doomsday Villain and a Karma Houdini compared to the more likable or interesting villains of that arc such as Darkness, Tania, Camula, or even Daitokuji/Banner.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL:
- Kotori/Tori is one of the most disliked characters in the entire franchise for being Neutral Female, her constant presence, bland personality, nonexistent development, and taking the role of the female lead and the main character's love interest while the better received Anna and Rio were seriously underused as well as fulfilling a specific role in the show with very unfortunate implications. It's gotten to the point where she caused Anzu/Téa to be re-evaluated in a more positive light.
- Tokunosuke/Flip is also notorious for being a cheating Dirty Coward who gets pardoned quickly after making a big mess multiple times, leading viewers to wonder why they decided to make an Expy of Insector Haga/Weevil Underwood, then treat him as a hero while changing almost nothing about him.
- A lot of fans got sick of Don Thousand for lacking motivation other than being the mastermind behind the seven Barian Emperors' Start of Darkness to the the point where they're Easily Forgiven Woobies and, similar to Dartz, having an overpowered and broken deck that takes an Ass Pull + The Magic Poker Equation combo to finally finish him off.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V:
- Futoshi/Fredrick has gained a lot of detractors for being a Fat Idiot and doing nothing but getting "shivers".
- Eita Kyuando/Pierre L'Supériuere was orginally intended to be a Hate Sink character, but as far as the fans are concerned, he's blacklisted as this for how his Duel against Yuya played out: He doesn't have any direct interactions with Yuya and instead prefers to give "quizzes" in an attempt to make the latter look bad, mocking Yuya in a shrill voice whenever he fails. His two-parter was Season 1's only major dip in ratings on Nico Nico Douga. Unsurprisingly, he's not included in the MCS following his introduction, unlike Yuya's other opponents from the MCS qualifiers such as Michio/Reed and Mieru/Aura.
- Teppei Tairyobata/Trout has met with a cold reception for being a Fat Bastard with a very obnoxious attitude and having a voice that is just as annoying, if not more annoying than Kyuando. Though he did get Rescued from the Scrappy Heap after establishing himself as a Cowardly Lion (despite his complaints) during his team Duel with Michio against the Obelisk Force near the end of the MCS arc.
- The Obelisk Force got an enormous amount of heat for not only being Jerkass Flat Characters, but also having the same deck and playing the same cards in all Duels involving them (namely, an Antique Gear deck centered around Antique Gear Hound Dog and their fused variants).
- While most "legacy characters" are controversial, this Edo/Aster has the least defenders: He's "Edo In Name Only" relative to his GX counterpart (the only thing they have in common is using Destiny HEROes, and even then, the aesthetics and playstyle are completely off), he has an abysmal win-loss record (the closest thing to a victory he gets is forcing a draw when he was about to lose), and his characterization even on its own is abruptly written and unintentionally hilarious (most notably the "ripped Smile World" plot point). He's considered so lackluster and underwhelming as a character, a lot of fans saw him as an outright insult to GX and his original incarnation, not helped by the fact that his post-Heel–Face Turn ace monster is heavily designed after 5D's.
- Many fans agree that Captain Solo/Cutter is one of the worst characters in ARC-V. Reasons include his involvement in Yuzu/Zuzu's kidnapping, his Gonk appearance, and being a letdown to an otherwise interesting pirate theme.
- While the Gladiator Beast archetype is fairly popular, the same cannot be said for its user, the Battle Beast, mainly due to wasting six episodes in the Fusion arc on completely pointless duels and being Unintentionally Unsympathetic despite being presented as a Tragic Villain.
- Professor Leo Akaba (in the anime, at least; his manga incarnation is a wholly different character) is the most widely hated main antagonist in the entire franchise. Though initial response to him was lukewarm, he fell into this when the series finally revealed his motivation in the concluding arc: his daughter had made a Heroic Sacrifice sealing Zarc, and he wanted to bring her back. The intended idea was to make him a grieving father who went too far out of love for his child—the problem is, not only is this motivation far out of proportion with his actual actions, which included dimension-scale genocide, training Child Soldiers, and killing off four innocent girls, as well as tolerating or encouraging the acts of all his supporters, but the "loving parent" treatment fails to land because Leo also abused and neglected his two surviving kids in the name of bringing back his daughter. What's more, Leo's actions directly lead to the resurrection of the being his daughter sacrificed herself to stop, with him blatantly ignoring every single sign that this was happening, even though he could have resolved the whole problem by simply carding Yuri the moment it became apparent what he was. Unlike most main villains, he doesn't get the benefit of Evil Is Cool, either, since he spends most of the series as an Orcus on His Throne, and his two duels (a brief match against Yuya and Reiji that he was about to lose before it was cancelled, and an outright blowout where he didn't even survive his first turn) don't exactly give the impression of a force to be reckoned with. And to cap it all off, he ends up Easily Forgiven, with the one character who demands he face justice or consequences for his actions (Shun, who lost his home, his best friend, and his sister as a direct result of Leo's plan) being treated as irrational and "learning a lesson" about needing to move on. In short, he causes all the problems in the series, gets away with everything apart from failing to get what he wanted, and isn't even entertaining to watch.
- The Doktor. While he was intended to be despised by the audience for his sadism and brainwashing of Yuzu and her counterparts with Parasite Fusioners, his actions resulted in Yuzu and co. being Demoted to Extra despite their popularity and heavy buildup, his design is hideous, and he didn't even get a chance to Duel Yuya, Yusho, or the Lancers due to being unceremoniously sealed off in a card by Leo, ironically because Leo had come to hate him not unlike the viewer. Quite a number of people have declared that he feels more like a character from a R-18+ anime/manga than a Yu-Gi-Oh! villain.
- Yuzu is generally a Base-Breaking Character in the anime, but her manga counterpart gets a lot of flak for being yet another useless female lead and her unhealthy obsession with pretty boys and money aren't even amusing at all, and that was before the ending of the manga.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS: Go Onizuka/George Gore was initially seen as a Base-Breaking Characternote , but his actions in Season 2 have landed him on most viewers hated characters list. Performing a Face–Heel Turn for petty reasons, in that he's angry at Yusaku for being more popular than him, and the lengths he'll go just to try and one up him, going as far as to implant an AI in his brain. It doesn't help that he trivializes the Lost Incident as the reason for Yusaku and Takeru/Theodore's strength rather than see it as a tragedy, is the catalyst for Earth's Cruel and Unusual Death, and switching from the popular Gouki deck to the less popular and weaker Dinowrestlers. Primarily though, he's hated for seemingly being completely superfluous to the narrative. The worse thing was, up until Season 2, he was a part of the show's Power Trio alongside Yusaku and Aoi/Skye.
