Crunchyroll Celebrates Anime Villains With “Release The Villains” Campaign

Throughout the long history of anime, there have been many, many villains. From outright psychopaths that make perfect hate sinks to morally complex antiheroes that make you think deeply about the nature of morality, anime history has seen villains across the entirety of the moral spectrum. All of these villains enrich the stories they appear in. After all, without a good villain, it’s very difficult to produce a good conflict upon which a story is based upon. Good stories, and good heroes in turn, often rest upon having a good villain, which means that while a good villain is hated, there’s a fair bit of love that these villains deserve to boot. Crunchyroll seems to understand that very well. How else do you explain them dedicating an entire month to celebrate the villains of anime?

Crunchyroll is proud to celebrate the villains of anime history across the moral spectrum with their “Release the Villains” campaign. With that campaign beginning this week on November 9, 2026. That campaign will take place across the world, including but not limited to Berlin, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Toronto, Sao Paulo and Mexico City. These villains that Crunchyroll is shining a spotlight on span the breadth of anime, across different authors, story styles, and archetypes. To celebrate them, Crunchyroll are getting a “social coup”, with “curated carousels spotlighting iconic antagonists and their most compelling stories”, as well as “dedicated collections that make it easier than ever to discover and stream your next favorite villain”.

As part of this celebration of anime’s villains, Crunchyroll is giving us a “Release the Villains!” video. You can watch that either on YouTube, or just look below for that and the list of featured villains Crunchyroll has for us this month:

Release the Villains!

PSYCHO-PASS – Shogo Makishima

My Hero Academia – Tomura Shigaraki

Attack on Titan – Zeke Jaeger

VINLAND SAGA – Askeladd

OVERLORD – Ains Ooal Gown

Tokyo Ghoul – Rize Kamishiro

Crunchyroll Delving into Villainous Characters for November 2026

Honestly, this is a rather odd campaign for Crunchyroll to do out of nowhere. And it really is out of nowhere. There was no indication, warning, or even teasing beforehand that they would conduct this “Release the Villains!” campaign for the villains of anime-dom. So to me, and likely everyone else hearing about this, it sounds like a bolt out of the blue. No rhyme or reason for why they’re doing this.

On the other hand though, this is a genuinely interesting as a concept. Villains are in many ways the backbone of a story. Sometimes even moreso than the actual hero. Without the villain, it’s very difficult to write a meaningfully interesting story. It’s not impossible. There are some very artsy stories out there that have a story without a villain. However, the vast majority of stories do require their villains to counterbalance their heroes, so I’m glad all of the best villains in anime are getting their time in the spotlight.

It’s even more hilarious in that light that Ains from Overlord is part of that highlight. Ains is a peculiar example for a villain because he’s both the villain and the hero of the story. He’s one of the cases of a villain protagonist in which you have an actively evil protagonist driving the story. It makes for a very morally ambiguous story that can be quite appealing to a certain audience, so I applaud that particular choice of villain.

What do you all think? Do you have a favorite villain from anime that you’d like to see get their time in the spotlight? Regardless of whether they’re from a Crunchyroll anime or not? Tell us your villainous thoughts in the comments section below.