When you bend reality as anime does, it opens up tons of possibilities, including characters whose life and influence can span centuries. Demons, gods, lolis – anime has quite the array of characters who many not necessary have immortality, but do posses an advanced age.
Best Ancient Anime Characters
CC from Code Geass
Though she looks like a teen, CC is long-lived. She has been around since medieval times where she was given the Code of Immortality by another. This also gave her the ability to give the Geass to others. Unfortunately, her many centuries of life involved many instances of dying painfully, but always coming back. She finds that a pretty big bummer, as you might imagine.
Tomoe from Kamisama Kiss
Kamisama Kiss, being a story about deities and their servants, is filled with long-living characters. Aside from the very human main character, most other characters are technically immortal. You know what that means! They are all beautiful and interesting looking. Tomoe is actually a bit different from most of them. Instead of being a god or a familiar, he’s actually a yokai who ended up becoming a familiar instead.
Inuyasha from Inuyasha
As one would expect from demons, they have lengthy lifespans. Even half demons like Inuyasha get some benefit in longevity. While not explicitly stated how old he is, his mother was displayed in Heian clothing, so that means he is at least a couple hundred years old. A pittance compared to his centuries old older brother, though.
Meliodas from Seven Deadly Sins
While it takes some time to reveal, the history behind Meliodas and his specialness is eventually told. Along with that revelation is the fact that he is over 3,000 years old as well as the fact that he has kind of been repeating a cycle for quite some time. That being said, there are actually quite a few long-lived characters in Seven Deadly Sins, as you will find out.
Senko from Meddlesome Fox Senko-San
This series uses one of the more popular uses of old characters – making them look like children. Senko is a fox spirit that looks like a little girl, but of course she is 800 years old. This helps some of the lewder moments in the show be less problematic.
Senku from Dr. Stone
Unlike Senko above, Senku isn’t a god. He isn’t even immortal. He is, however, long living thanks to an apocalyptic event. Everyone got turned to stone, including him, but thanks to the right chemical chain reaction, he was cured – some 3,000 years later. He’s not the only one either, using science, he helped reawaken others. Anyone with a scar is well over their 3,000th birthday.
Yato from Noragami
Back to gods! Yato, much like any god in this series or any other, is several millennia old. However, he is only rather recently a kind god. His past is filled with a lot more bloodshed.
Master Roshi from DBZ
Finally, a long lived character that looks like they lived a long time. Masher Roshi is 300 years old, and looks at least a little bit like he has lived a bit. Yet, the Dragon Ball universe is filled with old characters. Karin, Piccolo, and gods of all shapes and sizes that govern various quadrants of the universe.
Alucard from Hellsing
As a vampire, Alucard has lived over 500 years. In Hellsing, his history is a bit of a twist in Bram Stoker’s Dracula story. He was subdued by Van Hellsing and that began his servitude to the Hellsing family, who have since made great use of his terrible powers.
Vampires seems a bit like cheating on this list, don’t they? To save space, here are a few more (but certainly not all of them)
- D from Vampire Hunter D
- Mina Tepes from Dance in the Vampire Bund
- Evangeline from Magic Sensei Negima
- Miyu from Vampire Princess Miyu
- Shinobu from Bakemonogatari
Rory from Gate
Rory, being a a deity, is just short of her 1,000th birthday. As it turns out, she stopped aging once she achieved demigod status, which apparently happened around 13. It is also worth noting that elves in Gate are also quite aged.
Kars from Jojo Bizarre Adventure
The Pillar Men race, of which Kars is the de facto leader of, are an ancient race of super humans. They do have an adversity to sunlight, which Kars sought to solve. They have lived for millennia, occasionally hibernating. In 1939, however, Kars finally achieved perfection before being sent to space.
Vash from Trigun
Vash looks (and acts) rather young, but compared to all the other humans on the planet, he is a wizened elder. Being a member of a different race that just so happens to look like humans, he has actually lived 130 years old. Unfortunately, so is his evil murderous twin that wants to punish the human race for using their race as a power source.
Ai from Hell Girl
This is a classic case of older than she looks. Ai looks like a creepy little girl that drags souls to hell, but she is a deity that is in fact much older.
The Dragons from Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid
I mean, they’re dragons. Should dragons not be old? I don’t know if they are able to change their human form appearance, but they can certainly change clothes as well as hide horns and tails when needed. So it stands to reason, they also choose to look pretty as well.
Cheza from Wolf’s Rain
Cheza is a flower made into girl form. She is supposed to open the way to paradise, but in doing so may have inadvertently ended the world.
Hoenhiem from Full Metal Alchemist
Who could forget the most notable of them all? As a great alchemist, obviously Hoenhiem would find himself with a longer lifespan. Unfortunate, in doing so he has created some great and lasting mistakes as well.
Do you have any more anime characters that are hundreds, if not thousands of years old? Let fans know in the comments section below.
