Top 30 Cool Yet Caring Kuudere Boys in Anime

Strong and stoic to the point of seeming cold, the kuudere anime boy is not someone who shows their feelings easily. However, as they say, those still waters run deep. Whether they warm up once someone makes the effort to get close to them or continue to hold tight the reins over their emotions despite a torrent of feelings, the kuudere anime boy is charming to those that enjoy the strong, silent type.

Best Kuudere Anime Boys

What is a Kuudere?

Chances are that if you are here, you came here looking for a kuudere boy to fall in love with and already know what one is. However, if nothing else, knowing what we think defines a kuudere character can help you be more familiar with our criteria for choosing them.

“Kuudere,” by definition, is a portmanteau of “kuuru,” a katakanization of the English word “cool,” and “deredere,” meaning loving. These kuudere are often characters that are confident without being cocky and always in control of their emotions.

In extreme cases, they may appear emotionless. However, in many cases, a kuudere just keeps their cool and maintains their feelings until the proper time comes to express them. That said, even the coolest character may have a few specific buttons one can press to completely make them lose their cool.

Todaroki Shoto from My Hero Academia

Shoto is a character that plays with character tropes a little. When a characters has fire powers, they typically have a fiery personality to match. However, because Shoto has the ability to use fire and ice, as well as also hating his father from which he inherited his fire powers, Shoto has a bit of an icy personality.

The coldness in his personality also likely comes from a particularly traumatic and abusive childhood, but even from his introduction, there was no question that this cool character cared about people. After all, if you want to become a hero, you probably should at least have that.

Yuno from Black Clover

Yuno is the polar opposite of Black Clover main character, Asta. Whereas Asta is fiery and without natural talent for magic, Yuno is cool and gifted. While he also worked hard to hone his power, much of that power comes from his natural gifts towards magic. However, while the confidence of that is there, the cockiness of it is kept carefully hidden away.

Yuno takes things very seriously, calculating his battles, and very rarely lets his emotions get the better of him. That said, nobody can push his buttons better than Asta to make him lose that cool sometimes.

Hyakkimaru from Dororo

I suppose if you have all your limbs, skin, tongue, and eyes sacrificed to demons as a baby, your only real personality type option is the silent type. While Hyakkimaru is initially a kuudere by forced circumstance, his personality doesn’t change as the plot helps him regain his missing body parts by slaying the demons that posses them.

Even with his tongue back, Hyakkimaru doesn’t use it much. Still, he cares for his extra talkative companion Dororo and is even visibly hurt when his family rejects what he is and what he is doing. As he is an innately caring character despite his circumstances, it is what makes those moments when he is hurting extra impactful.

Tomioka Giyu from Demon Slayer

As a Hashira of the Demon Corps, Giyu is merciless in killing demons. However, while he maintains his stoic guise throughout the series, you do see brief moments where a little dere shows through.

He is initially swayed by Tanjiro to not slay Nezuko and relents, but it remains clear that he will slay her if needed. Yet, in a moment later on, he actually defends her against other slayers, displaying one of those rare glances of him actually caring about something. His icy exterior continues to melt further later on as you discover the survivor’s guilt he carries around, likely causing the cold exterior.

Oreki Houtarou from Hyouka

Oreki is all about conserving energy, but that’s just a ploy to keep people away. They’re bothersome and exhausting, but Hyouka is all about learning that relationships can be worth it too.

While Oreki initially doesn’t even want to be a character in the anime, yet alone a main one, he is constantly dragged into mundane mysteries by the alluring Chitanda. It is this constant exposure that piques his curiosity in her and eventually starts to melt the ice.

Fushiguro Megumi from Jujutsu Kaisen

Every shounen anime needs that one major character who is a complete kuudere for contrast. In Jujutsu Kaisen, Megumi firmly takes up that role. In stark contrast to the goofy Yuuji and Nobara, Megumi is stern and serious. Yet it is those same goofy comrades that start to break down the wall he put up around himself.

Over the course of the series, you see that kuudere ice begin to melt as he forms meaningful friendships with his peers on the team. However, just because he let out some feelings doesn’t mean his serious side is ever going to go away.

Hikigaya Hachiman from My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU

It is my belief that behind every apathetic loner is a kuudere just waiting to bloom. Isolated from his peers for various reasons has made Hachiman a bit twisted in his beliefs, made even worse by pragmatism.

However, while it takes a minute, you see Hachiman begin to melt as people are forced into his life. He is shown new perspectives, and more importantly, we are shown that he does, to some degree, care about others. That caring only grows as the series goes on and his world continues to expand.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka from Classroom of the Elite

Not unlike Hachiman, Ayanokoji is painted as an unapproachable and friendless loner. However, that is often by choice. Just as he purposely scores low on his tests so, too, does he also purposely keep people at a distance. Like everything else, it is calculated.

However, a main character completely lost in apathy isn’t especially interesting. Instead, you get glimpses of Ayanokoji using his extreme intelligence to the aid of others. This helps him reach his ultimate goal, but sometimes he often just does it because he cares.

Matsuboshi Raidou from Aharen-san is Indecipherable

Aharen-san is Indecipherable is a romance between kuuderes. Both Raido and Aharen are the strong silent types that are often misunderstood by everyone around them. It is kind of what makes them the perfect friends and perfect love interests since they understand each other so well.

Unfortunately, Raido’s kuudere nature is often misunderstood by the audience since you hear everything that goes on in his inner monologue. You know he is super kind, but to everyone else, he definitely seems a bit unapproachable.

Sohma Yuki from Fruits Basket

There are more than a few kuuderes amidst the Sohma family. Yuki starts off seeming like your more refined and studious character. His cool attitude and intelligence make him admired, but he’d always rather just be friends with people rather than an object of admiration.

Like most Sohma family mental problems, it all stems from abuse from the family head as a child. However, his cool kuudere nature also makes him the perfect Sohma to juxtapose against the fiery Kyo in a real cat and mouse relationship.

Tada Mitsuyoshi from Tada-kun Never Falls in Love

After a childhood trauma involving his parents, Tada shut himself off from outwardly loving people. While he still clearly cares for people, it isn’t until he accidentally falls in love that the deeper ice on his personality starts to melt away.

While Tada is never cold to people, he is always keeping them at a distance. As such, Tada-kun Never Falls in Love fully focuses on someone finally closing the gap.

Kusaka Kabane from Kemono Jihen

Your typical shounen anime protagonist has a little fire in his veins, but not this one. It wasn’t being born half human and half demon that made Kabane a kuudere. Instead, it is clearly displayed that his blunted emotions stem from a neglectful and abusive childhood living with the people he was left with. They treated him like a slave and he didn’t form many relationships.

That upbringing continues to be reflected in his character even after leaving that place. However, you also see it begin to melt away as he gains people that like him and treat him like a person instead of an object.

Ledo from Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet

When you spend your life inside of a mech and fighting for your life at every opportunity, it only makes sense that outward emotions fall to the wayside.

However, while very kuudere at first, as Ledo grows throughout the series, he uncovered emotions hidden deep within him.

Irie Naoki from Mischievous Kiss

Who says a kuudere can’t also be kind of a dick?

Naoki is the object of affection by many girls, which is probably why he treats Kotoko’s initial confession so coldly. However, that coldness doesn’t begin to melt until they are forced to move in together. Still, even then, he still kind of plays games with her and often only makes moves when his plaything is threatened with maybe moving on from him.

Brandon Heat from Gungrave

When Brandon Heat comes back as Grave, his cold, quiet demeanor is attributed to him being revived from the dead. However, through flashbacks, it is shown that Brandon, while having slightly more emotions, was always the strong, silent kuudere type.

Whether it is his revived self or the person he was before, Brandon is shown to never stop caring about certain people. You know when your feelings persist through death that they were pretty real.

Sesshoumaru from Inuyasha

Whether it be demons, humans, or his own half-brother, Sesshoumaru is shown to care very little. However, throughout the series, you get to be familiar with the emotions that he kept stuffed deep inside.

It is shown that while he didn’t particularly care for his half-brother, he did once want to depend in him in the demon wars, but that was ruined after he found out Inuyasha was sealed to a tree. However, the most emotions we see from him are the ones he forms while being followed around by an orphan girl that he revived in an experiment.

Ciel Phantomhive from Black Butler

If your parents were killed and you got a bit defiled by a group of men, you’d probably be as apathetic as Ciel too. While there are emotions in there, he keeps them pretty close to the vest, likely because he might be taunted with them by his own demon butler.

Hei from Darker Than Black

Most Contractors in Darker Than Black are pretty kuudere, for the most part because they traded away their humanity. Hei’s stoic facade comes from past trauma, the sort of trauma you accumulate in his line of work.

That said, there are many moments in the series where he takes action even when he doesn’t need to, simply because he cares.

Mitsumine Hakuya from Engaged to the Unidentified

When it comes to romance series, a kuudere male is typically a pretty good choice for a love interest. They are cool, they are mysterious, and they are so alluring. However, typically they are a little fuller of emotion than Hakuya.

Throughout the series, he rarely talks and often fades into the background because of the stronger personalities in the home, but it is his actions that show how he feels inside.

Levi from Attack on Titan

With the reputation as humanity’s strongest soldier, it is only natural that Levi has such a cold and unapproachable personality.

However, he has a deep respect for structure, cherishes human life, and has the rather crowd pleasing fault of being a clean freak. Regardless of his kuudere attitude, he always cares deeply about those under his charge.

Kuchiki Byakuya from Bleach

As the head of an noble clan, one needs a certain aloofness. While Byakuya is so indifferent it borders on arrogance, you see a bit of a softer side as things go on.

Most of that softness comes in regards to Rukia. Even she believes that he doesn’t care for her, but Byakuya takes great strides to protect those close to him, including her.

Morinozuka Takahashi from Ouran High School Host Club

There is no more finer example of a “strong and silent” kuudere. Mori rarely talks in the series, but when he does, it is always worth listening to. He is also another kuudere type that doesn’t display his soft side in words, instead he shows it through actions.

Nozaki Umetarou from Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun

It isn’t so much that Nozaki is a kuudere that stops the romantic progression in this romance anime, but rather it is just that he is dense as hell. Imagine being so stoic that the clearly confessed feelings of others just can’t wedge their way into that thick skull.

Still, that’s the comedy of Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun. While he is shown to be the strong, silent kuudere type, near the end, it starts to give you those nuggets of dere that romance junkies crave.

Kuroko Tetsuya from Kuroko’s Basketball

A kuudere protagonist isn’t so uncommon, but a kuudere protagonist in a sports anime is a rare sight indeed. Perhaps that is one of the things that makes Kuroko’s Basketball so good.

Regardless, the titular Kuroko isn’t about his own glory. He is all about his team. His special talent of misdirection is often used for him to set up a team mate to be a star. As a character, he often flies under everyone’s radar, and likes it that way.

Yukimura Shinya from Science Fell in Love So I Tried to Prove It

There are moments in Science Fell in Love where Shinya shows a few hints of tsundere in him, but he is, above all else, a man of science. A man of science does not kowtow to emotions, and that is the premise of this anime series.

He, a man of science, needs factual proof that Himuro loves him. She, being a woman of science, agrees. I’d say the series is a romance between two kuuderes, but Himuro lets her emotions live a little more loosely and he certainly doesn’t seem to mind.

Shinei Nouzen from 86

As a man who was forced to become a child soldier and was responsible for mercy killing hundreds of comrades so they didn’t become enemy salvage, you should expect to be Shin’s personality a little cold.

While a few hundred pounds of latent trauma have made him cold, it certainly didn’t make him uncaring. He is showing to care more about his comrade’s lives than his own. Furthermore, part of his growth in the series is overcoming his desire to just find a place to die and instead find himself a reason to live.

L from Death Note

If you are a super genius and high school detective, you probably earned the right to have a bit of cockiness to you. Still, L always keeps everything under the collar. Every movement of those around him is studied and analyzed. It is what fuels his superior deduction skills.

However, being good at solving mysteries and a bit quirky alongside that isn’t a good recipe for friends. Even in Death Note when his sole friend is a man trying to get close enough to kill him, it is still nice to see L break loose a little and seem to be having a nice time.

Piccolo from Dragon Ball Z

Although his attitude early on in Dragon Ball Z towards Gohan is more tsundere, as things go on, he becomes more honest with his feelings. With this, he surrenders the tsundere spotlight to Vegeta and becomes more of a cool and collected member of the group.

Itachi from Naruto

After killing his whole clan, it is kind of hard to imagine Itachi as caring about anything. However, the reason he killed his clan was because he cared. He cared for his village enough to stop a violence-inducing coup. He cared for his brother enough to spare him.

He is proof that sometimes caring for something means throwing away everything else.

Did we forget to include your favorite kuudere boy from anime? Tell us all about that cold and caring lad in the comments section below.