
The Ultimate Evil of Death Note
Death Note is manga series made by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, as well as its anime adaption. This series is an interesting example of a "villain protagonist vs. hero antagonist" story, with no villain in the series is as evil and heinous as the villain protagonist Light Yagami aka "Kira".
Plot[]
Death Note's story follows Light Yagami, a high-school student who discovers a mysterious notebook called Death Note, which is dropped by Shinigami Ryuk and grants its user the ability to kill any person by writing their name on it. Having obtained the powerful notebook, Light decides to use it to kill every criminal he sees on news and media, in order to create a crime-free world and be worshipped by people as a god aliased "Kira". Light's acts of mass murdering draws attention from police, an enigmatic detective L starts to investigate the case and tries to catch Kira. Being an obstruct to Light's plan of becoming god, Light and L starts a battle of wits to defeat each other.
Close Contenders[]
Ryuk[]

Ryuk is the Shinigami who dropped a Death Note in the human realm to ease his boredom, which caused Light to pick up it and start the entire catastrophe. Ryuk observed Light killing people with a sadistic smile and assisted Light's plan multiple times. When Light was lost in the finale of the series, Ryuk wrote Light's name on his own notebook and killed him. Ryuk then got away from his crimes and would continue doing so for amusement.
Despite being responsible for Light picking up the Death Note in the first place, Ryuk cannot be fully blamed for Light's actions, as it is ultimately Light's own choice to commit these atrocities, while Ryuk is just aiding Light's plan several times and otherwise being an observer. Ryuk is also arguably less evil than Light as he is genuinely affable to humans and respects them.
Shinigami King[]

Shinigami King is the ruler of Shinigami realm and the creator of all Death Notes. He is possibly the most powerful entity in the series and has immeasurable kills according to the databook.
Despite being the most powerful character and has the highest kill count, his crimes are completely off-screen and is not given any depth, causing him to suffer from Fridge Horror. He is also too enigmatic to count as TUE since his motives are largely unknown, making it difficult to fully conclude him evil.
Kyosuke Higuchi[]

Among all the human users of the Death Note, Higuchi is the only one who targets on killing innocent people, as he mainly kills business rivals in order to get wealth and power. He is one of the most depraved and loathsome characters in the series, with absolutely no redeeming qualities, not even the subverted ones, having a perverted obsession on Misa which makes Rem think even Light is better than him.
As horrible as he is, he fails the heinous standard to Light, as he is a simple pawn of Light's plan and didn't do anything Light couldn't foresee him doing. While he has much more resources than Light due to being a wealthy businessman, he is too stupid to fully take advantage of his resources and is taken down rather easily.
Teru Mikami[]

Teru Mikami stands out for being even more agressive in killing people than Light, being so quick to announce a start to killing lazy people who don't contribute to the society, which even Light himself comments "It's too early for that". Upon getting the Death Note, he immediately trades shinigami eyes and starts to "delete" many criminals, whether they have intent for crime or not, and later aids Kiyomi Takada killing a huge number of criminals by sending Takada the names and pictures of criminals.
As ruthless as he is, he is ultimately a minion of Light, thus fails to Light in terms of influence.