10 Smartest Anime Characters Of All Time

Shogo Makishima acts as the antithesis to the authoritarian Sibyl system, making the series' protagonists, and the public itself, reflect on who they are and what they've lost.

What the A.I. controlled Sibyl does is constantly monitor the psychological profile of Japan's citizens. It flags anyone with poor whose mental health as a public threat, and, depending on the situation, forces them to go to mandatory therapy, locks them away for good, or kills them. Shogo though is a sociopath, meaning, even when committing some truly heinous acts, he is able to remain perfectly calm. This allows him to slip through the systems cracks, something he uses to his advantage.

Shogo believes that Sibyl prevents people from having agency and living up to their full potential. That it doesn't allow for superior people to develop. He is an egotistical supremists, one that embodies Friedrich Nietzsche's übermensch concept to a tee. Despite this, he does have some points.

While he doesn't bring down the system, he manufactures enough discord to make it very afraid, which is impressive considering what he was up against. Shogo has such a devious brain in fact that protagonist Kogami is forced to put a bullet through it, as letting him live all but insured disaster.

Some of the best villains are the ones who we can understand, and few are as much as an open book as Makishima.