21 Anime Characters Who Are Hundreds of Years Old

Yato isn't completely immortal - he can be taken out by supernatural means. But things like poison, explosions, and gunshot wounds that would destroy most people have little to no impact on him. That's because he's a god who has been alive for 1,000+ years. Specifically, he used to be the God of Calamity, sowing destruction and pain wherever he went - but he decided to clean up his act and become a 'Delivery God' instead. While this earned him the ire of some of his fellow gods, he becomes more respectable to himself.

Senku may look like a teenage boy, but he's actually been alive for over 3,700 years. Senku didn't accomplish this through any special powers of his own. Rather, he was encased in stone along with the rest of the world, and was only freed after thousands of years. However, his unusual intelligence is what allows him to survive once he breaks free of the stone - he's able to figure out how to gather food, build shelter, and begin the process of recreating all the tools that science has come up with over the course of millennia. Were he someone else, he might not have lasted long.

3,000 years ago, Meliodas was next in line to become the Demon King. Despite the fact that a lot of people's hopes were riding on him doing this, he ends up prioritizing his relationship with a goddess named Elizabeth instead. Rather than simply take his life as punishment, the Demon King and the Supreme Deity worked together to punish them both for their insubordination. Meliodas is cursed with immortality - every time he loses his life, he's brought back again. In each life, he meets a reincarnation of Elizabeth, whose death he's ultimately forced to endure. That's pretty harsh, especially when it's over the course of thousands of years.

According to creator Yana Toboso, the demon butler's real age is a secret. But because he claims to have been responsible for the spread of the bubonic plague and to have met and ancient Egyptian mummy while he was still alive, it stands to reason that he's been around for over 2,000 years. Meanwhile, he looks like a particularly attractive 20-something.

It's not clear exactly how long C.C. has been alive, but she describes experiencing everything from World War I to the Salem Witch Trials, so it's safe to assume that she's been around since the 1600s. Her immortality has made her the victim of multiple forms of torture that would have destroyed almost anyone else. She can't age, so despite her long life, she looks like a 16-year-old girl. C.C.'s primary goal is to figure out how to finally end her life. This is why she gives people Geass powers - to make contracts with them in which they must promise to do whatever they can to eliminate her.

Despite being 6,407 years old, Jibril is actually the youngest member of her race, the Flugel. She's also the most powerful. Like the rest of her long-lived race, Jibril is dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge at all costs - meaning, she's willing to use violence if it means getting her hands on a rare book or finding out an obscure piece of information. She intends to hoard a library full of information for herself, but agrees to share it with the rest of the world once she's defeated by Sora and Shiro.

As a powerful Daiyokai with pure demon blood, Sesshomaru possesses supernatural longevity. He is around 900 years old despite his youthful appearance. Meanwhile, Inuyasha is around 150 years old. We knew that Sesshomaru is the older brother, but we didn't realize he is that much older.

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End takes place after a decade-long quest concludes, so you would think that such a long expedition would take a toll on Frieren. But those ten years were only a small portion of her over a century long life as an elf, and afterwards she falls right back into the routine she had before. Although those ten years come back into her mind as more time passes, it's still crazy to think that an entire decade is only a minuscule portion of her lifetime is kind of crazy.

Tomoe has been alive for about 600 years, which is fairly typical for yokai, who age slowly. However, being a yokai doesn't mean that Tomoe is immortal - on the contrary, he nearly lost his life about 500 years prior to the start of the series. Once a violent criminal, the war god Ikusagami decided to put a stop to Tomoe's reign of terror by attacking him while he was hanging out in a brothel. Mortally wounded, he was eventually rescued by Mikage, a shrine god who offered him shelter, taught him not to hate humans or be violent, and ultimately offered him a familiar contract. By the time he meets Nanami, his brutal ways are behind him, but his loyalty to the former shrine god makes it tough for him to warm up to the new one.

While Master Roshi does look old, he doesn't exactly look like he's been alive for over 300 years. While he has a variety of made up explanations for how he's lived so long, the real reason is that he's maintaining his life by eating the Paradise Herb, which is found only in the Forest of Terror. As long as he eats it every 1,000 years, he'll be able to maintain his life indefinitely.

Cursed with immortality for trying to bring his brother back to life, Zeref has endured a painful life for over 400 years. Since his Curse of Contradiction eliminates the people around him at random, he is forced to remain distant from the people he cares about.

Van Hoenheim, the father of the Elric Brothers, looks like an ordinary middle-aged man - but in reality, he's 451 years old. Initially, he was a regular human being, but when he was transformed into a human philosopher's stone, he was rendered incapable of aging or passing away, and continued existing for close to half a century. In the 2003 version of the anime, he's also hundreds of years old, but it's not because he's a philosopher's stone - it's because he's an alchemist who discovered how to insert his soul into someone else's body, thus preserving his existence indefinitely.

Vash isn't human - rather, he's an interdimensional being called a Plant. Plants are created by humans to use as a source of power, and most of them are essentially treated like expendable livestock. However, if they aren't killed, they have the capacity to survive long past the average human lifespan - especially those like Vash who can survive outside of the environments that most Plants are dependent on. When the series begins, Vash is about 130 years old. For context, the oldest verified human being in the real world lived to be 122 years old, and she did not look as young as Vash does.

While he isn't exactly immortal, Alucard is a startling 598 years old. He's a vampire, which explains his longevity. When he consumes someone else's blood, he also consumes their soul. This not only allows him to heal any injuries he might have accrued, it also literally adds years onto his life.

Given that Yamamoto founded the Shinigami Academy 2100 years prior to the series' events, it's safe to assume he's older than 2100 years old. He is the oldest captain in the Gotei 13 as well as the most respected. Although he looks like an old man, he's got a ripped body that will put any Shinigami to shame.

At 10,000 years old, Kaname Kuran is pretty freakin' old. He's an ancestor of the enigmatic Kuran family, and is one of the progenators of the vampire race. As one would expect of a vampire, he's mostly immortal - the only thing that can take him out are anti-vampire weapons. These weapons were actually forged by a sacrifice made by the mysterious hooded woman, who was willing to pass away in his stead in order to give humanity a chance against being overrun by vampires. After this happened, Kaname went into stasis for several thousand years, and was eventually revived by a descendent of his who intended to take his life, but found themselves getting their blood drained instead.

Don't be fooled by this gothic loli. While Rory Mercury looks like she's a 13-year-old girl, she's actually a 961-year-old demigoddess who stopped aging. Plus, she's an apostle to Emroy, the god of darkness, war, violence and death. Therefore, she's pretty skilled at slaughtering her enemies with her giant halberd. Looks sure can be deceiving.

Joseph has been alive for over 2,000 years, and he absolutely hates it. He's immortal, but in the world of The Ancient Magus' Bride, immortality just means staying alive. It doesn't mean being healthy or even basically functional. In fact, Joseph's body has been slowly rotting for nearly his entire lifespan, and the only way to even partially alleviate the pain is by forcibly taking other people's organs. Aside from this particular brand of macabre behavior, he also performs experiments on people in the hopes of breaking his immortality and finally passing away.

According to Kars' profile, he was born around 100,000 B.C. This makes him about 102,000 years old. He's an immortal being who possesses superhuman strength and regeneration. Luckily for him, he won't have to worry about age ruining his beautiful looks and rock hard abs.

The other characters on this list are tiny little babies in comparison to the ancient Najimi Ajimu. Najimi has been alive for 3,402,193,822,311 years - that's nearly 3 1/2 trillion years. This means that she's literally older than the universe itself. She's the founder of the Hakoniwa Academy and the person who set the Flask plan, which would turn regular humans into abnormals - into motion. She has over 12 quadrillion different skills and is one of the most powerful characters in the Medaka Box universe - but she still can't beat Medaka herself, because Medaka is the main character and this show is super meta.

Tomiko Asahina looks like she's in her mid-sixties, but actually she's 267 years old and has been serving as the head of the Ethics Committee for about 170 years. How did she manage to live so long? While most humans in the world of this series possess a variety of supernatural powers, Tomiko has a unique one - she can regenerate her telomeres. Telomeres are caps at the end of chromosomes, and they're needed in order for cells to divide safely. Normally, they're worn away slightly each time they divide, and when they're gone the cells are quickly destroyed - leading to the end of the person's life. Because Tomiko can restore her telomeres, she can extend her lifespan indefinitely.