Since he was a child, Goku has had one wish, to be the best fighter in the universe, but despite that, there are a handful of anime heroes who could destroy the Saiyan warrior. He's been fortunate in the fact that he's largely been able to fulfill his childhood dream. Having trained with and fought against the most impressive of Gods, warriors, and fighters, no one can deny he's in the conversation on who is the greatest anime fighter of all time. But all his accolades don't mean he can't be beaten.

As a lifelong warrior, with the thirst for fighting literally embedded in his DNA, finding a hero to defeat Goku is no easy task. However, with the breadth and diversity of characters found in anime, there are more than a few capable souls whose abilities can ultimately overcome whatever skills in battle Goku may possess. Goku might be incredibly powerful, but he's absolutely not invincible.

20 Ryomen Sukuna

Character From MAPPA's Jujutsu Kaisen; Based On The Manga By Gege Akutami

One of the most terrifying villains in Shonen Jump history, Sukuna's over-the-top power has made the ending of Jujutsu Kaisen uncertain. Known as the "King of Curses" in-universe, Sukuna has been effectively built up throughout the horror action series' run as a catastrophic threat to humanity. While he was still alive in the Heian Era, Sukuna was regarded as the world's most powerful sorcerer and possesses a vast amount of cursed energy and is able to flawlessly control it.

Even early in the series, Sukuna is shown to be a threat to the powerful mentors and other sorcerers that Yuji meets. After consuming fifteen fingers, Sukuna devastates Shibuya with a level of power on par with Gojo – albeit, far more sinister. The threatening figure is capable of using a number of powerful jujutsu techniques as well as activating his own cursed domain, which would make him more than a formidable threat if he were to be pit against Goku.

19 Osamu Dazai

Character From Bones' Bungo Stray Dogs; Based On The Manga By Kafka Asagiri

Osamu Dazai is one of the principal characters of Bones' Bungo Stray Dogs. After meeting the troubled youth Atsushi Nakajima, Dazai takes him under his wing and recruits him into the Armed Detective Agency, a secret organization that deals with crimes committed by those who possess supernatural abilities, with Dazai being one of their best agents.

In addition to his physical abilities, Osamu Dazai's power, No Longer Human, lets him negate any power that makes with his skin, making him virtually untouchable in a fight more often than not. No Longer Human has some specific stipulations in how it works, some of which negatively affect Dazai, but overall, it's a power that leaves him as one of the strongest characters in all of Bungo Stray Dogs and easily puts him in the upper echelon of anime characters.

18 Hei

Character From Bones' Darker Than Black; Created By Tensai Okamura

The ability for Darker Than Black’s Hei to crush Goku has two elements. First, there’s his martial arts skills. Like Goku, Hei is an accomplished martial artist whose prowess in hand-to-hand fighting would surely meet with Goku’s approval if circumstances were different.

Hie's martial arts skills would be able to hold any initial attack Goku would present. It also gives him time to deliver the second element of Hei’s abilities, namely his ability to manipulate electricity. With this power Hei can deliver electric shocks and charges with enough capacity to fry Goku alive. In addition, Hei's use of electricity allows him to change matter at the quantum level thereby giving him the ability to destroy matter - including Goku - with ease.

17 Saitama

Character From J.C.Staff's One-Punch Man; Based On The Manga By ONE & Yusuke Murata

Considering One-Punch Man’s impressive history of effortlessly defeating a plethora of different types of opponents, and his means of melee success, a singular punch to the head or body, he is one individual on the list that Goku would likely come up against in a fight to see who is best.

Unfortunately for Goku, since he rarely arrives at a fight already in a “powered up” form Saitama should be able to knock Goku out fairly quickly and thus avoid a transformation that might prove more difficult to beat. Ending fights quickly seems to be a common One-Punch Man strategy, which would work well in this case.

16 Enrico Pucci

Character From David Productions' JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 6: Stone Ocean; Based On The Manga By Hirohiko Araki

Though there is debate among JoJo fans about who the series' strongest character is, the one most likely to give Goku trouble is Father Pucci. Pucci cycles through a few stands throughout Stone Ocean, and though his first two probably wouldn't give Goku much trouble, Made in Heaven was powerful enough to restart JoJo's universe. With Made in Heaven, Pucci has the ability to accelerate time at an incredible rate. Pucci can exploit this time acceleration to move so fast that his opponents barely have time to react, if they do at all.

Using Made in Heaven, Pucci could easily outpace and outlast Goku. The Saiyan fighter is incredibly tough, but many of his best techniques and forms take a great deal of chi, meaning that, unless he has a senzu bean or a new form to debut, Goku's power wanes over time. Pucci is one of JoJo's most powerful characters, and he might be one of the few who can take Goku down.

15 Najimi Ajimu

Character From Studio Shaft's Medaka Box; Based On The Manga By Nisio Isin & Akira Akatsuki

Najimi Ajimu is one of the central antagonists of Studio Shaft's Medaka Box. A being older than the universe, Najimi has spent centuries constructing the Flask Plan, a project designed to imbue the students of Hakoniwa Academy with supernatural abilities that would undoubtedly result in the loss of countless lives, all to find someone who could finally defeat her at something.

While the Medaka Box anime never got to explore it, Najimi Ajimu has over 12 quadrillion abilities, with many of them blatantly overpowered abilities like atom splitting, power nullification, and reversing causality, and the only character who could defeat her was Iihiko Shishime in the manga, someone as blatantly overpowered as her. Najimi’s power is overwhelming to the point of parody, but it still makes her one of the strongest anime characters, by far.

14 Lina Inverse

Character From E&G Films & J.C.Staff's Slayers; Based On The Light Novel By Hajime Kanzaka

The classic fantasy anime Slayers stars Lina Inverse, a traveling sorceress who's famous for both her immense power and her destructive short temper. Lina and her friends tend to only do things under the promise of a reward, but more often than not, Lina ends up involved in conflicts that, much to her annoyance, leave her as the only one who can do something about it and save the world.

Lina Inverse is explicitly not the chosen one in Slayers, but she more than earns her reputation with incredibly powerful magic and fighting sense, and she's so talented that Giga Slave, a spell Lina invented as a child, can destroy the entire universe if used at full power. Even in a weakened state, Giga Slave can destroy the all-powerful demon lord Ruby Eye Shabranigdu, and there are few characters comparable to Lina in Slayers and in anime, overall.

13 Usagi Tsukino

Character From Toei Animation's Sailor Moon; Based On The Manga By Naoko Takeuchi

One of the most iconic female anime characters brought up in discussions regarding who could be capable of taking down the legendary Saiyan warrior, the bubbly and airheaded Usagi from Sailor Moon is a fellow magical girl contender that could easily overpower Goku. While her cheery personality doesn't make her seem relatively threatening at a glance, the leader of the Sailor Scouts is one of the most overpowered characters ever created.

Usagi has a number of high-powered abilities when she takes up the mantle as Sailor Moon, including the ability to fly across an entire galaxy in mere seconds; having the potential to completely alter reality as Sailor Cosmos, as well as controlling space-time in its entirety; she is also capable of healing the destruction of her body, mind, soul, and even abstract, otherworldy concepts. In the manga, she even managed to shrink an omnipresent force down to an infinitesimally small size to suppress the harm it was originally capable of committing.

12 Hao Asakura

Character From Bridge's Shaman King; Based On The Manga By Hiroyuki Takei

Hao Asakura is the central antagonist of Bridge's Shaman King. Hao developed a deep-seated hatred for humanity from the abuse he suffered as a child, so every time he reincarnates, he attempts to become the Shaman King and use the power of the Great Spirit to destroy humanity, and his latest reincarnation as the twin brother of series protagonist Yoh Asakura makes him the strongest he's ever been.

Hao was already virtually indestructible thanks to his immense mana and the power of the Spirit Of Fire, but in the climax of the series, Hao obtains power on a universal scale by becoming Shaman King and fusing with the Great Spirit, with solar flares and black holes just a few of the forces he can create without breaking a sweat. Hao was stronger than everyone when Shaman King began, and all the ending did was escalate that to an incredible degree.

11 Haruhi Suzumiya

Character From Kyoto Animation's The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya; Based On The Light Novel By Nagaru Tanigawa

Haruhi Suzumiya is the eponymous character of Kyoto Animation's The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Seeking a life of adventure, Haruhi starts the SOS Brigade, a school club dedicated to uncovering supernatural oddities, but unbeknownst to her, most of the club are the very oddities she's been looking for, all of whom are gathered to observe Haruhi and the godlike abilities she unknowingly uses daily.

Haruhi's powers allow her to constantly manipulate reality to satisfy her random whims, even if she's unaware of what's going on, and as shown in the first arc, Haruhi's powers are strong enough to destroy and rewrite the entire fabric of reality if she's so much as in a bad mood. In many ways, the scale of Haruhi's powers are comparable to Zeno's, and that perfectly illustrates how powerful she's supposed to be.