The most powerful god in anime is Zeno, Dragon Ball Super’s Omni-King, who erases whole universes on screen. Ultimate Madoka, who rewrote her universe across all of time, is second. Every god below is labeled a god by their own series and ranked by the scale of their biggest on-screen feat.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this list credited gods to anime they don’t appear in, such as Odin and Samael in Soul Eater and Thor and Loki in Noragami. We rebuilt it from scratch. Every entry was checked against its series, and the method is set out below.
How We Ranked the Gods
- They must be gods in their own anime. The series has to call the character a god, goddess or deity. Self-styled gods and mere nicknames are out.
- Ranked by feat scale. We place each god by the biggest thing it actually does on screen: multiverse, then universe or all of time, then world, then city, then individual.
- Canon results break ties. Within a tier, a god who defeats another entry on screen ranks above it.
- Then authority. Where the series never settles it, the god with more in-series authority ranks higher.
Comparing gods across different anime is always partly a judgment call. The tiers are the fixed part; the order inside a tier is where reasonable fans will disagree.
Most Powerful Gods in Anime at a Glance
| Rank | God | Anime | Feat tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zeno | Dragon Ball Super | Multiverse |
| 2 | Ultimate Madoka | Puella Magi Madoka Magica | Universe / all of time |
| 3 | Deus Ex Machina | Future Diary (Mirai Nikki) | Universe / all of time |
| 4 | Beerus | Dragon Ball Super | World |
| 5 | Tet | No Game No Life | World |
| 6 | Kaguya Ōtsutsuki | Naruto Shippuden | World |
| 7 | Athena (Saori Kido) | Saint Seiya | World |
| 8 | Hades | Saint Seiya | World |
| 9 | Poseidon (Julian Solo) | Saint Seiya | World |
| 10 | Tiamat | Fate/Grand Order – Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia | World |
| 11 | Asura | Soul Eater | World |
| 12 | Lord Death | Soul Eater | World |
| 13 | Freya | Is It Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? (DanMachi) | City |
| 14 | Zeus | Record of Ragnarok | Individual |
| 15 | Shiva | Record of Ragnarok | Individual |
| 16 | Thor | Record of Ragnarok | Individual |
| 17 | Yato | Noragami | Individual |
| 18 | Bishamonten | Noragami | Individual |
| 19 | Ryuk | Death Note | Individual |
| 20 | Aqua | KonoSuba | Individual |
1. Zeno (Dragon Ball Super)
God label: The “Omni-King,” ruler of all twelve universes. Feat tier: Multiverse.
No other god on this list has a bigger feat. The future Zeno erases that entire timeline in episode 67, and during the Tournament of Power the two Zenos wipe out every losing universe, starting with Universe 9 in episode 98, as ComicBook.com covered. The series’ backstory says his temper cut the multiverse from 18 universes to 12. He never fights, and he doesn’t need to: even Gods of Destruction are terrified of him.
2. Ultimate Madoka (Puella Magi Madoka Magica)
God label: Kyubey says her wish grants the power of a god; Rebellion casts her as the goddess to Homura’s devil. Feat tier: Universe / all of time.
In episode 12, Madoka wishes to erase every witch before it is born, in every timeline, past and future. The wish rewrites the rules of her universe and turns her into the Law of Cycles, a concept rather than a person. That puts her below Zeno only because her feat reshapes one universe across time, while his erases whole universes. Rebellion also shows her power can be taken: Homura tears part of it away.
3. Deus Ex Machina (Future Diary)
God label: God of Time and Space. Feat tier: Universe / all of time.
Deus creates the Future Diaries and runs the Survival Game to choose his successor. His life is tied to the universe itself: when he dies, all of creation ends, and the whole game is a race against that. He ranks below Madoka because his feat is keeping a universe in existence, not rewriting its laws across all of time.
4. Beerus (Dragon Ball Super)
God label: God of Destruction of Universe 7. Feat tier: World.
Beerus’s job is destroying planets to keep the universe in balance. In the Battle of Gods arc (episodes 5 to 14) he fights Super Saiyan God Goku and wins. He then fires at Earth and misses because he has dozed off, which Whis later hints was an act, as Den of Geek’s episode 14 review recounts. He tops the world tier because his authority covers a whole universe, even though his on-screen destruction stays planet-sized.
5. Tet (No Game No Life)
God label: The One True God of Disboard. Feat tier: World.
Tet became the One True God after the Great War between the races and replaced war with the Ten Pledges, which ban violence across his entire world and settle every dispute with games. Every other rule in the series comes from that decree. In episode 1 he even loses an online chess match to Sora and Shiro. He sits below Beerus because a God of Destruction’s authority covers a whole universe, while Tet’s covers one world.
6. Kaguya Ōtsutsuki (Naruto Shippuden)
God label: Worshipped as the Rabbit Goddess. Feat tier: World.
Centuries before the series, Kaguya ate the chakra fruit and cast the Infinite Tsukuyomi on the whole world, trapping humanity in a dream. When she returns in Shippuden, she jumps the heroes across dimensions she made herself. It takes Naruto and Sasuke’s combined sealing to stop her. That’s a clear canon loss, but to the two strongest shinobi in the series.
7. Athena (Saori Kido) (Saint Seiya)
God label: The goddess Athena, reincarnated. Feat tier: World.
Athena ranks above Hades and Poseidon because Saint Seiya lets her beat both. She seals Poseidon back into her amphora at the end of the Poseidon arc, and she and her Saints defeat Hades in Elysion. Most of her fighting is done through the Saints who serve her, which is why she doesn’t place higher than the world tier.
8. Hades (Saint Seiya)
God label: King of the Underworld. Feat tier: World.
Hades attempts the Greatest Eclipse, lining up the planets to block out the sun and plunge the Earth into permanent darkness. Stopping him takes Athena, the Gold Saints, and the Bronze Saints in God Cloths. He’s the strongest villain in the original Saint Seiya, but Athena beats him.
9. Poseidon (Julian Solo) (Saint Seiya)
God label: Emperor Poseidon, God of the Seas. Feat tier: World.
Poseidon’s opening move is to flood the world with endless rain, drowning coastlines while the Bronze Saints fight through his Mariners. Athena seals him in her amphora again, so he ranks below both her and Hades, whose plan threatened more than the coasts.
10. Tiamat (Fate/Grand Order)
God label: Primordial goddess and Beast II. Feat tier: World.
Tiamat is the mother of all life in Mesopotamian myth. Her Sea of Life threatens to wipe out humanity in the final arc of Babylonia. Bringing her down in episode 20 takes Quetzalcoatl and Gorgon’s attacks, King Hassan stripping away her immortality, and Gilgamesh’s Dingir, as Anime News Network’s review details. No canon result ties her to the Saint Seiya gods, and her authority in the series is one threat to one timeline, so she ranks below them.
11. Asura (Soul Eater)
God label: The Kishin, a “demon god”. Feat tier: World.
Asura’s madness wavelength spreads across the world, pushing people toward insanity just by existing. In the anime’s Kishin battle he beats Lord Death, so he ranks above him. The anime-only ending then has him destroyed by a single punch from Maka, a loss no one above him on this list suffers.
12. Lord Death (Soul Eater)
God label: The Shinigami, a god of death. Feat tier: World.
Lord Death sealed Asura centuries before the series and built Death City and the academy that trains its meisters. He moves the city to face Asura again, but loses that rematch in the anime. He’s a guardian of the whole world, beaten by the demon god ranked just above him.
13. Freya (Is It Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?)
God label: Goddess of Beauty. Feat tier: City.
In Season 5, Freya uses her Charm to rewrite the memories of all of Orario, so the whole city believes Bell has always belonged to her Familia. It’s one of the biggest power feats any god shows in DanMachi. But her Familia, the strongest in the city, then loses the War Game to Hestia’s allied forces.
14. Zeus (Record of Ragnarok)
God label: Chief of the Greek gods and head of the gods’ council. Feat tier: Individual.
Zeus beats Adam in Round 2 (Season 1, episodes 5 to 8), unlocking his Adamas form to win. Record of Ragnarok’s feats are one-on-one arena fights, so its gods sit in the individual tier. Zeus leads them because he rules the council that started the whole tournament.
15. Shiva (Record of Ragnarok)
God label: Top god of India’s pantheon. Feat tier: Individual.
Shiva beats sumo wrestler Raiden Tameemon in Round 5, animated in Season 2 Part 1 (January 2023), after dancing into his Tandava Karma form. He ranks below Zeus on the tiebreaker (Zeus’s authority), and above Thor because Record of Ragnarok names Shiva the strongest of a far larger pantheon.
16. Thor (Record of Ragnarok)
God label: Norse god of thunder. Feat tier: Individual.
Thor opens the tournament by beating Lü Bu in Round 1 (Season 1, episodes 1 to 4), finally awakening his hammer Mjolnir. He’s the gods’ first champion. Record of Ragnarok never pits him against Zeus or Shiva, so the authority tiebreaker places him third of the three.
17. Yato (Noragami)
God label: The “Delivery God,” formerly a God of Calamity. Feat tier: Individual.
Yato starts as a forgotten minor god with no shrine, taking five-yen jobs. In Aragoto, his past as a god of calamity and his newly Blessed Vessel Yukine let him beat Bishamon outright. Kazuma has to stop him from killing her, and that canon win puts him above her despite his lack of worshippers.
18. Bishamonten (Noragami)
God label: Goddess of War and Fortune. Feat tier: Individual.
Bishamon is one of Noragami’s most revered gods and commands a large family of shinki, the spirits who become gods’ weapons. Her feud with Yato in Aragoto ends with Yato beating her, before the truth about her clan’s deaths reconciles them. She has far more worshippers, but the method puts canon results first, so she ranks just below him.
19. Ryuk (Death Note)
God label: A Shinigami, or god of death. Feat tier: Individual.
Ryuk can kill any human whose name and face he knows, and he does, writing Light Yagami’s name in episode 37. The power is absolute but works one name at a time, and Ryuk spends the series as a bored spectator. He places above only the goddess who cannot even win a fight in her own show.
20. Aqua (KonoSuba)
God label: Goddess of Water, worshipped by the Axis Order. Feat tier: Individual.
Aqua’s genuine divine ability is resurrection: she brings Kazuma back from death more than once. She is still a real goddess by the show’s rules. But KonoSuba plays her as a comic failure, and her raw combat power is the lowest of any god here. She makes the list because the series says she is a goddess, not because she’s powerful.
Gods Other Lists Get Wrong
- Izanami, Amaterasu and Susanoo in Naruto aren’t gods. They’re jutsu named after Shinto deities. Naruto’s actual goddess is Kaguya.
- Samael isn’t in Soul Eater. It’s the true name of Mephisto Pheles in Blue Exorcist, a demon king.
- Thor and Loki aren’t in Noragami, whose gods are Japanese. Loki and Freya are goddesses in DanMachi, and Thor fights in Record of Ragnarok.
- Shiva, Vishnu and Kali don’t appear in Fate/Zero. Record of Ragnarok is where Shiva fights.
- Zeus and Hera are at most mentioned in Saint Seiya, never shown. Apollo appears only at the end of the Heaven Chapter: Overture film. Record of Ragnarok’s third season, released in December 2025, is where Hades and Apollo actually fight, per What’s on Netflix.
- Enel, Whis and Haruhi Suzumiya are left out on purpose. Enel’s “God” is a title he takes on Skypiea, Whis is an Angel, and Haruhi’s godhood is only Koizumi’s theory.
Our Take: Anime’s Strongest Gods Barely Fight
The ranking shows a clear pattern. The top three, Zeno, Ultimate Madoka and Deus Ex Machina, almost never throw a punch. Their power shows up as a rule change: a universe erased, a system of magic rewritten, a game that decides who inherits reality. The gods who actually fight on screen, from Beerus to Record of Ragnarok’s champions, fill out the middle and bottom.
That’s because anime writers treat a god who can be beaten in a fight as a strong character, not a real god. Once a series wants a truly unbeatable deity, it takes the god out of the action entirely. For the strongest fighters rather than rulers, see our list of the strongest anime characters, or the Dragon Ball watch order if Zeno made you want to catch up.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the strongest god in anime?
Zeno, the Omni-King of Dragon Ball Super, is the strongest god in anime by on-screen feats. He erases the entire future timeline and wipes out every universe that loses the Tournament of Power.
Is Madoka a god?
Yes. In episode 12 of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Madoka’s wish turns her into Ultimate Madoka, the Law of Cycles, and the Rebellion film frames her as a goddess opposite Homura’s devil.
Is Enel a god in One Piece?
No. Enel holds the title of God on Skypiea, but it’s a rank he claims, not actual divinity, and Luffy defeats him.
Is Samael in Soul Eater?
No. Samael is the true name of Mephisto Pheles in Blue Exorcist. Soul Eater’s deities are Lord Death, the Shinigami, and Asura, the Kishin.
Is Whis a god in Dragon Ball Super?
No. Whis is an Angel who serves and trains Beerus, Universe 7’s God of Destruction. Dragon Ball Super treats Angels as a separate class from gods.
