INTJ Anime Characters That Aren’t Stereotypical Edgelords

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In this article:

• Learn a bit about the INTJ personality type and what makes an INTJ think the way they do.
• Get familiar with some of the coolest INTJ characters in anime, some of which you probably never considered could be INTJ because of stereotypes about the personality.
• Learn whether you might be an INTJ and how to tell whether or not you are one.

INTJs and INFJs have a bit of a mythical reputation on the internet. While INFJs are stereotyped as hyper-empaths who can read minds, INTJs are seen as masterminds of epic proportions that are capable of planning a move thousands of steps ahead of their enemies. Because of this, it’s no surprise that a lot of people, who think of themselves as master tacticians, like to jump at the chance to identify with the INTJ type.

And it certainly doesn’t help that INTJ anime characters are cool. Characters such as Lelouch and Light Yagami live rent free in anime fans’ minds because of how straight-up badass and clever they are, making them obvious picks for being INTJ anime characters.

Which is why you won’t find them here. Instead, we’ll be looking at the INTJs you probably didn’t think of as INTJ.

INTJ Anime Characters That Aren’t Just Edgy

Most fictional INTJs are villains or, at the very least, anti-heroes. Because of their obvious self-interest, sinister behavior, and calculating view on everything, there’s a misconception that all characters who act like that are INTJ, and anyone who doesn’t has to be a different type. This ignores the rest of the INTJ mindset, particularly the side of INTJ that is angled towards tertiary Introverted feeling (FI) and tertiary Extraverted Sensing (SE).

1. Shinobu Kocho

Shinobu Kocho is a female INTJ character from the hit anime series Demon Slayer. She’s also one of the few INTJ anime characters out there.

Shinobu is the sister of Kanae Kocho and the adopted sister of Kanao Tsuyuri. To everyone else around her, she’s the Insect Hashira, marking her as one of the best warriors of the Demon Slayer Corps. That said, she isn’t physically strong as she herself admits that she’s the only Hashira who is physically incapable of decapitating demons.

To get around this weakness, Shinobu coats her blade with a poison that subjects her demon enemies to a slow and painful death. It’s an obviously smart move, true, but there’s a side of it that’s coming from Shinobu’s tertiary Introverted Feeling: She is vindictive.

Shinobu takes a perverse pleasure in lording her superior moral position, no matter how well-justified, over demons to the point that she toys with them. At the same time, though, we see her be incredibly gentle with people who she sees as blameless like in the scene where she cares for victims who were turned into spiders.

While it’s possible for her to be an IXXJ of any kind, Zenitsu does point out that she has a very strange way of speaking which may point to a lack of social awareness that usually comes with Extraverted Feeling, the auxiliary function of the INFJ and ISFJ. 

2. Kaguya Shinomiya

Shinomiya is as sweet and straightforward as INTJ characters come. She’s shy and reserved but not in the ways other introverted types tend to be. Shinomiya seems to be more than comfortable being in positions where she has to take charge and be at the center stage if there are clear, non-personal (as in, not relating to social relationships) goals at stake.

Thankfully for us, there’s an episode in Season 2 of Love Is War when Shinomiya talks to the little Shinomiyas in her head where Ice Queen Kaguya (auxiliary Extraverted Thinking) and fool Kaguya (tertiary Introverted Feeling) weigh in together on how Shinomiya should proceed with celebrating the President’s birthday. 

While Fool Kaguya wants to go all in on the birthday and make it obvious what Shinomiya really feels, Ice Queen Kaguya insists that they keep playing the game and make Shirogane confess first.

Despite all the planning that went into this though, it’s clear none of the three have thought ahead enough to think of the social ramifications of giving Shirogane a cake that looks like a wedding cake. 

Before the episode ends, a young Judge Kaguya (inferior Extraverted Sensing) pops out of nowhere to let them all know they’re overthinking this – assigning too many meanings and value to something as straightforward as giving a gift. 

3. Ciel Phantomhive

Ciel is a more obvious INTJ compared to the earlier two, but the fact that he’s so young lets us see exactly how he struggles with his own tertiary and inferior functions. He’s more than comfortable with planning and executing long-term plans, even if the plan covers something so far in the future or is a difficult moral decision to make.

Where he does get flustered is when he’s reminded of what he actually is at the core: A child. He gets shy around being coddled by Madame Red and insecure about looking less manly around Elizabeth. On a more insidious note, he’s willing to destroy his own family name and reputation for the sake of vengeance, should it ever come to that point. 

4. Kobayashi

Not every INTJ lives a high-powered life. Contrary to stereotypes, no, your type doesn’t determine how smart you actually are let alone your life trajectory. All it does is provide some insight into how you think.

Kobayashi from Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid is a great example of an everyday INTJ you could meet on the street. She’s reserved but is also surprisingly kind to those she truly cares about, with the caveat that she ignores pretty much everyone else. She can also have a bit of a toned-down party animal streak as seen when she gets drunk. 

With her inferior Extraverted Sensing beginning to develop, she’s more comfortable with being physically expressive and aggressive to the point that she’ll want to wrangle those around her into having fun with her. 

The way she acts around Quetzalcoatl and accidentally says rude things points towards a lack of social awareness and skills common in types with Extraverted Feeling as a blindspot. 

5. Nico Robin

Nico Robin, if you can’t look past her looks, can fly under the radar of an INTJ because of her stylish outfits but that’s basically the case for every other female character. If you want to be particular about it, you can chalk it up to inferior Extraverted Sensing’s fascination with beautiful things. 

Robin often demonstrates dominant Introverted Intuition by making it clear how often she thinks of her crewmates meeting terrible ends. These aren’t just “unlikely but possible” extrapolations that dominant Extraverted Intuition types (EXFPs) like to make but are narrowed down to the likeliest outcome. For example, after the Skypiea is eaten by a giant sea turtle, she immediately assumes that her friends were swallowed too.

Though she has a love of history, she doesn’t fixate on her past or get caught up in her comfort zone the way that types with Introverted Sensing (SI) in their stack do. Yes, she’s a historian, but Ni also values objects and ideas for what they mean. Si is eliminated by how comfortable she is with dangerous situations because she knows she can deal with them anyway – a good sign that she’s at least an XNTJ who has grown into her Extraverted Sensing.

What Makes INTJs INTJ?

If you’re wondering what all the introverted this, extraverted that talk is all about, that’s because we type characters based on functions. Look, the truth is, you’re never going to get a 100% clear idea of every character and their type out there simply because there’s not enough data to work with most of the time. But with cognitive functions, you can get close.

The cognitive functions of the INTJ are:

• Dominant: Introverted Intuition
• Auxiliary: Extraverted Thinking
• Tertiary: Introverted Feeling
• Inferior: Extraverted Sensing

Introverted Intuition is a pattern seeker’s mode of thinking that favors ignoring the physical facts of reality in favor of what they likely mean and what this could mean in the future. This is why INXJs are stereotyped as psychic or, if they’re immature, delusional. 

Meanwhile, Extraverted Thinking favors a solutions-based approach to the world over the formal logic that Introverted Thinkers prefer. This is why the stereotype that INTJs are logical to a fault and extremely careful aren’t 100% true – Extraverted Thinking loves quick, streamlined solutions that work most of the time for most things.

Things get dicey as we move into tertiary Introverted Feeling where INTJ and ISTJ both share a secretiveness about what they truly feel, even if they may not be afraid to tell you what they think. Tert Fi is also to be thanked for IXTJ’s strong personal moral codes and secret soft spots for things you least expect.

Inferior Extraverted Sensing is the function we rarely see at play in shows and in the real world it can make identifying older, healthier, and more developed INTJs harder as Se runs counter to the usual insecurity that young and underdeveloped INTJ have about dealing with their physical environments and their own physicality. 

Are You An INTJ?

Being an INTJ is cool, but it’s just about as cool as any other function stack. Really, INTJ isn’t all that special, you don’t get powers just by having this personality type in the real world. If you really want to know what your real MBTI type likely is, you might want to check out our guide to the Sakinorva MBTI test which helps you get started with figuring out what all these cognitive functions and their axes are.