Highlights
- Protagonists in isekai stories are usually hardworking and kind, but some stand out for being arrogant and greedy.
- Characters like Kim Suho, Kang Han Soo, and Kim Gonja showcase unique and extreme personality traits in their roles.
- While some protagonists like Rudeus Greyrat learn from their arrogance, others like Tanya von Degurechaff embrace their dark and sociopathic sides.
Every story has a protagonist, it’s basically impossible to tell a story withone any of the characters in it fitting the definition of a protagonist or antagonist. Even isekai stories, which typically do end up following a similar pattern more than other subgenres, have a wide range of different types of protagonists. But typically, due to these stories often following the adventures of a ‘hero’ out to fight some grand evil, the protagonists of these stories are very similar in terms of their personality. Most of them are hardworking, kind, naive, and diligent.
There are some outlier protagonists, however, that somehow manage to get the job done while being absolutely greedy, selfish, cruel, and even arrogant. While there aren’t a ton of these types, there are enough that it warrants talking about, so let’s take a look at some of the most arrogant isekai protagonists of all time.
10 The Greatest Estate Developer
Llyod Frontera
- Writer: Baek-gyeong Mun
First up when it comes to arrogant protagonists there aren’t many characters out there that can even hold a candle to Kim Suho, technically known as Llyod Frontera. While Kim Suho is technically using his modern knowledge and cheat-like abilities to save and improve the lives of most everyone he comes across, the way he does it is just so ridiculous. This guy is such an impressive conman when it comes to money that even the king of Hell himself wants Llyod in his corner.
While Llyod started expressing himself through utterly disgustingly greedy facial expressions early on, it was pretty subtle and pretty uncommon. However, as time went on, these expressions started happening more often and became more and more over-the-top each time. Nowadays, many people keep up with The Greatest Estate Developer in large part because they want to see what utterly horrifying face Llyod Frontera whenever something goes according to plan (and it always does).
9 FFF-Class Trash Hero
Kang Han Soo
- Writer: Fafnar
This next protagonist is one that didn’t start out as arrogant, but was sculpted into being one by his environment. On Earth, Kang Han Soo was a pretty average kid. He was a bit overly serious and had a bit of a scary default expression, but overall he was just like anyone else. However, after being transferred to Fantasia Kang Han Soo goes through a lot of severe changes due to the tasks forced upon him by the Dumpling Kingdom and his fellow ‘party members’.
Kang Han Soo undergoes these trials for 10 whole years before easily defeating the Demon King in combat, only to get sent back to the first day again because the ‘gods’ scoring his performance gave his personality an ‘F’. At this point, Kang Han Soo has long since given up on being kind, understanding, or even non-violent and as such has basically become the epitome of arrogance. Now, he has to hopefully redo his adventure all over again while also improving his personality, a task that, let’s be honest, is probably impossible.
8 SSS-Class Suicide Hunter
Kim Gonja
- Writer: Sinnoa
Moving on to one of our personal favorite protagonists in general, Kim Gonja. Kim Gonja is the hero of the manhwa SSS-Class Suicide Hunter and he’s quite the unique person. At the start of this story, Gonja could be described as the epitome of envy and jealousy, as he was so absolutely obsessed with the power and prestige that the S-Class Hunter, the Flame Emperor, possessed.
But, after getting this power (and much more) for himself, Kim Gonja is still absolutely driven by his need to be liked and needed by the people around him, but this doesn’t become all that obvious until after he saves the Aegim Empire. In fact, for anyone who has read the Light Novel source material, they’ll know that around the time of when Gonja and the rest of the rankers challenged the 31st floor and Gonja was put in charge of the Goblin Race, his arrogance really starts to show itself. But, Kim Gonja’s self-love, self-obsession, and overall pride are honestly some of the great things about him, and he almost always puts these traits to work for the greater good of the world and especially so for the people he cares about.
7 Return Of The SSS-Class Ranker
Rokan
- Writer: Hojyun
Compared to a lot of other characters on here, Rokan is incredibly simplistic. He’s not at all nuanced like Kim Gonja is and he’s not understandably traumatized like Kang Han Soo is, he’s just an absolute violent beast of a man. While it is true that Rokan was unfairly ganged up on and eventually defeated by Odin and his cronies, his terrible personality wasn’t a result of this unfairness. No, Rokan is honestly just a pretty selfish and brutal person who is absolutely the best at this VRMMORPG called ‘The Lord’.
But, that’s exactly what makes Rokan so fun to read about as the main character. So many stories have this emotional well-adjusted protagonist who fights for all the right reasons and has a kind heart, and it gets pretty boring. But in contrast, Rokan is a emotional nightmare who only seems to know pride, greed, or rage and actually mastered a class that matches this perfectly, the Beserker. Not only is this an interesting new take on a ‘hero’ for a story, but the in-depth look at this fictional Berserker class is also very interesting as most similar stories either give the MC a completely overpowered class or have them make the most of a completely average class such as fighter, mage, or rogue.
6 Sword Art Online
Kirito Kazuto
- Writer: Reki Kawahara
Next up is probably the most well-known hero on here, Kirito Kazuto, the protagonist of Sword Art Online. While most people in this story eventually see Kirito as a kind person who might just be a bit bad at social interactions, Kirito is actually pretty arrogant.
Not only is this guy overly confident in his skill (understandably so, to an extent) but he’s overly confident of his gaming knowledge, rarely follows any plan he doesn’t directly suggest, and is even selfish enough to ignore his own cousin who was doing so much for him at the time. Of course Kirito isn’t evil or anything, but the show does paint him as a saintly hero a lot of the time and the truth is that Kirito is a human with flaws just like everybody else, even if he is an absurdly ‘god’ at these fantasy-like VR games.
5 No Game No Life
‘Blank’ AKA Sora & Shiro
- Writer: Yuu Kamiya
While arrogance, pride, rage, and even irritations are always portrayed as purely negative emotions, every emotion has a way to be used positively. Take Sora and Shiro from No Game No Life for example, these two are the very definition of being prideful, as their confidence in their gaming skills (especially when working together) has always been worlds apart from everyone else.
And now, after being transferred to a mysterious fantasy world based around the idea of games called Disboard, Sora and Shiro’s skills are suddenly so much more ‘important’. These same skills allow Sora and Shiro to pretty much get whatever they want, it propels them to becoming the representations for all of Imanity (basically the humanity of Disboard), and it drives the plot of No Game No Life overall. Without this arrogance or pride, Sora and Shiro (Sora moreso) would actually be a lot worse at gaming overall.
4 The Saga Of Tanya The Evil
Tanya Von Degurechaff
- Writer: Carlo Zen
Moving on to probably the most stereotypically ‘evil’ character of the bunch, Tanya von Dagurechaff. On Earth, Tanya was actually a businessman who obviously had a different name. But, after dying and being reborn as a little girl in this alternate version of Europe, he fully becomes ‘Tanya Degurechaff’. As a person, Tanya is deeply flawed, suffering from both a superiority and inferiority complex at the same time, among many other complexes. Tanya is unempathetic, brutal, cold, calculating, and honestly pretty sociopathic.
While this makes for a very interesting watch as Tanya quickly ascends the ranks of the Empire, Tanya is absolutely one of the most arrogant main characters in anime history.
3 Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation
Rudeus Greyrat
- Writer: Rifujin na Magonote
While most of the other protagonists on here have been arrogant and maybe a bit goofy, Rudeus Greyrat is arrogant and a bit creepy. Reborn to a new life after dying as a 40-year old shut in, Rudeus has the mind of an adult even as a baby, which obviously leads to all sorts of different issues. Additionally, with his unique early intelligence, Rudeus also practices magic at an early age and as such becomes a magical genius due to this unfair advantage.
And, being so talented, it doesn’t take long for Rudeus to get a bit arrogant of his own power and potential. In fact, he becomes arrogant multiple times throughout the two seasons of Jobless Reincarnation, but what makes the show so good is that Rudeus always learns from this eventually and grows as a person.
2 The Devil Is A Part-Timer
Sadao Maou
- Writer: Satoshi Wagahara
Once someone who rose to the position of a ruler is suddenly thrust into being subservient again, it can be incredibly difficult for them not to come off as ‘arrogant’ to the people around him. This is the exact situation with Maou, as he was the Demon King in his own world whose power was unrivaled but on Earth he’s basically just another human among the billions of other people.
Of course once Maou understands his situation and what he needs to do to try and get home, he’s actually an incredibly diligent worker. And, as the story continues and more of his past and crusade of Ente Isla is revealed, more and more of the kind and gentle side of the Demon King is revealed. Overall Sadao Maou is a very intelligent and hardworking individual, but his arrogance in his own abilities and intelligence can oftentimes be more of a detriment to him than a benefit.
1 Return Of The Mount Hua Sect
Chung Myung
- Writer: Biga
Last up is a guy called Chung Myung. In life, he was the most renowned martial artist of the Mount Hua Sect and was able to defeat the Heavenly Demon of the Demon Faction. However, his wounds from this battle were too great, and he died shortly after. But, Chung Myung was reborn as Chun Ma a hundred years later, with the Mount Hua Sect he devoted his life to on the brink of destruction.
So, Chung Myung has to pick the Mount Hua Sect up himself and rebuild it from the ground up, and this takes confidence to do especially since he’s technically a child in this body. However, through Chung Myung is not a very ‘tranquil’ person as one might think of someone from the Plum Blossom Sect, he’s an overly violent, greedy, emotional, and absolutely arrogant martial arts genius. And funnily enough, these are the exact traits he’ll need to bring the Mount Hua Sect back from the brink.
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