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New Poll - Worst Protagonist Traits
Happy holidays! This week's poll was brought to you by our member Nyxsha. What are the worst parts of a protagonist? Maybe in the comments you can talk about the worst protagonist you've ever read?

You can submit poll ideas here
http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3903

Previous Poll Results:
Question: What age do you prefer the protagonist being in a series?
Choices:
0-10 years old - votes: 79 (2.4%)
11-20 years old - votes: 651 (19.7%)
21-30 years old - votes: 2018 (60.9%)
31-40 years old - votes: 298 (9%)
41-50 years old - votes: 35 (1.1%)
51-60 years old - votes: 11 (0.3%)
61-70 years old - votes: 6 (0.2%)
71-80 years old - votes: 8 (0.2%)
81+ years old - votes: 35 (1.1%)
Immortal - votes: 171 (5.2%)
There were 3312 total votes.
The poll ended: December 23rd, 2023 8:49am PST

As the comments suggested, I really should have split some of the younger ages up better instead of by decade. Oh well
Posted by lambchopsil on 
December 23rd 8:56am
Comments ( 15 )  
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Comments (limited to first 100 replies)

» Crowned_Cumber on December 23rd, 2023, 12:39pm

Missing perverted.
That's hands down the worst.

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» Snowytimes on December 23rd, 2023, 6:55pm

Completely agree! I would say 'dense/dumb' and 'simple-minded' are too similar. Remove the simple minded option and add perverted instead so I can vote for it

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» kaloo on December 23rd, 2023, 1:13pm

Dumb protagonist is good and I like him.

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» Trimutius on December 23rd, 2023, 8:10pm

I lost count of how many mangas I dropped because protagonist was too dumb or dense, it just get old eventually so it is fine if it is this way for a little while but they better be making progress rather than staying dense forever... Violent is also pretty bad, but really depends on context

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» tragedydesu on December 24th, 2023, 1:45am

for me violent , i hate physically/verbally abusive characters the most
i can tolerate dense mc as long he have some redeeming qualities

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» darkraiders on December 24th, 2023, 4:44pm

I ended up with arrogant because there have been way too many of them in the last few years, to make it worse they get arrogant after getting power freely given to them.

But like others have said, you missed perverted, I would have voted that one too for sure.

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» Sugarshark on December 24th, 2023, 6:30pm

maybe genki

I don't think it should count as a trait; of course there's a chance I don't even have the correct semantics
because I find a character with spectrum stuff/anxieties very enjoyable

having a debilitating illness is like a Nicholas Sparks script
oh no my TB truck kun cough cough

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» psirit on December 26th, 2023, 2:34am

All can be interesting if they're properly addressed in the story and treated as flaws. Also "cute" should not be a character trait but unfortunately I suppose it is.

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» mallika23 on December 26th, 2023, 8:02am

What I hate the most is arrogancy. It mostly has a negative tendency than being proud, and usually leads to defeat and other stupidities.. It's also the root of egoistic character, in my opinion. And most arrogant protagonists that I found are usually taking for granted all the privillege they have (power, money, etc). Kinda irks me.

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» Erratic-Hopper on December 26th, 2023, 4:18pm

I dislike egotistic protagonists. There have been protagonists I've quite liked despite having any of the other traits - even proud ones who I have something of a soft spot for. But I can't stand people who are too full of themselves. Super unattractive.

Merry Christmas all!

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» LazyReviewer on December 27th, 2023, 4:43pm

As someone stated, a perverted protagonist is probably the worst. I know it entirely ruined my possible enjoyment of High School DxD, because Issei is literally that bad. And there was a manga that I shall not name where the main character, being perverted, even rapes a girl... and the story tries to justify that. The story kept trying to justify several evil acts. It wasn't a hentai, it was just sickening and the author deplorable for putting out such a work.

Now, there are protagonists that are decent that are slightly perverted, but at that point their main trait would be something else more positive like optimistic. We are talking about main traits, right?

That said, due to the sheer amount of dense/dumb protagonists, I voted for that. There's only a handful of the worst protagonists, but there are so many dense/dumb protagonists they hold arguably half the entire manga/anime industry and have been choking out otherwise decent stories for decades.

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» itsugo09 on December 28th, 2023, 1:15pm

As a lot of you think the dense/dumb MC is way to overuse, and gets boring pretty quickly, that is why a voted it. I get that a perverted protagonist could be the worst but i don't get why everyone goes to the sexual deviant, instead of the twisted mind kind of perverted, i like my protagonist to feel more real and a little of sexual desire makes a lot of difference.

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» LazyReviewer on December 29th, 2023, 12:27am

A little sexual desire isn't "perverted" in terms of being a character trait. For perverted to be a character trait, it must stand out compared to normal people, and whenever that happens, it either is the worst aspect of the character or brings out their worst behavior. That's why we go to sexual deviant.

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» Helipilot on December 28th, 2023, 4:47pm

Missing so many of the actual worst ones:

Pathetic
Doormat
Coward
Super-nervous
Crybaby
Wimp

All the ones listed in the poll are pretty much nothing.

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» LazyReviewer on December 29th, 2023, 12:30am

Hmm... most of those seem to revolve around being a coward, and I would definitely say being a coward is one of the worst traits. That is something that would have been good to see in the poll.

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