Its All About Me / Anime & Manga

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• The human race in The Animatrix short The Second Renaissance. All the machines wanted was peace with the humans, but no, machines are just tools that exist to serve humanity, so the machines make their own society but their economy becomes better then theirs. The humans can't have the "tools" making them look bad, so they decide that it would be a good idea to go to war with them. That said, the machines themselves aren't portrayed that much better. The first "rebel", B1-66ER, brutally murdered not only his owner, but also his dogs and the mechanic very violently, the machines only resorted to an attempt to a peaceful solution when the commercial blockade began, and afterwards didn't bother to try to justify their increasingly more insane war atrocities, let alone their human vivisection.
• Elmer C. Albatross of Baccano! has this mentality, although it isn't really apparent until you get to know the guy. He's obsessed with happiness and tries to make everyone he knows smile. Not because he cares about them, no. It's entirely for his own benefit. He's just a sociopath who really really likes smiles.
• Berserk has Griffith, who personifies this trope like no other.
  • He did initially seem to care at least a bit about his group of mercenaries, particularly Casca and Guts, and generally treats the other members kindly enough, but eventually, achieving his dream is the only thing he cares about, so much so that he sacrifices the entire Band of the Hawk to a group of demons, in order to become one himself. The first thing he does with his newfound power and body is rape Casca in front of Guts, presumably just to spite him for daring to leave him. Never mind that Guts had fairly good reasons for doing so, Griffith just didn't understand, or if he did, didn't care.
  • Earlier when Guts tried to leave Griffith's service, how did Griffith respond? Did he thank Guts for his hard work and wish him good luck? Nope. Griffith was so incensed that Guts would want to leave him that he tried to kill Guts. Guts was the closest thing Griffith had to a real friend.
  • Griffith's idea for a city? Falconia is pretty much an Egopolis, with the statues and ornaments all dedicated to his glory. Man, Griffith's level of ego is OVER 9000!!
• Bleach:
  • Sosuke Aizen. He will manipulate everyone and everything for the sake of his plans, then cruelly discard them once he's done with them.
  • Yhwach, the man whose entire being seems to revolve around giving pieces of himself to others only to take everything they have to offer when they die (that is, assuming he deigns to wait for them to die natural deaths). He's even outright stated his belief that everything in this world exists to be taken by him. It is kind of necessitated by his origin, which just about makes him more a force of nature that has little choice in the matter. While his men expect to fight and maybe die for his sake, they do not take kindly to Yhwach abandoning them and killing them once he no longer sees them as useful, becoming outraged and asking if they ever meant anything to him.
• Hideri of Blend-S has stated in Internal Monologue that he has never taken much attention at anyone other than himself.
• Invoked in Blue Lock; the idea of the project to cultivate the best football striker in the nation is based off of examples of other highly successful teams and their common thread — that their success was tied to a striker who would only think of themselves as the star and their teammates as just a means to an end. All of the protagonists' training is meant to make them more honest with that selfish desire.
• Buso Renkin: At the beginning of the series, Papillon only thought about himself and was uncaring about how his actions affected others, even if it meant the death of his loyal subordinates. This attitude became less and less prominent as the series continued, beginning with him doing nice things when they benefit himself as well, until he becames a slightly less self-centred Urban Legend by the end of the series.
• Lelouch Lamperouge from Code Geass suffers this to an extent; rather than himself, however, he tends to place more value on the lives and desires of people he cares about (like his friends, but especially his little sister). Rather infamously, at the end of the first season, he completely abandons La Résistance because his sister is being held hostage, and in his absence they collapse. However, one important point often forgotten is that he grows out of it. Early to mid-Season 2, he accepts that the fight is about more than Nunnally, and prioritizes the world's freedom first. In spite of some escalating issues, he manages to spearhead the creation of the UFN, an international body of nations against the Britannian Empire formed to create a legitimate resistance. What happens afterwards is more complex and can be interpreted in a couple of different ways, as both a radical extension and/or subversion of the above. When Lelouch is finally taken past the Despair Event Horizon due to a series of unfortunate circumstances, he stops caring about his own life and decides to use his death wish as the trigger that would enable the culmination of his plan to change the world, the Zero Requiem, which makes himself a Silent Scapegoat in the eyes of history. In a short story taking place during one of the late in-series gaps, he notes there were other options available but that they went against his mindset, which makes his final resolution both selfish and selfless, depending on your point of view.
• A Cruel God Reigns: Greg. He does what he does to Jeremy because he thinks that he has every right. Why not? Everyone loves him...
• This is why Death Note's Light Yagami is ultimately a Villain. Even if you agree with him that criminals should be exterminated, as far as he's concerned, since he's the "god" of the new world, he's the most important person alive, and even his loyal supporters are just pawns to manipulated and discarded when they've outlived their usefulness. Even when his own father is on his deathbed after a huge explosion, Light can only think about getting him to give up Mello's real name so he can write it in the notebook and eliminate him; it's only when Soichiro finally flatlines does Light snap out of it and and desperately sob for him to come back. But come the final episode, when Matsuda angrily asks Light what Soichiro even died for, Light just calls his father a fool and tries to use his death to goad Matsuda into angrily "avenging" him by taking Light's side and killing everyone else in the room. Matsuda doesn't listen, instead almost killing him because he's become too evil for Matsuda to suffer to live.
• Mimi Tachikawa in Digimon Adventure wanted to get back home more than any of the kids and in one case wanted to be treated like royalty, though it's more pronounced in the English dub. Downplayed in Digimon Adventure: (2020), where her personal intentions involve helping the group and other Digimon in the current moment (but still has the occasional harmless reminder that she's the most well-off).
• Dragon Ball:
  • Bulma, mainly in the original Dragon Ball. She falls back into it during the Namek Saga of Dragon Ball Z, where she spends most of her time on Namek whining and moaning about how miserable she is and acting like everyone should drop what they're doing and take her back to Earth, to the extent that when she sees the Dragon Balls are assembled, she plans to wish herself back to Earth despite full knowledge that the entire reason they're there is to resurrect everyone who died fighting Nappa and Vegeta.
  • Vegeta certainly fits, specifically around the Androids/Cell arc, where he's so confident that he's invincible and could easily beat Cell no matter how strong he gets that he lets Cell absorb Android 18 and become perfect purely to stroke his own ego... only to lose pathetically against Perfect Cell, who even mocks him for his arrogance and selfishness. He returns to it again in the Buu Saga, where he forsakes his wife and son and allows Babidi to turn him into a Majin just so he could have the power to beat Goku; in this case, Vegeta was fully aware that doing so would unleash Majin Buu upon the world, but he was so fixated on being better than Goku that he didn't care.
  • Frieza. He is literally the only thing he cares about, to the point that he is willing to sacrifice his home universe by fighting for a different one during the Tournament of Power if it gets him what he wants. He does mellow out a bit by the end of the Tournament though, growing to genuinely respect Goku to the point where he even rings himself out of the ring because he trusts Goku to keep his word.
  • Dragon Ball Super: For all of Goku Black's claims of justice and for the good of the universe by eradicating the mortals, it is clear that he only cares about his version of utopia to the point that he is fully willing to murder other fellow gods who stand in his way. Indeed, the only reason he gets along with or even cares about Zamasu is that they are literally the same person with the same ideals.
  • Barry Khan, a Jerkass actor, certainly fits the bill. He only wants to star in a movie about the Great Saiyaman because he wants to plaster his face in every nook and cranny imaginable. He also doesn't take rejection well, since after Videl, a married woman, blows him off when he tries to hit on her, he allows Gohan to be a stuntman for the movie hoping he'll get badly hurt at the very least. Videl actually calls him out on this in her "The Reason You Suck" Speech, remarking how pathetic it is that Barry is treated like a prince, yet is so insecure that he would resort to trickery and blackmail when he isn't the center of attention.
• Durarara!!: Izaya Orihara is less obvious, but still fits the trope. While he doesn't really care what people do as long as he gets to watch, he really doesn't like conflict with nothing to do with him. After being completely in the dark about the Hollywood incident, Izaya goes out of his way to orchestrate the Akane Arc out of pure pettiness. He gets particularly sore about everyone in the chat room having hotpot together without him, so after he forms his alliance, his first act of business is to invite them all to have hotpot. He also states that he believes the human race should love him. Shiki lampshades this, saying that Izaya thinks he knows everything and is in control.
• Jose Porla, the guildmaster of Phantom Lord from Fairy Tail. He decides that no other guild is allowed to be as strong, or heaven forbid stronger than his, and sees Fairy Tail growing in strength as an insult. He decides they must be destroyed, and goes about it in the most sadistic way possible by attacking three unsuspecting members to goad them into attacking, nearly killing their master to break down their spirits, kidnapping their newest member (which admittedly he was hired to do by said member's father), and then when she is rescued goes to destroy the guild if they don't give her back, knowing full-well that Fairy Tail is a guild of Nakama and will never do it. All of this because of HIS EGO!
• Fruits Basket:
  • Shigure freely admits he only cares about himself and what he wants, and he's perfectly willing to sacrifice anything or dirty his own hands to get it. Even his primary motivation to break the Sohma curse is because he loves Akito and wants her all to himself.
  • Akito takes having a god complex up to eleven, believing she's automatically entitled to do and have whatever she wants, most notably the undivided attention of the Zodiac members, and throwing destructive temper tantrums the instant she doesn't.
  • Kagura took Kyo's beads against his protests when they were small children, then ran away when she saw his true form, which caused his mother to stop letting him out, till the pressure of hiding her "monstrous" son to drove her to commit suicide. Rather than acknowledge how much pain this caused Kyo, she instead focused on and tried to hide her own guilt by convincing herself that she loved him, and tried to force him to love her back. By the time we find this out, it's through a confession that reveals she's moved beyond that.
  • While Ayame's case is often Played for Laughs, it's also a genuine character flaw that has caused him to be callous to his younger brother Yuki and others. When he finds out a girl he had been cluelessly cruel to in high-school is in town, he's all in a tizzy to comfort her, thinking she must have been broken and mooning over him all these years. Then he finds out she'd simply 'moved on'' and is Happily Married.
  • Kyo's father never shuts up about how hard his life has been ever since he became the father of the Cat and his wife committed suicide as if he was the only one with problems because of Kyo's curse.
  • In a nutshell, Yuki and Ayame's mother doesn't give a damn about anyone who's not her, even her own sons, unless she can use them for money and social status.
  • Momiji's father has shades of this; he goes out of his way to limit any contact Momiji has with his own mother and younger sister because she was nearly Driven to Suicide over being mother of the Rabbit and had her memory wiped, doing everything in his power to stop them from getting closer and going so far as to force Momiji to quit violin lessons after Momo takes interest in them, all so he doesn't have to risk destroying his own happiness.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • Once he's revealed to be Evil All Along, Shou Tucker is also revealed to be so selfish that he never once considers that turning his own wife and daughter into chimeras without their consent for the sake of a research grant causes them intense pain and is a despicable violation of their lives, and was seriously taken by surprise when a horrified Edward Elric attacked him in fury for what he did.
  • The Homunculus Greed is, well, the embodiment of Greed, and therefore wants everything for himself and anything he does is for the sake of either himself or his own gain. He hates Wrath for killing his underlings — not because he particularly cares about them, but because they're his. However, he doesn't treat his underlings as expendable and he's about as humane as could be hoped for as an Artificial Human formed from the evil impulses of an Eldritch Abomination. Later, when a reborn and amnesiac Greed unknowingly kills off the last of them, he regains the memories of his old manifestation, as well as the memory of his former underlings and what happened to them, triggering him into an explosive rage at the fact that his "possessions" were taken away from him. This incident is also the cause of his Heel–Face Turn and transformation into a Noble Demon by the end. He later subverts this when someone calls him out on his supposed 'desires', causing him to admit that all he really wanted were friends. In truth, his greed encompasses the need to have friends. He's just greedy like that.
  • Envy also falls into a version of this, given that they love to sadistically harm people, but complains about others not fighting fair on the occasions where they get the better of them. For instance, when Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye fail to be impressed with Envy's Shapeshifter Guilt Trip, Envy scolds them for their lack of humanity, because they didn't hesitate before shooting their friends.
  • Pride is the embodiment of arrogance, so it's no surprise that he shows signs of this too. He berates Greed for betraying their "family" and then shortly afterward devours his "brother", Gluttony to absorb his powers while Gluttony cries out in agony. Pride later talks about devouring Gluttony to Kimblee as if it is mundane, normal and not worth feeling upset about.
  • Oddly enough, Zolf J. Kimblee seems to be a notable aversion of this. Despite being a sociopath, he has a remarkable appreciation for other humans. He sees the people that he kills as just that — people — and sees it as his duty to remember all of their faces. He even makes the effort to save Edward Elric near the end because he'd decided that Edward was superior to Pride, who was trying to use him as a vessel after discussing how inferior humans were. Still a sociopath, but surprisingly focused on others around him.
  • The primary antagonist of Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) can be seen as an example as well. Despite trying to pass herself off as a Well-Intentioned Extremist, it is pretty obvious that Dante is only motivated by her own selfish desires. She has ruined countless lives for the sake of her own immortality and tries to justify it by saying that humans should accept that life isn't fair. Once her plans backfire in her face, she throws a hissy fit.
  • The anime version of Envy is as bad or worse than its original counterpart. A Beta Test Baddie and textbook case of The Resenter, he'll kill anyone he meets for daring to have it better than he does, even the Elric brothers.
• Mayo Sakaki from Fushigi Yuugi: Eikoden. Miaka was bratty and immature, yeah, but at least she had good intentions; Mayo was a pure, rotten self-centered bitch.
• Gankutsuou: Although Baron Julian Danglars maintains that he only wants his daughter to be happy and that everything he does is for her sake, he clearly cares more about money and himself rather than his own daughter (or wife for that matter).
• Green Box: Sena doesn't even argue that he's been forced to do it. He really thinks millions of lives lost by his hands aren't important if it helps him escape, and picks countries at random with just a brief prior warning instead of going by population order and letting people evacuate.
• Tsukasa Shiba, the Big Bad for the first half of Gundam Build Divers, has this in spades. He's a major Gunpla Battler who enjoys the feeling and sight of maiming other players' Gunpla via the old Gunpla Duel game. However, he hates Gunpla Battle Nexus Online because it isn't Gunpla Duel, where Gunpla Battlers don't need to maim their Gunpla to have a fun time and get to meet people from all over the world and their own Gunpla. Thus, GBN must be destroyed. Never mind that there are millions who love the game, it's not his game, so he needs to destroy it.
• The title character in Haruhi Suzumiya has this going on. Especially when she drags a senior, and sexually assaults her. And drugs said senior with sake for an amateur movie and mistreats her (It's funnier than it sounds). Let's just ignore the fact that it is all about her. Eventually she undergoes a little bit of Character Development from Jerkass to Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers:
  • Prussia: He calls himself 'Ore-sama' (a narcissistic way of saying 'I' in Japanese). He likes to remind himself how awesome he is, and he tells the others to praise him, and bow down to him. It's also known that he kept diaries since he was formed; all of the entries start with "I am so cool," "I was so cool today," or something along those lines. The English translations of various comics have him refer to/introduce himself as "the awesome me," which has become a frequent phrase in fanon.
  • Poland started out with this attitude: He was pushy, selfish and thoughtless, thinking nothing of dragging around and treating his best friend and partner Lithuania like a servant or lackey (he acted, in Word of God's words, "like a prince"). To his credit, at one point he does promise to try and be less selfish when Lithuania expresses his frustrations with him^note Though the aforementioned scene may have been All Just a Dream, and in the present he has become much more considerate and patient with Lithuania's feelings.
  • America, to his credit, does genuinely try to be helpful and friendly to other nations. However, being the Attention Whore and Manchild that he is, he also has a tendency to exuberantly shove himself into the center of attention. His "battle plan" for the Allied Forces is this in spades: in the original versions, they're only there to serve as his backup, and in the dub, they're only there to serve as Cannon Fodder, while America Saves the Day.
  • France, being the Drama Queen and dandy extraordinaire that he is, has moments of this as well. At one point, he refers to the rest of the cast as "insignificant characters."
• Honey Hunt has the protagonist's (Yura) famous celebrity parents, Yukari and Takayuki. But especially Yukari who is hardly at home for her daughter and is very selfish. In all of her interviews she lies and says that she and Yura are close and spend much time together as a result of Takayuki being abroad so often, when in reality she is just as cold and distant as Takayuki. Also, immediately after showing up after being away from home for about a half a month, Yukari coldly announces that she and Takayuki are getting divorced before telling Yura that she can go wherever she wants. Also, while Takayuki was having an affair she was having one of her own with Yura's neighbor and crush, Shinsuke. When Yura finds out about the affair Yukari's response is to smile, declare that Shinsuke likes her more than Yura, that she's going to allow Shinsuke to live with her in a mansion she had bought, and that Takayuki had a baby with his mistress so neither he nor Yukari will have time to look after Yura anymore. She then demands that Yura leave the house. It's eventually revealed that she and her husband were only together for the sake of their careers and their images, they didn't love each other. The two of them even agreed on a rule with each other that they would stay married as long as they hide their own adulterous affairs. After she decided to divorce Takayuki because the press found out about his affair, however, it is shown that she has no intentions of taking care of Yura and merely cared about repairing her image in the eyes of the public because they had originally thought she was the "ideal mom". Seriously, poor kid.
• Ryoki Tachibana from the manga Hot Gimmick. Although he's obsessed with Hatsumi he's usually far too up himself to ever do anything as pointless as care about her. His response to most of her (considerable) problems is "forget it, just focus on me".
• Idol Densetsu Eriko: When his brother Kosuke dies, Yuusuke screams and grieves...because the Tamuras were about to close a huge financial deal and now they can't.
  Kosuke: "Idiot! What a terrible time to die!"
• When May Wong walks into Kaleido Stage in the second season, she's amazed and pissed off that no one but her sees how wonderful and perfect she is and haven't handed her every lead roll over the current star who worked for everything she has. She gets better, but she'll really make you want to jam your thumbs in your eyes for about a dozen episodes.
  • Leon is the same, in a subtler and colder way. He believes his skill makes him so important he demands script changes and special treatment at the drop of a hat. It turns out he even puts his costars out of commission when he decides they are not worthy of being his partner. If he deems them unworthy, there's no point in them ever continuing to perform. And he actually does that to May herself, seriously injuring her shoulder... which is actually the first step to her Character Development and change of attitude. It'll take Leon WAY more time to defrost. But since he's a white haired pretty boy, fangirls aren't half as hard on him as they are on May.
• Ryuko from Kill la Kill suffers from this trope to an extent. Having grown up with no love from a parent or friend caused her to develop a self-centered mindset, especially when dealing with her revenge quest. The negative effects of this are shown when it's revealed that she's part-Life Fiber. She completely ignores what others think of her (including Senketsu, who's essentially a bird of a feather to her regarding her dilemma), and is so consumed by her negative opinion of herself that she decides to face the Big Bad all by herself, with very bad results.
• Claw from Kimba the White Lion. The main reason he wants to take over The Kingdom of the White Lions is so that he could do whatever he wants.
• From Liar Game, Yokoya only cared about benefitting himself. He doesn't care if his own teammates who allied with him get money or if they go further into debt.
• In the second half of Magic Knight Rayearth, Princess Aska of Fahren isn't trying to solve a pollution crisis, like Autozam, or reduce overcrowding in her country, like Chizeta. She just wants to take over Cephiro as though it's a giant toy that someone put in the window.
• Although it seems doubtful, the Hückebein family in Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force also show these symptoms. Every single page in each chapter, they seemed to indicate to readers that they were superior in every way. So far as they dominate the whole story.
  • Or the fact that they slaughter innocents in order to stave off the insanity the virus they're all infected with causes. They don't care about the people they kill to preserve their own miserable lives. According to the mangaka, we're supposed to see them as sympathetic!
• Mazinger Z: Why Big Bad Dr. Hell wants to Take Over the World? Because when HE was a child and young man everybody abused HIM and nobody respected HIM or acknowledged HIS genius, and HE considers the whole humanity must pay for it — even though most of the people tormented him when he was a child would be old or dead when the series began — and kneel before HIM. Also, when he attended college, he befriended a Japanese exchange student called Juzo Kabuto (who looooong after would create Mazinger-Z) and fell in love with another exchange student named Yumiko. When he found out they were engaged, he convinced himself they pretended to be his friends while planning to backstab him. He genuinely believed EVERYBODY was out to get him (long before they WERE).
• Kun in Mirai of the Future is 4 years old, so when he stops being an only child he doesn't react well to the fact he'll be harshly scolded for doing mean things to his baby sister and throwing tantrums to get what he wants. By the end of the movie he at least accepts his role as a big brother.
• My Bride is a Mermaid: Lunar becomes convinced that Sun only got engaged to Nagasumi to rub that fact in her face, disregarding the fact that they're only getting married so that one of them wouldn't have to be killed for exposing the existence of merpeople to a human.
• My Hero Academia:
  • Bakugo pretty much only cares about proving himself to be the strongest. It actually comes out during the Tournament Arc that he never bothered to learn his classmates' names or powers, with the exception of Izuku and Todoroki, whom he considers to be rivals to differing extents. And, when he wins the Tournament, he ends up throwing an epic-level tantrum (such that the teachers chain him and muffle him) because he didn't win the way he wanted.
  • During the School Festival arc, two General Studies students, a boy and a girl, complain to each other about how Class 1-A being attacked at the USJ and a training camp in the woods has resulted in repercussions for the entire school, particularly the students being forced to stay in dormitories on campus instead of with their families. Their sentiments are understandable, especially since it's implied they aren't the only ones who feel that way, but they seem more upset about that than the fact that in both incidents, members of Class 1-A were nearly killed by villains. Worse, still, Class 1-B was caught up in the latter incident, which ended in several students being hospitalized and Bakugo being abducted.
  • And then of course there is the Big Bad All For One — the one in this case being himself. He affects the demeanor of a kindly father figure, telling his minions that it doesn't matter if they fail because they can just try and try again. But in the end, the only thing that actually matters to him is his legacy as the greatest villain of all time. Even his supposed sacrifice to save Tomura by going to prison himself turns out to be a subverted Pet the Dog moment; he had plans in place to put a mind-copy of himself in Tomura, and would eventually be able to take over Tomura's body while also freeing his original body from prison. He repeatedly mocks All Might for ascribing any higher motives to him; All For One wanted to be a villain, and that's all there is to it. His origin story reveals that it goes beyond being a narcissistic sociopath: he was born a narcissistic sociopath, who even as a baby was convinced that everything in the world existed to be taken by him, and growing up had a dream of creating a world that existed solely for his sake.
• Miyu Greer and Alyssa Searrs from My-HiME have a variation of this, in that they believe it's all about them: they believe that no bond could possibly be stronger than the one they share with each other, and as a consequence of this, they have no problem with hurting other people for the sake of their syndicate's Utopia Justifies the Means plans. When they are the ones being wronged, though, they lament the injustice of it all.
  • Nao is also purely motivated by self-interest in both the manga and anime. In the anime, she uses her powers to exact revenge on men for the robbery that killed her father and left her mother comatose, and later, on those who she blames for her losing her eye. In the manga, she mainly goes along with the fight against the Orphans so that she can break rules without being held accountable.
  • From the follow-up series, My-Otome, Tomoe epitomizes this. Her main motivation for committing evil deeds is in order to get closer to her long-time crush, only willing to follow the rules (apart from facilitating attempted rape and murder) so long as she benefits from it. Even when she's offered a chance to become one of the Big Bad's soldiers, she isn't as much interested in serving him as she is in using her new-found abilities to impress Shizuru and crush her rivals.
• Naruto gives the following:
  • The first example we see is Orochimaru, one of the most powerful ninja in the first half of the series. To him, everything is about furthering his own goals and he will sacrifice anything for it. He adopts orphans, manipulates them, experiments on them and eventually has them killed when they're of no more use to him. Anything that he doesn't value is worthless unless it gets in his way, in which case he destroys it. If something goes wrong, you can expect that Orochimaru probably had a hand in it out of pure selfishness and dickery.
  • This trope defines everything that's necessary to know about the Uchiha clan in general. The clan's founder started a generations long feud when his brother was chosen to be the successor of the Sage of Six Paths over him. For a few select examples:
    • Madara is an even bigger case than Orochimaru and probably the biggest example in the series, wich, considering he was once their Head and among the most influential shinobi in their history (founding Konoha alongside Hashirama) means he set the standard for them during the time of the Hidden Villages. First, he was mad because his clan wanted to stop fighting the Senju clan (because he, you see, believed that it would render the sacrifices of countless Uchiha-- including his own brother-- senseless). Then, when he'd still agreed to a truce he threw a tantrum because he didn't get to be Hokage (as he believed that if the first Hokage was Hashirama it would mean that the the second would be Tobirama and the Uchiha clan would come to an end). Then, he was displeased because the Uchiha clan did not listen to his warning and Madara in turn just decided to forget about them. Then he decided to read a secret tablet about the history of the world revealing that the war-torn world they lived in had always been that way and that every attempt of his ancestor to use the power of God to put an end to all wars didn't work. After this, Madara in turn himself decided to try to get the power of God and use it to put an end to all wars because he apparently believed that he will succeed where his predecessor failed. He then decided to completely ignore the security and life of all those who stood in his way, including his best friend, his own clan, his own village and in principle all people living on the planet.
    • Then, there's Sasuke, relative of the latter and student of the former. He takes the cake by outright admitting that he's being childish and impulsive... and doesn't care. Despite his reputation, he actually starts out as a lesser example. While he does abandon Konoha to seek Orochimaru because he doesn't think he'll be able to become strong enough to kill Itachi while still living there, he doesn't kill Naruto when he has the chance, even though doing so would have unlocked the Mangekyo Sharingan. After Shippuden starts, he starts heading downhill, and when he finally meets up with Itachi and after Itachi's death, he takes a flying leap off the slippery slope. He immediately sacrifices his teammates when it becomes inconvenient to save them, attacks the Kage Summit and tries to kill everyone there in his effort to get to Danzo, and once Danzo is dead decides to kill every single person in Konoha because he believes that the Uchihas (who it turns out were wiped out to prevent them from starting a civil war) were wronged in some way and that everyone in Konoha is mocking them by simply existing. This reaches a head by the Shinobi World War arc. He decides to follow Itachi's footsteps and protect Konoha. His method of doing so is to kill the current Kages and use the Tailed Beasts to start a revolution which he believes will save the world by doing away with the old system no matter what the others will think because he knows better what is best for the world and how to make this world a better place. In short, not only has his selfishness been turned up to eleven, he's gone absolutely nuts. Kishimoto confirmed that Sasuke is "very self-centered, only concerned with himself".
    • This quality is a Fatal Flaw of Sasuke's older brother: Itachi. He believed that he (and he alone) could fix everything, every time. He admitted this after his death. This led to his decision to sacrifice his family, his home, his reputation, basically everything, to protect the Leaf and avert the civil war his family's coup would have caused. But this is also the reason why he let Sasuke live and Mind Raped Sasuke repeatedly by forcing him to repeatedly relive the gruesome deaths of their parents, causing him to grow up into a bitter obsessive lunatic all so that Itachi could die on his own terms: At Sasuke's hands (which he didn't in the end, making all of his efforts totally meaningless).
    • And last but certainly not least. Tobi aka Obito, has shades of this. Tobi's a notable case in that he was Obito, one of the best Uchiha personality-wise and, along with Shisui, one of the few who didn't suffer from this. However, Rin's death served as his Despair Event Horizon, and subsequently brought out all the Uchiha traits he used to lack, including this and the talent that Uchiha Clan ninja tend to have. Now, he claims he's completing his Assimilation Plot in order to create a better world, but the truth is that he doesn't care about this world anymore, due to his thought of a Crapsack World, and thinks that everybody will be resurrected and happy in his dream world. What he most of all wants in the end is to live in his ideal world where Rin and the other his teammates are alive, but he doesn't care for the remaining living members of his team in this world and also refuses to acknowledge Rin's sacrifice because believes that "this world" forced her to go on this the sacrifice and that "this world" has turned the remaining members of his team including him in "trash", and instead believes that the only place where all can be good is in his illusionary world.
  • However, NONE of these examples compare to Black Zetsu. He manipulated EVERYTHING that happened in the entire Naruto series for one purpose: the resurrection of Kaguya Otsutsuki, a woman who believes that all chakra belongs solely to her and her alone. She even attacked her own sons because they inherited her chakra, for crying out loud! No matter the motivations of Orochimaru, Sasuke and Obito, Kaguya's motivation is just to get back her chakra and rule a world that she believes has always been rightfully hers.
• A staple of many One Piece villains. Notable examples include Kuro, Don Krieg, Wapol, and Spandam.
  • Without a doubt, this is Donquixote Doflamingo's most defining trait. His desire to "destroy this world" stems from the resentment and anger over the fact that he was unable to return to Mariejois, per his "birthright" as a Celestial Dragon, one of the descendants of the twenty kings that created the World Government after his father took their family away from there. His lack of empathy and self-centerdness is so great that he outright shouts at Luffy and Law that their tragic pasts (in which they both lost loved ones) are nothing compared to the life he's led (in which he killed his loved ones), showing no sympathy for everything they've lost as well.
    • Even one of his most redeeming traits highlights his selfishness. Doflamingo has an incredible fondness for his highest officers, calling them his family, and flies into a rage if anyone so much as slights them. Yet he is so self-centered that he won't hesitate to demand personal sacrifices from them, including giving up their lives, if it meant furthering his goals. Granted, many of them would do it, but essentially Doflamingo only cares about them because they are willing to do anything for him. As an example, upon learning that Trafalgar Law had eaten the Op-Op Fruit as a child, Doflamingo planned to try to teach Law that it was important to die for him and make Law use a power that would grant Doflamingo immortality at the cost of Law's life.
  • Charlotte Linlin (aka Big Mom), similarly to Doflamingo, became a self-centered narcissist as a result of both of her Parental Substitutes enabling her worst behaviors as she grew up, wholly expecting the world at large to cave in to her demands and whims, and going on destructive rampages when it didn't.
    • As an adult, no matter what deal she makes with people, she will always consider the other party as beind indebted to her, and likewise will go to unreasonable lengths to get either payment or retribution. After Hody Jones fails to stage a coup of Fishman Island, during which his crew destroyed the candy factory used to pay her monthly protection fee of ten tons of candy, Big Mom's subordinates make it clear that losing the factory and the candy to a wannabe usurper are no excuse, and that she will destroy Fishman Island if they can't pay up. Even as her own subordinates attempt to convince Big Mom to accept an alternative payment in treasure, she has none of it and demands that they give her the candy or else. The only reason Fishman Island is spared is because Luffy claims that he ate all of the candy, transferring Big Mom's wrath to himself. Of course, Big Mom is fully aware that he's lying, but she's so amused by his audacity that she makes a one-time exception and decides to play his game.
    • If she deigns to allow anyone to join her crew as a subordinate (or god forbid, she forces them to join her), she will by no means allow them to leave with their life, rigging things so that any attempt to abandon her will inevitably result in the offender's death; by Big Mom's logic, if a strong subordinate tries to quit her crew, they effectively owe her not just for shielding them with her name, but because her crew will lose the resignee's strength.
    • Even something as relatively insignificant as failing to attent one of her Tea Parties after being invited will end badly for you: an organ trader was forced to miss out on one such party due to having to attend his mother's funeral, and even though he explained the situation to Big Mom he still had his father's head sent to him.
    • Her own children aren't safe from her, either: Big Mom uses them as tools for political marriages in order to increase the strength of her crew, and they have no way to refuse. The one child who did escape being forced into an arranged marriage became something of a taboo for Big Mom, who regularly vented her frustration on said child's twin sister merely for having the same face.
• Kirino from Oreimo seems to believe that the world revolve around her navel, and that's it's up to others to make it so she gets her way, and that they should be berated about it and thankful to her.
• Ouran High School Host Club's Tamaki seems to have this attitude, but it turns out he's always been a Messianic Archetype... while still happily bragging about how awesome he is.
  • Tamaki is very self centered but he's also insanely interested in EVERYONE because they're different from him. That's what makes him closer to a Messianic Archetype. While half is interest in other's lives come from how he finds it fascinating, he also does it with rather pure intentions. (Like his love of pleasing ladies comes from his self image of a prince, but a prince wants to make ladies happy...it's rather circular)
• Ryo and Sae from Peach Girl. Though they both eventually become better people as a result of how their selfish actions come to negatively affect their lives and the lives of others.
• Pokémon: Zoroark: Master of Illusions brings us Grings Kodai. He'll do absolutely anything to get what he wants. And that's the people who believe his Villain with Good Publicity ruse. He outright says this during his Evil Gloating rant that he doesn't give a darn about anyone — as long as he gets what he wants, it's all worth it. That refers to falsely causing a mass panic, Blackmail, kidnapping, and electrocuting a baby in front of its mother.
  • In the primary seasons, a lot of the main characters can slip into this, Depending on the Writer. Ash (mostly in his earlier years) was more concerned about winning gym battles and proving himself to be the greatest Pokemon trainer of them all, though he was at least sympathetic enough to stop and help out whoever they ran into if they were in trouble (although depending on whether or not he gets hit with Acquired Situational Narcissism, especially after he ends up on a hot-streak, he can get pretty selfish until a major Break the Haughty moment sends him into a Heroic BSoD for a few episodes). His female traveling companions (usually Misty, May, Dawn, Iris, and Serena) weren't much better in that regard in their own respective goals, and Brock quickly drops everything the moment he sees a pretty girl, forcing someone to have to snap him back to reality. At the very least, part of their Character Development does help them overcome these issues to the point they drop a lot of this attitude for the most part (save for Brock, who still ends up going gaga at the sight of a pretty girl, but even then he's still a Nice Guy overall).
  • Team Rocket isn't much better in this regard. Everything they do is so they can land themselves major promotions and expense accounts (among other things) from Giovanni, and really don't care which people or Pokemon they hurt in the process by separating them from their trainers. But as far as their own personal lives go, Jessie is really the worst of the three, since a lot of her own personal efforts are mostly to stroke her own ego, to the point that James and Meowth are actually far less enthusiastic in their scheming. Those two have their moments, but they aren't nearly as bad as her.
• Sayaka from Princess Princess. It doesn't matter to her if she ends up hurting people in the process or if Tooru doesn't feel that same about her. It's all about her and having Tooru for herself. Thankfully, she gets better.
• Hibari from Reborn! (2004) does not care about other peole (at least he won't admit that if he does) and is more focused about how to beat the crap out of other people because they are crowding or annoy him or because he just want to.
• Revolutionary Girl Utena ultimately reveals that UTENA was this until almost the end. Her desire to protect Anthy and have her as her Rose Bride was less about Anthy's true personal needs, but about her need to use her as a "pet cause" so she can feel good about herself. And for worse, Anthy was a Decoy Damsel, with her Big Bad older brother Akio counting on Utena's Secretly Selfish side to make her his Unwitting Pawn. From then on, Utena makes up her mind and decides to fight not just to protect Anthy, but to give her the chance to save herself.
• Rosario + Vampire: Nagare Kano, the perverted Camera Fiend who stalked and tormented Kurumu in the manga. He forces Kurumu to ditch the Newspaper Club when they're on a deadline, putting their hard work at risk, purely to satisfy his own perversions.
• In Rurouni Kenshin, Enishi Yukashiro was unintentionally spoiled from a young age by his elder sister Tomoe, who began to view that he deserved her attention solely. Upon meeting Kenshin, he immediately has a grudge, bites him and badmouths him. When Tomoe sacrifices herself to save Kenshin (giving him his scar by accident), Enishi views this as a murder and devotes the rest of his life into ruining Kenshin's life out of spite. To that end he murders an innocent family who took him in since he hated their happiness, set up the largest arms dealing ring in Asia, gave a fricking battleship to Makoto Shishio, and finally gathered a bunch of warriors who also had a grudge against Kenshin.
• In Saint Beast, Zeus intends to lead all the angels along the path of righteousness and anyone who is impure is an affront to his ideal world. He usually reconciles this by purging them out of existence.
• Souma and Sakurako from Sakura Gari. Initially, it seems as if It's All About Me with them, and that they'll do whatever it takes to get what they want even if they hurt/kill others in the process. They get better, somewhat, by the end though.
• Sazanka has Tatsuki's boyfriend Keita. In his introductory scene, he complains about her making mistakes at her part time job, because it inconveniences him, a full-timer. When Tatsuki reveals that she has Asperger's, he decides to try to "cure" her, and when she has a breakdown, he beats her up and claims that he has to bear the burden whenever she can't follow the rules he laid out for her. When Tatsuki decides to break up with Keita, he agrees on the condition that she quit her job, since it would otherwise be awkward for them.
• Lina Inverse in most incarnations of Slayers; while she does take the time to help others (and save the lives of many if necessary), the true reason she often falls into grand adventures in the first place is so she can acquire money among other things, and will manipulate/leave behind her companions for her own sake. Her greed is immense — in one Non-Serial Movie, she destroys a restaurant because she loses the sardine they offered her — which she stepped on herself.
  • His reasons have more meaning than Lina's do, but Zelgadis also slips into this at times in regards to changing his body back to normal.
• Soul Eater has Black*Star, who frequently proclaims himself the hero (it's Badass Bookworm Maka), insists upon the whole cast/plot relying upon him (long before he had the skill to back up such a claim), and justifies any deviation from this (e.g. 'allowing' Maka to fight Crona for him) as him simply being a 'great' man and warrior. His single-minded attitude recently allowed him his own heroic piece; being the one to rescue Kid from the Book of Eibon. In a different kind of series, he would be the hero.
• Star Driver has Head, the resident Big Bad. His endgame plan meant that he would use the series' most powerful mecha to travel through time. For this to happen, said mecha must use all live on Earth as its power source, resulting in the death of every living being. Does he care? Of course not. Though not that he's much better on his way towards this end plan, manipulating (read: sleeping with) people left and right and throwing them away once he becomes bored of them or they stop being useful to him.
• Sword Art Online:
  • Sugou Nobuyuki takes having a God complex to unbelievable levels, viewing everyone else as beneath him and believing that he's entitled to do whatever he wants, like having Asuna or ruling the world, and no one has any right to stop him.
  • Quinella, the Arc Villain of the first half of the Alicization arc, is the de facto ruler of humanity, but her refusal to allow the existence of an army that she doesn't directly control ends up leaving humanity too weak to fight off a full-scale invasion from the Dark Territory. She gets even worse when you consider her attempts at achieving immortality, and how she's willing to abandon humanity and escape to the real world just to save herself.
• The Emperor in The Tale of the Princess Kaguya thinks that Kaguya refused five high-ranking suitors so she could belong to him.
• Sigma of Tweeny Witches claims to believe in and act for only himself, something he tells Sheila they are like each other for.
• Nozomu "Baka" Tanaka from Wasteful Days of High School Girls is a non-malicious example. Tanaka proceeds almost exclusively for her own amusement and out of sheer boredom, but she's not smart or aware enough to notice that she's doing something wrong. Her childhood friends Akane and Shiori barely bother to correct her or indulge her in her diatribes because they know that it's an exercise in futility.
• Wolf Guy - Wolfen Crest has both Ryuuko and Haguro.
• In The World God Only Knows, Keima comes to the conclusion that the girls he's seeking are not just girls he's met in the past, but specifically those closest to him (a childhood friend and girls in the same class and/or grade level). He goes so far as to suggest that finding these girls is the reason he was chosen as a spirit hunter in the first place. Narcissistic as it sounds, however, events have so far supported his hypothesis.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: Unless your name is Mokuba, don't expect Seto Kaiba to show you anything other than cold indifference. Unless Mokuba has been kidnapped, Kaiba has shown he has no problem at all standing back and watching Yugi and company save the world while he mutters insults under his breath.

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