The webtoon protagonists I loved during my childhood were, without exception, overwhelmingly powerful. Reflecting on the webtoons I thoroughly enjoyed, I absolutely cannot leave out Hellper. Jang Gwang-nam from Hellper was "very" powerful—a monstrous figure capable of utterly defeating almost anyone in his path.
Was that all? Even in the animations broadcasted on Tooniverse when I was in elementary school, the protagonists were extraordinary characters. In the animation His and Her Circumstances, the lead male and female swept the first and second ranks in the entire school. Among them, the male protagonist came from a wealthy family, harbored various complex backstories, and possessed flawless looks.
The protagonists depicted in webtoons are invariably designed as the kinds of figures one might dream of becoming at least once: the top student in the school, the most handsome guy around, or the best fighter. Though they might be considered cliché characters, they allow readers to watch the protagonist's journey with delight, as if they themselves had become that lead character. I suspect that is exactly what went through the minds of those who read those comics.
I wanted to become a protagonist. And as I began to live like the figures portrayed in those comics, I spent a surreal chapter of my life somewhere in the middle ground where dreams intersect with reality. While there may be many people who have achieved the rank of top student in their school during their academic days, it is exceedingly rare for someone who started near the absolute bottom of the entire school to rise and seize that number one spot. There are many who graduate from university with low GPAs, but few who quickly command an annual salary of hundreds of millions of KRW in society. Just like a webtoon protagonist. Like an "overpowered" (Munchkin) character. It seems I wanted to become a character rarely seen in reality. And I became that person.
An overpowered character—one who possesses something so overwhelmingly powerful that they project an aura of intimidation incomparable to any other character. Merely looking up to a revered character in a webtoon and living within such a delusion is fundamentally different from living a bizarre life comparable to a webtoon protagonist and marching down the path toward becoming an genuinely overpowered figure. Isn't it fascinating? People search for idealized figures within fictional creations, yet sometimes, reality is stranger, more chilling, and produces figures far more overwhelming than fiction—characters that can make one's heart tremble with fear.
Do not merely admire; achieve it. There is no need to envy a webtoon character who becomes the top student in school. I simply need to become number one myself. From that moment onward, I become the protagonist of this comic. People who have resolved to live as protagonists do not particularly care what another main character experiences in a different webtoon. Whether the genre I belong to is a hero fiction, slice-of-life, romance, or a thriller—
One can choose it for themselves. I become the protagonist. A character possessing the overwhelming strength that typically appears only in webtoons. That is me.