Kai Szasazu

Kai Szasazu is one of the main characters of the anime, Spirit Chi Warriors!. He is the tritagonist and the heir to a multi-billion dollar military training facility incorporation, and the Lord of the Dragon Gods. Kai aims to be the world's strongest fighter, willing to do whatever it takes to succeed. To accomplish this goal, he must defeat his arch-rival, Yugi Typhoon. He is the former leader of the Dragon Riders, and is now the team captain of the Spirit Chi Warriors. Kai is commonly viewed as an anti-hero as his goals are usually ego-centric, pertaining his pride, but he does have a sense of honor and fairness. Originally the arch-enemy of the main protagonist, Kai was very antagonistic towards Yugi, before he reformed himself. Kai grew up alone and was forced to learn everything he knows from scratch on his own. Kai had grown a rational fear and hatred for his grandfather, Voltaire Szasazu, as he was living in his shadow, always used as a pawn to his grandfather's schemes. As the series goes by, Kai begins to mellow out, becoming more of a silent yet observant fighter, who still retains his arrogance and cold-hearted nature. Kai's sheer determination and motivation to overcome his own darkness and destroy what his grandfather represents is deep-rooted to his past, as well as his inner solitude and confinement. Kai's creation was good for the story as it helped develop his character through the interactions and influence of others. Kai is one of three beholders of the three Legendary Spirit Beasts to have ruled over the earth, having the Spirit Beast Torrent.

Personality
Cold, cool, and calculative, Kai is constantly shown throughout the series to be generally apathetic towards people. In addition, he is also cold-hearted, and extremely arrogant, often underestimating his opponents to better enforce his ego. Kai's arrogance along with his quiet yet cold nature, is perhaps his most defining traits as he is shown to be like this throughout the entire series. As an antagonist, Kai was heartless, not caring for anybody, and even showing hardly any interest in his teammates.

However, that was revealed to be false as he hides his true feelings for his comrades. When he joined the Spirit Chi Warriors, he had grown to hate each one of them, especially Yugi. He would antagonize them anyway he could, as well as put their spirits down and preferred to train alone. Kai is also shown to be extremely unbiased when it comes to his opponents. He is displayed as a guy who spares nobody as he didn't hesitate to kill any males or females, despite their ages. Although it is subtle, Kai's change happens when he begins to realize the importance of having a team by your side, finally beginning to cherish the ones that he have come to know for so long. Usually calm, introverted and observant, Kai prefers to isolate himself from others, displaying quite a preserved attitude and state of mind. Mentally, he is one of the strongest characters in the series, shown as when he resisted the corruption his grandfather placed into his mind. Kai's rather brutal, collected, and cold-hearted personality was created from the harsh treatment and environment he was forced to endure from living with his grandfather.

Although these traits of Kai's lessens over time, the core of his personality still remains, signifying that the nightmare and fear of being trapped under his grandfather's rule and used as a pawn for his ambition had been scarred into his personality for good; being the reminder to Kai of the horrible childhood he grew up in. Kai's more noble and heroic traits are his strong pride, his honor as a true fighter and individual, and his isolated personality. As a person, Kai is extremely prideful, often taking a loss extremely seriously, resulting in a wounded pride. Usually, Kai goes into sudden states of depression and determination to defeat the person that has defeated him, going off to train for sometime and return later. Kai's honor is expressed in a way that differs from others. Although he went a large portion of the series despising the Chi Warriors, and brutally murdering anybody that fought him, Kai still had a sense of honor. This is shown several times throughout the series. For example, when Kai went evil after re-joining the Dragon Riders, despite wanting to defeat and possibly kill Yugi, he wanted to have a completely fair fight against him, even threatening to kill the Dragon Riders, when they came to help him defeat Yugi as back-up orders from his grandfather.

Creation and Concept
Kai was originally created as a starter villain to the series. He was meant to have the role of the secondary antagonist during the Dragon Riders arc, with his grandfather, Voltaire Szasazu taking over during the second half of the arc to exact his revenge. However, the creator, Niko, changed his mind, believing Kai to have been useful as well as popular, perfect for a major role in the storyline. He then instead kept Kai, turning him into the main antagonist of the first arc, and from then on out, using Kai as the arch-rival/arch-enemy of series protagonist, Yugi Typhoon. Niko's reasonings for keeping Kai were because he felt that Kai's story had much bigger potential than he was letting on, and that he wanted to expand on that storyline as best as he could, feeling that he had a strong enough character build up to stay in the story.