My go-to explanation for non-Japanese speakers about the difference between the two male first-person pronouns “boku” and “ore” is “Luke Skywalker versus Han Solo,” and it usually gets through.

I remember reading a discussion about a character in a manga (I think Atobe in Prince of Tennis, one of those fandoms I only encountered via fic) who used “ore-sama”, which was described as “thinking you were all that and a bag of chips”, which I loved as an explanation :D

If I’m reading something translated from Japanese that’s set in Japan I do like having pronouns, but I’m not sure I notice if they aren’t there, especially if it’s another setting.