Ace Railgun recently brought up the topic of how casts of characters in anime are handled, whether the series has a large and gradually expanding cast or a small, consistent one. It’s interesting to think about how the number of characters in an anime can affect the overall quality, especially in regards to how many episodes the series has…
Ace Railgun suggests that on average an anime series will have about 4 to 6 main characters, which I’m inclined to agree with for typical 12-26 episode series. In media in general, the Five-Man Band that TV Tropes describes just seems like the right number for having a viable amount of complementing character archetypes. Actually, a lot of my favorite series have the 4-6 main character number – Haruhi, Lucky Star, Wolf’s Rain, Cardcaptor Sakura, Azumanga Daioh, Kannagi, and Madoka for example.
After one to a few main characters are established in a series, there’s typically a point where the rest of the cast is introduced, usually gradually before finally capping the number of major and minor characters (one-time guest characters can pop up anytime though). This is where one and two cour series, especially one cour, can run into the problem of “having too many characters and not enough time to develop them all,” often starting with a good number of characters and then not knowing when to stop the cast expansion. Even though I like the series a lot, Angel Beats! is a prime example of this problem (though it could be because it was originally supposed to be two cour). I also recall a 2001 reverse-harem magical girl series called Pretear that I watched over a decade ago, and the only thing memorable about it was the fact that it too had this problem – it had about 10-12 characters vying for important screentime and character development in only 13 episodes.
Many would say that the number of characters in a series should be proportional to how long it is – the more episodes, the more characters, and consequently the fewer episodes, the fewer characters. Despite my examples with Angel Beats! and Pretear, I don’t necessarily think that one cour series shouldn’t have such large casts of characters. It’s all about execution, particularly in how the series can distinguish its main characters from its minor characters. In Madoka for example, there’s about 12 characters in total and the series makes it very clear which ones are the main characters that are supposed to be given the most development and attention – the five main girls and Kyubey – and which have supporting roles – Madoka’s mother, Hitomi, Kyousuke, etc,. The minor characters don’t necessarily have to be stiffed with character development or anything, it’s just that the audience won’t feel as lacking if that’s the case. So in Madoka, we won’t care as much if Madoka’s teacher is mostly just there for comic relief because the series makes it obvious that that’s what she is. But for Angel Beats!, we get the impression that all the SSS members are important cast members yet only a few get anything more than just a name and a singular character trait.
Two cour series have it a bit easier with their larger number of episodes, and if they use their time wisely, can develop quite a good number of characters besides just the main ones, as I feel is the case for Evangelion, Code Geass, and Fruits Basket for example. But they can still run into the same problem. Ace Railgun uses Gurren Lagann as an example in his post, describing how the series starts off focusing on just the main three characters (Simon, Kamina, and Yoko) in the first batch of episodes before the cast sees a giant growth spurt later on. Considering how many characters are introduced in a relatively short time, I felt the series did an okay job creating that distinction I discussed earlier of which ones are supposed to be more “major” (Rossiu and Kittan for example) than others. But I felt it still had more Dai Gurren characters than it needed.
When it comes to the long running or multiple season series, they obviously have more time to create a larger cast of fully fleshed out characters. I think one reason series like Naruto and One Piece are so successful is because they us their long length to the fullest in developing their expanding casts. One Piece has an interesting method of right away showing us the backstory of each main Straw Hat member that’s introduced and then we really get to know them very well because the series keeps its focus on them all throughout (while still building up a large list of minor characters as the years go on). Because of its long length, the series can spend upwards of ten episode focusing on just one character’s conflict and resolve. While Naruto isn’t as focused on a set of main characters as One Piece, it still does great using its many episodes to develop characters over time – we only just learned about the entire past history of Naruto’s parents 300+ episodes into the anime! Long length doesn’t always equal stellar character development though. I always thought Bleach lacked in that department, introducing too many characters at once in the early Soul Society arc and even hundreds of episodes later, failing to give most of them solid backstories and characteristics.
I think the most interesting anime for this topic are the ones that have an extremely small cast of characters regardless of being one or two cour. Ace Railgun mentions Mushishi and Kino’s Journey as examples of these – I’d also mention Noir which has only four main characters, two protagonists and two antagonists, and pretty much no other reoccurring characters in its 26 episodes. Anime like Noir and Mushishi that do something unconventional in terms of cast expanding show just what a refreshing storytelling experience it can be when an entire series focuses on just one or two main characters (and perhaps a string of guest characters, like in Mushishi). While it certainly has its merits, this method could also be disadvantageous if you don’t happen to like the main character(s) and the minor/guest characters, if any, aren’t given enough development for you to like them. It seems like the smaller the cast, the more time to develop the characters but the less universal of an audience you’ll reach, while a larger cast often means you’ll attract a larger audience because there’s a variety of characters to match different tastes, but you could run into the problem of your story becoming too over-saturated with pointless and underwritten characters. It’s tough finding a balance of a good number of well defined characters in terms of the story you’re trying to tell and the number of episodes at your disposal…but it’s something the best series have always done =)
Thanks so much for writing this, it’s pretty much everything else I was thinking about the subject but didn’t have the patients to type. I like how you go in depth with the One Piece/ Bleach side of this topic. Those big cast anime are a trend breaker in the whole cast size situation and seem to be ever expanding and swapping out characters. It’s the complete opposite to something like Mushi Shi which is more about the story then the characters, Ginko in Mushi Shi is just a device to communicate those stories and we tend to forget he is a character until he gets his own episode and back story and suddenly all that changes and you become interested in him as a person.
It is a shame about Angel Beats too because it felt like they could have explored so much more with the sub-cast but it got rushed which severely damaged the final product. I bet somewhere out there there is scripts for another 12 episodes of Angel Beats. I would pay so much money just to read them.
That’s a good way of comparing Mushishi with series like One Piece and Bleach in those respects; the latter two are all about becoming attached to the myriad of characters and their world while the former is about communicating stories and allowing us to take an observer’s perspective through Ginko.
I would like to see those Angel Beats! scripts too XD
I tend to like the stories with fewer characters. As we discussed in your of your previous posts, I tend to focus a lot on characters (more than story), so the better fleshed out, the better it is for me. I had problems with series like Baccano. Apart from the messy non-chronological order, there were far too many characters, and they did not get the proper attention. Series like the recent Sword Art Online are very good for me because they have just a handful of characters, so they get fleshed out every well.
As long as they do a good job in the storytelling, of course. Angel beats had lots of characters, but they did a decent job of introducing them, while other series may have trouble with less characters. Anyway, personally, I prefer less characters with more details given to them.
I had similar feelings towards Baccano in that I felt some characters were left out while others got more screentime. But for me, it doesn’t matter how many characters as long as the ones we’re supposed to care about are well written, and if the series has a large cast, it doesn’t try and make them all important and thus not have the time to develop them all (like with Angel Beats!)
Any number of characters can work if you know where you’re going with them, but what’s saddening is that new characters often just amount to filler content. Many harem series and light novel adaptations basically introduce a new character every few episodes to keep things fresh after they’ve run out of ideas with their previous cast members. This might work short term, but usually results in a forgettable show.
Then you have stuff like Dog Days, where the only idea behind a second season was introducing new characters, with no plot planned whatsoever. The show has a local-kitsune-god-turned-demon-slaying-ninja among its cast, but don’t expect five minutes of backstory for characters like that, the anime is too busy doing nothing to care ;).
I don’t watch many harem anime so I haven’t encountered the problem you’re describing very often. I can imagine it though – I have watched some anime where a new character is introduced just for the sake of filler. It’s not as much of a problem if it’s just a one-time guest character for a “plot of the week” story, like in long shonen series for example. But when this character is supposed to be among the main cast, especially towards the end of a one or two cour show, their purpose as filler is made painfully obvious.
It’s pretty hard to juggle the balance between character development and plot development, and not many series can get it exactly right. I find that one-cour series that have a central plot almost always suffers from this, because there just isn’t enough time to develop both without sacrificing one aspect. Episodic series like Kino’s Journey and slice-of-life series seem to be the only ones that do well with so few episodes.
On the other hand, many two-cour series with a plot end up dragging on near the end. Maybe we need to start having anime that are 1.5-cour.
Balance is hard to find, especially when you have few episodes. So I think it’s best when a one cour series is either character focused or plot focused rather than trying to give equal attention to both. It can work sometimes though, for example if the cast of characters is small then that leaves more time for story development. But usually fully fleshing out characters, plot, and setting can only effectively be done by long running or multiple season series.
1.5 cour sounds like a good idea =) The currently airing Kokoro Connect is looking to be 1.5 cour actually XD (17 episodes)
Done well, adding lots of characters can give a sense of realistic depth to a series even if they are not developed, just by giving the impression that they *could be* developed.
As seen in Legend of the Galactic Heroes.
That is one way of looking at it and it definitely leaves more room for fan fiction, doujinshi, and the like. Having a lot of characters, even if they’re not all given equal screentime, makes the setting seem more complex and interesting and the fact that they “could be” developed again leaves more room for fan speculation activities like doujin works. It’s just not good when a series tries to make us feel a lot of sympathy or care for underwritten, one-dimensional characters, at least for me.
I think characters should be proportional to the writer’s level of comfort as well as the length of the series. Angel Beats, an example you mentioned, was the result of Jun Maeda preparing the cast of a long series and became quickly overwhelmed by the final deadline being cut to one cour. Just the same, I feel that Bleach is an example of an anime/manga that has a lot of characters for the sake of it, and the Kubo doesn’t know what to do with all of them in the end. At least with Gurren Lagann, the giant extra cast all served the purpose of a liberation front that aided in combat and morale support, and that idea is believable enough, so the minor characters didn’t feel like props.
I think the Five Man Band trope is a great basis for making characters for starting writers. Each character would fit a supporting role unique to them and things will rarely get convoluted. It’s also open to introduce one new character called the “Sixth Ranger” who will shake the status quo up without overwhelming the writer too much.
All good points about AB!, Bleach, and Gurren Lagann. I agree that Tite Kubo probably created more characters than he was able to write for in the early parts of the story rather than gradually introduce them. And AB! was just unfortunate, which is why I’m hoping they’ll eventually make a new series of it with a proper two cour length.
Key’s actually making a visual novel out of AB! right now, supposedly, in a way that portrays Jun Maede’s original vision for the series. Another anime based off of that would be nice.
Good luck with your first shift :D!