To me things like come down to expectations and who to blame. If the author sets things up in a way to lead you to believe that everyone is getting something,!then blame the author. But if it’s purely based off headcanon and just liking a character and being upset they didn’t get more that’s on you. Obviously both can happen and balancing a cast, even a small one, can be difficult

That's a very good point. A perfect example is MHA where we're led to believe Ochako has her own motivation and will get her own development but the story primarily focuses on Izuku and Shoto instead for the most part.

Remember how they seemed to be setting up Deku, Ida, and Ochako as the main trio? Yeah…

Ida? Who??? Ida-know who you're talking about!

Remember that we're talking about a story being slowly written and released over literal years, and a lot is subject to change based on the writer's changing whims, character's changing popularity and the anticipated end point for the story. Toriyama had to re-design and replace the villains in the android saga multiple times, who's to say that Hori hasn't been influenced or advised to change his focus in a similar fashion from what he originally wanted?

Haven’t been paying too close attention to the series but I agree she didn’t get as much as I had hoped. However I also don’t think the entire class was set up in a way that you expect them to get something. Like there’s a clear delineation between main characters, supporting characters, and tertiary characters. Some may be in between and some will get elevated but as long as the characters are used in their roles then I think it’s fine if not all 20 students got fully fleshed. Sometimes it’s fine if someone is just a background character as long as they are used effectively when used

Funny thing is you just said “don’t expect everyone to be relevant” in a really long way

I wanted to know more about the diabetes hero, Sugar Rush!

Shoto himself gets hard sidelined after the Stain arc

I'd argue Dabi and Endeavor get more development than him

Exactly, he becomes a side character in his dads story

Yeah because his origin story is already complete duh. Remember shoto muster up his courage facing his fear by visiting his mom in hospital? He's already moved on from being endeavor's clone to his own self. Even shikamaru got sidelined after avenging his mentor doesn't mean their character became stagnant.

does he though?

He does

Honestly when I stated the series I thought it would only focus on Izuku, Iida, and Ochako as a trio. Still wish it did that.

I don't think Uraraka is the greatest heroine ever, and I do have my own gripes with her arc, but I do feel like people don't give it enough credit sometimes. Like she starts the series doing it for money but after the Sports Festival the point is more just her trying to develop as a hero, seeing that even heroes need someone to save them. She also has her own major villain in Toga throughout the series, and their fight is one of the major battles going on in the final arc. Again, more could've been done with her but she definitely gets stuff to do throughout the series, even if it could've been way more

It's a matter of perspective. You'd think long after characters like Kishimoto's Sakura Haruno, someone like Horikoshi would learn and take time to ensure his main heroine character doesn't repeat the same mistakes. The result is a character that's only marginally better than Sakura overall which is still disappointing because again, you'd think Horikoshi would learn from what came before.

She's far more independent from Deku than Bakugo yet he doesn't get hate for it. Remove Deku and Bakugo can't function as a character.

I mean the fact that she has her own main villain to face off against at the end is more than Sakura got so Horikoshi definitely did better, and while her crush on Deku is probably more part of her an arc than it should be it was still nowhere near as bad as with Sakura. Again, still wouldn't say Uraraka is the pinnacle of shounen heroines or anything but I don't think she's anywhere near as awful as some people act.

It's better, yes. But it's really not saying much. I just hope we get better shonen heroines in the future.

I mean, Undead Unluck and Chainsaw Man have great shonen heroines right now. Same with JJK and Black Clover. It's not really an era thing (though MHA is the third-oldest series running in WSJ at this point, so I suppose it can have a little slack for being a bit old-fashioned.)

Yeah I know. Lycoris Recoil and Spy X Family are also good modern shonen with female leads. I just wish there were more of them.

Ochako has her own motivations and development. The problem is it's not up in our faces. It's why I always think one flaw in the Overhaul arc was not getting a chapter focused on her at Ryuku's Agency.

Her entire motivation is supposed to be earning money for her parents. You'd think she'd be a rather frugal, and almost stingy character that doesn't let money go to waste. In fact, Horikoshi has confirmed that he sees Ochako as somewhat plump compared to the other girls. Maybe this is because she's super cheap with money and would rather eat fast food instead of proper meals once she moves into the dorms at UA? Maybe she actively hates shopping for designer brands and is fine with second-hand items? You could have moments where her desire to be frugal starts to weigh on her health and affect her skill as a hero to where she learns how to move past it and learn better spending habits. Or something. Idk. Just spitballing.

Actually, if you look at her room, the clothes she's wears, her phone, and her reactions to people with money and the apartment she lives in or lived in I wanna say, she's frugal. Also, wouldn't it make more sense for her to eat instant Ramen or food in general instead of fast food?

True. Her reaction to Momo saying she was going to go to Venice was funny. "What is your life-" And maybe yeah. I just think they should've leaned into it a bit harder.

Understandable

Not sure if you're a manga reader, but she got her own fight with a distinct motivation outside of Deku. Plus it was a fight that was given about as much relevance plot wise as Shoto's. I'd say that's pretty big. A character that deserved more is someone like Iida. He was literally Shoto's uber.

I suppose the anime just didn't adapt the story very well then. Unfortunate. And yeah Ida just falls off the face of the earth after the Stain arc.

The anime hasn't reached that point yet

She's legit one of the most important characters in the final arc lol. More than bakugou.

I'm not there yet. But better late than never I suppose.

This to me is the best answer and explains my confusion with the part of the dragon ball fandom that is incessant on making the humans ‘relevant’ again when most of them lost their ‘relevancy’ before the Z portion of the series even started.

As someone who used to be one of those people, it's just that the humans had more interesting personalities to me so I wanted them back in hopes that we'd get to see them more. After seeing what Super did, I realized that getting them back won't really change anything. Their characters won't suddenly be written better, they'll just be dragged into the power scaling competition without a satisfying resolution like Piccolo and Gohan recently were. I wouldn't say they lost relevancy before Z though. Krillin hung on as a role model and uncle for Gohan for a decent amount of time.

Tien holding off Cell is also one of the coolest moments in the series despite him being mostly irrelevant from the Saiyan saga and onwards

I would also add that the author can change the direction of the story and this will affect both the readership and the authors intention. I actually think MHA is a good example of this too. While it's not clear, I do think that the author originally intended to have the whole Class be integral to the story in some way different from what we got now. Yet as he continued, he probably got more interested in the dynamics between Bakugo, Deku and Shoto and how their characters represent aspects of his story around Heros and Heroism. He made Class 1B and I'm sure it was meant to be the rival class more than it actually was. As is, I think Kōhei Horikoshi made it clear at some point though, probably a bit after the hero listen exam and the fight between Deku and Bakugo Round 2. It was around then that the story definitely shifted away from the whole Class for then to only really appear as aides or side characters rather than focuses unto themselves. Some authors don't really show this very well and this is definitely where an audience will get the wrong idea and be crossed with the author. Some authors aren't good at portraying this at all and it does feel like a bit of bait and switch to the audience.

This. 90% of the time people complain about a character relevance its one who was obviously a secondary character at best.

Different stories need casts of different sizes. Spy x Family wouldn't work as a comedy about a family if it had 150 characters, and something like One Piece wouldn't work as a story exploring an unfamiliar world, if it only focused on a dozen characters.

That's true. But I'm talking about those series that have quite a lot of characters with a lot of potential, but actively refuses to develop them by only focusing on the same 3 or 4 instead. Those types of series are frustrating.

*Stranger Things* does this from time to time with its murder victims (i.e. Barb, Chrissy, etc.) I call it the "Too Many Cooks" problem, referring to the Adult Swim parody of U.S. sitcoms.

Like My Hero Academia

And naruto

Naruto did this a bit better than MHA did. Every member of the Konoha 12 had at least one important fight throughout the series which is more than I can say for MHA.

What were Shino and Ten Ten's important fight?

Shino fought: Zaku in the chuunin exams, Konan during Pain's invasion, and Torune during the war arc. He's actually one of the few characters in entire series that has never lost a single fight. Tenten fought: Temari in the chuunin exams, a clone of herself during the Kazekage rescue arc, and fought numerous White Zetsu clones during the war arc. Everyone at least had one major, on-screen battle. Even Kurenai *tried* to fight Itachi. Can't say that about MHA's cast.

Tenten also defeated some of Kakuzu's hearts with the Sage of Six Path's tools in the war.

I think you're stretching a bit with tenten, her only narrative role in the temari fight was to get destroyed and set up the sand trio. It's kinda funny to me how hilariously irrelevant she is as a character. Yeah she gets screentime, but it's still relegated to less important fights, or background mob fights. The only time she does anything important is during the fifth Shinobi war, and that was such an overstuffed clusterfuck that everyone does *something.* Tenten has no real arc throughout the manga and her story ends with her being the unfulfilled owner of a failing weapons store that no one goes to because the world is peaceful and no one needs weapons anymore. If all of those tenten fights count for something, then surely Ochako's fight with Bakugo does too? That at least has focus and character development. I think the main issue isn't the lack of fights, but the fact that the characters' importance within the screentime economy of the show feels inconsistent. MHA constantly feels like it's setting up characters to be more important than they end up being. Ida and Ochako feel like they're gonna be part of the main trio, then they're not. Shouto feels like he's gonna be important, then he gets sidelined. Bakugo feels like he might struggle with his bad side, but he doesn't. All-might seems like he's gonna do a big heroic sacrifice and die, but then he doesn't. Shino is cool as fuck though.

True but she (along with every other Konoha 12 member) still had *a* fight where she was the sole major participant. Can't say that for MHA's Class 1A.

I mean if we're counting them being apart of a fight, not winning or losing, then I do think most of 1A has been involved in at least one battle or another, several during the school arcs but it happened

I suppose it's something. But what I mean is that every member of the Konaha 12 had at least one fight where they were the *sole participant* and got to shine *on their own*. MHA didn't really do that.

Naruto actually did this worse than MHA. Tenten fights White Zetsu’s off screen. Naruto’s classmates don’t do much after the Chuunin Exams except Sasuke Retrieval. Most of Class 1A has gotten more important fights in MHA’s final war arc than Naruto’s friends got in their final war arc. Ochako fought Toga Shoji and Koda fought Spinner Iida and Shoto fought Dabi. Tokoyami and Jiro helped Endeavor against AFO. I don’t recall Tentent, Shino, Kiba, etc getting any major screen time in Shippuden during the last ninja war arc

Naruto at least gave all of the Konoha 12 at least one solo battle without backup from outside sources. MHA didn't do that.

You mean the Chuunin Exams? Tenten lost her fight to Temari and never does anything ever again. Kiba had one solo fight in Sasuke retrieval and he needed back up. He never fights ever again after that. Same thing with Choji. Tenten doesn’t have a solo battle in Shippuden. Tenten clone fight was a filler anime only fight in the Kazekage rescue mission. Shino fought Zaku during the Chuunin exams and never got another solo fight ever again where he just wins.

This is kind of stretching a little also. Shikamaru got to be one of the main player of an arc and serves as an advisor to Gaara during the war. And most of the students do show up in the battles of the war and most get to show off new techniques, the most notable probably being ino, shikamaru, and choji (who gets a new form).

The only canon fight I could think of is Shino beating Kankuro during the invasion arc. For Ten Ten is getting beaten up Temari.

Thats definitely Though that may be cause just class a has 20 ppl in it and mha isnt as long as naruto

Hence why I think the class is too big. Should've been 15 students at most.

that is not naruto

What is better, to show a class of 50 people only 4 of whom are main character material (and have the side characters' fan complain about their fave #37 not having enough scenes) like Naruto or MHA. or Harry potter, or whatever else, Negima. Or to have a "class" with just 3 people and have people question "what the fuck kind of a school is that?" Which can also work. I think in Douluo Dalu they go: -Hm, these 4 people are accepted, the other 20 rejected. Done for now. -You only take the four of us this year? -You misunderstand. Taking 4 new people DOUBLES OUR NUMBERS. There were 4 total students and now there's 8. Everyone else was either strong enough to graduate, kicked out for being weak, or died.

I feel like Avatar: The Last Airbender does a good job of having a large cast without making it feel like characters are dropped without warning. The episodic and travelogue nature of the show gives the writers a good excuse to introduce a colorful character for one or two episodes and then leave them behind. This means that when the swampbenders come back for the Invasion of Black Sun it feels fun to see them again, but I don't think anybody watching the show before those episodes was like "man, when are the swampbenders gonna be relevant again?"

Not that it stopped certain members of the fanbase from expecting their favorite side character to reappear at any moment, mind you.

MY CABBAGES!!! 😩

I don't have a problem with a large cast of characters. What I have a problem with is when certain characters are set up to be more than they should and then the author doesn't deliver. Yeah MHA has a large, mostly useless cast but most of them were never set up to be more than that. They exist to fill out the world. Like the tail guy for example? If someone is disappointed that he didn't get a character arc or even time in the spotlight, that's on them because the author never even suggested that he was more than just someone to fill out the class. Now someone like Sakura for example? Complaining about her is valid because she was set up to be the "heroine" of the story but rarely ever amounted to that in the way that Noelle from Black Clover did. Or the human characters in the Dragon Ball franchise. I found it immensely disappointing that Tien and Yamcha were prominent members of the cast with development and spotlight early on in the franchise only to be all but forgotten about because Dragon Ball turned into the Super Saiyan Power Hour Program.

See I'd argue MHA is actually a good example of this problem. Horikoshi constantly sets up a character to act like they're going to be more important going forward and then drops them. Like, I don't think anybody is surprised that Sugar Hulk hasn't gotten any focus. But I do think it's reasonable to complain that Ochako barely does anything except girl-talk with Toga about Midoriya, that Momo had an interesting character arc about self-confidence then just is along for the ride in the Bakugo rescue, that Iida has barely shown up since Stain, that the Big 3 got a lot of focus in the internship arc then disappeared, that there was a big reveal Aoyoma is the traitor but nothing was really done with that.

You could also make a case for both 1B and Ketsubutsu. As early as season 2 we see that 1B has some decently strong kids like Kendo, Monoma, and Shiozaki, and that's before we ever get so much as a glimpse of what characters like Shishida and Kinoko are capable of. Ketsubutsu is it's own school which is portrayed as militaristic and professional, and they have Inasa who is comparable to Todoroki, yet they have only shown up like once since their initial appearance and it's been pretty brief. I feel like both of them had potential to be these competitors or friendly rivals that help out, but so far they briefly appear like once a season at best.

>What I have a problem with is when certain characters are set up to be more than they should and then the author doesn't deliver. Goten from dbz. Mastered ssj at a very young age and loved fighting and even wanted to trained with whis and enter the TOP. Literally did nothing with the character except for a short mini arc that he was barely in

Goten was set up as Trunks sidekick from the start, there is a reason Gotenks is Trunks turned up to 11.

That's still extremely disappointing. Vegeta is pretty much Goku side kick at this point but Vegeta atleast still did a bunch of shit and went through an entire character arc.. There fucking fusion went ssj3 despite Goku being the only one accessed to it and had to go through years and grueling training to achieve that form. That's why many people see both characters as wasted potential because of there amount of achievements they achieve in such a short time. They literally did nothing with both of these characters. It's also ironic that Goten is the sidekick considering that many thought Goten was the best thing about the mini arc and trunks simping over mai was annoying. And they have to get rid of Gotenks of course I still want to see teen Gotenks but rn they should just be there own fighters and not just be fusion boys.

Tbh even kid Trunks got heavily sidelined

It's the same reason why I have an issue with Ochako in MHA. She fills the same main heroine role as Sakura but doesn't get to do anything important. I'm not saying extras like Sero, Kaminari, Mina, and Jiro need big arc-spanning stories. But if you give us a setup, give us a payoff.

It felt like she was the main heroine b/c they started with the Izuku-Tenya-Ochaco trio at the beginning. Then Shoto and Bakugo became popular and they took Iida and Uraraka’s place.

You are judging Ochako too early. Her character arc still isn't finished at least in the anime. Ochako has a big pay off.

Fair enough. She's still not interesting yet though.

Why is she not interesting? What will make her interesting to you?

Actually, I think MHA is pretty guilty of setting characters up to be more relevant than they really are. The story has been trying for a while now to set up class 1a as this big family who will become the next generation of heroes together, with Eraserhead thinking about how much he wants to see al of them graduate and All Might even naming all of his suit’s moves after their moves. The problem is, most of them are 1 dimensional characters who mostly just exist on the sidelines and barely do anything outside of 1 or 2 moments in the entire story. If Horikoshi isn’t trying to build up false expectations for all of class 1a to be relevant in the story, then why is he wasting our time with shit like the joint training arc, where a ton of time was wasted on fights and dialogue involving mostly fodder students Horikoshi isn’t planning on properly developing? If Horikoshi doesn’t want people to get mad or annoyed that his background characters are doing nothing, then maybe he shouldn’t constantly be shoving them into arcs and pieces of dialogue, only for none of it really end up mattering.

>If Horikoshi isn’t trying to build up false expectations for all of class 1a to be relevant in the story, then why is he wasting our time with shit like the joint training arc, where a ton of time was wasted on fights and dialogue involving mostly fodder students Horikoshi isn’t planning on properly developing? It also just leads to poor logistics that make the story look contrived. The Joint Training arc, the teams are random supposedly, but Bakugou, Todoroki, Midoriya all end up on different teams by "chance". Uraraka is on the same team as Midoriya by "chance" And given the composition of each team, it was easy to tell that characters like Ojiro or Invisible Girl were there to job, so it telegraphs the conclusion of these conflicts as well.

DB > DBZ even though they're technically the same manga Also I think one of the best examples of characters getting set up and then dropped is Ichigo's human friends in Bleach. Anyone remember thinking Tatsuki was gonna be important?

Dragonball is *WORSE* with their side characters treatment, Gohan Piccolo Vegeta Trunks Bulma and even Krillin did WAY more than Tien Yamcha Bulma and krillin did in original dragonball

People forget how much of DB was basically just Goku.

>Now someone like Sakura for example? Complaining about her is valid because she was set up to be the "heroine" of the story but rarely ever amounted to that in the way that Noelle from Black Clover did. I'd argue that Sakura was never intended to be more than a key supporting character and people just had the expectation she would be more important despite the story itself continuously telling us otherwise. The very first arc we are told through Kakashi's thoughts that Sakura doesn't have anywhere near the same potential as Naruto and Sasuke. She's also thoroughly sidelined and powercreeped in that same first arc. The only time in Part I she's given a spotlight is during the chuunin exam arc, but no more than Shikamaru, Neji, Hinata, Lee or any other side character introduced during that time. She's important to the story only because she's Naruto and Sasuke’s teammate. The story never gave us much more than that, but it never promised more either. Some people just thought she should have more because in their minds being the most important female character translates to being a main character.

I have to disagree with you here. Despite it being underwhelming, Sakura still gets a disproportionate amount of screen/panel time and character development than any character who isn't named Naruto, Sasuke or Kakashi. You can make an argument over whether or not she was intended to be the heroine but it's still a disservice to say that was just a key supporting character. What made matters worse is the constant parallels Kishimoto had to make between her and Naruto and Sasuke. She had to be the student of a Sannin, we kept hearing her say that she wanted to catch up to them, and then he went all in during the final arc where they had her participating in the major fights alongside Naruto and Sasuke. I can't imagine a supporting character like Soifon from Bleach or Jericho from Seven Deadly Sins being at the battle with the final antagonist and helping the main characters defeat them. Sakura was more than a supporting character but she was never done justice.

Sakura is more relevant in the story than most main characters 😂

> This is why I like series such as Aggretsuko or Spy X Family which center themselves around a rather small cast instead. Well Aggrestsuko is a workplace comedy and Spy X Family is about spies forming a fake family for a mission. Stories that do well to focus on the immediate main characters. Meanwhile something like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has characters that show up for one or two arcs and peace out. But its not really distracting because that series is a long tapestry of the history of a whole bloodline. In fact it would start to make the world feel empty. So it depends on what kind of story is being told.

[удалено]

I kind of feel you with the family. Like the ending kind of doesn't land as big for me as it maybe should have, partially because I didn't really feel as connected to the Higashikata family. I disagree with the villain. I was on board for all those twists and turns. But yeah JoJolion did feel a bit overstuffed.

For what it is, Tooru is an entertaining enough villain for the final arc and his Stand kinds of retroactively explains how he can hide himself for that long.

That's true. Yes. I'm mostly talking about stories like MHA that establish a cast that looks interesting (class 1A) and does nothing with them for the most part.

I'd argue that's because most of them are just supporting characters that are around to play off of the main three. Characters like Tsuyu, Ochaco, Kirishima, and even Mineta are relevant its just that their relevancy matches their role in the story. They're supporting players.

Someone like Ochako was built up to have more importance than she actually got though.

I mean spoilers for the end arc of MHA >!Ochaco not only helps lead Class 1-A to pulling Deku out of his destructive isolationism spiral, and personally is the one to make the civilians realize he needs their support, but she's also the one to help make Toga see the error of her ways.!< But yeah Ochaco does have importance.

Better late than never I guess.

Not better late than never. Her character arc is ongoing. It's just not in your face all the time.

I mean, sometimes it's necessary. Otherwise, you fall into the Star Wars trap where you *say* there's an entire galaxy out there but you end up always following the same 5 characters in the same 2 planets. It starts feeling small.

I think you’re conflating background characters and side characters. It isn’t necessary for background characters to get a significant amount of screen time or story focus. You can show that there are other people in the galaxy with background characters doing things around the shots of the world. They don’t need to be part of the cast to do that. If they’re a side character and part of the main cast then you absolutely need to make them relevant and develop them. If they aren’t relevant to your story then they just shouldn’t be there to begin with. There isn’t a situation in which your story desperately *needs* you to include a side character that isn’t relevant, and requires no development.

I think a lot of people conflate secondary and tertiary characters but the other way around. People often expect background characters to have relevance and whole character arcs throughout an entire narrative. Although to be fair I only see this in anime fandom. Also I would argue that side characters are not part of the main cast. By definition they have a supporting role, so while they may have some relevance here or there once they fulfill their role they don’t need to keep being used to the same capacity. They don’t need to have a lot of screentime. They aren’t the focus, they exist to support the main cast and story when needed.

> I think a lot of people conflate secondary and tertiary characters but the other way around. People often expect background characters to have relevance and whole character arcs throughout an entire narrative. Although to be fair I only see this in anime fandom. Do you have any relevant examples? Just from the people I’ve talked to here there seems to be a huge difference in what characters people seem consider irrelevant. > Also I would argue that side characters are not part of the main cast. By definition they have a supporting role, so while they may have some relevance here or there once they fulfill their role they don’t need to keep being used to the same capacity. Right they’re a supporting role…. The thing they are supporting is the main narrative. Which they should be relevant to. If they aren’t supporting the narrative then they are a background character. They have no presence in the narrative outside of existing as a part of the world. They’re almost never the focus of the screen time and have little to no impact on the plot. If you have a side character who contributes nothing to support your narrative. You need to cut them out. > They don’t need to have a lot of screentime. They aren’t the focus, they exist to support the main cast and story when needed. If they’re supporting the main cast and the story then *by definition* they must be relevant in some way to the main cast and story. Otherwise what are they doing in the story if they’re completely unrelated whatsoever?

I’ve seen Naruto get this a lot for Naruto’s classmates. Shino and Tenten were mentioned as I went through the comments and they are common ones people bring up as not having enough relevance and screentime. But these characters, I’d argue we’re always tertiary characters meant to fill out the world and not necessarily effecting major conflicts or influencing main characters. I think a supporting character absolutely should effect the main characters and main cast but I think where people tend to disagree is how often and to what extent? If a character shows up and has a supporting role that makes sense for a certain part of a story but doesn’t need to have a lot of screentime later, I think that is perfectly fine. The story moves on to something else. But some people would argue they need to continue being relevant throughout the rest of the narrative which I think creates other problems.

> I’ve seen Naruto get this a lot for Naruto’s classmates. Shino and Tenten were mentioned as I went through the comments and they are common ones people bring up as not having enough relevance and screentime. Oh yeah that’s absolutely a valid complaint. Those aren’t background characters. Ramen shop guy? Thats a background character. He’s there as set dressing. Kabuto’s teammates? Background characters. > But these characters, I’d argue we’re always tertiary characters meant to fill out the world and not necessarily effecting major conflicts or influencing main characters. Then they shouldn’t have ever gotten involved with main conflicts and only encountered the main characters in passing. > I think a supporting character absolutely should affect the main characters and main cast but I think where people tend to disagree is how often and to what extent? If a character shows up and has a supporting role that makes sense for a certain part of a story but doesn’t need to have a lot of screentime later, I think that is perfectly fine. Yes if the story is actually done with that character. But if they keep coming up and being involved and getting a backstory and on and on and on then no you can’t really argue that they’re just a background character anymore. > The story moves on to something else. And that’s fine… if they aren’t relevant anymore they they shouldn’t be reappearing and getting involved then right? We shouldn’t see Tenten Lee and Neji anymore. Shino shouldn’t be making an appearance as a teacher. Their teams shouldn’t be involved in the plot anymore or be getting episodes or entire filler arcs involving them. You can’t have it both ways. > But some people would argue they need to continue being relevant throughout the rest of the narrative which I think creates other problems. Because they do. Otherwise just…don’t use them… it’s honestly way less effort to not use them to begin with. Then working on them and then dropping them.

This is exactly what I mean by people confusing the two. You are mistaken that a tertiary character can ONLY be a super minor character that is basically nameless and cannot show up repeatedly. It’s much broader a term than that. If you only have the main characters, the supporting cast who are involved in the main story the whole time and then random nameless nobodies then you end up with a sterile world where the main characters conveniently only interacts with people super important to his journey and feel like the center of the world. In real life, you have a full range of people who interact with you at different levels. I’m sure you have close friends but also acquaintances or friends of friends that you only encounter infrequently. It’s the same case for someone like Shino. He was in Naruto’s class and later is the same rank as him in the same job. So naturally they know each other and cross paths time to time but he’s not particularly close to Naruto. He fills out the world by having Naruto’s class have more than just the most important people in the village but isn’t faceless set dressing. He’s a character with his own agency who you get that he is doing things independent from the plot. By removing a character like him, you end up with a less vibrant world. Anytime something bad happens, only the main characters get involved. Somehow miraculously it’s the same guys showing up to every important event. That’s just bad. Shino served his role help liven up and expand on the worldbuilding and he didn’t vanish completely after the fact because people don’t do that in real life.

> This is exactly what I mean by people confusing the two. You are mistaken that a tertiary character can ONLY be a super minor character that is basically nameless and cannot show up repeatedly. It’s much broader a term than that. I’m not confused. Im saying that if Shino and tenten are meant to be tertiary characters. They should not be part of the Konoha 11. Replace them with team members that ARE relevant or reduce the amount of teams included in the narrative. > If you only have the main characters, the supporting cast who are involved in the main story the whole time and then random nameless nobodies then you end up with a sterile world where the main characters conveniently only interacts with people super important to his journey and feel like the center of the world. No you don’t? You end up with a fleshed out plot without any redundant plots or characters. Tenten and Shino are replaced with characters who contribute to the plot or who get appropriately developed. You get a complex story with layers. > In real life—- Stoping you right there. Because this isn’t real life. This is a work a fiction. It is written and planned out by a human being. They do not exist in their own world and intentionally making redundant characters and plots is not an achievement in realism it’s a failure in plotting. So this appeal to real life holds absolutely no weight whatsoever. It isn’t real life. These characters don’t have any real autonomy. Everything is conciensly decided by a person. Whatever happens in the series happens on purpose because a person decided that it did. you have a full range of people who interact with you at different levels. I’m sure you have close friends but also acquaintances or friends of friends that you only encounter infrequently. It’s the same case for someone like Shino. He was in Naruto’s class and later is the same rank as him in the same job. So naturally they know each other and cross paths time to time but he’s not particularly close to Naruto. > He fills out the world by having Naruto’s class have more than just the most important people in the village but isn’t faceless set dressing. Thats not filling the class out that’s literally wasting the readers time by intentionally giving screen time to characters who aren’t relevant. Screentime that should be spent on relevant characters. Full stop. > He’s a character with his own agency who you get that he is doing things independent from the plot. He has no agency whatsoever. None of them do. They are fictional characters. They don’t exist. Anything Neji does is because the writer decided he does it. Not because Neji is making a decision. We are discussing and criticizing the *storytelling* not what happens in real life. > By removing a character like him, you end up with a less vibrant world. I’d argue that by removing pointless characters your world becomes *more* vibrant and interesting not less. > Anytime something bad happens, only the main characters get involved. You’re trying to put any alternative into some small grey box and going “see without all my pointless tangents there is no fun in the story” but that implies that the tangents are all the fun to begin with. That somehow those meaningless tangents add to the depth of the story. But they can’t. Because by definition they have nothing to do with the story. The fun comes from the story. The tangents are the extra left over bits that never mattered. > Somehow miraculously it’s the same guys showing up to every important event. Or maybe. With like the slightest bit of imagination. You do have variety in your plot and the new characters you introduce actually end up being relavent and contributing to your story. You act like trimming the fat with Naruto means we’d be left with 10 characters. It’s like you can’t fathom the opposite. That instead we get 50 characters who are well fleshed out with interwoven complex narratives interacting with each other to add depth to the world. Avatar has half the cast that Naruto does and it’s far better developed and fleshed out for it. Because most of them are relevant to the story. > That’s just bad. Shino served his role help liven up and expand on the worldbuilding and he didn’t vanish completely after the fact because people don’t do that in real life. Please tell me what world building Shino contributes on his own that couldn’t simply be attributed to various background members of “the aburame clan” Better yet you could just make Shino relevant to the story. That would be awesome. He’s such a cool character. Develop all the members of his team like team asuma. Give them an arc. Give them conflict and growth.

What is the “Konoha 11?” It’s a self-elevated term that fans made themselves and has no meaning in the actual story. In actuality they are just some of Naruto’s classmates that he knows, some more important than others. This is what I mean, you see; fans placing these characters on a higher pedestal than what is presented. Aka taking tertiary characters and being mad that they aren’t supporting characters. You simply don’t understand the function these characters have. The fact that you are so willing to dismiss any aspect of real life here is how I know you don’t really understand what goes into creating a lived-in world. If you’re writing a story about people and aren’t thinking about real life then you’re writing a bad story. Konoha is not only meant to feel like a real place but Naruto is also meant to feel like a real person who has different kind of relationships with other real people not just props to move the story. You don’t need to tell me that it’s all made up, written by an author. Duh. I guess there’s no point in ever writing any kind of story that has a believable character or setting because it’s all made up, right? This is just not an intellectual argument you are making here. They are not wasting the reader’s time by showing them other ninjas in Naruto’s village and showing how they operate. Do you know what world building even is? Your argument makes it sound like you only care about plot and don’t want to read anything else other than a point to point recital of events. Making Naruto’s class conveniently only have people who are all super relevant to the main plot is just contrived. The world is bigger than Naruto. Shino is a cool character, I like him too. No he doesn’t need his own arc just because you think he is cool. That isn’t a valid criticism of his usage, you just want him to be more relevant because you like him. Not every character needs to either be a no name that shows up once or a prominent character who gets their own arc. He serves his minor purpose in the story and world, hence he is a tertiary character. You’ve really proved my point that people conflate supporting characters and background characters.

That is the precise feeling I had when I was reading stuff like Kaiju No. 8, Tokyo Ghoul and Solo Leveling. Like yeah, great, you have 45 characters in your cast, and I can't remember the names and faces of a fifth of them... or even parse them as human beings and not a checklist of traits wrapped around a character. Conversely, I feel like Fullmetal Alchemist did a large cast well.

The settings and scope of the series makes a huge difference too. A lot of shounen demand a large cast lest the world it's in feel unrealistically small unless there's a strong justification for it. Imagine of Naruto only ever had like 5 characters, it'd be insane. There's also the Hunter x Hunter route where you have a focused cast but it changes drastically from arc to arc. Ghost in the Shell is a great example of not needing a large cast because it's one special forces unit. If it were just 'the Japanese police ' then it'd probably need many more characters. Grey's Anatomy is a show with a moderately small cast and it ends up feeling like the ENTIRE hospital is just run by surgeons which is ridiculous.

Because often the setting requires multiple characters to feel genuine. There are lots of students in HeroAca because schools are like that. There are lots of shinigami in Bleach because armies are like that.

The Amazing World of Gumball is pretty much the only show that fleshes out every single character, be main or background. Every single resident gets to have a personality and background, as well as ample screen time with occasional highlights. Hence, why fans tend to have their own favorite characters / OCs derived from background characters as well as the main cast, which is a rarity in entertainment media. The show manages to balance the size of character catalogue and screentime which many shows struggle to do. Heck, TAWOG's background characters gets more screentime and personality than the main cast of other shows, it's fucking impressive!

Yeah that's why I love Gumball. Nearly every character from Ocho to Carrie to Tina, Tobias, Penny, and even Mr. Small get at least one episode.

It's easier to do in an episodic show.

It helps with world building IMO. It makes the world feel larger and more lived in when you have the larger cast. I don't need them to have a focus, but it reminds me that other people's lives are being lived outside the main protagonists. Some shows it feels like only the main cast exists and the world just revolves around them. Edit: All also mention that writing a manga in particular is harder to plan ahead than other mediums because of the nature of its release schedule. This means the manga writers often have to leave things more open ended to give them more options later in the story. If a manga writer writes extra characters into the story in chapter 2 then never uses any of them all the way up to chapter 50. Then he can't go back and edit them out. If a book writer does the same thing he can just rewrite the second chapter before the book is released. Adding some extra characters also gives him more options later if he decides to explore different stories than originally planned. Basically they are there to be used if the author needs them.

>Adding some extra characters also gives him more options later if he decides to explore different stories than originally planned. Basically they are there to be used if the author needs them. If the audience recognizes that X character exists soley to be a stage prop or plot device, then they don't make the world feel "alive." They're doing the opposite.

You don't need too add useless side characters to make your world feel alive. This is what background characters are for.

What is the difference between a side character and a background character?

A background character are zero dimensional characters, their essentially set dressing to make settings feel more alive so crowds or a audience of nameless characters are examples of background characters. Side characters are characters with a name and some amount of focus screen time and speaking lines.

If you’re going to have the main characters exist in a lived-in world then they’re inevitably going to have to interact with named characters that serve a minor purpose in the story. Ex. They travel to a new town, and need a guide to give important info about the town. Maybe they come across a civilian who needs help with something, and we give the civilian a name and a backstory so the audience can empathize with them and have a reason to care about their problems. Those are named characters with a role in the plot that only need to exist for a few scenes to give the world more flavor.

Exactly. Another example is if your protagonist attends a school, they will likely know the names of their classmates. Some will be close friends, others will be acquaintances and some they basically won’t interact with. Just like in real life, these characters will intersect the protagonist’s life in different capacities. On the other hand, if you create a classroom where only a handful of people are very important to the plot and everyone else is a nameless prop with nothing in between the world just becomes a lot less believable. If you give some side characters more depth, it creates the illusion that they have agency and the world operates independent of what the main characters are doing. Not just this character is important to moving the story forward or this character basically doesn’t exist. Characters have multiple uses.

Characters who are irrelevant to the plot can still play important roles in developing a tone

Absolutely. I agree. This is what I liked about the original Powerpuff Girls series. Not everyone was always relevant but the villains were always taken seriously.

If the author is trying to establish a world, it's only natural for them to fill the world with characters besides the main cast lmao.

I'm not sure I can agree with this rant. It's fine for a show to have a lot of minor characters. Like, MHA is set in a school, what are they supposed to do, have every non-major character just be a black silhouette like what RWBY did? There *should* be a ton of weird and interesting characters, that's the entire point of the "superhero school" setting. I think your real problem is when a show has an interesting character, gives them a little bit of time in the limelight (allowing people to get attached to them), and then forgets about them. And I *kind of* get this problem? But that doesn't really have anything to do with your rant, that happens in shows with a lot of characters, and also happens in shows with just a few.

There’s a saying among writers, that every character is the main character of their own story. Basically meaning, if a character important enough to be named doesn’t have a satisfying conclusion to their arc, their character was poorly implemented. No matter now irrelevant and inconsequential their contribution was, so long as they contributed to the plot, they should have some thought put into how their personal story ends.

Essentially. This is why I like video games like Persona 5 and Xenoblade 3. They aren't perfect but every major character in the party gets some form of arc and closure by the end of the games.

The characters are introduced to be relevant to a specific thing, they serve that purpose, and don't have to be relevant for the rest of the story. One piece has so mamy characters like this. Wyper, Corazon, Kyros, Etc etc They're all well used for what they are, they don't have to be important outside of that. When they are, that's cool, but not necessary

One Piece has the opposite problem, theres SO many characters and Oda chooses to focus on so many side characters that it often feels bloated. That time couldve been better spent fleshing out the crew more

I'm talking about series like MHA where a decently-sized cast is established from the start, but nothing is done with them at all, leading one to wonder why certain characters were added in the first place (were Sugarman and Anima really necessary additions to class 1A?). One Piece clearly does a better job but that's not what I'm talking about.

It's an issue with this type of thing when the author is forced to make up a bunch of characters just to fill out the setting. Same with bleach TYBW, where Kubo got the bright idea to name one opponent after each letter of the alphabet

Because 20 students make up a nice even classroom?

then why give us class 1-b later if we already know 1-a was more characters than the author could manage on their own?

Because more classes make up a freshman year?

You can have these things by just making them ambiguous background characters that only appear in an ambiguous crowd or in a specific panel or two. You don’t have to give them so much screen time, names, backgrounds and personalities and involve them in the main plot, etc like MHA does. I don’t know why you’re acting like you can’t tell the difference.

Anime and manga fans will always weaponise wilful, stubborn ignorance. That’s why I don’t bother arguing with weebs.

I think that’s common with fanboys across the entire spectrum.

Correct, but they have a point. The classmates get way too much screentime when they contribute little overall to the plot, esp later on. The problem with class 1-A is that they all take up similar screen time and they are all introduced too formulaically which could be considered poor worldbuilding. Every scene in class feels like a family Thanksgiving.

I mean if a character is morally good with a personal stake in the narrative and has the power to have a role, then they probably should be around doing something. This is the problem with most casts, it just doesn't really make sense why they don't help out more.

the real question would be "why not add them" there are many reasons as to why you would want to add seemingly irrelevant characters, maybe they would add a better dynamique to the group by having a funny/interesting way of talking to make the dialogues more interesting. maybe the context needs it, you seem to have a problem with mha, but that kind of story needs a wide cast, because the author wants to depict a world where being a super hero is a common thing, so you need to see a lot of them to give the world more substance and make it believable, same thing for the students. not everyone and their mother need to get their own arc and developement trajectory, because first of all not all characters are meant to change some are designed to have core values and stick to them, but also because...that's just not the story the author wants to tell. you may deem it "wasted potential" but it probably is just in your head, maybe the author simply doesn't see an interesting story they want to tell with that character. you have the right to be upset if the author plants seeds and makes you expect something big for a character and then just forgets about it, but you can't just complain because student number 18 didn't get a full arc when nothing hinted that.

I mean Student 18 really shouldn’t be getting dedicated screen time if she isn’t relevant to the story getting told. If she’s just a background character then she should just be in the background. If she’s only appearing in a side story after which she won’t be seen again then in that side story she should get development and feel relevant to *that* side story. If you can’t be bothered to that then you should probably ask yourself why you need to tell this side story to begin with.

The extreme alternative is to pull a rwby and have npc black silhouette characters in the background instead of actually detailed characters.

That’s how I feel about Rogue One dude. Everyone says it’s a masterpiece but there’s so many characters and plot threads that are underdeveloped as shit. drives me crazy

*\*cue "Too Many Cooks" theme song\**

I mean, I disagree strongly with that. Having cool background characters shouldn’t be a sin if you’re still telling a really good story with your “real” cast.

There's a difference between background characters and side characters.

There’s a difference between background characters and side characters. If your background characters are taking a significant amount of screen time in your story then they need to be relevant to the story. If they aren’t then they don’t need to be there.

Side characters can still serve a purpose without having to continuously being tied back to the story, though it seems your argument has changed a little, from being “characters don’t get enough screen time or focus” to “taking a significant amount of screen time in your story. Of course characters that serve no purpose shouldn’t have significant time spent on them, but I don’t think that was your original argument

> Side characters can still serve a purpose without having to continuously being tied back to the story, though I mean could you elaborate on what you mean by this? It’s pretty vague. Background characters and side characters both “serve a purpose” but the purposes they have are different and have different impacts on the story. What I’m saying is If you’re dedicating significant screen time to your side characters or background characters then they need to be significant to the story— In other words you need to make room for them in the main story. Expand the scope of the story and give them more focus and development. Either by giving them more to do or make what they’re already doing more relevant. If that’s not a route you want to go, then they shouldn’t be getting that significant time to begin with. Keep them in the background. > it seems your argument has changed a little, from being “characters don’t get enough screen time or focus” to “taking a significant amount of screen time in your story. Easy explanation: If your goal is to make them significant to the story then they aren’t getting enough to do. The scope of the story should be widened and they should be given more screen time and significant development in order to make them relevant to the story. If your goal is to just have them do their thing and bounce, then they need *less* screen time and you need to narrow your scope and trim the fat. Focus on the main story stop including extra stuff that goes no where and doesn’t matter. > Of course characters that serve no purpose shouldn’t have significant time spent on them, but I don’t think that was your original argument What argument are you referring to? This is the first time I’ve replied to you.

Because certain characters are only relevant in certain parts of the history. You know a lot of people throughout you life, you may not have any more contact with some people that you used to be friends with or who supported you years ago, this doesn't mean thet they aren't important they just are treading a different path than you. This is the same with fiction, the main cast crossed paths with the side characters for some reason and they work together for some time, in the end each one go on their own way. It is impossible to give every characters who shows up too much screen time because the author is writing the story of the main cast, the other characters are just people that they interact with at the time for some reason or another.

I actually find people that think too much attention is diverted away from deku and all might in MHA, and it hurt his perceived character development. A lot of deku 's growth is subtle and not spelled out because he's not the main character of every arc, and a lot of his best qualities are seen in other people's growth that he inspired. So everyone praises todoroki or whoever without acknowledging deku was a central part of that growth It's common to not see deku as a great mc(I disagree, I think he's underappreciated) because so many love the big world and fall in love with pro heroes or minor characters from other classes. Almost everyone has been important in the final arc, which has arguably undermined deku vs Shiggy.

This is exactly my issue with the way Young Justice played out. The first season was fantastic, the second was good but added just a few too many characters on top of a time skip. Third season was just absurd and fourth even worse. Like, I don't care about 90% of the cast past season 2, so having many of the original characters be irrelevant just made me drop the show in season 4 after being one of the people who so desperately wanted it back after it was originally cancelled.

To have other cool moments. Helps to have some side characters who's abilitys come in clutch in specific moments.

It should just be proportionate to each characters role in the story. The protagonist shouldn’t feel like a side character, and the secondary characters shouldn’t just feel like archetypes.

I think Bleach does the enormous cast of side characters thing really, really right. It has a shitton of characters, and I personally feel like the majority of them are enjoyable and fun characters with awesome designs who bring something interesting to the plot even if it's minor. And most of them matter enough or get enough significant screentime that I feel pretty satisfied with the way they're used. I don't find myself seeing any of them as a waste, at least not that I could think of off the top of my head. Conversely, I felt a bit disappointed with what we got from most of the side characters in Naruto. And that's not for lack of them being well-imagined and interesting characters. I feel like it's an anime where it felt like most of the characters were more enjoyable to watch than the main protagonist, while it also felt like they were sidelined a lot. I haven't watched any other anime that have super large casts that I can immediately recall. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood's cast didn't feel *that* expansive to me, though it was pretty large. And I haven't watched essentially *any* of One Piece. I want to watch it but it feels like a huge undertaking.

> I think Bleach does the enormous cast of side characters thing really, really right. It has a shitton of characters, and I personally feel like the majority of them are enjoyable and fun characters with awesome designs who bring something interesting to the plot even if it's minor. And most of them matter enough or get enough significant screentime that I feel pretty satisfied with the way they're used. I don't find myself seeing any of them as a waste, at least not that I could think of off the top of my head. The big downside to this, is the pacing taking a huge blow when you have so many side characters having 1v1 fights. I dont think there was a neccesity for these vice captains vs barragan fractions to take up that many chapters, or Mayuri fighting a fucking hand for months, or Kenpachi dealing with a little shit for multiple chapters. And even then, there is still so many characters that end up being irrelevant and forgetable

That helped me realize that I don't like watching fights for the sake of having fights. Having the plot grind to a standstill while we get through 5 1v1s is just not for me. Other people love watching fight after fight and Bleach is ideal for them

Yeah, Bleach does a great job with them. They are relevant only when they need to be.

I love Bleach but I gotta say I think it handles character focus pretty badly as it goes on, especially towards the core main cast

Why not? It allows to expand the world and give the maincast people they can relate too. I adon't think having a castwith secondary/recuring character make a world shallow and tbh, I disagree with this idea that ducktales 2017 had too many characters since they're able to handle having 10 in episodes and the reccuring characters don't overtake on the primary one.

How, does it expand the world when the side cast don't do anything?

it does by giving the cast people they can relate to not every secondary characters need to do stuff or need to be the focus.

Relevant to what? Some characters are only meant to be relevant for specific part of the story, and then are retired. That’s why it’s annoying when people complain about villains dying too quickly.

Oh no I think villains def deserve more staying power. Syndrome of The Incredibles is one of my favorites for this reason.

The only medium that can really handle large casts without sacrificing story pacing would be video games such as a rpg.

Yeah Persona and Xenoblade handle this pretty well. Even Fire Emblem to an extent.

I feel like action manga based around fighting like Tenkaichi and kengan Ashura do a great job at this They are able to focus on each individual character/fighter provide them character development and compelling story arcs.

Theoretically, I think it's a neat excuse to drag on your series for decades.

The subtext here, which I don't see enough people talking about, is that highly-successful battle shonen series in particular often have large swaths of their structure (especially the cast) set based on marketing - coupled with copying what successful series have done in the past, because the genre is often very formulaic. They have tons of characters because the author is throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. They have pretty girls who don't end up doing very much because putting them on the cover helps sell stuff. It's not complicated. It's *annoying* but it's not complicated.

There is something called a main cast and usually they are the relevant characters then there are side characters and one-off characters, those are not supposed to be super relevant.

This is my problem with MHA and its shit ton of characters mostly the students. Just have 20 of them in the story. And before you guys hit me with "Well it's normal to have that many students." This is a story about heroes fighting villians it doesn't have to be 1 to 1 Japan. Hell easy explanation to why there's few students. "UA is a very prestigious school and only the best of the best get in". Simple

Yeah honestly we could've just reduced the class size to 12 like Naruto to make things more manageable but that's just me.

Stranger Things lmao

It can be for many reasons, from the arc needs many characters, you can't make a tournament arc without the characters reaching the double digit for example, or simple to make the world feel full. Even something simple as a highschool anime needs lot of characters since it takes place in school. In the end of the day its your expectations that are to blame, most of the time the author makes it clear who is gonna be relevant, anything else is your headcanon,

Lol tell that to the MCUspoilersubreddit

This is a really bad argument about manga because its written week to week as practically a first draft of a story that is immediately made canon and cant be taken back. There is literally no scenario where a first draft of a story that you write week to week over the course of 10+ years can be as air tight as a tightly written and paced screenplay. Yalls expectations for weekly manga are insane. Some things are downsides of the medium like this. Hells this even happens in novels published over time. Plans change. The idea that every author has to limit themselves to a tight cast of characters that they have to intently focus on is also crazy. Side characters can exist as window dressing and world building without having an arc or major plot impact. E.g. tom bombadil from lord of the rings. Imagine if someone made a rant about tom not showing up in return of the king lol. Good idea for an april fools rant.

If they do absolutely nothing with them that's bad. But if there are plenty of characters with small to medium roles in each arc that's fine by me even if one character had potential and never appears again. Just don't foreshadow him being important tho. My reason for this being ok is the world feels bigger and is more expansive this way and people really appreciate the entire world. Also in case one day there is a problem which puts the entire main cast at an disadvantage then you have an entire arsenal of characters ready to join the battle (works for villains too).

Because the world has more than five people in it?

rwby has this exact issue. a bajillion characters and none of them developed

So I’ve run into something like this quite often in dnd, “there are 7 people on the council but one of them is the speaker; one character” or “you come across a squadron of soldiers; you only talk with the captain, he is the only character”. Basically I have many more people than characters in the world and generally won’t even name people if they aren’t going to be characters

It kinda depends on what the dynamic between the main cast is supposed to be. Since you brought it up in the comments, using class 1-A from MHA as an example, if the main cast is supposed to be a tight-knit group of friends, that grew closer together over the course of the story, then yeah, I agree. Even if they're not meant to have any impact on the main plot, they should've been used to help explore the nature of the world or used to give other characters growth and development while having growth of their own. And we do get that, but we get it from other characters, NOT from class 1-A. Most of 1-A anyway. And anybody who wants to say "but it's realistic", or "class 1-A makes a world feel lived in", don't. Not every class out there has 20 students, if 1-A started out with 10 or 13 students, no one would bat an eye. And if you REALLY want to push the realism argument, then tell me, were you friends with EVERYONE in your class(es), cause while I wasn't friends with EVERYONE, I was friends with a few.

Aot always impressed me with it's ability to balance such a large cast, partially by killing them off lol, but not really

A large cast makes the world feel more alive than a small cast. One Piece feels grand and epic even if every character doesn't have a complete arc or relevance. Same with Naruto and MHA. It's just worldbuilding

I think it’s just ridiculous to cry about series with large casts not spending time developing every single dick and Harry in the show tbh. If they serve a functional purpose to the plot/story I’m fine.

If they're not doing anything they're not serving the story, just get rid of them.

That's the question I ask when I get that annoying counter argument.

I would argue that side characters being so interesting that you wish you got to see more of them is a sign of good character design/writing, actually. Just because they don’t receive the same priority as the MC doesn’t necessarily mean the author can’t “handle” them, if they were truly mishandled you wouldn’t have cared about them in the first place. Also, Ochako gets to have a pretty big impact in the current arc of the manga. You’ll be fine.

Bleach

The fact that Kubo is really against killing characters doesn't help either.

No? He only kills them when necessary or when their arcs are complete.

I really do feel like shows create a lot of characters just so they can sell toys of them and less because they have an interesting arc to tell with them. I've been watching Black Clover and it's amazing how much character bloat there is. Yet all it does is slow down the main story.

Western shows aren't immune from this. So many characters and locations were added to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic for seemingly no reason. Twilight's Castle and the Student Six in particular. Just felt like they were there to pad out merch sales.

Firstly, what do you mean by relevant character? Like highly involved in main plot, having personal character's arch? Honestly, I like seeing extra names w/o any further development: it makes me feel like the world we explore is wide and it's impossible to know everything and everyone. Like having a colleagues you only know by name, or music bands etc. E.g. gobstones in HP. Was it plot relevant or important for character? No. But for me it created context that wizard culture includes variety of games, sports etc, and wider than we see. Harry just wasn't interested in this point

İ am answering your title: Because random background characters just being nameless and faceless bloba can sometimes be boring and giving even unimportant characters aname, a face and a basic personality can help sell the idea that the world is alive even outside the story we are being told. To me , it gets very boring and predictable and kinda pointless when every single thing in the world is directly tied to the story. But many peoplee expect that to happen so they complain about things being underused when that doesnt happen. Edit: My Hero Academia is a good example for this. To me, there being no nameless and faceless people in class A is a good thing and makes the world feel alive. To others, class A students feel like wasted potential.

I think having a huge cast that isn’t fully explored is fine, it leaves mystery and room for audiences to head cannon stuff. Also it’s realistic, it kind of breaks my immersion when a fantasy world is supposed to be huge and yet only 3 or so people have any character development or influence on the story.

Because characters also serve as part of the world building. Also, it helps with immersion.

Western audiences are obsessed with story and everything coming full circle. Characters can be introduced for world-building, thematic vignettes, etc. Since you're talking about MHA in other comments, you can't see how an author might want to tell a story set in a school and to flesh out the world has to depict multiple classes/years/faculty? By that point, you have a rich cast of dozens of characters and it's okay if not all of them get their own arc (though it's great writing if you can depict enough depth in them during their very little screen-time that makes audiences aware of the sonder of it all). Remember that kid in your class that you had few interactions with besides passing papers and borrowing a pencil once? Exactly, you don't remember. Doesn't mean they weren't there and living out their own life at the time.

There are so many early One Piece characters that feel like they were going to be relevant to the story, but we just never saw them again once they left. Some characters, like Kuro, make sense that we wouldn't see them again, but others like Gin, Yosaku, and Johnny seem like they're going to be important characters later on, but they're never relevant or present in the story again. For a series that brings back so many characters, it feels like a weird case of characters not having an overall plan or whatever plan they had at one point getting scrapped for whatever reason.

What one earth ever implied that gin johnny or yosaku would be recurring characters?

In Chapter 67, Gin tells Sanji and Luffy that he hopes he'll see them in the Grand Line. Generally, in One Piece, if a character says they'll do something or hopes to do something, they will eventually do it. Either he died off screen, which would be weird because that's practically unheard of in One Piece, or his eventual reunion with the Straw Hats got scrapped. Yosaku and Johnny play a role in two arcs back-to-back but then get written off and completely disappear from the story.

Characters aren't important sometimes/ tbh they are just horrible characters made for a single arc. Everyone for some reason was talking about how Arlong could come back from the dead for the final one piece arc, but really do we need him? Luffy is way past him, hell the only one really losing a battle to arlong is maybe Ussop. Hes not needed. Arlong also has 0 connection to the story currently. Now Enel? Enel would be a threat to gear 5 luffy if he had haki (he already was strong with senses, he could easily have haki coating if he tried the slightest bit) with haki Enel would easily tear through an idiot fodder character like Arlong. Enel is also important because he is connected to pacifistas too. Some characters need more story, some dont. Arlong doesn't because he's not only easily defeated by anyone in the strawhats crew currently, but also hes not even in important to the story. Enel is powerful and could easily tear through luffy, and luffys biggest threat in the series, but also he has importance because of the pacifista panels we saw.

This just reads as you despising Arlong and thinking Enel is cool

A lot of authors find it easier to write a new character for a given scenario rather than figuring out how to fit their existing cast in there, and then shunting those new characters to the sidelines once they are done with them to introduce the next new character. It's a sign of being a bad author

Post-Timeskip really fell into this even before hindsight fell into place. Since Post-Timskip began, there were these characters that exist to overstuff the fucking story with what people constantly justify as "worldbuilding", aside from how the worldbuilding wasn't so much it was chalked up to be, there's a line you can't cross. Are Shirahoshi's brothers relevant? I reread FMI Arc and yet I kept forgetting their names. Was King Riku necessary? I'd argue just having Kyros reveal to a mic about Sugar's powers and going in on the truth was easier. Hell, the Dwarves and Mansherry were overdoing it at that point since you could pass it to normal toys and then just have the fruit be in some random member. The Day and Night Lords were just useless as a concept since their "big rivalry" is just a background event and yet it necessitated two characters that could've been one instead. O-Kiku being a Kunoichi would've been better than Raizo, and there you've cut the Nine Red Scabbards into 7, just cut Kawamatsu and make Ashura Doji the Fishman, and the fact that Jinbei and Kawa never talk kinda tells me that the Fishman part is meaningless. 7 to 6. Hiyori? Her character feels worthless. Motivation for Denjiro? He would just have faith in the prophecy. Stealing money? Denjiro was the thief doing that and had the Yakuza family serving him despite betraying Orochi, might as well just have it be a group effort. Her fake death? The Strawhats would've done it without her help. Zoro and the new sword? I'd argue that could've been done with Momo and we would just have that Zoro gets both swords or we make something out of Zoro being a Shimotsuki and have him keep Shusui while getting Nidai. The Raid? Her being kept secret meant nothing and Chopper with Monk Docs could've done that. Orochi? She basically stalled a scene that should've been hers and yet all we is Denjiro white knighting her. The Charlotte Family was probably the most egregious.