| Lapis Re:Lights which is airing rn. I literally don't know shit about the characters cuz every episode they add like 5 more wtf. I'm only there for the idol music though lmao. But even in that department there's only been 2 songs in 6 eps. |
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| Tower of God. One of the reasons why it needed more than an initial 12 episode run and more adapted arcs. |
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| of course Durarara, there are so many characters, and when there is a problem, it must be related to other characters |
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| Gundam 00 is the worst case. The Lost Village is the best case. |
| その目だれの目？ |
| I think My Hero Academia is slowly falling into this category. Characters like Iida, Todoroki, Ochako just stopped developing thoughout the show. And there are just too many other heroes with names that I cannot remember. |
| To Aru Majutsu no Index. Great anime, great story. Too many characters and too many arcs. You’d expect a character to disappear after an arc but they just keep coming with their backstories and it’s hard to implement/remember all that information into the current arc. New character? Welcome to the gang! Time to get confused. |
| Angel Beats. Go watch the opening if you haven't, then keep in mind that it's a 13 episode series. A vast majority of the characters seen in that opening do not get development, and barely get a gimmick about them. We don't necessarily need all of them to have full on arcs, but geez that's a lot for how little most of them matter. |
| You have shit taste, and then I have taste so shit it makes your taste look good |
| My Hero Not every character has to have a purpose. It can help for worldbuild and introducing themes, which One Piece does majestically. None of the characters exist solely for the main storyline, although they tie in importantly and eventually. However, the problem lies in introducing tension without release. My Hero Academia's License arc is, to me, the worst example of this. The new schools basically didn't matter. There was so much buildup of tension at the start, and in the end, only sandguy and "Camie" ever does anything. I kinda feel like Class 1-A outside of the main three are there for fanservice, but that's just me. Thing is, unlike One Piece, most don't have their individual stories. Most of the time they are introduced with a flashy card, then something happens. For example, The Big Three were just introduced, but I feel like I had no attachment when something happened, because they were rushed into the Yakuza arc. I just never felt any attachment to the MHA characters, save for Deku and All Might. |
ChartTopper60Aug 15, 2020 6:51 PM
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DV_Wolf said: Lapis Re:Lights which is airing rn. I literally don't know shit about the characters cuz every episode they add like 5 more wtf. I'm only there for the idol music though lmao. But even in that department there's only been 2 songs in 6 eps. It's adapted from a mobile game, the creators assumed that you've played the game before watching the anime in most cases. It's a reoccurring issue in mobile adaptations. The worst handled case is Girlfriend (Kari). If you haven't played the game, then the anime feels soulless to you. |
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quirkywolf said: To Aru Majutsu no Index. Great anime, great story. Too many characters and too many arcs. You’d expect a character to disappear after an arc but they just keep coming with their backstories and it’s hard to implement/remember all that information into the current arc. New character? Welcome to the gang! Time to get confused. This is making me want to drop the novels. Fans all say the series gets better, but I like it less and less with each new character. |
| その目だれの目？ |
jc9622 said: "Mayoiga" is a classic example of an anime that was doomed from the start simply because it had too many characters for a 12 episode show. That and its dumbass story. Mayoiga only have 4 main characters tho. And these characters were well developed enough. |
| Baccano and Durarara have so many characters that if you want to perfectly track all their plots, you'll need to take notes while watching the series. Tsurezure Children also has too many couples that some of them feel repetitive. |
it's over | we're so back | don't take this too seriously |
ignatovlovebot said: i'm a slut for pretty bishies, but enstars clearly overdid it. apparently they tried to please the entire player base by giving every character screen time, and the result was just tragic. I absolutely love enstars and still gave it a 10 out of personal bias, but I have to agree that enstars was certainly one of the worst cases of too many characters lol. They should have focused on only some of them instead or have multiple seasons; trying to introduce 43 characters from scratch in 24 episodes is just stupid. To new viewers with 0 background knowledge it's just confusing as hell and you won't even feel attached to any of the characters. |
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| My Hero Academia. |
| Right now, Food Wars most definitely. Especially the last couple seasons.... |
| Magia Record jumps to mind. So many characters, so little development. Other offenders would be Grimms Notes and Merc Storia. Meanwhile Touken Ranbu does a decent job keeping things interesting. |
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| I swear, haven't we had a similar thread before not too long ago... |
| Madoka Magica, Baccano, Tower of God. |
| Imagine how boring this world would be without Japan - a comment at youtube |
| I believe it has never been a case for me. More characters just make the story more believable in some sense. Just look outside at the real world, you will realize that "too many characters" is an ordinary thing. You don't care about most of them, but nothing really surprising if in some point they will do something substantial to your life or the world around you. I prefer more "characters" than more "mooks" any day. |
"The Slave is the have-not, the oppressed one with nothing to spare. But because the Slave is in that despairing situation, having nothing, it can kill the Emperor !" |
| Id say Diamond no Ace. So many people, both related to the team and from other teams. Its even worse when many are forgettable or have no standout traits to them. |
"Perfection is perception. For me, humanity's imperfections is what makes it perfect"  |
| God i love haikyuu, and some may disagree, but i had a tough time keeping up with most of the characters since we were introduced to so many and sometimes not give much dialogue at all but still active in the games. |
 ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 愛してる *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ |
| Naruto and My Hero Academia. Both are great examples of how to not make a cast. Everything starts cool and dandy and after 20 episodes only 5 or less are actually worth or powerful enough to keep with the MC. Specially within the MC´s "generation". |
| My go to for this is One Piece. It is a good manga (I don't really bother with the show except for specific arcs) BUT I CAN'T KEEP TRACK OF THEM ALL!!! The main cast is fine....but 20438402398 side characters and minor characters and minor antagonists is like holy shit who are you again? xD |
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| Definitely MHA goes in this discussion. Trying to make all 20 students count in anime was too much for both author and animation company to handle. That resulted some of the students like the tail guy, sugar guy, octopus looking guy, and some others that I can't even remember their names(o yeah animal guy and invisible girl). Other one I would like to include is Tensei Slime. At first, it introduces a slime and a dragon. Then it introduces some named goblins like Rigur and Rigurd, along with Rangar the tempest wolf. Then 4 dwarves, and a dwarf king, and 6 ogres, and orc king and some lizardmen and blah blah blah. Oh yeah and we even forgot to include demon lords, who would be around 10 in total. If we also include students it would probably be too many to count. But the actual story only revolves around overpowered main character, making others look useless. |
| Even if I'm alone, I'll go, even if I want to die. I can hear your voice, saying I shouldn't die. Even if it's difficult, even if I cry from loneliness I can feel warmth from deep inside my heart. Going round-and-round and flowing, time is ever-changing. I can't remember what happened anymore, but If I try and close my eyes, I can hear someone's laughing voice For some reason, now, that is My Most Precious Treasure. from Ichiban no Takaramono, by LiSA |
MaskOfIce said: Angel Beats. Go watch the opening if you haven't, then keep in mind that it's a 13 episode series. A vast majority of the characters seen in that opening do not get development, and barely get a gimmick about them. We don't necessarily need all of them to have full on arcs, but geez that's a lot for how little most of them matter. I thought it was easy to keep track of the characters but maybe thats just me? If you have a class you can't expect all of them to have arcs. There were enough arcs to satisfy me tbh. |
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| There are so many. I'd argue Boku No Hero Academia b/c I've watched Katekyo Hitman Reborn... Which might also be my avoidance/meh about watching entire shonen series in general. |
| p much almost all idol anime but I guess enstars and idolmaster sidem the worst. Oh and tsukipro the animation. i mean, tsukiuta introduced 12 characters too, but yea |
 OTP: KidLaw | IzuKatsu | GureShin | EruRi | AoKi | See more!» My art » My translation » Doujinshi collection » Favorite Kurobas doujinshi BISHIES X RAP |
| Each new season of tenchi muyo ryo ohki grows the space family tree to the point it becomes confusing. |
| MEA·MENTVLA·INGENS·EST |
| Free!: Dive to the Future Le Studio: Lets cram all the pretty boys we can come up with into one season of anime. |
ignatovlovebot said: i'm a slut for pretty bishies, but enstars clearly overdid it. apparently they tried to please the entire player base by giving every character screen time, and the result was just tragic. Agree, the confusing pacing was one of the main reasons I couldn't enjoy the Enstars anime. Overstuffing the cast seems to be the case with a lot of other mobage anime adaptations as well. |
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| Most obvious case is Baccano. Just too many characters for such a short run. It didn't work. |
| Classroom of the Elite and the Otome isekai |
   I swear, I don't have a thing for blondes. |
| +1 for Baccano! For Madoka Magica, I think the original series is OK, but the spin-off Magia Record: Mahou Shoujo Madoka☆Magica Gaiden exceeded my storage capacity for Magical Girl backstories instantly. Too many of them to care for any. |
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inim said: +1 for Baccano! For Madoka Magica, I think the original series is OK, but the spin-off Magia Record: Mahou Shoujo Madoka☆Magica Gaiden exceeded my storage capacity for Magical Girl backstories instantly. Too many of them to care for any. I dropped magia record for that exact reason,I struggled to care about all these random self contained tragic backstories that they introduced.At least madoka magica had a clear goal it was working towards. |
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| I usually don't mind a bigger cast, but one of the reasons I dropped the Bleach manga was because they introduced character after character without giving me time to get to know them between the endless battles. I couldn't even remember half of the names and tbh, most of them were not interesting to me at all. |
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| A lot of game based shows, such as Azur Lane or Lapis Re: Lights have a huge cast due to the nature of the source material. This can sometimes cause things to get a bit confusing with every character vying for attention and screen time. But on the other hand it gives you a wide range of beautiful character design and everyone has their particular favourite. Strike Witches is another show with a lot of characters, but for me it only enhances the show. |
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| Yeah Index is probably one of the worst in there, simply because the characters just keep on coming without really bringing anything on the long run for more than half of the additions. They just come and go because the author is struggling so much to reuse most of them for his next books. A good example of usage of a large cast would be novels like horizon on the middle of nowhere, where the large cast has a clear purpose and they're reused a lot with success. |
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| My hero, it has too much characters and Horikoshi always ditch the characters after a hot minute without developing them. For example CAMIE. |
 just wanna feel wanted by someone other than the police 😫 |
| My most recent problem with this is MHA. S4 suffered the worst from this, especially because a lot of familiar characters were swept aside for these new, and now suddenly relevant characters that were thrown straight into what was supposed to be the meat of the story for that season. All would be forgiven if Hatsume got an arc to herself tho. |
AttackonfillerAug 16, 2020 5:26 AM
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| I’d say My Hero Academia and Fairy Tail. I think Tower of God has the same problem but in this series it wasn't that big problem for me. |
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| Fairy tail. I think characters are better stay dead in this series because their significance decreases drastically while being alive. Anything but that. |
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| Shokugeki no Souma especially the later seasons. It's just one time cook-off with the main cast.All are there just to fill space and act as stepping stones for the main.This becomes worse in s5 where they chuck everyone they built over four seasons out for some KKK clowns aka "NOIR".Their entire purpose is to get beaten the crap out by Souma.They have zero personality and are just to pad episodes for the epic finale between Asahi and Souma. |
| Idk, all the shows people mention here did not really pose a problem for me with their cast size. A lot of them are shows with hundreds of episodes which gradually introduced more characters without it ever being an issue. With that many episodes you need many characters and I can't relate to it ever being a problem in shows like One Piece, Gintama, Hero Academia, Diamond no Ace or even Fairy Tail. Heck, the large cast size is one of the biggest strengths of OP and Gintama & co and a lot of shows from the battle shounen and sports genres rely on it and the respective shows would just not work or be much worse if they drastically limited cast size for them. So these answers don't make sense to me. And people saying Baccano didn't 'work' or they needed to take notes to keep up with it - I didn't have that problem at all. Baccano and Durarara are two of the best examples of how to do a big ensemble cast right (They learned from Guy Ritchie, one of the best at it) and just make it work effortlessly and if their storytelling is too confusing for people, then a lot of stuff would probably be too confusing for them... Anyway, the only show that really comes to mind for me is this piece of barely comprehensible garbage: https://myanimelist.net/anime/10456/Kyoukaisenjou_no_Horizon It perfectly showcases how NOT to do a huge cast by making every mistake possible, especially trying to skip the introduction phase, throw the entire cast at us without any explanations in episode one, not introduce the characters individually. It was so bad that I'm 90% sure if was intentional and they just didn't give a fuck about the viewers who didn't already know the source material by heart. There was zero effort put into making any of it more comprehensible for regular viewers and season felt like a second season because of that, like you were already supposed to know every characters and the story just continues without any delay for character introductions. I don't think it can be done much worse than in this show. The comparison showcases how good of a job shows like Baccano or Durarara did. |
| I probably regret this post by now. |
| I won't mention mobile game adaptations since they require you to have atleast played the game, and it's a major issue if you just watch their anime adaptation. Their sole purpose is to promote the game. The story is generally there, but you have to look beyond the anime for that. Coming to long running series, it's definitely MHA. Generally more characters is not an issue since the few main characters are more interesting than side characters. But in MHA, side characters seem more intresting since MC is meh. I didn't find motivation to watch its movies or the new season. At this point I don't remember anything about the characters, and the only thing that distinguishes them are their perks. |
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| definitely not Gintama atleast in my opinion |
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