Lots of characters but no characterisation

A

Ark

Adventurer
Looking over the anime series that I've really liked, a promenant feature of them is that they have a very small group of main characters (like 3-5). Most series aren't like this though and tend to have about 12 main characters. I feel there's a really noticable difference in quality as a result of this difference. I can't think of one above average series that has a huge group of main characters.

The problem with it is that because of the number of characters the amount of time for character development is really restrained. When it does happen it comes across as really superficial and forced.

I don't watch as many series as a lot of other people, so how much of a problem is this?
 
I think that in most cases shows which have lots of characters tend to group certain characters together, and then most episodes will focus one one group, while occasionally covering another group in another episode.

For example, Hetalia must have about 50 characters in it, but these are devided into groups (the Axis, the Allies, the Baltics, the Nordics, the Micronations etc.), and often each episode will focus one just one group.

Again, if you were to take some sort of space opera anime like Irresponsible Captain Tylor or Nadesico, the groups are often different branches of the crew. For example you've got the top brass, then mecha pilots, the navigators etc, and again one episode might focus on one group, but often one group dominates the rest.
 
I'm the opposite! My favourite shows often tend to have massive casts, and I wish more shows did. In the shows with smaller casts, it feels disappointing that only a few personality types show up, even though they all get much more focus and build up interesting relationships. The variety of large casts with all of the complexities and strange people popping up is the most interesting. I don't mind if some don't develop if it's not the kind of show where they have to.

I'm the same with everything; I always preferred stuff like the X-Men and its universe (huge cast) to the comics which focused on a particular hero. Even unpopular series with ensemble casts were more enjoyable than the big titles with one or two main heroes.

R
 
I'm a fan of large ensemble casts too. Two great shows with lots of great, memorable characters (even if they may not all be incredibly well developed, which I don't think is always necessary anyway) are Captain Tylor and Baccano.

Full Metal Alchemist manages to have a large cast of main characters and excellent character development.
 
The real issue for me isn't the number of characters in a show overall. It's the amount of focus given to characters. For example Star Wars has hundreds of characters but the focus is primarily on Luke, Leia, Han and the robots.

I recently watched Macross Frontier and felt it was really let down by the excessive number of focused on characters. I remember the original Macross series didn't suffer from this at all and it was very focused on the 3 main characters even though there were many other characters.
 
As with most things, it only becomes a problem if the staff allow it to be a problem. You can make a great show with a balanced cast of tens of people, and you can make a great show with less than a handful of speaking parts.

I think there's always going to be a tendency to have very over-emphasized views of something like this if you don't watch so many shows, since you would naturally gravitate towards ones you are "expecting" to like lest you waste your time.
 
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