Why does every battle shonen keep making the same mistake of having a billion useless side characters? They're plastered all over merchandise and volume covers like they're important, but in the actual story, they either don't do anything, or what they do ultimately doesn't matter.Dragon Ball made this mistake, Naruto did it, Bleach did it, MHA did it, JJK did it, and One Piece is currently doing this.If they don't serve a purpose in the story, they shouldn't be in it. We don't even get filler to actually make use of all these worthless characters that clog up the story anymore.
>>284606896>Dragon Ball made this mistakeNot really, Dragon Ball is really comfortable with dropping characters off the face of the earth like Launch.
With Bleach and Naruto the protagonist's home town is their main motivator so it makes sense to meet a lot of people there even if the plot moves on to external matters.
>>284606896>They're plastered all over merchandisethat's why
>>284607042They could make the same or money just selling more merchandise of the characters that matter. You don't need a huge cast of characters, just make people care more about the relevant characters by fleshing them out more.
Trying to cater to as many people as possible and having something for everyone even if the characters are as shallow as a puddle is my guess and OP is actually OVERdoing it
>>284606935You had one job>Launching people off the face of earth like launch
>>284606935Toriyama literally forgot her infamously.
Chizuru should've scissored an Arrancar into turning good because she was clearly never getting Orihime. I'm forever pissed Ichigo's other classmates suddenly disappeared completely after dealing with Aizen. They were special enough to be dramatically saved with Tatsuki and Keigo.
>>284608736No, he deliberately wrote her out of the story, and then forgot about her after he wrote her out.
>>284607263Does it actually "cater to as many people as possible" if their "favorite" characters don't actually get to do anything?Not really. They just get frustrated with the series for "wasting" them and drop it.
>>284606896I can't watch mainstream shonen for this reason. I prefer when the focus is only on 1-3 characters. The more characters added the more retarded the story gets because of bloat.
>>284610925Naruto is a "mainstream shonen" that focuses on 2 characters (Naruto and Sasuke)
>>284606935Toriyama was good. Kishimoto wasn't.
>>284606896
>>284606896Because it only takes one design / character to attract audiences for the series popularity trajectory to change completely. More characters = more opportunity.Vegeta from Dragonball was introduced in Chapter 204 of the series.
>>284606896Drawing the same characters over and over again gets boring very quickly so artists create new ones to keep things fresh. Also they have ideas for cool powers and abilities that can only be expressed through these new characters. Then they think they could ultimately make them all relevant through some final conflict or great war.
>>284610925This
>>284606935Mami Koyama recently stated that she told Toriyama she would be busy traveling, so Lunch was written out of the manga for extended periods of time accordingly. Broadly speaking, a lot of mangaka like designing and drawing characters but may not necessarily have much for them to do. Introducing new characters might be designed to broaden appeal of the series, to give everyone a chance to find a character they like, or at the very least to pique interest and survive another week in publication. Kishimoto and Kibo just happen to be the most egregious with it.
