Sixth Ranger



Some series start out with a particular type of Ensembles, with a certain number of characters and a defined role for each: a Power Trio, for example, or a Five-Man Band. Then, mid-season, a mysterious new character appears, fighting the protagonists and antagonists alike! After many misunderstandings, the new character is revealed to be a good guy, and joins the team.

Any new character that joins an established ensemble and knocks it out of one of the traditional categories (and possibly into another) is a Sixth Ranger. There may be more than one per team, with either several joining in succession, or pre-established pairs coming in at once. In a Magical Girl show, it is not uncommon for the Sixth Ranger to be the lead character's boyfriend.

Their power and coolness is inversely proportional to the number of episodes since their début, since Good Is Dumb. Expect them to be single-handedly defeating enemies that the main team struggled against during their first appearance, falling in line as they become integrated into the group, then finally getting overtaken by the original heroes. In fact, they almost invariably tend to become a magnet for The Worf Effect as soon as the latest new Big Bad shows up.

In some of the more extreme cases, a former Big Bad, Dragon, or Wild Card villain can take on this role after they have been defeated or performed an independent Heel Face Turn, and may or may not act as a secondary Lancer.

If the show doesn't look like it's going to change its status quo, expect the Sixth Ranger to actually be the Sixth Ranger Traitor. Since most Sixth Rangers used to be Loners Are Freaks, they may serve as the Token Evil Teammate. If a Sixth Ranger candidate does join the Ensemble, but the series is nearly over, the candidate is an Eleventh-Hour Ranger. When the team started as a Power Trio and gets two Sixth Rangers to make a Five-Man Band, they make Three Plus Two.

Compare Hitchhiker Heroes and Magnetic Hero, where adding characters is the team's normal state. Sailor Earth is a Fan Work subtrope where the Sixth Ranger is an Original Character.

A common method for Merchandise-Driven works to add new characters to the cast--and the toy line.

Trope Namer

 * The name of this trope comes from the Super Sentai/Power Rangers franchise, which has a yearly tradition of adding at least one new member to the initial roster of heroes during the course of each series. Specifically, it was started by Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger with the addition of Dragon Ranger, which was carried over by its adaptation Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, where the introduction of the Green Ranger grabbed a lot of attention for the show and he became a Breakout Character. Almost every show in both franchises since then has featured at least one extra member.
 * New rangers were added in two shows prior to Zyuranger, but neither team exceeded beyond five members. JAKQ Dengekitai started out with a four-man team until the introduction of their new commander Big One (Sokichi Bamba), while the team in Choujuu Sentai Liveman originally consisted of three members before the addition of Black Bison and Green Sai.
 * Hikari Sentai Maskman featured a sixth member for exactly one episode in the form of X1 Mask, a warrior in green who volunteered for the Maskman project before the actual team was formed. Other shows had guest heroes who would assist the team for two or three episodes at most, but none of them ever became recurring characters (most notably Choudenshi Bioman had a two-part storyline about a man who wanted to become the sixth member of Bioman, but ended up becoming a brainwashed villain-of-the-week, while Choujin Sentai Jetman had a birdman warrior who fought alongside the Jetman team before he was killed off).
 * MMPR is also a key example of just how much Popularity Power a Sixth Ranger can have. The trope-naming character, Tommy Oliver, is a mainstay in the Power Rangers setting, and he (and his actor, Jason David Frank) has appeared in more seasons (6), costumes (5), costume colors (4) and episodes (234) than any other Ranger, by a large margin.
 * Gekisou Sentai Carranger did not have an official sixth member; in fact, the show even parodied the concept with Radietta Fanbelt, a girl who dresses up as the White Racer, a self-appointed sixth member of the team. However, that did not stop Power Rangers Turbo from revamping the VRV Master, a supporting character in Carranger who appeared for a few episodes, into the Phantom Ranger. Despite the name, the Phantom Ranger fits the Sixth Ranger description even less so than the Blue Senturion (who was based on Signalman, the official extra hero in Carranger).
 * Invocation of this trope also created an interesting situation for the production staff of the Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue. They wanted to carry on the tradition of the sixth ranger, but there was none in Rescue Sentai Go Go Five, the corresponding Super Sentai show. As a result, the staff created the Titanium Ranger from whole cloth and assigned him a mecha that didn't belong to any character in GoGoFive.
 * The trope sometimes gets played with when a character has all the trappings of a Sixth Ranger, but doesn't join the team. The Gold Ranger from Zeo and the aforementioned Phantom Ranger were Mysterious Protectors that only dropped in to give aid on occasion, while the Magna Defender and Quantum Ranger were each an Aloof Ally to their resident teams, actively clashing with the Rangers over their goals. Even these were open to a Double Subversion; both the Gold Ranger and Magna Defender passed on their powers to people who did join the respective teams.
 * The concept really took hold when Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger and Power Rangers Ninja Storm reintroduced the Three Plus Two format last seen in Liveman, allowing for the addition of more new members than in previous shows. The Gouraigers/Thunder Rangers were added first to fill out a five-man team before the introduction of an actual sixth member in the form of Shurikenger/the Samurai Ranger. Many subsequent seasons followed suit with more than one addition - Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger/Power Rangers SPD and Engine Sentai Go-onger/Power Rangers RPM even went up to seven full-time members each; Dekaranger/SPD by having a five-member team from the beginning and Go-onger/RPM starting off with three heroes and then adding two sets of two.
 * Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger had not only two additions (Abare Black and Abare Killer), but AbaRed also got a Super Mode called Abare Max. The writers of Power Rangers Dino Thunder, which was under production while Abaranger was starting to air in Japan, planned to turn Abare Max into an actual sixth ranger known as the the Triassic Ranger until Abare Max's debut episode revealed that it was just a different form of the Red Ranger.
 * Power Rangers Jungle Fury added the three Spirit Rangers to the original roster of Three Plus Two from Juken Sentai Gekiranger. The Spirit Rangers, created by Bandai of America specifically for the toyline, were based on the auxiliary zords that the team gets. However, rather than having human alter-egos, the Spirit Rangers are summoned by the main three to assist them in battle. Bandai created another team of auxiliary rangers for the Power Rangers RPM toyline based on the Paleozords, but unlike the ones in Jungle Fury, they were not featured on the show.
 * Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, keeping with its team's premise of transforming into any of the previous 34 Super Sentai teams, features a sixth member named Gokai Silver, who wields the Ranger Keys of fifteen previous "supplemental warriors." He has the ability to merge all of his Ranger Keys into the Gold Anchor Key, which allows him to transform into his "Gold Mode," where he wears a golden armor adorned with the faces of said warriors.
 * There are also Ranger Keys for ten so-called "extra heroes," representing warriors beyond sixths, such as Deka Master, Deka Swan and Lady Shinken Red, or unusual allies, such as Signalman, Black Knight Hyuga and Zubaan.
 * Super Sentai Battle Dice O makes this a game mechanic. Players assemble a team of five Rangers, one mecha, and an EX Card that can either be a one-round addition to the team or a team-wide special move. On the other hand, sixth / extra characters can still be part of the main five.

Anime & Manga

 * In Sailor Moon, first Chibiusa, and later, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Saturn, and still later, the addition of Chibichibimoon and the Starlights. Also, Jupiter and Venus in the first season, after Moon, Mars, and Mercury spent the first half as a Power Trio.

The Outer Senshi provide egregious examples. They are somewhat xenophobic but dissappear for vague reasons whenever it'd be tricky to have overpowered characters the next season around. Whether or not they become weaker is moot, since last season sees them as Cannon Fodder.
 * Mamoru is the basic Sixth Ranger, though he joins before any girl other than Usagi.
 * Pluto actually serves this role in the Manga before Chibi-Moon or mention of the other Outer Senshi is made. She first appears at the time gate and under the urging of Diana, breaks one of her rules and temporally abandons her post to help Sailor Moon.
 * Jokingly Deconstructed in Samurai Pizza Cats, where a set of proud Sixth Rangers is snidely narrated as the "B-team", who fight villains that main crew are too busy or can't be bothered to fight.
 * Done over and over in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch. Lucia, Hanon and Rina are a Power Trio throughout most of the series, but the plot of the first season is dedicated to finding the other four girls needed for a whole team...
 * At least one every Digimon season, the first of which is always heavily hinted at in the twenty-first episode but introduced an arc later.
 * Digimon Adventure: Hikari/Kari and Tailmon/Gatomon
 * Digimon Adventure 02: Ken/Wormmon
 * Digimon Tamers: There could be seven Sixth Rangers if you want to be technical, but the Wild Card turned Dragon turned Atoner Impmon fits best if you want to look at just one.
 * Digimon Frontier: Koichi and The Spirits of Darkness
 * Digimon Data Squad: Keenan/Falcomon
 * Digimon Xros Wars: Nene/Sparrowmon and Monitamon. (Joining Xros Heart)
 * If you take it loosely, Hayate from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Actually, since Defeat Means Friendship, everyone in the show except Nanoha herself and Yuuno might count, with the good guys going from 2 people to a whole army (, to be precise). Although he's the main character of Force, Touma would probably count as this to the Section Six group, given his unique powers... assuming he ever gets around to joining them.
 * Pretty Cure
 * Hikari in Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart attaches herself to the existing Odd Couple. Our most compact example, until someone finds a Second Ranger somewhere.
 * Yes! Precure 5 GOGO! brings out Milky Rose as the "mysterious" sixth member. Unusually for the trope, she keeps her power level throughout the series, still defeating the Monster of the Week on her own after the Five-Man Band has resorted to using the Combined Energy Attack every week.
 * Fresh Pretty Cure added a Fourth Ranger to the original Power Trio: Cure Passion, a reformed villainess.
 * Heartcatch Pretty Cure added a third ranger of its own, Cure Sunshine, as well as a later fourth ranger, Cure Moonlight.
 * Suite Pretty Cure introduced Cure Muse early on, although she doesn't join the team, let alone reveal her identity . Later, it followed Fresh's example and added a reformed Dark Magical Girl of its own: Cure Beat.
 * Wedding Peach, originally featured a Power Trio consisting of Wedding Peach, Angel Daisy, and Angel Lily. But in the second season, a "Sixth Ranger" is added in the form of Angel Salvia, a mysterious character with a modified costume who wields a sword, is much more mature and powerful, and frequently acts independently of the main trio.
 * Ghost Hunt has two examples of this. The first is Lin Koujo, who was injured in the first episode and then left out to heal until the end of episode three. The second is Yasuhara Osamu, who shows up in episode 14. These two characters also follow the 'power is inversely proportional to the number of episodes in' rule mentioned at the top of this page: Lin is easily the strongest character in the series, while Yasuhara has absolutely no power whatsoever and does all of the research for the group.
 * The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Tsuruya, for the Five-Man Band SOS-Brigade is very involved in their activities, but for some reason isn't recruited. That is, despite being a natural co-conspirator of Haruhi, since they are so similar.
 * She actually states that she prefers looking from outside.
 * Zechs from Gundam Wing is the Sixth Ranger when he's on the Gundam Pilots' side and The Rival when he's not. Appropriately enough, his name is derived from the German word for "six", fitting in with the series' Theme Naming.
 * Wing is an odd example because, while Zechs fits the usual trappings of a Sixth Ranger, he doesn't permanently join the heroes until The Movie. In the meantime his Love Interest Noin joins the Gundam Pilots much earlier. The Gundam Pilots don't really form into a traditional Five-Man Band until the final arc of the show...
 * The Prince of Tennis:
 * Shitenhouji: Chitose Senri transferred to the school late (in fact, he was never supposed to even be part of the team, but the author changed this to accomodate the story, and in so doing pushed the team's vice-captain into almost complete irrelevancy), and in many ways remains a loner
 * Hyoutei: Hiyoshi Wakashi is a loner, initially held as a reserve. He would like to change the status quo but is not able to do so. In some way he is the Token Evil Teammate
 * Rikkai: Kirihara Akaya is the lone second year among a team of third years. From the start he does aim to shake the status quo. He's actually simply assimilated.
 * Seigaku: Echizen Ryoma starts out as a Sixth Ranger and becomes Designated Hero
 * Soldat J and King J-Der from GaoGaiGar fit pretty well. In his first appearance, he shows up out of nowhere and While Soldat J never truly joined the heroes, coinciding goals caused him to fight alongside them all the way to the end of the series and OVA. Interestingly, while the main protagonists did somewhat catch up to him, he was still more powerful than any other major character in the series except for the main character himself.
 * Voltron has two that could be considered sixth rangers : Either Princess Fala/Allura or Sven/The Shirogane Brothers. In the twenty episode second season of Voltron, made not from GoLion but new animation, Sven actually gets one last chance to pilot Blue Lion before the second finale.
 * The Slayers TV series loves this trope almost as much as sentai shows do.
 * At the beginning of the series, Lina and Gourry form a duo and Zelgadis is an enemy, then later fighting against both sides, and finally settles in as an ally.
 * By the beginning of the second season, they've established themselves as a standard four-man RPG team, but Martina keeps pursuing them and trying to curse Lina, before finally more-or-less joining them near Katahto.
 * Borderline example: Filia attacks the team at the beginning of the third season, but she's joined by the second episode.
 * If you count only his third-season appearances, Xellos starts out pranking them, then joins them to fight the apparent villain, then switches sides a half-dozen times before finally joining them for the last couple of episodes.
 * In the Hourglass of Falces manga, the main four from the anime are also joined by Luke and Milina, who serve as Zelgadis and Amelia's replacements in the second half of the novels. Luke acts as Lina's Lancer in this story, thus the snarky, well-rounded fighter Milina fits this trope.
 * Abarai Renji of Bleach definitely counts. He begins as the enemy, but it's quickly revealed he has good intentions and a helpful Unlucky Childhood Friend status to Rukia. Eventually Renji teams up with Ichigos human gang in most situations. He is the shinigami most likely to be included in arcs taking place in Karakura town. The filler arc then Hueco Mundo arc confirmed his status as a main character.
 * Guyver, being an homage to Kamen Rider and Kikaider, has Guyver III in the role of the Second Rider (to those who don't know, Guyver II was the Evil Counterpart).
 * One Piece essentially works this way, even though Luffy didn't have a Five-Man Band established since the beginning. However, by the time he went through Reverse Mountain, he had The Hero, The Lancer, The Big Guy, The Smart Guy and The Chick. You could say all the True Companions that joined him after that are Sixth Rangers.
 * Well Chopper could count as the Team Pet and Franky has more The Big Guy traits than Sanji. Brook and Robin are straight Sixth Rangers.
 * Most of Goku's allies in Dragon Ball started off as adversaries. Yamcha was a desert bandit that fought with him over the Dragonballs, and Tenshinhan, Piccolo, Vegeta, Android 18, and Mr. Buu were all trying to kill Goku at some point.
 * Kaworu from Neon Genesis Evangelion, for about five seconds.
 * Mari plays this trope straight in Rebuild Of Evangelion: she scores a solo kill in her debut battle and actually survives. Later on, . Kaworu also appears to head into this territory: he appears when there are only two angels left and his first act is.
 * Shion from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, then.
 * Kagura from Azumanga Daioh. She starts out as a rival in another class, but joins the group in the second year, as part of a plan by Yukari to win the Athletics Festival.
 * Kaorin to an extent.
 * Taki of Eyeshield 21, who becomes the tight end for the Devil Bats. He joins during the middle of the Death March through America and is eventually Flanderized into becoming a huge idiot and an extra person to make short passes to. Only on one instance was he a winning factor for the team.
 * Musashi even more so. His existence has been alluded to since chapter 1, first appeared in volume 5 as a nameless contractor, and had his identity revealed in volume 7. He appears to be a Jerkass at first, but it's soon revealed to be a facade and he's actually a really good guy. He doesn't join the team till volume 18, and his importance to the team only being hyped up during his first two match. Afterward, we rarely even get to see his kicks and his role in the story significantly decreases.
 * Poor Canada, to the point that no one ever notices him or mistakens him for America.
 * Mew Berry from Tokyo Mew Mew was very much like this... except most fans like to pretend she never existed.
 * Definitely Kotaro from Mahou Sensei Negima, who started out as an enemy, but thanks to Defeat Means Friendship, turned into The Rival and eventually this. Though in a series where Loads and Loads of Characters are constantly being added to the main cast, several more can fit this.
 * Ikki from Saint Seiya is the quintessential Sixth Ranger... despite being the fifth member of the core team.
 * Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's had become the Fifth Signer, while  became  with about a dozen episodes left to the end of the series, making the latter more of an Eleventh-Hour Ranger.
 * Martian Successor Nadesico had Loads and Loads of Characters as it was, but continued to pick up more as the series progressed. First was the three spare Aestivalis pilots, Ryoko, Izumi, and Hikaru. After they, they reluctantly allowed military-appointed leader Admiral Munatake, the company chairman's secretary Erina, and fifth pilot Akatsuke Nagare  . Finally.
 * Hana in the 4th season of Ojamajo Doremi. She transformed from her baby form to her human form to become the same age as the girls.
 * Before that, Onpu was the Sixth Ranger to the original Power Trio, though she was fully integrated into the team in -Sharp.
 * Crona from Soul Eater could be considered this, after his/her Heel Face Turn.
 * Lupin III started out with the main cast being just Lupin's friend Jigen and the stranger Fujiko. The samurai Goemon was added later on because the creator thought there should be a clearly Japanese character. True to the trope's usual form, he was a bad guy at first - an assassin sent to kill Lupin - but they soon became allies instead.
 * Cyber Team in Akihabara started with Hibari, Suzume, and Tsugumi as a Power Trio. About halfway in, Kamome shows up and acts antagonistic, but forces her way into the team somewhat awkwardly.
 * Fairy Tail has Gajeel, who started off as an Evil Counterpart to Natsu until he joined the guild, whereupon he became The Rival, and is still not trusted by some members of the guild..
 * Cyber Team in Akihabara started with Hibari, Suzume, and Tsugumi as a Power Trio. About halfway in, Kamome shows up and acts antagonistic, but forces her way into the team somewhat awkwardly.
 * Fairy Tail has Gajeel, who started off as an Evil Counterpart to Natsu until he joined the guild, whereupon he became The Rival, and is still not trusted by some members of the guild..

Card Games

 * An aversion is enforced in Magic: The Gathering: There will be no purple. Ever. Most players still regard multicolor or colorless as a "sixth color", though these are not colors.

Comics

 * Back when the X-Men were a Five-Man Band, Mimic was the first new student at Xavier's (also the first non-mutant X-Man). He's been a low-level criminal since leaving the team (a waste of potential after seeing his Exiles counterpart in action).
 * When the original X-Men "graduate" to make room for the All-New, All-Different team, the lineup remains fairly constant...Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Cyclops, with Banshee or Phoenix rounding out the squad on occasions...until after the Dark Phoenix Saga, when the team picks up Tagalong Kid Kitty "Sprite" Pryde. In an interesting inversion, she started off without much combat effectiveness, and took several levels in badass as her time with the team progressed.
 * Victor Mancha of Runaways.
 * Recently, Xavin.
 * ... And much more recently,.
 * About a fourth of the the way into its run, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, the Archie-published book based on the first animated series introduced Ninjara, a ninja foxwoman, as an antagonist. A few issues later, she joins the turtles and becomes a series regular, appearing in every story since.
 * In the original Mirage series (and most of the adaptations) this role is usually filled by Casey Jones who first met the Turtles after getting into a fight with Raphael when the latter stopped him from almost beating some street hoods to death.
 * In Mafalda both Miguelito (who turned the Four-Temperament Ensemble into a Five-Man Band) and Libertad would count, but the latter is a better example.
 * The Fantastic Four have had a few extras over the years—Johnny's ex-wife Lyja, Ben's girlfriend Sharon Ventura, the time displaced teenage version of Valeria Richards, and others; not counting substitute members who have filled in temporary vacancies in the team like Crystal, Luke Cage, She-Hulk, and the Black Panther.
 * Recent promo images seem to be implying that Spider-Man will be this with
 * In the British Anthology Comic The Beano in the Super School Strip Bananagirl joined the original four super powered school children after the strip had already been running for a few weeks.
 * Perhaps the most famous example of a Sixth Ranger in comics has to be Captain America (comics), who joined The Avengers in the fourth issue of the series, and ended up becoming The Hero of the team.
 * The Legendaires got two sixth rangers so far:
 * The first was Shun-Day, a Ninja Action Girl apprentice who temporary joined the group in order to achieve her formation.
 * The second was Tenebris, Darkhell's daughter, who joined the group in order to protect her love interest Razzia. Though her team-up with them was initially somehow intended to be temporary, she ends up joining them for real . Ironically enough,

Fan Works

 * was officially recruited into the SOS Brigade in Kyon: Big Damn Hero, as well as the unnamed girl from Dissociation.
 * serves this role in the Pony POV Series,
 * On the subject of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic fanworks, its pretty common to depict background filly Dinky (who is usually depicted as the daughter of Memetic Bystander Derpy Hooves) as the Fourth Cutie Mark Crusader.

Film

 * Star Wars' Lando Calrissian. He double-crosses the heroes in The Empire Strikes Back, and Chewbacca nearly strangles him to death. However, he was just trying to protect Cloud City, and he eventually pulls a Heel Face Turn to join the Rebellion.
 * Captain Barbossa of Pirates of the Caribbean, who becomes a good guy in At Worlds End. A more minor example might be Jack Sparrow, who joins up with Will Turner after them being quite at odds.
 * Stagecoach' - The Ringo Kid. John Wayne's character in the classic western is introduced after the other characters and joins them later in the story. With the characters opposed to each other, he acts as a catalyst to bring the other characters into reconciliation.
 * Kung Fu Panda - After Po proves himself as the true Dragon Warrior in the first film, he regularly fights with the Furious Five. However, considering he is still unsure of himself to a certain degree, he defers to Tigress as leader and is content to keep the relationship known as "The Furious Five and the Dragon Warrior."
 * Transformers: Dark of the Moon - After the Autobots learn of an Autobot starship hidden on the moon's dark side, they go up to retrieve its captain, Sentinel Prime. Sentinel then joins the Autobots at NEST,
 * In The Magnificent Seven there is a bit of this going on in two ways. The character Chico is viewed as this by the other characters, although the character Lee, played by Robert Vaughn, unlike the others, does not have a counterpart in the Seven Samurai and was created specifically for the film, making him also a Sixth Ranger.
 * Winston Zeddmore in Ghostbusters.
 * Agent Clint Barton/Hawkeye in The Avengers. He's absent for a good chunk of the film due to being but joins up just in time to help the heroes kick ass in the climax. Appropriately, he's a dark and brooding type, with incredible Improbable Aiming Skills.

Literature

 * David from Animorphs is the straight example, identified on book covers as the "Sixth Animorph",  Ax is the more commonly accepted Sixth Ranger: he and the original five initially consider themselves "five kids and an Andalite," but by the final book, Ax refers to the group as "We, the Animorphs," when speaking to Jake.
 * Starting in Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix, Neville, Luna, and Ginny (all of whom but Luna had been recurring characters before) began to function as a sort of auxiliary trio to the main characters.
 * Stationery Voyagers has Neone, a subversion in that she was always meant to be part of the original team, but got delayed by reason of being on another planet.
 * Then there was Liquidon, who didn't fight the team but instead needed their help to get his name cleared as he was mistaken for a terrorist.
 * Viola also pulls it off.
 * Perhaps the most egregious example is Cybomec, subverted in that it was only a Cybomec  that joins, not the Clandish "Cybomec" Consto that nearly killed everyone.
 * Erasaxo, while technically number six, was part of the original team. His reclusive nature and small size tend to make him an afterthought to others though. Made worse in that he's ordered by the Xylien Society not to leave the ship very often.
 * in the The 39 Clues.
 * Amanda in Kingdom Keepers.
 * The Star Wars Expanded Universe occasionally does this. Most obvious is Zekk from Young Jedi Knights. Zekk even looks like Tommy in the art.
 * Thomas from Malevil. He's the one member of the World War III survivors that wasn't part of the group from their youth. He's also college educated, don't speak the local patois, and an atheist without a religious upbringing.

Live Action TV

 * Mighty Moshin' Emo Rangers, a UK fan-made series (that made its way to MTV) which parodies both the Power Rangers and "emo" culture, did this in its first season with the addition of Fai, the Purple Fashioncore Ranger. Production on a second season has been delayed for over a year, but it is rumoured to feature a seventh team member.
 * The second season is now out, and does not feature a seventh team member, but John (the Green Chronic Stoner Ranger) gets an upgrade to become the Blue Straight Edge Ranger.
 * This may be a direct parody of MMPR season two, during which the Green Ranger from season one was upgraded to the White Ranger.
 * Inverted during Season 3 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Faith starts out good...
 * And ends up good, so Faith is not only Inverted, but also a true Sixth Ranger, two different times.
 * And in season 4, when it's Buffy herself who becomes the Sixth Ranger to The Initiative, the newly-introduced organization staffed by red shirts guest-stars.
 * During season 5, the Knights of Byzantium start off as possibly ally or enemy (attack Buffy, but also beat up Glory's Mooks) before becoming full-on enemies due to their unwillingess to show mercy.
 * Spike Started off as a Big Bad in Season 2, later performed a Heel Face Turn and did indeed end up as the protagonist's boyfriend.
 * Anya starts out bad, but performs a prolonged Heel Face Turn, and ends up part of the group.
 * And finally Andrew, who spent most of season 6 fighting against Buffy, only to end up becoming one of the Scoobies the following season.
 * Charles Gunn fits this trope in the Buffy spinoff Angel. He shows up right before the Season 1 finale fighting Angel for most of the episode, then joins the team officially in Season 2.
 * Subverted with Fred ... she becomes a sixth ranger after she becomes Illyria.
 * Averted with Lorne. He gets added onto the cast (he didn't even have a name before, just 'The Host') But he's a lover not a fighter, babycakes.
 * Daniel Shaw from season 3 of NBC's Chuck. He occasionally joins the Power Trio of Chuck, Sarah, and Casey on missions but only those concerning his area of expertise, the evil organization known as the Ring.
 * Derek Reese in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, who showed up late in the first season.
 * Jesse joins the Burn Notice Power Trio in Season Four. However, tensions are a bit high, given that he's yet to find out that he's the spy Michael (accidentally) got burned.
 * Koichi Shiranami/Ryujinou in Ryukendo.
 * Charmed has Leo, Cole, Chris, Billie, and Coop all acting as sixth rangers to varying degrees.
 * Reno 911 gave us Deputy Kimball in season 3.
 * Kamen Rider takes the cake for reducing this trope to a Second Rider phenomenon, beginning from the original 1971 series, when Takeshi Hongo (Kamen Rider 1) is joined by Hayato Ichimonji (Kamen Rider 2). In this case Rider 2 was created out of necessity to serve as a temporary replacement for Rider 1 when the actor who played Hongo had to take a break after shattering his leg during a stunt gone wrong. After Rider 1 returned to become the main character again, Rider 2 would return for a few guest appearances serving as a sidekick to Rider 1. In subsequent shows we have:
 * Kamen Rider V 3 and Riderman
 * Kamen Rider Stronger and Tackle
 * Kamen Rider Den-O and Zeronos
 * Kamen Rider Kiva and Ixa
 * Kamen Rider Decade and Diend (who's technically a Third Rider, what with an Alternate Universe incarnation of Kamen Rider Kuuga playing sidekick to Decade)
 * Kamen Rider Double and Accel
 * Kamen Rider OOO and Birth.
 * Kamen Rider Fourze and Meteor
 * Oddly, Iron Chef has a one of these: Kobe in the original series fits the trope almost perfectly (as he even has his own customised entrance).
 * Kylie Minogue was once designated as the pink Wiggle.
 * Richard Grieco's character, Dennis Booker, on the crime drama, 21 Jump Street. His character was then given his own short-lived spinoff.
 * Nasir silently joins the Merry Men at the end of the pilot episode of Robin of Sherwood after being set up as a minion of the bad guys. Yes, that's one episode in, but it's also a brand new Robin Hood character after about 600 years...
 * Pavel Chekov in Star Trek the Original Series.
 * Heroes - Sylar, by the season four finale. Doesn't look good for him though. Made worse in that he already tried it once a season before, and that didn't work out so well.
 * Technically a number five, in the short lived live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series Ninja Turtles the Next Mutation, a fifth, female turtle named Venus was introduced to the previously all-male quartet. (She could be a sixth ranger if you count Splinter, though.)
 * Prince Garrett in The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog.
 * Supernatural has seen several attempts at adding a Sixth Ranger to the Winchester brothers, with varying degrees of success. Ruby turned out to be a Sixth Ranger Traitor, but Castiel and Bobby seem to have well and truly worked their way into Team Free Will.
 * Castiel is no longer on Team Free Will. He's on Team BOW Before Your New God. Did we mention he manages to also betray the bad guy he was working with at the same time, and kills another evil angel?
 * Double the Fist Gives us Tina T, The Chick who replaced Mephisto after he was taken over by an Aztec Demigod. In Series Two we got Tara, a shapeshifting cyborg assassin who was on par with Steve in combat. Comically, she was mostly used for paperwork. Blue Womp would also technically count.
 * Doctor Who - Jack Harkness fits this trope in the 2000's series, temporarily changing the Doctor and Rose's The Hero / Sidekick duo to a Power Trio (once he stops trying to con them).
 * On Glee, later additions to the club have included Rachel's boyfriend Jesse from a rival glee club in the first season, new student Sam and Deadpan Snarker Lauren in the second, and Irish exchange student Rory and spoiled rich girl Sugar in the third.
 * Vala Mal Doran in Stargate SG-1. In mid-season eight, she  hijacks the Prometheus. In Season nine, she gradually moves from minor villain to anti-hero, being partially responsible for bringing the   to the Milky Way among other things. In season nine, she becomes a full SG-1 member, though not after   once.
 * Disney Channel does this in some of their shows:
 * Chad Dylan Cooper in Sonny With a Chance.
 * Marcus Little in The Suite Life on Deck, although he left the series later on.
 * Gunther and Tinka Hessenheffer in Shake It Up, despite the latter being billed as a recurring character.
 * In the second season of Community Chang attempts to join the study group.
 * Some of the shows in the Ultra Series have featured secondary Ultrabeings that help out the main hero in times of need, although most of them were just guest characters that appeared for a few episodes or heroes from previous shows. It wasn't until Ultraman Gaia that the show featured two regular Ultra Heroes, the titutar Gaia and his rival Ultraman Agul.
 * Some of the shows in the Ultra Series have featured secondary Ultrabeings that help out the main hero in times of need, although most of them were just guest characters that appeared for a few episodes or heroes from previous shows. It wasn't until Ultraman Gaia that the show featured two regular Ultra Heroes, the titutar Gaia and his rival Ultraman Agul.

Music

 * Rare Real Life example: Iron Maiden had five men line-ups since 1980. Then when Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith decided to return to the band, Janick Gers served as a Sixth Ranger to a reunion of the golden years Maiden.
 * The Black Eyed Peas were originally a trio (the three guys), before Fergie joined.
 * Keyboard player Billy Preston joined The Beatles for their Let It Be album/movie in 1969, was the only musician after 1963 to be co-credited on a Beatles single. and was commonly called the "Fifth Beatle". George Harrison, who brought Preston into the studio in the first place, unsuccessfully tried to convince the band to make him an official member, noticing the positive effects Preston's presence had on the band on the band musically and personally.

Toys

 * Takanuva, the Toa of Light, in Bionicle is a partial example. While he has several trappings of a Sixth Ranger to the Toa Nuva (wearing similar armor and fitting in with their Elemental Powers theme) and was even hyped as "the Seventh Toa" at his introduction, he's actually more just a friend and ally; working with the Toa Nuva only occasionally rather than being a member of the team.
 * When more Toa were introduced into the storyline, the Toa Nuva were bumped up and no longer considered a team, but rather a whole new species (Toa specifically transformed by Energized Protodermis into new forms). This meant that Takanuva, who was still just a normal "Toa" (since that, while he did fall in the Protodermis, it did not change him. Although ironically this makes Takutanuva an actual Toa Nuva) can never truly be part of them. He's also further segregated because he's the sole Toa of Light in existence.

Video Games
"Carter: Six."
 * Chrono Trigger - Magus (optionally) joins the party very late into the game, significantly less powerful than he is when you fight him (either at the halfway point of the game * or* if you chose to fight and kill him there instead of have him join you.) He very much has an 'odd man out' feel to him in other ways as well (he has no 2-person combination attacks and very few three-person combination attacks, the initial six characters have 3 2-person combination attacks for each of the five other characters among them, and there is one 3-man combo attack for each mix of Chrono + 2 of the other first six.)
 * The 'odd man out' feel might also have something to do with the fact that, although everyone else in the party becomes good friends, Magus doesn't really care if you or anyone else in the party lives or dies.
 * Most JRPGs have a section where the party is exactly 3 (or 4, or 5, whatever the max party size) is members.. with characters leaving and being conspicuously replaced, until suddenly you get a 4th (or 5th, or 6th) ranger, and every point after that you can pick your own party (often having the other characters who left earlier come back)
 * A few games buck the trend in an unexpected way by never actually giving you a permanently set last member. Final Fantasy II continues shifting out the 4th party member without the player's control straight up until the final dungeon, at which point joins your team.
 * Meanwhile, some other games (such as Final Fantasy XII and Tactics) have a party slot dedicated to whatever NPC you'll be dragging around until you hit the next plot point, and leave you a man down the rest of the time.
 * Golden Sun: The Lost Age has an interesting variant -  will join the party as Fifth through Eighth Rangers after a certain point in the story.
 * Iori Yagami in The King of Fighters, who was initially introduced as Kyo's rival (to the point that Iori was trying to kill him most of the time), and then became his reluctant ally when Orochi showed up.
 * In Final Fantasy IV, Baigan invites himself into the party at a time when the party limit is five characters, and Baigan joining brings the line-up to six. In a subtle case of Lampshade Hanging, Palom and Porom note that something is suspicious about this. Baigan then reveals himself as a monster and attacks.
 * Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VI have a few secret characters each that don't contribute to the plot at all, but are so well known and easy to obtain that they're normally regarded as sixth ranger-esque members of the main cast.
 * FFVII specifically has Cait Sith, who is recruited into the party after the majority of the main cast (although he is actually the 6th party member after Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Red XIII and Aerith not counting players who recruit Yuffie 'early') but does almost nothing untill he is revealed to actually be a bad guy who then turns to the good guys side for real later on
 * Chitose and Natsume in Galaxy Angel, especially the games.
 * In Super Robot Wars W, the Golion team actually asks Guy of GaoGaiGar, an old friend of theirs from the space academy, if he wants to be their Sixth Ranger. Although he politely declines, he occasionally ends up playing the role anyway, especially considering that in this game, both Ghaleon and Golion have the same origins. The game actually references the Sixth Ranger trope a bit; when Guy points out that Ghaleon can't combine with Golion, Kogane comments that the sixth member of such teams typically has a special Humongous Mecha that tends to overshadow the other five in terms of power.
 * The GoLion team helps out Guy, too. During the battle between Guy's GaoFighGar and an enemy repli-GaoGaiGar in the FINAL storyline, another Replijin of GaoGaiGar's own Sixth Ranger, King J-Der, shows up to make things worse... at which point the Hundred Beasts King appears to even the odds.
 * In the Original Generation series, the crew of the Kurogane is a team of Sixth Rangers. In the first two games, it was made up of reformed AntiVillains and Stealth Mentors, and they consider it their duty to operate independently until it's time to join the main cast halfway through the latest game's plot. The leaders of the crew, Sanger and Elzam, could also each be traited as a Sixth Ranger in his own right to one of the protagonists' sub-teams (Sanger to the ATX team, Elzam to the SRX team).
 * Sheena, in Tales of Symphonia; her joining the party (formerly a Five-Man Band) marks the point at which the plot begins to twist. The Sixth Ranger added to the earlier PSX remake of Tales of Phantasia was Fujibayashi Sheena's possible descendant, Fujibayashi Suzu.
 * In Tales of the Abyss, Asch fits this role perfectly: he's a powerful antihero with ambiguous motives who joins the party for a while (and is much more powerful than the person he replaces). Later you get a second chance to recruit him into the party, only this time he's way behind the power curve, due to being stuck with the same equipment he had twenty levels ago. This is Lampshaded with the Abyss Rangers costumes you can acquire: Asch becomes "Abyss Silver", a typical Sixth Ranger colour in Super Sentai.
 * In Lunar 2: Eternal Blue, the party is in flux for most of the early part of the game, gradually picking up additional characters, eventually stabilizing on 5 members (not including Lucia, who is not always player-controlable, and is occasionally abducted and must be rescued by the party). One of the antagonists, Leo, joins then leaves the party several times as a Sixth Ranger, both as himself, and as his blatantly obvious alter-ego "Mystere" (the absurdity of his disguise is lampshaded by the other characters).
 * Depending on how you played the game, you probably went through the majority of Devil Survivor with only 3-5 party members. Cue the final day when the rest of the supporting cast get tired of being NPCs. Depending on the decisions you've made throughout the game, it is entirely possible for your party roster to double in size.
 * In It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Frank appears joins as the fifth member of "The Gang," which had previously consisted only of Dennis, Dee, Charlie and Mac. Frank has become a staple of the show.
 * In Sonic Adventure 2,
 * Originally Knuckles started out as Sonic's enemy only to eventually team up with him and Tails to form a Power Trio.
 * might be this in the Professor Layton series of games.
 * Most veteran players in Pokémon will have one 'mon in their six slot party learn nothing but Hidden Machine moves, which are needed to get through various environmental obstacles. The reason why these moves are given to one Pokémon is because they cannot be replaced by newly learned moves, and typically range from mediocre to useless in battles. As a result, trainers will end up with a Five Mon Band for matches and a utility knife who will never see the next level-up. In such cases, the player will usually pull out and raise a brand new replacement 'mon for the HM slave (usually a late-game catch, such as a plot Legendary or the Red Gyarados) so as to have a full team for the Elite Four and Champion. This is an interesting case, as it was the player, not the plot, that added the Sixth Ranger to the team.
 * In terms of Pokémon Power Trios, in Pokémon Black and White, Keldeo is the D'Artagnan to Cobalon, Terrakion, and Virizion's Three Musketeers.
 * Ho-oh and Lugia round out the bird trio, providing fourth and fifth rangers in Gen II.
 * Sort of. Ho-oh acts more like a Forth Ranger to the Legendary Beasts. Now, just about every legendary trio (except a few) have a Fourth Ranger. For example, now the Regis have Regigigas.
 * Towards the end of disc 3 of Final Fantasy VIII, you get  as a party member.   stays with the party until you go into space.
 * Vandal Hearts has what feels like several of these, as the party eventually numbers out at thirteen members. Ash, Clint, Diego, Huxley, Eleni, Zoha'ar, Kira, Grog and Dolan all get their own plotlines, if not development. On the other hand, Sara and Amon just join with Dolan and contribute nothing to the plot though most egregious is Darius, who joins a little before the half way mark because he was in the same cell, tags along with the party for a reason that's never even given and only has one him-centric scene after he joins where he's revealed to have been from Huxley's village and and doesn't like him. After that he only gets the odd line that anyone could give.
 * Later on in DragonAge: Origins it's possible to recruit into your group. However in doing so  Few people get along with him, particularly Wynne, who insists on calling him out for his former actions whenever possible.
 * Serena Corsair in Guardian Heroes. Although technically she joins forces with Han and his friends at the very beginning of the game, she doesn't become a playable character until the player completes the game once on Normal.
 * In Final Fantasy XIII you have Oerba Yun Fang, who joins the party during their encounter at Palumpolum. She first appeared in Chapter 3 when she captured Snow for being an L'Cie, but later helps Snow escape and they both catch up with Lightning and Hope. This could have been rather well done and unexpected, if Squeenix hadn't given it away within a week of first announcing the character.
 * Thane Krios and Samara of Mass Effect 2 are amongst the last of the recruited members of the team. Tali might also count, though she fits more into The Smart Guy. Legion would also count as an Eleventh-Hour Ranger.
 * Mass Effect 3 has DLC squad-mate Javik. He's not necessarily the last guy to join you, depending on when you do his mission, but everyone else in your team is a returning character except James, who's with you from the start of 3 and fits The Big Guy better anyway.
 * SPARTAN-B312, aka Noble Six from Halo: Reach, is the newest addition to Noble Team and completely fits the trope, up to and including surpassing the rest of the group.


 * The recently released Pink Knight in Castle Crashers exclusive to the PlayStation 3 version is this.
 * In Saints Row the Third,

Web Comics

 * El Goonish Shive started with a Comic Trio and now has an eight-person main cast. Justin and Nanase aren't really Sixth Rangers, but Grace qualifies if Layla (below) does. Susan and Ellen are definitely better examples, though: Susan started out disgusted with Elliot and Tedd before befriending them through Sarah, and Ellen began her life as Elliot's self-proclaimed Evil Twin.
 * And now we have Catalina added as a Sixth Ranger. She's a buddy of Susan's from the feminist club whose main purpose was to have an unrequited love for Susan.
 * Sluggy Freelance:
 * Aylee starts off as your standard Alien parody trying to eat our heroes, but after accidentally returning to their dimension, makes peace with them and becomes Torg's secretary, and eventually a full-fledged True Companion.
 * Riff's girlfriend Sasha became one of these shortly after being introduced. She was a versatile character, able to get along with the Mad Scientist Riff just as well as the Only Sane Woman Zoë. However, she stuck around after Zoë moved away, but left at the same time Zoë returned.
 * Aaron/Jackson from Sam and Fuzzy. Although most characters besides the titular duo are confined to one particular story arc (outside of cameos), Aaron managed to join with them at the end of the third story arc and has stayed a major character since.
 * Alexander from The Dreamer counts, as he first appears in issue #8.
 * Earthsong: Willow is an interesting version of this: the story starts around her, so we don't see much of the Five-Man Band before she showed up, but part of the background is that it has been there a good, long time.
 * Pella from Looking for Group joined the party during their time-travel adventure. Adding the Dwarven Bard was part of the writers' initiative to distance themselves from the World of Warcraft parody they started as.
 * Emily the wizard joins Julie's group in 'Book 2' of Our Little Adventure.
 * Bayn from True Villains joins the group after dealing with Xaneth and surpassing the Big Bad in terms of power.

Web Original

 * French amateur Super Sentai parody France Five starts out with the introduction of the Sixth Ranger ("Silver Mousquetaire") to the Five-Man Band, but still faithfully follows the trope since the episode is supposed to be in the middle of a hypothetical TV series.
 * Also, he doesn't actually join the band before.

Western Animation

 * Rugrats started out with a main cast of Tommy, Chukie, Phil, Lil, and Angelica, with occasional appearances by Susie. Then came Dil...
 * Eventually, Kimi came into the picture.
 * Thomas the Tank Engine
 * Season 1 started with a core cast of 5 engines(although James was only named a few episodes into the season). About halfway through, Percy was introduced. Poetically, like the Trope Namer pictured above, he's both green, and the 6th member of the team.
 * This also applied to Duncan and Rusty from the narrow gauge railway. Also, Emily is considered a sixth ranger to the main cast, from season 8 onwards.
 * Layla of the Winx Club (introduced in the 2nd season premiere), although she's on the good fairies' side from the start, and the biggest misgiving anyone has is Layla feeling left out when Stella mentions "the five of us" in one episode.
 * Toph turned the protagonist's team on Avatar: The Last Airbender from Three Amigos into a Five-Man Band when she filled the empty The Big Guy spot as a Cute Bruiser. After a few episodes, she fits in pretty well despite the occasional argument with Katara.
 * Code Lyoko: The gang invited William to join the team in "Double Trouble", only for him to get turned evil half-way into the next episode, "Final Round". May be heading for Double Subversion, given his Promotion to Opening Titles even while he remains possessed by XANA.
 * Codename: Kids Next Door subverted the Sixth Ranger without creating a Sixth Ranger Traitor with Tommy Gilligan.
 * Notably, after the episode where he almost becomes a Sixth Ranger, he becomes an outright parody Sixth Ranger tropes. He dresses in a ridiculous cape and fedora, attempts to make dramatic entries, tries to be mysterious (when everybody is well aware he's the Annoying Younger Sibling of The Smart Guy) and refers to himself as "The Tommy."
 * Actually the Sixth Ranger was the baby skunk, sector V named him the honorary Numbuh 6.
 * Terra in the animated version of Teen Titans
 * Danny Phantom: Power Trio group composed of Danny, Sam, and Tucker, then upgrades to include a fourth member in their Team Phantom with Jazz, though she wasn't initially accepted at first.
 * X-Men: Evolution: Rogue pulls a Heel Face Turn and joins the X-Men after she realizes Mystique tricked her into joining the Brotherhood and thinking the X-Men wanted to kill her.
 * Re Boot had Mouse as a Sixth Ranger, especially with how she didn't get along with Dot. After a few appearances her skills became invaluable to the team, and she filled in The Smart Guy role.
 * In the fourth season, a much more traditional Sixth Ranger joins, former villain Hexadecimal.
 * Subverted in a episode of Chaotic, when a character joins the main characters possessing all the traditional fifth ranger qualities. (Even filling the vacant Chick slot in the Five-Man Band), but later leaves after gaining fame from.
 * Blinky Bill - Shifty Dingo in the second season after the dingo family performed their Heel Face Turn. He also qualifies as The Smart Guy of the team, probably due to being the weakest and most timid of the males.
 * Street Sharks, featured Moby Lick, a whale.
 * Transformers Animated has two sixth rangers. The first and more conventional one is Jazz, who joins at the end of the episode before the finale, and the second is.
 * This has been a running theme throughout the whole series with Starscream in Transformers Armada and Skyfire in Transformers Generation 1 as two examples.
 * In the first few episodes of Sixteen, Caitlin tries to earn her way into the group, but later fits right in.
 * Caitlin falls under The Chick.
 * In the dinosaur-flavoured Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-style cartoon Extreme Dinosaurs, the team originally consists of four dinosaurs - T-Bone the t-rex, Spike the triceratops, Bullzeye the pterodactyl, and Stegz the...yeah. In the later half of the series, they are sent to an alternate dimension and bring back the ankylosaur Hardrock to become their fifth ranger. Except he's barely mentioned or acknowledged even after then. Hmmm.
 * The 1980's Jonny Quest added two extra members to the initial five character ensemble; Hardrock, an ancient stone man who became the team's second bodyguard; and Jesse Bradshaw, a Distaff Counterpart to Jonny. Hardrock joined the group during an early episode and was featured prominently for more than half of the series, but Jessie only appeared in one episode before the series was canceled. Jessie would later appear as a regular character in future incarnations of the franchise, where she would be retconned into "Jessie Bannon" (Race's daughter), but Hardrock never returned following the 80's version.
 * Drawn Together has two subversions: Sid from "Drawn Together Babies" and Excludie from "Lost In Parking Space" (the first part) are both presented as ninth housemates (and Remember the New Guy? characters at that), but Sid sleeps on his stomach and got sudden infant death syndrome, and Excludie was excluded from everything, even the episodes prior to his only appearance.
 * South Park: Butters He's been around as a background character since the show's beginning, but ascended to protagonist status during Season Six. Unlike other instances of this trope, all five leads are rarely seen together, but Butters has almost had as many character-centric episodes as Stan, and Kyle by this point in the series, and will oftentimes pair off with one of the boys for an adventure ("My Future Self 'n Me," "Super Fun Time," "Sexual Healing," etc.).
 * The boys even had an audition to see who would be Kenny's replacement after he was Killed Off for Real; he gets better, though.
 * Galaxy Rangers: Though he was technically an Ambassador, Zozo was in a surprising amount of episodes, often acting as an auxiliary, non-powered Ranger. He was even addressed as "Ranger Zozo" several times, implying he was at least an honorary, if not full, Ranger in his own right. His fellow ambassador, Waldo, was in fewer episodes, and more a Non-Action Guy - but was still capable of self defense. The show tried to make Buzzwang into a "fifth Ranger," but he wound up being The Scrappy instead.
 * In Futurama Kiff Kroaker is the team's Sixth Ranger, having come lately to the main Planet Express ensemble by means of dating The Chick, Amy.
 * The Land Before Time TV Series had two, Chomper, the baby Sharptooth from the second film, and Ruby, a 'Fast Runner' who was intrusted with Chomper's safety by his parents. Both came to live in the valley to escape the series Big Bad Red Claw.
 * John Thunder and Rex Charger from Centurions.
 * Spiral Zone had four Sixth Rangers, two each for the heroic Zone Riders (Ned Tucker and Ben Davis) and the evil Black Widows (Crook and Rawmeat).
 * The Rambo cartoon also added two new heroes (Chief and T.D. Jackson) and two new villains (Dr. Hyde and X-Ray) in later episodes.
 * In Recess, Gus became the sixth ranger to the other main five characters, and a rare example by joining in the second episode.
 * Cornchip Girl later on became an unnofficial seventh ranger to the main gang in the later seasons.
 * Do Mike and Penny's Popples on Popples count? They came in halfway through the series, and seemed to hang out with them most of the time.
 * In Season 2 of Shirt Tales, Kip Kangaroo is introduced as the sixth member.
 * In Recess, Gus became the sixth ranger to the other main five characters, and a rare example by joining in the second episode.
 * Cornchip Girl later on became an unnofficial seventh ranger to the main gang in the later seasons.
 * Do Mike and Penny's Popples on Popples count? They came in halfway through the series, and seemed to hang out with them most of the time.
 * In Season 2 of Shirt Tales, Kip Kangaroo is introduced as the sixth member.

Real Life

 * The Iroquois Confederacy (originally the Mohawk, Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga, and Cayuga nations) became known as the "Six Nations" after the Tuscarora joined.
 * Sioux dialects: There are four. In Teton, in some places one uses an L, hence Lakota. However, in Santee and Yankton, one uses a D. While the N-using Assiniboine were the enemies of the Sioux, making for one more, the true sixth, well, fifth ranger, is Stoney, much farther to the northwest, which also uses an N. This wouldn't be so bad, except that their word for "ally" is Lakota. No version uses an R, though.
 * The United States has a law, though not a constitutional one, regarding how states join, so technically, 37 states qualify. Good for America, since Thirteen Is Unlucky. Others regard Alaska and Hawaii as this, for not being contiguous with the United States. Still others would say Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico.
 * The Five Nations rugby union tournament later added a sixth team, Italy, to the existing five of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and France. It was renamed the Six Nations. France is actually a Sixth Ranger too, as the tournament used to be called the Home Nations, a name referring to the four countries of the United Kingdom.
 * Penn State became an Eleventh Ranger to the Big Ten; they redesigned their logo to hide an "11" in there without having to change their name. When Nebraska joined, the logo changed (no more hidden numbers) but the name didn't.