Loads and Loads of Characters: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

 

* ''[[Air Gear]].'' There is a terrifying amount of people in this manga, and good luck remembering them all. ''A Presidential candidate'' {{spoiler|now actual President}} becomes an important character eventually.

* ''[[Bleach]]'', once it got into its "Soul Society" arc, suddenly introduced about 30 new characters, with a dozen or so more being added with each subsequent arc. Even {{spoiler|some of the ''weapons'' are characters}}. Apparently, [[Word of God]] is that creation of characters en masse is the author's method of dealing with writer's block. As of now, the total of characters that have appeared in ''Bleach'' is over 250. Seriously.

* ''Violinist of Hameln''. Watanabe lampshades the everlasting hell out of this too, with ''every single character'', be they background or one-shot or drive-by, showing up for the final throwdown (and the main cast commenting on the ridiculousness factor growing). Once Poseidon shows up, it just keeps on getting sillier... and yet, somehow, still manages to keep on providing Crowning Moment of Awesome events all the while.

* In ''[[X (manga)|X 1999]]'', there is [[The Chosen One|the main character]], [[Five-Man Band|his six minions]] and [[Blind Seer|personal psychic]], the [[The Antichrist|main antagonist]] and ''his'' [[Geodesic Cast|six minions and psychic]], about seven relatives that are directly involved, and a couple guards thrown in for good measure. Not bad for having 24 episodes. There were only slightly fewer people in [[The Movie]], and [[Crossover|a few more]] in the manga.

* Although neither of the component series of ''[[Robotech]]'' have particularly huge casts, their fusion into one universe results in a series with three main characters, around thirty regular characters (although not regular at the same time) and many other supporting characters. Take into account the various characters created for additional material like ''Robotech II: The Sentinels'' (most of which are still canonical, even if their adventures aren't) and ''[[Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles]]'' and you get, well...loads and loads of characters.

* ''[[Fairy Tail]]'' seems to be headed this way. To begin with, the eponymous guild had dozens of members, and five new members have joined since (seven if you count the Exceed). There tend to be at least half a dozen notable antagonists per arc, as well. Factor in members of allied guilds, characters as of yet seen only in flashbacks, Lucy's Celestial Spirits, and their [[Parallel Universe]] counterparts, and this trope is clearly in play.

* While the normal ''[[Pretty Cure]]'' series are actually quite tame, it can get a bit crowded in the ''[[Pretty Cure All Stars]]'' movies. ''DX 2'' has [[Heartcatch Precure|Cure Marine]] commenting on just where these other Precure came from while ''DX 3'' has one of the bad guys gawking at the fact that there were ''21 Precures'' (the 17 featured in ''DX 2'' plus two who joined in with ''Heartcatch'' later on plus the two new characters from ''[[Suite Precure]]'').

** It's gotten so bad that the fourth installment of the series, ''New Stage'' only has characters from ''Fresh'', ''Heartcatch'', ''Suite'' and ''Smile'' with returning seiyuu! Everyone from before ''Fresh'' will show up, but have no new speaking roles!

* The cast of ''[[Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai!|Maji De Watashi Ni Koi Shinasai]]'' may not be as extremely numerous as many other examples on this page, but the very ''first'' episode of the anime introduces almost all of the most notable characters in short order. Unless you've played the [[Visual Novel]], it's going to take a few episodes to get most of them straight.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Archie Comics Sonic the Hedgehog]]'''s character roster, taking from both the games, the [[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog|TV]] [[Sonic Sat AM|series]] and original characters, number in the triple digits.

* ''[[The Avengers (Comic Book)|The Avengers]]'' have issued "Avengers Assemble" calls to the entire roster several times, resulting in anywhere from 30 to 100+ members showing up. After Heroes Reborn, when the team was assembled to fight Morgana, the issue after showed 30 Avengers attempting to take down one B-list villain, with disastrous results. Typically these assemblies also show one time Avengers [[Incredible Hulk]], [[Spider-Man]], or the [[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]] making an excuse not to tag along. (Although Spider-Man later became a full time member)

* ''[[Usagi Yojimbo]]'' had a big group photo of all its featured characters (good and evil, living and dead) as of vol. ~15, roughly about three-dozen characters.

* The Western record probably goes to the DC and Marvel universes themselves, as evidenced by various ''[[Crisis Crossover]]'' events. ''[[Crisis on Infinite Earths]]'' put together every version of every major hero at once while throwing in a couple of unique characters. That's just counting the main story line, side stories eventually pulled in virtually every single character in DC history.

* ''[[Love and Rockets]]'', particularly the Palomar stories, which follow the intertwining lives of residents in a small town and their descendants.

 

* ''[[Undocumented Features]]'', full stop. Its [[Undocumented Features/Characters|characters page]] here has nearly 200 entries—and that's just scratching the surface.

* The ''[[Still Waters Series]]'', based on ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'', comes packed with dozens of characters already; the author saw fit to add more. The third story in the series currently has '''one hundred''' characters, canon and original, on its character sheet.

* [http://alaxr274.deviantart.com/gallery/33810717 Super Milestone Wars and it's sequel]

* ''[[Tiberium Wars]]'' has ''loads'' of characters, to the point where the author has hinted that he has a separate text document ''just'' to handle force organization. The only thing keeping it from getting too mind-boggling is the fact that the author [[Anyone Can Die|gleefully kills characters left and right]].

* The ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' fanfic ''The Order of the Avatar Slayer'' starts out by throwing about 15 characters out to the readers in the first 10 chapters. By the end of the series, there's a total of at least 60 or 70.

* ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/197453/1/The_New_Trials_of_Card_Captor_Sakura_and_Friends New Trials of Card Captor Sakura and Friends]'', a ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]'' fanfiction, has a whole cast of main character OCs longer than the cast from the show, and more characters are continually being added, including back stories for most of the main characters' parents (both those deceased and living), the Li Clan, and more. Some characters that at first appear minor and insignificant turn out to be [[Chekhov's Gun|highly important later on]].

* The ''[[Total Drama Island]]'' fanfic ''[[Total Drama Comeback Series|Total Drama Battlegrounds]]'' introduces over fifty characters (22 canon contestants, 22 [[Original Character]]s, Chris, Chef, and several superimposed talking animals) in the first chapter. Of course, [[Justified Trope|that's the nature of the show]], and half of the contestants were already introduced in the previous season. Even with one person getting eliminated each challenge, chapters average about 10,000 words just to give everyone a [[Mandatory Line]].

* ''[[The Unity Saga]]'' takes it [[Up to Eleven]] by being a crossover of ''two'' Loads and Loads universes, to which it also adds a few original characters.

* ''[[Even a Chance Meeting]]'' has well over ''80'' characters. It takes place in an [[Touhou|already densely populated series,]] and then add all the OCs...

* The ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' fan fic ''[[PRIMARCHS]]'', aside from the 20 Primarchs, features more or less every well know character in ''WH40K'' canon. Then it starts bringing in characters from ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle|Warhammer Fantasy]]'', ''[[StarCraft]]'', ''[[Warcraft]]'', ''[[Star Wars]]'', ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' and then some. This goes to the point where the author regularly forgets how many characters are in any particular scene. Due to having [[No Fourth Wall]], this is frequently lampshaded by the characters themselves.

* ''[[The Dream Land Story]]''. Almost every character, no matter how minor, who has ever appeared in the ''[[Kirby]]'' series has most likely appeared in this story, not to mention the [[The Cameo|cameos]] and [[Canon Immigrant]]s.

* ''[[Imperfect Metamorphosis]]'' not only has the gargantuan ''[[Touhou]]'' cast to work with and give them prominent roles, even the [[Chuck Cunningham Syndrome|PC-98 cast]], but keeps adding original characters as well. The author openly admits that keeping track of all of them and their [[Gambit Pileup|constantly shifting allegiances]] is almost as much work as actually writing it.

* After Ren and Pin-Mei, and Horo-Horo and Rong have families in ''[[A Gift of Love]]'', there are effectively 9 main characters. Add in extended family, spirits, bodyguards, friends and classmates, teachers, villains, ancestors, and estranged family members. Now you have ''over fifty.''

* While only centering around two main characters, ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]: [[The Legend of Zelda: Rings of Dualty|Rings of Dualty]]'' has a pretty big amount of supporting characters in addition to NPCs of multiple races. [[Justified Trope|Granted]], Zelda games can have quite a few unique characters, too.

* Just about everything written by [[Morwen Tindomerel]] overflows with [[OCs]].

 

== Film ==

* The [[Guy Ritchie]] movies (at least ''[[Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels]]'', ''[[Snatch]]'', and ''[[RocknRolla]]''). And most characters [[Anyone Can Die|get killed throughout the movie]].

* Likewise the Guy Ritchie-esque ''[[Smokin Aces]]''.

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3sV4k-mNa0 This video] parodies the phenomenon.

*** [http://www.adultswim.com/video/?episodeID=8a2505951c8b78da011c9b6c75090094 As does this] ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' sketch.

* The film ''[[Cradle Will Fall]]'' was a traffic jam of different characters and groups of characters, with very few clues given.

* [[Robert Altman]], the director of ''Nashville'', pointed out that the real main character is not a person, but the city of Nashville.

** A lot of Altman's movies are like this. The DVD cover of ''Short Cuts'' has 22 cast members listed above the title.

* ''Recount'', an HBO [[Made for TV Movie]] about the 2000 US presidential election, has many characters on both sides, with the Democrats being led by Kevin Spacey and Dennis Leary (with help from [[Nineteen Eighty-Four|Winston Smith]]). Oh, and they're all based on real people. Tom Wilkinson leads the Republicans.

* ''[[Tombstone]]'' has 85 speaking roles (averaging one new character every 90 seconds). It follows the band of good guys, the band of bad guys, the good guys' wives, and the townsfolk, developing characters in all of these roles.

** Speaking of Pixar, the die-cast toyline based on their animated film ''[[Cars]]'' actually consists of toy versions of ''every'' single character from the movie!

* While the [[Disney Princess]] franchise (which is also Disney's biggest and most profitable franchise ever) includes only ten princess characters (with some exceptions, however), the Disney villain franchise on the other hand, actually includes the most characters of ''any Disney franchise ever made!''

* ''[[Casablanca]]'', despite revolving around three leads, has been noted for its [[wikipedia:Casablanca (film)#Cast|large cast of characters.]] It has 22 speaking parts, many of whom play some kind of significant role in the plot (or get at least one moment in the limelight).

* The film "[[Love Actually]]" revolves around a cast of nearly 20 characters to a greater or lesser degree. The original and arguably best ensemble movie that inspired similar movies such as New Year's Eve and Valentine's day.

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[Dream of the Red Chamber]]'', another Chinese epic, has 30 main characters, largely female and over 400 minor characters.

* The ever-growing cast of characters in Lisanne Norman's ''[[Sholan Alliance]]'' series

** ''[[The Silmarillion]]'' is worse than ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', and rightly so in that regard, as it covers more time of the history of Middle-earth. In the first forty pages alone, you have Eru, the fourteen Valar<ref>Manwë and Varda, Ulmo, Aulë and Yavanna, Námo (Mandos) and Vairë, Nienna, Oromë and Vána, Irmo (Lórien) and Estë, and Tulkas and Nessa</ref> and Morgoth. And then, in the main part of the book, you have around another thirty or so main characters fighting for the limelight, including Fëanor and his seven sons,<ref>Maedhros, Maglor, Celegorm, Caranthir, Curufin, Amrod and Amras</ref> Ungoliant, Thingol, Melian, Húrin, Túrin, Nienor, Fingolfin, Finarfin, Finwë, Galadriel, Sauron, Carcharoth, Beren and Luthien, Eärendil, Finrod, Morwen, Huor, Gothmog, Indis, Fingon, Turgon, Eöl and Aredhel, Idril and Tuor, Glaurung, Glorfindel, Elwing, Bëor, Haleth, Angrod, Aegnor, Orodreth, and Gil-galad. Of course, half of these characters end up dying a couple chapters after they're introduced. E.g.: Fëanor didn't live long after he left Valinor, Glorfindel only shows up for a couple pages, Beren and Luthien are hardly mentioned after their tale is finished, etc. To be fair, ''[[The Silmarillion]]'' wasn't exactly intended to be a novel, and the history of Numenor and retelling of the story of the One Ring are really separate stories (with their own characters) that just happen to be published in the same volume.

* ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' series is the absolute king of this trope. Wheel of Time encyclopaedia has a list of ''2200'' characters. The original main group introduced in the first book has not been in one location since the fourth book, out of eleven so far with three to go. Only the main character Rand manages to appear in every book, and he is nearly absent from a couple. From there the biggest male characters Rand, Mat, and Perrin have each acquired love interests (three at once in Rand's case), personal armies, and their own [[Cast Herd]]s of supporting characters. In Rand's case this includes dozens of characters from numerous factions. The two biggest female characters (Egwene and Elayne) have done the same thing. The [[Big Bad]] has a dozen mini-boss characters with the Forsaken, as well as numerous Darkfriends. And almost every faction adds dozens of identifiable characters to the mix, sometimes with distinct subfactions within that which might as well be separate groups. And all these characters intermingle in an absolutely dizzying array of interactions.

** [[J. K. Rowling]] has actually stated that she intentionally fleshed out 40 or so classmates (10 in each house in Harry's year plus presumably some that are not in Harry's year like Luna Lovegood and Katie Bell) before she even started writing.

** That's not even counting Beaubatons and Durmstrang students and staff, ministry members, Muggles, student family members, Order of the Phoenix members, Hogwarts staff, Death Eaters, or non-human characters like Buckbeak or Dobby. And of course, this is all shown off nicely in the glorious end battle in ''Deathly Hallows''.

** This is the primary reason why there is so much [[Demoted to Extra]] in [[Harry Potter (film)|the movies]]. When there are ten zillion supporting characters and each book is pared down to a two and half hour film, inevitably some "regulars" will only get a [[Mandatory Line]] per movie if that.

* The ancient Hindu epic ''[[Mahabharata]]'', part literature and part mythology, defined Loads and Loads of Characters for possibly the first time ever, and then ''re''defined it just for fun. For most of the story, it's just the five heroes and their wife having wacky adventures. In the final year of the story, the cast suddenly balloons as the heroes are boarded up with a royal family, which naturally includes the extended family and several orders' staff and servants, all named. Then you get to [[The War Sequence]], and it's the main heroes, miscellaneous friends and political allies, their extended families, and sons and nephews in the double digits ''each'', against the enemy force of ''one hundred'' named villains and ''their'' allies, cousins, sons and nephews. This is just the named characters -- [[Mooks]] are in the thousands. And ''each named character'' gets [[Character Focus|his own story]]. This, kids, is why the ''Mahabharata'' is the longest poem ever written by an incredibly wide margin.

* ''[[The Tale of Genji]]'' has Loads and Loads of Characters stretching over four generations. To add to the fun cultural shibboleths meant that the author, 10th c. Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu, didn't give any of her characters names but referred to them indirectly by an ever changing collection of titles, residences, etc. all of which were held by at least two characters over the span of the novel and probably more.

* [[Harry Turtledove]] tends to have a dozen or more viewpoint characters, most of whom hardly ever interact. The time spent between seeing each of them makes learning just the names of the main characters quite a challenge, never mind the supporting characters in each one's story.

* Both ''[[A Thread of Grace]]'' and ''[[The Sparrow|Children of God]]'' have loads and loads of characters. ''[[A Thread of Grace]]'' at least had a fairly comprehensive character list at the beginning of the book.

* Margaret Mitchell's ''[[Gone with the Wind]]'' has about 30 main characters and many more named secondary and one-off characters.

* [[David Foster Wallace]]'s ''[[Infinite Jest]]'' has a cast of hundreds, if not thousands, many of them with complex back stories.

* ''Sisterhood'' series by [[Fern Michaels]]: Okay, let's see. The series starts off with Nikki Quinn, Kathryn Lucas, Isabelle Flanders, Alexis Thorne, Myra Rutledge, Barbara Rutledge (she was killed, but she became a ghost), Julia Webster, Yoko Akia, Charles Martin, and Jack Emery. Then Harry Wong, Mark Lane, Bert Navarro, Ted Robinson, Countess Anne "Annie" Ryland de Silva, and Maggie Spritzer come into the pictures. Then you have Judge Cornelia "Nellie" Easter, Elizabeth "Lizzie" Fox, Pearl Barnes, Cosmo Cricket, Elias Cummings, Paula Woodley, Karl Woodley, Joseph "Joe" Espinosa, Rena Gold, Martine Connor, Henry "Hank" Jellicoe, Little Fish, Stu Franklin, and Abner Tookus. So what we have here is...30 characters! Let's not get started on all the one-shot characters in the series!

 

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

** ''Lost'' has reached the point that it's nearly impossible to jump in to the show having missed a few episodes. Even if you followed the story from the beginning, if you miss 3 or more episodes you'll come back to the show to find a brand new character referencing another character you've never heard of before. Even once you figure out this new character, eventually (probably during a season finale) another character you've never heard of will show up accompanied by dramatic reveal music as the main characters look at them in awe...it turns out that the new character was introduced in a dream sequence in the episode you missed and is crucial to the plot.

* ''[[24]]'' has a vast number of recurring characters. But then again, it needs to, [[Anyone Can Die|given how often new cast members are needed]].

* ''[[The Bill]]'', as of its cancellation had 17 main characters. The police station is arguably number 18. [http://www.thebill.com/personnelfiles/ See here for a list].

* ''[[Carrusel]]'' had a classroom of 20 kids, their teacher, at least 4 other teachers, the principal, the groundskeeper, the kids' parents (most had both), siblings of various kids, and a lot of other friends and random people involved in random plotlines.

** In 1987, Jim Crockett Promotions took over/bought (Nobody seems to know which is the absolute truth) Championship Wrestling from Florida and bought the Universal Wrestling Federation. This gave them four more hours of TV to fill each week. While there were three distinct and separate crews, wrestlers would move over constantly. Late in the year, the UWF shows stopped having their own crews while CWF kept losing importance. At the end of the year, the UWF shows were the same as the JCP shows with different names/intros (UWF was the same as NWA Pro Wrestling and Power Pro Wrestling was the same as NWA World Wide Wrestling. The announcers would only mention "The Wrestling Network" during the shows.), while CWF's B-show (Southern Pro Wrestling) was cancelled and CWF became a NWA Pro Wrestling with localized commentary and a different name/intro. UWF disappeared as 1988 started, PPW disappeared a few weeks later, and CWF stuck around for a few more months.

** In 1998-1999, [[WCW]] was so bloated that it had over ''two hundred'' wrestlers under contract. Things were so mismanaged that some of these wrestlers were never even used on television and essentially got paid for sitting at home doing nothing.

* In its first series, ''[[Downton Abbey]]'' had twenty major characters who appeared in ''every'' episode, with an additional five recurring characters appearing in two to four episodes. Series two is promised to add a least one new regular and three heavily recurring characters.

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' is fifty years old and has a ''ridiculous'' amount of characters. Thankfully, at one time you'll only need to know about maybe five or six max (the Doctor, his companion(s), and any family/friends/recurring characters), plus the one-shot characters for a single episode. But if we were to list every 'main' or major-supporting character the show had ever had, we'd be here all day.

 

 

* ''[[Warrior Cats RPG]]'' has had, over the course of its history, as many as ''100,000'' different characters.

 

* ''[[The Goon Show]]'' had three main cast members, a handful of supporting players (which included the announcer and some of the regular musicians) and a few recurring guest stars. Between them they played something like fifty roles, over thirty of them regulars. The bulk of these were voiced by [[Peter Sellers]] and [[Spike Milligan]], though Milligan claimed he only had so many parts to prevent Sellers from talking to himself.

* ''[[The Archers]]'' - thanks in part to its Extreme [[Long Runner]] status - has a regular character list of about 60, with a couple of dozen appearing each week. Include occasional and silent characters, and you're into the hundreds.

 

 

** If you believe some of the comics that came with the toys, some of those [[Faceless Mooks]] were also sentient.

* ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' is a prime example, due to its [[Merchandise-Driven]] nature. The action figure line featured dozens of characters, almost all of whom appeared on the TV show at some point.

 

 

** In ''Shadow Dragon'', the game practically ''throws'' two to five new units at you every chapter up until halfway through the game. If you manage to recruit everyone, the [[Where Are They Now? Epilogue]] will last nearly two minutes longer than the game's actual credits.

** Though if you go for Gaiden chapters by killing off characters, the epilogue ends up looking like a mass funeral...

** This is actually zig-zagged in the Jugdral series, at least Genealogy of the Holy War. There is no [[Arbitary Head Count Limit]], and while the cast of (playable) characters looks about the average size of a Fire Emblem game, you only get to use about ''half'' at once due to the game's narrative. And even then, of the second half, a good portion of the characters you see on a list are merely substitute characters.

* Squaresoft's (now Square-Enix) ''[[Chrono Cross]]'' featured a cast of 45 playable characters - requiring the player to play through the game at least three times to get them all. Alas, the game only allows 3 characters to fight at a time. That also leads to ending up with a core group you like to use in battle all the time during the later parts of the game to the exclusion of most of the rest of the characters you collected along the way. And it makes outfitting the redundant characters an expensive proposition.

* By the time you get to the end of the final chapter of ''[[Final Fantasy IV: The After Years]]'', you'll have a party of 22 characters to choose from, although nearly half of them won't join you if you skip their chapters, up to 6 of those can be [[Lost Forever]] or [[Killed Off for Real]] even if you ''don't'' skip their chapters, and [[Creepy Doll|2]] of them have next to no dialogue to begin with and are optional anyways.

** The ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' spinoff ''[[Endless Frontier]]'' takes things even further- it's an RPG developed by Namco, taking the characters from the ''[[Original Generation]]'' universe, and crossing ''them'' over with various Namco characters, including original characters from ''their'' crossover strategy title ''[[Namco X Capcom]]'' (Who were, according to the developers, based loosely on original characters from ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'', completing some sort of cycle)

** Notable mention is ''[[Super Robot Wars Alpha]]'' series. ''Alpha 3'' had the largest cast out of ''any'' SRW game and, if we put all the characters from all the timelines, would easily exceed 100 characters ''that are playable''. If we include that NPC's, it would easily exceed 200 or even 300 characters.

* ''[[Mortal Kombat Armageddon]]'' tosses in almost every kharacter from all of the games in the series, including the boss kharacters, giving you over 60 playable characters.

* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' Almost any character that could go from a computer controlled ally combatant to a controllable character later would stop being important to the plot after you finally gain control of them. This was because you could refuse to let them join, later dismiss them, or have them be [[Killed Off for Real]].

** ''[[Dynasty Warriors]] 6'' was a significant step backwards, however.

** The ''[[Dynasty Warriors: Gundam]]'' series not only drew on the loads and loads of [[Franchise/Gundam|Gundam]] characters, there are also loads and loads of Mobile Suits available for the characters to pilot (the second game topped out at 62 suits).

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', with all its characters from the [[Warcraft|precedent series]] and the [[Warcraft Expanded Universe|Expanded Universe]]. Just look at [http://www.wowpedia.org/Major_characters this list] of major characters.

* In the ''[[Backyard Sports]]'' series, there are 30 ([[Brother Chuck|now]] [[Cousin Oliver|22]]) main characters, each with their own theme song, personality, and abilities. And I'm not even mentioning the commentators, the secret kids, and the ''hundreds'' of [[NPC]]s in the game, who all have a name.

* ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'' starts out with eighteen characters [[Closed Circle|stranded in a mansion on an island during a typhoon]]. {{spoiler|Later episodes introduce a cast of witches, servants to the witches, and people living in a [[Bad Future]] that brings the cast up to well over forty people.}}

* The [[Rance]] Series has hundreds as of ''[[Rance Quest]]'' Magnum.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

** Everybody in [http://amr.comicgenesis.com/amr0835.html this strip] has a name and personality, and blood relation with each other. Only the one in the firs panel is part of the core cast.

* ''[[Questionable Content]]'' has a massive cast, leading to [[Chuck Cunningham Syndrome|many characters ending up overlooked]] much of the time. There's Marten and his roommates, as well as other people in the building, the Coffee of Doom workers, Deathmole, various people at the college where Marten works, and even a few robots.

** Even if you only count controllable characters, there are still roughly about 40 <ref>4 kids + Dave's sprite + 12 trolls + Jack + Jack's 3 minions + 4 agents/exiles + 4 Midnight Crew Members = 26 so far. Add in [[Andrew Hussie]], the reader, Snowman, an imp, Maplehoof, Serenity, and various inanimate objects like a piano, a fridge, a hat, a safe, Equius's shades, the sky above LOWAS, and Cal, to make 42.</ref> Unsurprisingly, when the focus returned to the kids, [[Designated Protagonist Syndrome]] ensued for at least a short while but quickly got better.

** The current count tips the scales at over 95 recurring characters. {{spoiler|Even with much of the cast above having been [[Killed Off for Real]].}}

* ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]'' has at ''least'' Bob Smithson, Jean Poule, Molly, Princess Voluptua, Galatea, Snookums, Hibachi, Rocko Sasquatch, Fructose Riboflavin, Agent Ben, Agent Jerry, Djali, Mr. Bystander, Dean Martin, Floyd Fitznewski, Heywood J. Lookathat, Abby Primrose, Ahem, Oogrook/Rainbow Sunshine, the Bear, the Grammar Squirrel, and the Halloween Monster. That's not counting characters who've only appeared in one story so far, like Mook, Goona, Zodboink, or Zippobic...

* ''[[The Insane Quest of Unfathomable Randomness]]'': While the number of characters may not be as large as that or Darwin's Soldiers, it is still fairly sizable. Despite characters occasionally being [[Put on a Bus]] due to player inactivity, the core cast rarely dwindles below twenty, and nearly every seemingly minor NPC introduced by the GM is almost guaranteed to gain a more important role later on. The Character Sheet for the RP currently lists 56 characters and growing.

* Inevitable in ''[[Chaos Fighters]]'' due to every new installment contains entirely new characters, save for a few recurring characters.

* [[YouTube Poop]] is basically this with various random characters appearing out of nowhere.

* With each member having access to at least four characters, [[Marvels RPG]] has ended up with this.

* The ever-growing [[Geodesic Cast]] of [[The Trading Post]].

* ''[[The Gungan Council]]'' has had over 8,000 members, each creating at least one character, with many forever lost due to the site's transfer to Yuku and the ezHack. But that's just the entire site's twelve year history. At any one moment, the current number of characters per faction averages at at least 25 active at the time, not including lurkers, bumping the character count at the time to around 200.

* Being a universe made by dozens of writers, and including the ''entire world'' in that setting, ''[[Metamor Keep]]''.

* ''[[RWBY]]'' from [[Rooster Teeth]] -- as of the end of Volume 3 in 2016, there were 56 named characters with speaking parts.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* [[Wikipedia]] contains expansive entries for forty named characters in ''[[Exo Squad]]'', nine of them in [[The Squad]] alone. And they are not being particularly thorough at that...

* Due to its long run, the number of characters in ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' that could be considered regular is at least 30-50, possibly even more.

** [[The Movie]] managed to in some way, [http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111102131205/simpsons/images/0/0f/The_simpsons.png even if only in a background shot], include almost every single character from the series. Some of the crowd shots were clearly intended to create Easter eggs for the DVD.

* ''[[The Animals of Farthing Wood]]'' has a long list of characters at the beginning of the show. Many more get introduced as the series progresses, but only a handful of the original cast survives the series. (Everybody else has died due to cold, old age, hunters, producers who just cut them out of the show without a single explanation, and others) the 'survivors' are Fox, Weasel,the Rabbits, Owl, the Squirrels and Toad.

* ''[[Recess]]'' has had about 105 characters appear in the series (and only a few of them are included on the character sheet!)

* ''[[Adventure Time]]'' is quickly becoming this trope. The majority of the cast includes one episode appearances like Penny and the Magic Man and background characters like Lollipop Girl and Gumdrop Lass. The show also had the distinction of nearly doubling the entire cast in ''just one episode''. That episode was "Fionna and Cake", in which the main cast and Candy Kingdom residents were all [[Rule 63|genderbent]].

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

** Speak for yourself, [[wikipedia:Eukaryote|multi-cellular scum]]. [[wikipedia:prokaryotes|We]] are vast and [[All Your Base Are Belong to Us|we are in your digestive tract]].

* If you go to a service in a Catholic/Orthodox church, you will hear lots and lots of characters being mentioned. Visit a Protestant one, and you will often hear just about one. This can be pinned down to Protestant churches mainly focusing on Biblical characters, whereas Catholic/Orthodox churches also focus on the saints who lived in the years after the timeline of the New Testament canon.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Acting for Two]]

[[Category:Ensembles]]