Reused Character Design: Difference between revisions

* The former [[Trope Namer]] here is taken from the Star System, the name given to the collection of characters who features prominently throughout the career of [[Osamu Tezuka]]. These characters include:

** Acetyle Lamp - Short, stocky bald guy with a pencil moustache and a dent in the back of his head. Usually plays a cowardly, two-faced con man and other dishonest types; Tezuka frequently draws a lit candle sitting in the dent.

** Duke Red - Noticeable for his big hooked nose; often appeared as a villain.

** Gourdski / Patch-Gourd - Tezuka's "trademark", and a gag-item/character; a small, pig-like, patched-together gourd.

** Professor Ochanomizu - A large-nosed, heavy-set professor, dubbed Professor Elephun in an early dub of [[Astro Boy]], Prof. Ochi is almost always portrayed as a learned, wise man.

** Saruta - Looks like Ochanomizu, but differs in that his nose is usually covered with pimples, and he sports a beard.

** Atom- [[Astro Boy]] himself appears in different roles in a couple of Tezuka's works. Most notably, he makes a cameo in one series as little boy who ends up getting stabbed. Tezuka wanted to shock readers by presenting Astro as a human instead of a robot in this story and having him bleed to death; the response from readers was tremendous, and the story remains controversial.

** Osamu Tezuka - Tezuka often drew a caricature of himself into his stories. When he wasn't representing the author and speaking directly to readers, he would play a down-on-his-luck artist or similarly pathetic figure.

*** Tezuka actually kept a list of how much money the actors in his "troupe" were paid for each "performance." He would periodically give them "raises" or "pay cuts" based on their popularity with fans. It was his whimsical way of keeping track of what characters his readers liked.

* [[Hayao Miyazaki]] also has accumulated a fairly large number of recurring castmembers, though, unlike Tezuka, they have no set names (at least, none known to the public). Some of the most notable include:

** [[Castle in The Sky|Dola]] - Introduced in ''[[Castle in The Sky]]'', she has appeared over the years as bit characters, but recently starred as Old Sophie in ''[[Film/Howls Moving Castle|Howls Moving Castle]]''.

** [[Spirited Away|Kamaji]] - Originally introduced as the old engineer of Dola's ship in [[Castle in The Sky]], as well as Dola's husband, he was given a name in his role in [[Spirited Away]]. He is recognizable for his sunglasses and extremely large mustache (some people think he inspired [[Sonic the Hedgehog|Dr. Robotnik/Eggman]]).

** [[Spirited Away|Yubaba]] - a relative newcomer to the Miyazaki gallery, she seems to always be represented as a witch with an extremely large head. She also appeared in ''[[Film/Howls Moving Castle|Howls Moving Castle]]''.

** [[Castle in The Sky|Charles]] - a fairly regular comic-relief character; most notably appeared as one of the Ironworks' men in [[Princess Mononoke]], aside from his supporting role in [[Castle in The Sky]].

** [[Future Boy Conan|Lepka]] / [[Castle in The Sky|Muska]], the square-jawed megalomaniac [[Big Bad]].

** Soot Spirits - Introduced in [[My Neighbor Totoro]], but have also been featured in other Miyazaki works, most notably [[Spirited Away]].

** [[Galaxy Express 999|Tadashi Daiba]] also makes frequent appearances, usually as a young, upstart young man who grows and matures over the course of the series.

* Hiroyuki Takei of ''[[Shaman King]]'' directly referenced this trope when the U.S. Shonen Jump interviewed him and asked him about Anna Kyouyama's appearances in ''Shaman King,'' ''Butsu Zone'' and ''Itako no Anna.''

** He also likes to play around with personality. Take Shun, [[The Fettered]], emotional, [[Reluctant Warrior]] of [[Saint Seiya]], and compare him with the previous character to use the design, ''Fuma no Kojiro'' 's Kirikaze - a cold, restrained ninja who never hesitated to kill when called to.

** Shogun looks like Martin with longer hair.

** Dr Abullah is the persian cousin of God.

*** And Nina looks strikingly similar to [[Twentieth Century Boys|Kanna]] herself.

* [[Go Nagai]] also does this, which probably helps when you've made hundreds of manga.

** Abashiri Daemon - originally from ''[[Abashiri Ikka]]'', also appears in ''[[Cutey Honey]]'' and ''[[UFO Robot Grendizer]]''.

** You may see similiarities between many of his protagonists - for example Mondo from ''Guriella High'' looks almost exactly like [[Devilman|Akira Fudou]]

* Some of female protagonists from [[Juni Itou]] stories looks almost identical, like [[Hellstar Remina|Remina]] and [[Gyo|Kaori]].

* Adachi Mitsuru has created numerous unrelated short stories since 1978 featuring a small repertory company of a dozen or so characters. Originally published as standalone stories in various manga magazines they have since been compiled into a four volume collection ''[http://www.mangafox.com/manga/short_program/ Short Program]''.

== Video Games ==

* Kenji Eno did this with the video games ''D'', ''Enemy Zero'', and ''D2''.

* [[Hideo Kojima]] likes to play with this. Meryl Silverburgh (a female soldier with a hidden feminine side) was originally a character from ''[[Policenauts]]'', but a younger version of her is also in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' as Snake's love interest. Pettrovich Madnar, a Russian mad scientist who develops robots, was ported from ''[[Metal Gear]]'' to ''[[Snatcher]]'' and back again to ''[[Metal Gear]] 2''. Peter Stillman in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 2'' was originally supposed to be Ed Brown from ''[[Policenauts]]'', but Kojima decided against it at the last moment (although their character designs and personalities remain extremely similar), and instead had Ed and his partner Jonathan as soldiers backing up Meryl in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 4''. There's also Metal Gear itself, which is a huge nuclear robot in ''[[Metal Gear]]'', gets ported to ''[[Snatcher]]'' as Gillian's sapient [[Robot Buddy]], Metal Gear Mk. II, which was then taken back to its home canon in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 4'' where it acts as backup for Snake, controlled by Otacon. To play into the joke, there's a sequence in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 4'' in which Kojima dresses Snake up as Gillian.

** Other than Forrest Kaysen, General Douglas Lysander made an appearance in ''Spy Fiction'' as a Revolver Ocelot Expy, and then later appeared again in ''Deadly Premonition'', not as an antagonist, but a scrapyard owner who seems to have an ominous past. Said ominous past {{spoiler|does not involve the events in the game at all, and turns out to be war stories about a "Crybaby Timothy", whom he claimed to hate. After getting all of the parts necessary to fix your car, he reveals [[Survivor Guilt|why he always wears a Sargeant Uniform and not a General's]]}}.

** Scarlet Foxfire - The sentient alien/biomechanical fursuit.

** Jim Goodlow - Appears as a cartoonist once, the other time as a [[Straight Gay]] cop. He's the guy in Scarlet. ([[Squick|Ick]])

** Pippikin - A bunny fursuit much like Scarlet. He typically appears as a [[Complete Monster]] who takes over the minds of his hosts and engages in sexual debauchery, but has one incarnation where he's good.

** Davey/Eric/Etc Crockett - The standard [[Mary Sue|self insert]] of infamy. Typically ends up thrown into another world, and becomes [[Mighty Whitey]] or a furry or both.

** There's also an android [[Sex Bot]] that he reuses with a variety of names.

* European animated series ''Il Etait une Fois l'Homme'' tells the entire history of humanity using the same small roster of characters taking up all the roles of famous (and not-so-famous) people who made up history, from the creation of earth all the way to a theoretical [[Bad Future]] as a final environmental aesop.

** The same roster also forms the core of the expanded cast for the sci-fi animation ''Il Etait une Fois l'Espace''.

* In [[Time Masters]], the character Jaffar has the face of Lieutenant [[Blueberry]].