Secondary Characters You Love But No One Really Care About Them

[Solister]

Creating a successful media franchise isn't an easy step, but making your main character remarkable between fans is, somewhat, easier. However, every hero needs a sidekick, those who may never be remember by most. So the idea of this topic is exactly this, tell which character you simply love that no one really cares about them, even making you their biggest connoisseur:

• Jyn Erso (Star Wars)

Starting up with a pretty easy choice from my side, Jyn Erso is my favorite Star Wars character just behind Han Solo but certainly is a very example of this topic. With nearly no relation with any other character from the main franchise, Jyn Erso was the responsible for stealing the first Death Star plans from the Empire and giving them to the Rebel Alliance. Her personality is remarkable for being an independent girl and who can be as strong as many of the males protagonist of the series. As the release of Rogue One, not much newcomers were interested in the movie, something which made the movie being ignored by a great amount of persons as well all it had to show of best. Sadly for them, this is my favorite Star Wars movie of all time.

Short Round (Indiana Jones)

Still talking about Lucasfilm, Short Round is one of the very few things we can say it worked on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Once again, a very peculiar charismatic character in the franchise which for me, makes one of the few reasons to still want to watch Temple of Doom. A few people also says Short Round is the sidekick Indiana Jones needs and deserve for his adventures. Thankfully enough, rumors point he'll be back as an adult version for Indiana Jones 5.

• Charmy Bee (Sonic the Hedgehog)

Moving up to our common grounds, I knew I could take someone from the Sonic series and Charmy proof to be the perfect one. I know there's a very few who like him but also a huge majority who dislike him. Well, I must say he has a few defects but at all, specially taking his Knuckles' Chaotix Core, I think he could have a proper personality specially as a friendly and even some anti-hero character. I think he is a character very unexplored, I thought on choosing other ones, including TIkal, Sticks and even Blaze but Charmy I think was the best for this selection and one of the least remembered too. Also considered Tails, but I guess was very cliche and pretty loved at all.

• A.J. (The Fairly OddParents)

Closing up this list, I think this was the first character I thought regarding this subject. In the series, A.J. is the smartest boy of the class as well Timmy's best friend alongside of Chester. I can't say as the other characters mentioned in the list he had much more potential than what he already does in the series but I think he is someone pretty forgettable for all his skills. Maybe I could say he could be a bit more recurrent in the series but as the way he already is and maybe even being nearer to Timmy as much as the Fairies already are.

Well, I think that's all from my part. Do you also have a character who no one really cares but you admire them as much or even more as the series main protagonist? If so, who?

[DabigRG]

It seems you may be a tad confused about what exactly constitutes a sidekick, secondary, or supporting character.

• Jyn only really qualifies with the knowledge that she's a side character in a bigger series, but is otherwise the protagonist of her particular story.
• Short Round is definitely a main sidekick and thus doesn't fit in with the other two categories.
• But the others do.

[Multikaris]

Dr. Nigel Channing - Journey into Imagination. If executed better, he would be a perfect straight man and/or audience surrogate. As he stands, he's fine, but add Dreamfinder and he'll be perfect. Having him go through the original events would be nice too.

 

Various - Puyo Puyo series. These include Tartar (the fat student at Primp Magic School who hasn't been prominent since Fever 2), Chico (the somewhat catlike elf shamaness who hasn't been prominent since Box), Kikimora (the maid) and even more minor characters like Lala, Scylla, Mandrake, Jaan, etc. They could have made nice more re-occurring NPCs even if not selectable. Special mention goes to Minotauros and Baldanders, with whom it was a big missed opportunity to have them alongside their masters much like Carby and Popoi.

[Solister]

6 hours ago, DabigRG said:

It seems you may be a tad confused about what exactly constitutes a sidekick, secondary, or supporting character.

• Jyn only really qualifies with the knowledge that she's a side character in a bigger series, but is otherwise the protagonist of her particular story.
• Short Round is definitely a main sidekick and thus doesn't fit in with the other two categories.
• But the others do.

I actually knew it had a difference but couldn't find a better term to use. By this, I meant anyone who aren't the main protagonist of a series or direct related to it. Eg. Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog Series), Any Simpson (The Simpsons) and from the topic Any Skywalker (Star Wars), Indiana Jones or any of the Indy Girls (Indiana Jones), Sonic as already mentioned and no one who aren't Timmy or Cosmo and Wanda (The Fairly OddParents).

As you mentioned, I took Jyn as a perspective of the whole saga. I don't think Short Round already is the sidekick of Indy but at least I guess this is a common sense between the fanbase.

Btw, sorry for any misinterpretation and thanks for the reply .

[DabigRG]

7 minutes ago, Solister said:

I actually knew it had a difference but couldn't find a better term to use. By this, I meant anyone who aren't the main protagonist of a series or direct related to it. Eg. Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog Series), Any Simpson (The Simpsons) and from the topic Any Skywalker (Star Wars), Indiana Jones or any of the Indy Girls (Indiana Jones), Sonic as already mentioned and no one who aren't Timmy or Cosmo and Wanda (The Fairly OddParents).

As you mentioned, I took Jyn as a perspective of the whole saga. I don't think Short Round already is the sidekick of Indy but at least I guess this is a common sense between the fanbase.

Btw, sorry for any misinterpretation and thanks for the reply .

So, an Ensemble Darkhorse? 

[Solister]

3 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

So, an Ensemble Darkhorse? 

Yeah it's a similar concept (Which honestly, I even knew this term existed until now. It doesn't even have a correspondent expression in my home language). Except for the fact my examples generally don't get that popular. (With Short Round being the only exception, maybe).

[Tori Himemiya]

(Wow it feels like its been a while since I last posted anything significant but I digress)

I've been been thinking about characters that fit this topic's definition for a bit and I might have a few actually. It might come to a (un)surprise for people who've known me for a while. But this is going to be a ranty of a post so be prepared to read a lot.

 

Amane Nishiki - Blazblue series

Blazblue is a big fighting game series, with a massive roster (not to KoF's extent mind you) so naturally there's a few characters that largely get ignored for others. Amane just so happened to be one of them. Part of it because he's (yes he) a character who's written as trying to avoid conflict as much as possible, choosing to observing it over interfering so he's not terribly active in the plot compared to other characters despite the implications that he's a lot more important that he appears to be. Yes some characters aren't as much as plot important as Amane but there's something that gets him ignored by everyone else. Maybe its the fact we barely know anything about the man, maybe its not appealing to a fight in a pink kimono, or it could mostly due to how ineffective [gameplay wise] he has been in his debut. He gets better in the next game, both gameplay and plot wise but he still has the smallest player base out of any character to the point where its non-existent.

So why do I attach myself to this character so much? I just really love fun characters and Amane is one of them. I really like his design, being able to kick so much ass while wearing a pink kimono really gets a lot of points from me. His fighting style, while hard to master, is also one of the most unique in the series, if not in fighting games in general. He fights with a shape shifting kimono which range from him slapping the opponent with his sleeves like a whip to flat out making a top with his shawl. If you slow down the game and watch his animations you'll see how much fun and detail they put in them, almost reminds me of how Darkstalkers was animated. He's also a weird zoner where he has long range normal moves but what particularly made him ineffective is that most of his moves have some kind of "dead zone" to them so you could be missing an opponent when they're right in front of you which means you have to play mind games with your opponent to be effective. Also his Drill attacks focus on chip damage that you could be doing more damage on the block than hitting normally and its just so much fun trying to pressure an opponent with his fighting style.

But as the actual character himself, Amane is really fun despite making very little appearances. He is a kabuki actor after all and he shows it by being over the top as possible as I mentioned with his animations and the fact that in his winposes he quickly changes into a fancier kimono with his theater group cheering him on, lights and all. He's vain, he's silly, and surprisingly he's actually pretty sage as he gave advice to other characters when he passes them in the story. But even then he's the most mysterious character in the series and I do want to know more about him, though it seems like it might stay that way for a while. I do wish he was more involved with the story but he is at least trying to get more screentime as shown in Centralfiction where he reactivates Takamagahara System in his Arcade for starters.

Spoiler

And then at the very end of the story Amane is actually the last person protagonist Ragna talks to before the latter erases himself from the world to protect it. This is a major scene too as you'd guess.

At the end of the day Amane is one of my favorite characters of all time despite his unpopularity. Just by being a fun character like him not only made me take fighting games more seriously but in a way Amane did help me discover myself more. He was the push for me to actually start being a crossdresser funny enough; Its something I always wanted to do because I was a huge fan of the famous j-rocker Mana-sama of Malice Mizer and Moi Dix Mois fame but being a fan of Amane really made me consider it more seriously. And he made me into a big fan of Akira Ishida, his Japanese voice actor, as well. Yeah people might just write him off as an ineffective fighting game character who exists as a big walking gay joke but he's really more to me. He's that one character that no one likes beyond the very niche few. But its nice to have something you can call your own huh?

And one very last thing; Amane has the funniest and cutest Astral Finish in the series

Yuri Ishigome (and the rest of Glitter*Green) - BanG Dream series

First off from left to right Yuri Ushigome (vocal, guitar), Rii Uzawa (bass), Nanana Wanibe (keyboard), Hinako Nijikki (drums). Now that we established the band, time to get into it a bit more. Glitter*Green [aka GuriGuri] is one the many bands in Bandori but they've been pretty overshadowed the other bands, mostly due to not being a part of Girls Band Party, the mobile game that got the franchise off the ground. In the anime, which serves as an origin story for the main band Poppin' Party, they are the first band that's not only introduced but the first band that performs. They serve to be the inspiration for Kasumi and Poppin' Party as a whole but unfortunately due to limited screentime they only have very limited roles due to that. Yuri is Rimi's sister and supports her as much as possible, Rii and Hinako have fun personalities with the former working in a music store, and Nanana is the school president who's living a double life if you think about it. They actually sound interesting on paper but they really don't get much focus and Yuri is the most relevant one due to being one of the main characters' sister, even then she really feels like she's there to be Rimi's sister. They're not an "official" band because again they're left out of Girls Band Party and while this also applies to Raise A Suilen, the latter gets more than GuriGuri due to being both the band that allows a way for the other bands to perform live in real life but they're also a big part of the anime's second season on top of getting more singles released. RAS even has a very dedicated fan following behind them too which GuriGuri doesn't have despite their impact in the story. So to explain why I like them so much let's first start with the obvious. They're pretty good.

"Don't be Afraid" is again the first song ever played in the series, even before the Opening which plays at the end of the episode. Its a really good song and you can see why Kasumi fell in love with music by hearing it. GuriGuri only has 2 songs under their belt (3 if you count a certain cover song but we'll get into it in a bit) but they make the most of what they have. I still think their performance at the start of the anime is one of the more memorable parts of the series. I also think that picking green outfits also make them stand out more to the other bands as well. This song has been featured in GBP at least, being one of the harder songs on Expert due to its big scales, so its nice Bushiroad gave them a bone even if they don't properly appear in the game.

Their other song "Glee! Glee! Glee!" isn't half bad either but apparently they did played it in the last episode of season 1. I just don't remember it because its really been a while. I'm not knocking points off for that but its a really good song regardless. However its not featured in GBP like "Don't be Afraid" has been which is probably why I don't remember it as much. But that's all they get unfortunately unless you count them doing a cover of Milky Holmes' opening, "Seikai wa Hitotsu! Janai!!" which they do with Kasumi.

You're probably wondering why I'm linking to the original opening and NOT the cover. Well this is actually the important but funny mythology gag on Bushiroad's part. You see Glitter*Green's voice actors are all the same as the Milky Holmes crew which means they're all singing here. Yeah the cover does has Kasumi's (Aimi's) singing in it but yeah they really wanted to reference their previous big roles. And interesting enough this song in Bandori was my first step to getting into the more harder difficulties, being the first Hard song I full combo'd. Its still a very catchy song.

However I think I see the problems that leads to Bushiroad not wanting to add more to Glitter*Green. The first is that they're more on the jpop side of things which means they have overlap with the other jpop band Poppin' Party who's also the main band. Secondly as I mentioned their voice actors have been in a major starring role in one of Bushiroad's franchises and yes they have done lives as Milky Holmes so they most likely don't want to redo the same thing again and want to have something new that isn't another Milky Holmes. And lastly is the said voice actors are pretty famous that they might be too expensive and/or busy to perform. Izumi Kitta (Rii) and Mikoi Sasaki (Nanana) may be more exclusive to Bushiroad's series but Suzuko Mimori (Yuri) and Sora Tokui (Hinako) are pretty famous due to being both Umi Sonoda and Nico Yazawa respectively from the Love Live! which is really popular as you'd expect. That might just be the biggest factor since they've been busy ever since as they've been getting more roles from their popularity. It would also explain their absence from Bandori's second season as well.

Still though I like to joke that I'm the only Glitter*Green fan on earth but it sucks they don't have too much screentime. From what I've seen from them in the anime they're pretty fun characters. I wish we saw more because I feel like they could have more potential here and there than just being PoPiPa's main inspiration and Yuri being Rimi's sister. Its still nice to see Yuri making cameos at least, even if she feels too attached to Rimi's hip since she only appears on her cards. Still they left quite an impact for being the first episode band.

That's all I can think of that fits the topic a bit. I might be fishing at the bottom of the barrel but I got nothing other than those two examples. I'm sorry if I did end up talking a lot about these characters but I had to sell them somehow. But hey it was fun talking about things again, even its about stuff people don't care about. Some characters do need more love out there after all.