History Main / CommutingOnABus

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' has Peridot and Lapis Lazuli. Throughout the second season of the show, the former went from a regular villainous threat, to FireForgedFriend, and eventually an official member of the team after [[CallingTheOldManOut insulting one of her home planet's rulers]] to their face. The latter was the show's [[WakeUpCallBoss first major villain]], who became Steven's friend ([[BecauseYouWereNiceToMe and only Steven's friend]]) as a result of his empathy, making occasional appearances as an AloofAlly trying to keep herself and Steven safe. At beginning of the third season, following the events of the Cluster arc, Peridot and Lapis take residence in the countryside at the Universe family barn. This leaves them out of many episodes, but still close enough for the other characters to visit and interact with.

* Done by necessity with some characters from ''Series/LastOfTheSummerWine'' due to the actors' age catching up with them.

* ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'': Off the Hook have been all over the place, going from prominent supporting cast characters in ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'', to main characters in the Octo Expansion DLC, to [[OutOfFocus bit parts]] in ''VideoGame/Splatoon3'', then back to main characters for its DLC. While the Squid Sisters and DJ Octavio are usually main characters, they are mostly absent from the Octo Expansion, appearing only in pictures and a text-only cameo from Marie after collecting every Mem Cake.

* Lilith from ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' was the ArcVillain of Season 1, and after pulling a HeelFaceTurn in the season finale, moved into the Owl House. However, she moved back out after only a few episodes to go live with her parents again, leaving the main cast. Despite this, "Knock Knock Knockin On Hooty's Door" reveals that she's remained pen pals with Hooty, she returned briefly in "Elsewhere and Elsewhen" to go on a solo-adventure with Luz, and she re-joined the main cast in "Edge of the World" in preparation for the Season 2 finale.

* John in ''Webcomic/OutThere''. He certainly ''seems'' like a main character during the strip's initial 6-7 months (he's in almost every strip), but once he and Miriam reach Portstown, we start to see him far less frequently; sometimes several weeks will go by between his appearances.

* Pike on ''WebVideo/CriticalRole''. Her player, Creator/AshleyJohnson, is more of a mainstream celebrity than the other gamers and is often in New York filming ''Series/{{Blindspot}}'', so the character is often separate from the group, staying behind at local temples while the rest of the team goes off on their quests. When Ashley has time to make an appearance, either via Skype or in person, the crew either go to Pike's location to pick her up or she comes in via AstralProjection.
** In the second season of the show, Ashley's new character Yasha is given the character trait of occasionally leaving the party without warning in the dead of night, only to randomly turn up later wherever they happen to be, adding an air of mystery to the character while still working with Ashley's schedule.

* Luanne on ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' was in nearly all the episodes for the first three seasons. When she moved into her own house midway through the fourth season she was quietly changed to a recurring character, often not appearing for weeks unless the episode was specifically focused on her. Later on in the series she was upgraded again and became a semi-regular, appearing in about half the episodes.
* In seasons four and five of ''WesternAnimation/VoltronLegendaryDefender'', Keith only appears in five episodes (three in season 4 and two in season 5, excluding non-speaking appearances) due to him temporarily leaving Team Voltron to join the Blade of Marmora.
* After a season of buildup, Launchpad decides to do this in ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'' -- helping the [=McDuck=] clan in the daytime, and teaming up with [[WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck DW and Gosalyn]] at night. One could only imagine what will happen to his [[CaptainCrash crash tally]] going between Duckburg and St. Canard.
* Despite being an anthology series, ''WesternAnimation/InfinityTrain'' has three characters that function under this trope: One-One, Amelia, and The Cat. One-One was a main character in Book 1, Amelia was [[spoiler:the main antagonist of Book 1]], and The Cat was a major supporting character in Book 1. All three of them would go on to make appearances in future seasons to varying degrees of importance, but The Cat is the only one to show up in every season.

* ''Series/BetterCallSaul'': Howard Hamlin is something of a foil to Jimmy, Kim's boss, Chuck’s law partner and a major supporting character for the first three seasons. After [[spoiler: Kim leaving his firm and Chuck dying]] seasons 4 and 5 find his role greatly reduced to appearing in about half the episodes, usually for only one scene.

** After Jack Harkness left the TARDIS and subsequently joined Series/{{Torchwood}}, he made return appearances in the third and fourth series' season finales. Most recently .

* ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'': Both Mika and Seiji hardly intervene in the plot by the end of the first half of the first season and the first part of the second one… [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in the second part when Mika [[spoiler:reveals that she is aware of every plot that the characters are involved and deliberately avoid them in order to not put Seiji and herself in danger, [[StatusQuoIsGod to enjoy the peaceful life of keep being secondary characters]]. However due to Seiji's uncle becoming one of the BigBad of the second season, both of them along with Namie get the spotlight again.]]

* Wrestling/{{WWE}} wrestler Wrestling/TheUndertaker is one of the company's biggest names and has spent over twenty years with the company, but as time has gone on his screen time has been scaled back considerably, [[RealLifeWritesThePlot due to the multitude of lingering injuries he's picked up over his career]]. In general it seems he's pretty much limited to showing up during the build to ''Wrestling/{{WrestleMania}}'', where he will put his undefeated streak at that event on the line against some other big-name talent, with some other sporadic appearances throughout the year. Given how popular he is, and the fact that his recent matches at ''[=Wrestlemania=]'' have been [[JustHereForGodzilla generally considered the best matches of the show]], fans tend not to have a problem with this.

* All the Chosen Children from ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'' in ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02'', except for Hikari and Takeru, appear only occasionally because for most of the season their Digimon couldn't evolve through natural means (the protagonists used Digimentals to Armor Evolve). Mimi also moved to New York and Jou went through high school entrance exams. [[spoiler:Though Mimi's moving away became an important plot device as it helped introducing one of the foreign Chosen Children.]]

* ''VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters'' pushes the protagonist of the previous arc into this role for the following arc. Kyo's importance to the plot during the Orochi saga was downgraded to make room for K' in the NESTS saga and then K' himself moved down to make way for Ash Crimson in the Tales of Ash arc. After being demoted the character continues to add to the story (Kyo was used as a base for a series of clones in the NESTS arc and K' got to fight Mukai in ''2003'') but it's the current main character who gets the spotlight and wraps up the saga. [[spoiler:This was initially subverted with the end of the Tales of Ash arc in ''XIII'' when Ash removed himself from time at the end of the game, but he is later brought back at the end of Team Official Invitation's story mode in ''XIV'' and became playable again in ''XV''.]]
* Most of the supporting cast from the ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' series has gotten this treatment. This trend began after the much-reviled ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'', after which Sega shifted from its large cast approach to having Sonic as the only playable character, with Tails as support and Dr. Eggman as the primary antagonist. The supporting cast eventually returned as [=NPCs=] in ''VideoGame/SonicGenerations'' and ''VideoGame/SonicForces''. ''VideoGame/SonicBoom'' had a few series staples, it was still scaled back compared to the two ''Sonic Adventure'' games.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'': Both Mika and Seiji hardly intervene in the plot by the end of the first half of the first season and the first part of the second one… [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in the second part when Mika [[spoiler:reveals that she is aware of every plot that the characters are involved and deliberately avoid them in order to not put Seiji and herself in danger, [[StatusQuoIsGod to enjoy the peaceful life of keep being secondary characters]]. However due to Seiji’s uncle becoming one of the BigBad of the second season, both of them along with Namie get the spotlight again.]]

* After Creator/KateySegal's tragic miscarriage on ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'', where [[RealLifeWritesThePlot the producers had written her pregnancy into the storyline]] before being [[AllJustADream being forced to backtrack]], the character of Peg Bundy was instead subjected to this trope during the second and third times Segal became pregnant during the show's run. Both times, Peggy was sent out in search of her missing father, and was only shown in voiceovers talking to her family on the telephone, or only shown in scenes where she didn't have to do anything strenuous and the viewers couldn't see her pregnancy. Happily, Segal's later two pregnancies were both successful, and when she was ready to return to work the producers brought Peggy home, much to Al's chagrin.

* ''Series/{{Mash}}'': Gary Burghoff decided to leave the series at the end of the 7th season to spend more time with his family but was convinced to return for a two part episode in season 8 to wrap up his character's time on the series before [[PutOnABus going back to Iowa]]. While he was mentioned a few times and the character kept in touch with the people at the 4077, this marked the end of Radar's time on M*A*S*H.

* Team Rocket appeared less in the ''Best Wishes'' iteration of the ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' anime, as they TookALevelInBadass and stopped [[GoldfishPoopGang trying to try another half-baked plan every episode]]. They became more prominent again after returning to their comical forms, though still remain absent in occasional episodes to allow Ash's team to remain more proactive.

** This eventually got downplayed in the last 2-3 seasons as the show realised that McCoy and Captain Van Buren made a good team and it was pretty easy to come up with episodes where the two had to deal with something that's above the main team's paygrade.

* All the Digidestined from ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'' in ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02'', except for Kari and T.K., appear only occasionally because for most of the season their Digimon couldn't Digivolve through natural means (the protagonists used Digi-Eggs to Digivolve). Mimi also moved to New York and Joe went through high school entrance exams. [[spoiler:Though Mimi's moving away became an important plot device as it helped introducing the foreign Digidestined.]]

** Bulma was the ''co-lead'' in the original ''Manga/DragonBall'', then got shoved OutOfFocus with the rest of the human cast and never really had the same level of importance. Downplayed from the Namek to Cell sagas in ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' where she has a bigger part. She also plays a prominent role once Beerus and Whis show up in ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', functioning as their main supplier of delicious food and reason for not blowing up Earth. It works.

* Starting with the fifth installment of ''VideoGame/MarioParty'', Franchise/DonkeyKong was demoted from a playable character to a star-giving NPC. He only returned to playable status in ''Mario Party 10'', over a decade later.
** After a temporary promotion to playable character for the fifth and sixth installments, Koopa Kid was demoted back down to NPC for the seventh and disappearing completely after that, his role being handed over to Bowser Jr.

* In ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'', the Leviathan group of monsters was introduced in ''Monster Hunter 3 (tri-)'', and made subsequent apperances in the spinoff ''Monster Hunter Portable 3rd'' and the UpdatedRerelease of ''tri-'', ''Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate''. Since then they've come and gone with pretty much every set of games: they were excluded from ''Monster Hunter 4'' and ''4 Ultimate'', brought back in ''Monster Hunter Generations'' and ''Generations Ultimate'', excluded again from ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterWorld'' and ''World: Iceborne'', before returning again in ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterRise''.

* Arguably, John in ''Webcomic/OutThere''. He certainly ''seems'' like a main character during the strip's initial 6-7 months (he's in almost every strip), but once he and Miriam reach Portstown, we start to see him far less frequently; sometimes several weeks will go by between his appearances.
** The latter can be said for ''all'' the other characters aside from Miriam, though; the only difference is John's first "co-starring" arc is at the very beginning of the strip, and lasts for a long time. It seems to establish him as a main character when perhaps all it ''really'' establishes is the pattern of long arcs starring Miriam and one of her supporting characters. Sherry, for instance, has a co-starring arc of about the same length a year later.
* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': Vriska and Tavros became this since [[spoiler:they died.]] They still show up occasionally, but much, much less than they used to, particularly in the case of Vriska, who was something of a SpotlightStealingSquad for a while. Also, the exiles had a fairly big role early in the comic, but slowly drifted further and further OutOfFocus until WV and PM probably fill this trope now.