Demoted To Extra / Anime & Manga

Dragon Ball

• This trope can be applied to any character of the entire Dragon Ball franchise that isn't Goku or Vegeta in GT and Super due to the fact that other characters Can't Catch Up. It's so bad that this trope might as well be called "Dragon Ball Demotion". There are some characters that did have a return to the spotlight in Dragon Ball Super though, especially in the Tournament Arc.
  • One of the worst cases being Lunch/Launch, who acted as the secondary heroine of the original Dragon Ball series (next to Bulma) for a time. At the beginning of the Saiyan saga (the first saga of Dragon Ball Z), her absence was Hand Waved, and she was never mentioned again, at least in the manga. She was planned to make one final appearance near the end of the series, but this never came to fruition, as by that point Akira Toriyama had forgotten what she looked like. At least the anime seemed to remember her, and she made several appearances throughout the Saiyan saga, mostly in side-stories though. After she's seen getting drunk in a bar towards the end of the arc, she's hardly ever seen again other than in a few flashbacks, a brief still frame in the Frieza saga, and a brief scene towards the end of the series supporting Goku.
  • Yamcha was the first recurring villain in the first manga and Goku's first true rival (predating Vegeta, Piccolo, Tien, and Krillin), yet he was quickly reduced to a joke character and treated as little more than background noise after the Frieza saga. Or well before that: he never went past the quarterfinals in a tournament (Krillin did twice), didn't do anything for most of the second Dragon Ball hunt, and when he finally fought, he won against the Invisible Man with outside help (admittedly, his enemy had that too) and lost to an opponent Goku defeated without trying at all. Then he spent the Piccolo Daimaoh saga with a broken leg. And in the 23rd World Tournament he broke his balls on a disguised guardian of Earth. In the Saiyan saga, he had the dubious distinction of being the one character killed by a Saibaman, as dramatic as his death was. He also originally served as the love interest for Bulma, but in Dragon Ball Z gets replaced as soon as Vegeta decides that Earth isn't so bad after all.
  • Tien Shinhan counts as well. Introduced as a powerful and serious character whose strength and drive were admired by the other characters, and the only character who could put up a fight against Goku he was demoted to background noise during the Frieza Saga. He regained his importance in the Cell Saga and did make appearances during the Buu Saga and GT, but they were few and far between. The same could be said about his companion, Chiaotzu, who appeared prominently in Dragon Ball, and was a notable character in Z during the Saiyan saga (where he even got his own Moment of Awesome!) before he's reduced to a minor character for the remainder of the franchise.
  • Gohan, who played a key role in every saga of Dragon Ball Z (he was the hero of the Cell saga and was even intended to become the main character after Goku died), in Dragon Ball GT is reduced to being a secondary character that ends up being defeated every time he jumps into action. He only receives appropriate focus when taken over by Baby and when Piccolo dies but those are very small instances.
  • Piccolo also suffers this fate in Dragon Ball GT where he only makes 4 appearances, despite being a major character since the end of Dragon Ball (though his role was starting to dwindle towards the end of DBZ). He does provide many of the best moments in DBGT though.
  • Krillin, who managed to remain an important character during the Frieza and Cell sagas despite being far surpassed in power by almost everyone, is demoted in the Majin Buu saga where he doesn't do much but is there. His role gets even smaller in Dragon Ball GT where he makes fewer appearances. The importance of his character to the series as a whole is acknowledged in the last episode, though.
  • Android 18 was a major villain in the Android saga of DBZ (though her true villain status is debatable) before she falls into a relationship with Krillin, and becomes more of a good guy, and appears in a slightly reduced role (though still a fighter) in the Buu arc. Her role in DBGT however was mostly limited to a few brief cameos before she finally got her own Moment of Awesome in the Super 17 arc. Afterwords, she's hardly even mentioned ever again.
  • Master Roshi was originally portrayed as an Old Master and arguably the strongest character in the series. By the end of Dragon Ball, Goku and the others shot light years ahead of him in terms of power, and poor old Roshi was reduced to a background comic relief character and a Dirty Old Man who never fought again (outside of a couple of brief awesome moments in the movies).
  • Bulma gets this both over the course of the series and through adaptions:
    • She was actually the co-lead alongside Goku at the beginning of Dragon Ball. Her gadgets and knowledge were indispensable, and she played a vital role in many of the earlier adventures of the series. She remained a prominent character throughout Dragon Ball and the beginning of Dragon Ball Z before her role progressively gets smaller and smaller before it's reduced to a side character in DBGT.
    • Bulma's role in the manga version of Future Trunks saga in Dragon Ball Super is significantly reduced compared to anime version- she does not accompany them to the future nor does she play a role in using an alternative time machine since it's never destroyed, due to Black not returning to the past to fight Goku.
  • Oolong the shape-shifting pig was the first character in the series to do a Heel–Face Turn, was a major character at the beginning of Dragon Ball, and he actually saved the day at the end of the very first arc. After that, he was quickly forgotten, though he continued to make minor appearances throughout DBZ.
  • Puar also started out as a major character, assisting Yamcha wherever he went. After the first arc however, her role became very minor overall, and was completely absent from DBGT.
  • Chi-Chi's role as a kid was limited, but as an adult, she got to fight in a world tournament, and appeared very prominently in DBZ as the overbearing and temperamental mother. Around the time the Buu arc got rolling, her role got a little smaller, and by the time DBGT came rolling around, she only made a few appearances.
  • Videl had a major role in the last arc of DBZ, where she was not only a focus character and fighter, she was also a Love Interest for Gohan. It was not to last however. Though her somewhat reduced role as an adult in the last few episodes in DBZ was a stepping stone, the size of her role dropped off so quickly in DBGT that her voice actress did not want to reprise her role.
  • Trunks was nearly exempt from this, since unlike most of the cast, he actually had a decent role in Dragon Ball GT, though only the first half of it. The second half of the series saw him appear less and less until he pretty much stopped appearing at all. In Dragon Ball Super he and Goten had it so bad that Toriyama forgot to age them up and as a result Trunks looked the exact same as he did in Z despite being older than his counterpart was in Dragon Ball Z: The History of Trunks. However, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero corrected this, finally aging the two up and pulling them off the bench.
  • Averted with Vegeta since he was also originally planned to have a greatly reduced role in Dragon Ball GT, and only made a couple small appearances in the first arc. Heck, even afterwords, his role in DBGT didn't even come close to his major role in DBZ.
  • All the major villains in DBZ naturally appear significantly less after they're defeated, though Cell and Frieza make a couple small appearances in Hell throughout DBZ and DBGT after their corresponding story arcs.
  • On a more meta sort of way, this also happens to the last big Tournament Arc, the 23rd Tenka'ichi Budoukai, when it comes to videogames, as it's rarely included and most of the games that cover it are relatively obscure, do so by demoting Piccolo to a Warm-Up Boss, or both. Generally, this happens because games either cover "Kid Goku" or "Z (and maybe GT)", and this arc just so happens to be in the middle of both things. Specially bad is Attack of the Saiyans, which despite being focused on the "23rd tourney to Vegeta fight" part, glosses over most of the tournament to the point there's only ONE fight, and not a hard one.
  • Yajirobe was the first that came to mind here. He played a major role in the Saiyan Saga and even saved the day at one stage. He then played a side role from then on.

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• Joker the leader of the Clowns gang is a major character and one of the few to survive to the end of the story of AKIRA — in the film, he only shows up at the beginning during the gang fight and flees when the police arrive, and although the Clowns return in a later scene, Joker isn't with them. And Lady Miyako, who is a major character in the manga, is a male member of the Akira cult who is killed after Tetsuo causes a bridge to collapse.
• As Ah! My Goddess goes on, the importance of Keichii's non-supernatural acquaintances gradually decreases after he graduates from college (which is where he interacted with most of them).
• Those who start reading Akumetsu for the first time might think that Shinna is the main character. That only lasts for a couple chapters before the spotlight shifts to the title character.
• The anime adaptation of Amnesia demoted Kent's route into only taking one episode. The other routes tended to get at least two episodes.
• The Another anime falls victim to this with the side-character Kazami. In the manga, he's a full-fledged regular as a recurring friend of the main character. In the anime adaptation however, after a few background appearances in the first couple episodes, he then disappears completely until the finale episodes when hell breaks loose during the school field trip. And to top it all of, he survives the entire ordeal in the manga, but not in the anime adaptation.
• In Assassination Classroom, during the Assassination Island arc, ten of 27 students from Class 3-E are poisoned, actually eleven of them, but the infected Terasaka still joins the others, two of the remaining students stays with the other ten, leaving 15 students for the infiltration of the Fukuma Palace Hotel.
  • Koro-sensei suffers from Deus Exit Machina, Bitch-sensei leaves the class early to buy time for the class, and Karasuma-sensei is poisoned by another poison for most of time during the infiltration, being to demoted to The Load until he recovers.
  • The ten out stick students are Okajima, Mimura, Maehara, Sugino, Hazama, Kurahashi, Nakamura, Hara, Kanzaki and Muramatsu. The two nurse students who stay with them are Okuda and Takebayashi. That means the 15 attack students are Nagisa, Karma, Kayano, Chiba, Hayami, Terasaka, Yoshida, Sugaya, Fuwa, Isogai, Kataoka, Okano, Yada, Kimura and Ritsu. However, Ritsu is demoted to a supportive role, due to her main body being not portable when they climbs up the cliff.
• Azumanga Daioh:
  • Kaorin, despite numerous attempts to avert this, falls to the wayside, despite being introduced before many of the major players.
  • Kaorin's best friend Chihiro is hit with this trope even worse, as despite being introduced with Kaorin and sometimes hanging out with the main cast, she's reduced to a non-speaking background character who doesn't even get a single line of dialogue in the final episode.
• In Bakugan New Vestroia, Dan, Marucho and Shun are all back as regulars, but Runo and Julie only appear in the first episode and Alice doesn't even get that much. While Dan, Marucho, and Shun remain regulars for all of the Bakugan series, this would happen to all of the main female characters in each successive series in the Bakugan franchise as well.
• This happens frequently in the manga adaptations of Battle Spirits.
  • In Battle Spirits Shonen Toppa Bashin, Meganeko and Card Sensei are not chosen card battler like their anime counterparts and are reduced to background roles as a result. On the Numbers side of things, Masako only appears in a few panels, and Seven gets even worse treatment, with half of his 4-panel cameos being in the form of a shadow. At least all of them fare better than Kyouka Sawaragi.
  • In Battle Spirits Shonen Gekiha Dan, Kenzo goes from being one of the main team to a minor villain. And in one of the two Brave manga adaptations, Flora appears on a single page, and has the disservice of being unconscious.
  • Neither of the Battle Spirits Heroes manga are generous to the Ohizumi siblings, despite their importance in the anime.
• Berserk: The Count and Rosine. In the Manga they both have their own story arcs while in the first Anime they only show up in one episode.
• Bakuten Shoot Beyblade:
  • All Season 1 teams other than the BBA were put on a bus in Season 2. Most of them come back in Season 3, but often incomplete and with far less shine than they used to have. With rare exception, they got to be backup members waiting for a turn that never came.
  • Rai and Yuriy got the luck to be The Lancers to Rei and Kai respectively. Michael on the other hand was replaced by Rick, an Expy of the disappeared Steve who uses a beyblade that looks very similar to Michael's beyblade from Season 1. The old PPB All Starz members were really pissed when Max and Rick joined up because they knew that they would become irrelevant, while those two would be the true stars of the team.
  • This is the reason why Max, Rei and Kai left the BBA in Season 3. Because two of them would be Demoted to Extra, while Takao would be honored as the sole champion of the next World Championship, even if one of them would be his partner. So they joined different teams to become world champion themselves.
  • Hiromi lost a lot of importance in Season 3. Not that she got that much of importance when she appeared in Season 2, but she had more to say for herself.
• Birdy the Mighty: Decode: In the OVA continuity, Natsumi Hayamiya had plot relevance as Tsutomu's childhood friend from junior high and his secret crush. But in Decode, she's only seen briefly at the beginning of the series, and is replaced by Sayaka as Tsutomu's love interest.
• Yuno from Black Clover. While hardly an extra, his role becomes much less prominent shortly after the beginning arcs. Yuno has a habit of vanishing from the story for extended periods of time because of his membership in the Golden Dawn. He's promoted back to being a main character following the Hot Springs Training Camp Arc, with him regaining focus and taking part in many important battles.
• Happened to every human character, and most of the shinigami in Bleach. That includes Ichigo and Rukia, despite their official status as main characters, Ichigo went over 50 chapters without even being seen, and Rukia's gone almost 100 without a single line of dialogue. It's even worse in the anime, with ever non-shinigami, sometimes with the exception of Ichigo, having next to no role in anime original stories (with the sole exception of the Bount arc), they're hardly even featured in the merchandise. Ishida, Orihime, and Chad got Brother Chucked out of the musicals (Ishida wasn't even in them to begin with), and in one movie they didn't even get a cameo while every random shinigami got some screentime.
  • Part of the problem is that none of the hero characters have ever been killed off, or went away in Bleach, so every single shinigami has to go through the motions before the actual characters in the story get any screen time, if they get it at all. Chad hasn't been seen in so long, he might as well have been killed, but NOBODY DIES IN BLEACH, so that'll never happen.
  • Chad was arguably Ichigo's best friend before the plot started. Tatsuki was his best female friend, and her feeling hurt over being cut out of his life and demoted to extra becomes the main part of her characterization when we ever see her.
  • The anime tends to leave Orihime, Uryuu and Chad out of most of their filler arcs and films, choosing to focus the plot lines almost completely on the Soul Reapers and non-living worlds. However, sometimes they even demote Ichigo to extra, too. In the Gotei 13 Invasion filler arc, all the canon characters suffered this in favor of the anime's filler villains and heroine. Even the canon Soul Reaper characters were demoted in favor of the anime's evil clone versions of them. Kon was made the hero of the arc as a result of being Promoted to Love Interest for the filler heroine.
• Shuro, a recurring secondary character in the Ceres, Celestial Legend manga who has a few moments of plot-importance, shows up in all of one episode of the anime before getting killed off.
• A Certain Magical Index's titular character, Index, gets shunted off to the side pretty quick. She does get more screen time than any other character besides Touma, but it still drops off after her introductory arc due to her not being much of an action character in a series with lots of intense fights.
• Code Geass:
  • Kallen has very little panel time in the Alternate Universe spin-off mangas. In the Lelouch of the Rebellion manga she actually does get a fair amount of attention, but the part dealing with her past is significantly trimmed down, only showing a brief scene of her at home and her visiting her mother in the hospital. In Suzaku of the Counterattack and Nightmare Of Nunnally, the Ashford cast is considerably less important, and they disappear midway through both series.
  • Princess Cornelia li Britannia was a major character throughout Season 1 of Code Geass. After being Put on a Bus (sorta; her fate was left ambiguous for a while) at the end of the first season, she returned much later in R2. Aside from one memorable encounter in the middle of the season, she spends most of her time standing around and commenting on her brother Schneizel's moves.
  • Jeremiah Gottwald, despite being an Ensemble Dark Horse of the original series, disappears without explanation after surviving his Knightmare Frame's destruction in the Nightmare Of Nunnally version of the hotel incident. Viletta suffers a similar loss of screentime in Nightmare Of Nunnally, and in the Lelouch of the Rebellion manga, she doesn't appear until the manga reaches R2's events, resulting in the removal of her relationship with Ougi. Viletta gets demoted again in the Nintendo DS RPG, where her plotline with Ohgi is cut, leaving her to disappear for a large part of the Season 1 plot, then return in the final stage as a Mini-Boss in Ohgi's route split.
  • Suzaku of the Counterattack demotes practically everyone except Suzaku and new character Mariel to extra; even characters like C.C. and the Emperor, major players in every other adaptation, do nothing of note (C.C. is only there to be a MacGuffin Super-Person, while the Emperor doesn't do anything other than get murdered by Schneizel so he can frame Lelouch/Zero for it.) Lelouch himself does remarkably little, despite being the main character of the source series and a major driving element in all the adaptations.
• The entire class of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair suffer from this in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School- the only characters who play an active role in the plot are Chiaki, Nagito, Mikan and the Ultimate Imposter. The rest of the class are reduced to wacky shenanigans and praising every little thing Chiaki does. Even Mahiru and Fuyuhiko's involvement in the death of Natsumi and Sato is drastically downplayed, which is especially jarring at it was the entire motivation behind Chapter 2 of the game.
• Death Note:
  • In the second half of Death Note, Misa loses much of her importance when, in order to fool the investigation team when they move to put her and Light under surveillance, she gives up her Death Note and her memories of it a second time. The SPK and Mello sometimes investigate her, but she shows up less often and does nothing of importance. Light's mother and sister faded from the plot after Soichiro's death, and so did Ryuk, although he showed up at the end to write Light's name in the Death Note.
  • Sayu actually appears one final and brief time in the manga, in chapter 97 or so. She's shown in a panel at a coming-of-age ceremony, no longer confined to a wheelchair from trauma but still slowly recovering, per Word of God. The anime cut that bit out when it came time to adapt that chapter.
• All the main characters from Digimon Adventure, except T.K and Kari, were demoted in Digimon Adventure 02. Tai giving his signature googles to Davis was almost symbolic of that transition. From there, the older kids became the younger ones' mentors and had occasional supporting roles. But their influence on the story was limited; in fact, they were hardly able to travel to the Digital World without the new Chosen Kids' help.
  • Even T.K and Kari didn't fare much better getting significantly less time in the spotlight than the new kids.
  • Mimi, Joe, and Sora seemed to suffer it the worst. Especially Mimi who moved to New York, which gives her the smallest amount of appearances. In the Tokyopop manga adaptation, almost all scenes involving the first generation kids are completely excised, and Sora, Mimi and Joe are given at most three panels' worth of screentime.
  • In an ironic twist of fate, this happens to the newer kids in Digimon Adventure tri., and they suffer this trope even WORSE than the older kids did in 02.
• This is unfortunately what happened to most of the cast of Digimon Tamers when the D-Reaper arc rolled around. There was just too much going on to give side characters screen time, and since they couldn't catch up in power, everyone excluding the three main characters, Jeri, Beelzemon, and Ryo had their role reduced to one-shot cameos.
• The short lived OAV series Dragon Half parodies this. The second episode (also the last- it was that short lived) introduces a character named Dug Finn, who comes out of nowhere to fight his way through the Inevitable Tournament. Confronting the heroine Mink in the finals, he rants to her about how he will kill her for daring to oppose his father, Azatodeth. This is exactly what happened — in the original (much longer-lived) manga, Mink does indeed swear to defeat Azatodeth. But here in the anime, he makes his rant only to find that Mink has no idea what he's talking about and doesn't remember doing that. Confused, Dug Finn calls a time-out to check his VHS copy of the first OAV, and is infuriated to find out that the producers cut out all his scenes.
• Don't Meddle with My Daughter!:
  • Clara makes up the second half of the manga's star duo of superheroines, but during the "MILF of Steel" epilogue saga, you'll hardly see her. She only gets a few cameo appearances, which are usually limited to 1-2 panels.
  • Her aunt, Artemis, was only a support character to begin with, though she remained plot relevant. From chapter 14 onwards, she's all but written out of the manga and only makes two cameos in the epilogue series. The page caption of the second one even asks what happened to her?
• A few Doraemon movies:
  • Doraemon: Nobita and the Steel Troops receives a 2011 remake, and in the latest version Suneo's brand-new robot, Micros, gets reduced to having two scenes and barely any lines. In comparison, the original have Micros' delivering an "Eureka!" Moment by complaining if he could change the past, he would, leading to Shizuka and Riruru remembering they actually could via the Time Machine in Nobita's desk. In the remake, it was Riruru and Shizuka who came up with this idea themselves.
  • The very first movie, Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur, have a Stealth Sequel follow-up titled Doraemon: Nobita's New Dinosaur which brings back Piisuke, the titular dinosaur from the original film... in a non-speaking cameo barely a minute long. Where it saves it's ex-master Nobita and the new dinosaur, Kyu, and then leaves.
• The second episode of Durarara!! puts the main focus on Rio Kamichika and her backstory and develops her character. In future episodes, she never appears beyond extremely brief and rare cameos. She was obviously used as a means to introduce Izaya and demonstrate how he behaves, but it is quite jarring for an early episode to focus primarily on a one-off character. Of course, it makes more sense if you know she was created exclusively for the anime adaptation.
• In Eden: It's an Endless World!, this actually happens to Elijah, the main character! After the mission to save his sister goes horribly wrong, ending with her death, Elijah falls into doing hard drugs and eventually goes to rehab. And that's basically where his role in the story ends. The next and final arc, dealing with the fate of the whole world, finds Elijah's father in the protagonist role. Elijah himself doesn't really appear until after the events are over.
• The Familiar of Zero:
  • Agnes Chevalier de Milan doesn't have much role in Season 3 other than being Henrietta's bodyguard. Her biggest scene is when she finds out that Colbert is still alive. She spares him in the end, out of the fear that his students will hate her. She has even smaller role in Season 4. All of her screen time lasts for about 5-30 seconds and she doesn't speak in some of them.
  • Zigzagged with Julio Cezare. He's important in season 2 but in Season 3 he's largely a character in a crowd setting, and only gets a few lines at most. Then in season 4 he becomes much more important.
• Fist of the North Star:
  • Shin, one of the major villains, is demoted into sitting around in Southern Cross during The Movie and doesn't even get a decent fight scene with Kenshiro. To put that in perspective, Mr. Heart gets a better fight scene than Shin does.
  • Jackal, Colonel, and Galf were all demoted into nameless henchmen. Jackal only appears just to get killed by Jagi, Colonel doesn't really do much other than get killed by Shin in one strike, and Galf was given only one line and a few seconds of screen time.
  • The Shin Kyūseishu Densetsu movies features most of the major characters who weren't in the original movie. Aside for the child version of Ryuga in Yuria Den, Ryuga and Juza are nowhere to be seen in any of the movies except for their appearance as dead spirits attending Ken and Yuria's wedding in the opening sequence of Kenshirō Den.
• Fullmetal Alchemist (2003):
  • Yoki. In both the manga and the anime, he's first introduced as a corrupt official lording over a mining town: Ed deposes him, the townspeople kick him out, and he ends up living as a fugitive. In the manga, however, he ends up traveling with Scar and becomes a reluctant member of the team, ultimately getting his own Big Damn Heroes moment when he shows up in a stolen car and runs down Pride, the hands-down most powerful of the Homunculi. In the anime, he lives long enough to perform one last Kick the Dog before getting killed with little fanfare.
  • Dr. Marcoh was killed off rather unceremoniously rather than joining Scar in his quest as his manga counterpart did. He also didn't do anything of note with the little screentime he did get.
  • In the manga, Selim Bradley turns out to be the homunculus Pride. In the 2003 anime, he only has a few scenes before his untimely demise.
  • Lt. General Grumman only appears briefly in the 2003 anime, to the point that you can count the minutes of screentime he has on one hand. In the manga and 2009 anime, he serves as one of Mustang's confidantes, assists him from behind the scenes against the rest of the military and eventually ends up succeeding as Führer by the end.
  • Greed, to a degree. He still has a decent amount of screentime, but it's still considerably less than he did in the manga and Brotherhood. He also never gets revived, leading to a Heel–Face Turn and significant role in the final battle, in the '03 version.
• Future GPX Cyber Formula:
  • Loads of characters get demoted to extras in the series, starting from Johji Otomo, who can rarely be seen or heard after Hayato gets his Super Asurada 01 until the last four episodes, and eventually he retires from the Cyber GPX for good. The SIN OVA have many characters get demoted, especially Randoll, thanks to Hayato and Kaga's Super Modes, with them curbstomping their opponents left, right and center.
  • This also happens in-series during the second half of the TV series when Naoki Shinjyo is demoted after his boss Kyoko made a secondary team of Aoi Formula, Aoi ZIP Formula and made Bleed Kaga as the new team's driver. Kyoko herself gets demoted to vice president when Aoi Formula and Aoi ZIP Formula are merged into one team and the team chooses Kyoshiro Nagumo as the new president and Shinjyo was subsequently fired from the team. Needless to say, both of them are less than happy about the news.
• Despite being a main character in GTO: The Early Years and Bad Company, Ryuji Danma only appears a few times in the sequel series Great Teacher Onizuka. He did get his own Day in the Limelight Spin-Off, Great Transporter Ryuji, but it was a miniseries only lasting 10 chapters.
• This happened to Dr. Clive in Haré+Guu. In the original manga and anime series (Hare & Guu), he is one of the major recurring characters, by virtue of being Hare's father and later, marrying Hare's mom, Weda. In the sequel manga Hareguu, he appears in just a few chapters, and otherwise is rarely even mentioned.
• Hayate the Combat Butler: At the beginning of the manga, Klaus had a bigger role and was generally more visible. Then he just kinda dropped off the face of the planet. His latest token appearances served purely to both remind people that he still exists and, given the nature of the manga, almost mockingly hang a lampshade on being Demoted to Extra.
• The Hetalia: Axis Powers anime hasn't quite ended yet, but Korea gets Demoted to Extra as well as been hinted to be erased from the manga altogether. It doesn't make his fans happy.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure it's a long-standing tradition for there to be a Starter Villain who's befriended by JoJo after their defeat^note Speedwagon in Phantom Blood, Caesar in Battle Tendency, Kakyoin and Polnareff in Stardust Crusaders, Okuyasu in Diamond is Unbreakable, Bucciarati in Golden Wind. Gwess in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean breaks this streak however, because Jolyne refuses to trust her due to her outright insanity. Once Foo Fighters is introduced, Gwess effectively vanishes from the story.
• K-On!:
  • Tsumugi is a rather unfortunate victim of this in the manga; she originally had a few lines per situation or the occasional two-cents to throw in, she's essentially become furniture now that the girls are in college (despite her being the reason they all chose that school!).
  • The anime, while not being that much better with Tsumugi, prefers doing this to Ritsu instead, pushing her off to the side whenever it can. As an example, there's an episode with a scene taken from the manga where Azusa asks Tsumugi for help. The anime added scenes of Azusa asking for Yui and Mio's help as well, but Ritsu and just Ritsu was neglected. However, she instead got a scene of the other girls visiting her house. It seems Ritsu can't get the focus unless all the other girls are around.
• Little Witch Academia (2017) has this problem with most of the supporting cast in the second half of the episodes, when the show focuses on the Akko/Diana and Chariot/Croix relationships, most notably Akko's friends Sucy and Lotte. They barely have anything to do in the final episodes, and poor Lotte even feels like an extra in what should be A Day in the Limelight for her!
• Konata's dad doesn't appear on the Lucky Star OVA, despite having a decent amount of screentime on the series proper. Notable because the Hiiragi twins' parents and Miyuki's mom DO appear, despite being MUCH more minor characters.
• Poor Yuuno. Once the partner to the title character of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, his status rapidly degrades with each passing season thanks to the growing cast and the series shifting in tone from a Seinen Magical Girl Show to a Space Military Show (with Magical Girls). It's telling that he's completely absent from the opening of the second series, and that the film adaptation of the first series excises his role in the plot. Sufficed to say, Yuuno fans were pleasantly surprised when he not only became a playable character in The Gears Of Destiny, but Took a Level in Badass in the process. However, even in this game, he has no CGI appearances, all of his battles are optional, he has the least relevance in the story, and he's one of four characters (three, if you count the Liese Twins as one character) who is not involved in the Grand Finale.
  • Chrono suffers a similar fate, but manages to stave off irrelevance until StrikerS due to playing a pretty major role in A's.
  • Happens even more notably to Nanoha's family. In the original VN and OVA that MGLN was spun off of, Nanoha's siblings Kyouya and Miyuki were the main characters, and she was just an extra. Then she got her own show, and her relatives were demoted to extras, then further demoted to background characters in the sequel, and then essentially forgotten in the next sequel. Kyouya definitely has it is worse since Miyuki at least got a speaking role in the first StrikerS Sound Stage while he's off in Germany.
• Maken-ki!: Himegami and Otohime both become victims of Adaptation Distillation in the anime:
  • In the manga, Himegami is pivotal to the plot, as her Orochi blood makes her the key to breaking the seal atop Amanohara. Which culminates in her own character arc^note spanning almost 30 chapters which delves into her past and reveals her connection to Takeru Yamato. Except you'll never see any of it in the anime, where she loses all plot relevancy and is reduced to simply being a part of Takeru's harem.
  • It's even worse for Otohime. She goes from being Himegami's Evil Counterpart and a high-ranking member of the Shishigami, to being a minor character, who only shows up twice and is completely forgotten about in season 2.
• Happens to a large number of characters in Marvel Anime: X-Men. While Armor is made into a main character, a number of prominent and popular X-Men like Rogue, Colossus, and Nightcrawler end up excluded from the team and regulated to dialogue-free cameos.
• In Mazinger Z Kouji was The Hero. In Great Mazinger he was The Lancer for a short while. In UFO Robo Grendizer he was the sidekick before becoming The Lancer again.
• Mischievous Twins: The Tales of St. Clare's: Despite being the main characters, for the latter half of the anime Patricia and Isabel get less and less screentime, while their classmates get more.
• Caren, Coco and Noel in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch. The second arc of the manga shuffles them Out of Focus, but they still maintain some importance and form a West Coast Team of Lovely Angels. The anime, though, shafts every single one of them. Noel doesn't even get A Day in the Limelight in the mountain of filler; Caren, a key figure in the first season, becomes completely irrelevant in the second; and everything to do with Coco is cut from the plot. One episode actually reveals that Coco, Noel and Caren can't even fight off a member of the Quirky Miniboss Squad and are now comic relief.
• Mobile Suit Gundam franchise:
  • The Universal Century as a whole has Sayla Mass. A very major character in Mobile Suit Gundam, and you would think that being Amuro's Love Interest coupled with being the sister of Char Aznable would secure a role in later stories. Nope. She appears in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, has a minor impact on the plot in Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, and then vanishes from the franchise. This is generally attributed to her voice actress being busy with other things whenever a new Gundam production rolled around, and had she been available, many believe she would have played a much larger role in the story, particularly in Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack.
  • After War Gundam X is a rare example of a series being Demoted to Extra. Despite being a fan-favorite (especially in the West), it only rarely appears in Massive Multiplayer Crossover games like Super Robot Wars. Gundam X was also the only Gundam series not to have a Master Grade model of up until January of 2014. When it does appear, however, it tends to be handled rather well though.
  • In the first season of Gundam 00 Allelujah Haptism gets significantly less focus than the rest of the meisters. He has some focus in a couple of episodes early on and his Moment of Awesome, but he gets sidelined for the rest of the time and actually isn't even present for a very significant battle and bonding scene. The second season manages to start off even worse for him, he has two scenes (each five seconds long) and a single word of speech in the first two episodes. By the end of the series while Lyle, Setsuna, and Tieria all get important plotlines Alle is on grunt duty blowing up overglorified missiles. This is heaviest emphasized by Episode 13 of the second season. All the Meisters get badass moments of awesome, including Setsuna whipping an Innovator's ass in style, Tieria placing a giant hole in the side of a space cannon, and Lyle sniping it down. Allejulah? He's stuck in Arios with it attached to Ptolemy. His ONLY PURPOSE was to say "Trans-Am" and provide Trans-Am to Ptolemy. Arios is a glorified battery. His case is even sorrier if one considers his Superpowered Evil Side a separate character. Hallelujah does all of the really incredible stuff onscreen including what should have been Al's moment of glory in the Grand Finale. In the end we're shown Al settling down peacefully with Marie, so at least those two can brood over their misfortunes together. At least he's promoted as The Lancer in The Movie.
• My-HiME:
  • My-Otome:
    • Mai, though hinted at early in the anime series, doesn't appear in person at all until the very last arc. However, this is an Alternate Continuity to My-HiME, where she was the main character. It's worse in the manga: that world's Mai is the deceased mother of Manshiro and Mashiro and the other Mai only shows up as the brainwashed Dragon to the Big Bad.
    • Her younger brother Takumi and his bodyguard/girlfriend Akira are reduced to a two-episode arc in the middle of the series.
    • Yuuichi, the male main character from My-HiME only makes brief appearances in the flashbacks of Mai's backstory - and said backstory turned out to be fake, to boot! Word of God states that this is "punishment" for his voice actor leaking spoilers.
  • Shizuru has a significantly reduced role in the My-HiME manga, as the subplot of her feelings for Natsuki is largely unexplored, and she isn't even a Hime. As a result, she does not turn Psycho Lesbian and kill people. That was probably to make up for the anime forgetting about how that was supposed to be a SUBplot.
• Naruto:
  • Team Kurenai post-skip, with their role in the Hunt for Uchiha arc coming down to helping hunt down two people who both escaped quite easily, though Hinata at least still gets a few moments in the limelight from time to time and ended up being pretty important as she is Naruto's love interest. Shino Aburame, on the other hand, started out as a very promising character, having some of the most badass fights in the first part of the series, but became nearly unused after the Chuunin Exam arc. It's gotten so bad that the team isn't even seen interacting with each other that often anymore.
  • Team Asuma has mostly avoided this. Shikamaru became an Ascended Extra during the Immortals Arc and has maintained his status as an important character. Team Asuma then received development during the Fourth Ninja War, with Choji then getting the spotlight. Ino also got to shine as their battles show how badass the three are together.
  • Even Sai has suffered from this. When introduced in the 2nd arc of Part 2 of the manga, he was one of the most important characters with plenty of time spent on Character Development and hinting at his backstory. He goes on to make minimal appearances for the rest of the series, with little to no further character development outside a Day in the Limelight during the World War arc. Post-manga he did get some focus in books, which was adapted into the anime, which go into depth on his romance with Ino.
  • Sakura was always a secondary, if prominent, character all the way through the series (excepting the first arc of the second part) but, in the movie Boruto: Naruto the Movie, she only makes a couple of appearances.
  • Kakashi, likewise, is a secondary if prominent character, but his averting this is notable in itself (mentors are frequent victims when they don't simply die); the main story even ends with him becoming Hokage. However, he does play it straight in the Boruto movie, where he doesn't get even one line.
  • Team Guy did very little for most of the second half, with their only big moment being a fight against a Kisame clone. However, this changes somewhat towards the end of the series. Might Guy himself becomes something of a Sixth Ranger by defeating the real Kisame and playing a big role in the fights against series Big Bads Tobi and Madara. Neji pulls off a Heroic Sacrifice, and Lee gets a few shining moments of his own (plus his own spin-off series). Conversely, Tenten essentially was always and continues to be an extra (although she does get plenty of attention in the aforementioned spin-off).
  • Sasuke Uchiha only makes a cameo in the movie "The Last" and helps everyone save the world from a meteor.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion:
  • Ritsuko also has a much smaller part in the movies, with her hatred of Rei and relationship with Shinji's dad ending up on the cutting room floor. There is however a deleted scene in the second film that at least hints at her animosity towards Rei.
  • Asuka in general plays a much lesser role in Rebuild from her Tritagonist role in the original series. Her internal conflicts do not render her dysfunctional enough to significantly drive the plot; her subplot instead revolves around her becoming a better person and indirectly deciding to help Shinji bond with his father, but she's injured and put out of action as soon as the subplot is finished. That being said, she gets a larger role in 3.0; this role is partially shared by Mari as a tag team of Bash Sisters, but she interacts with Shinji directly and a lot of focus is put on how much colder she's grown towards him despite still caring about him deep down.
• Ojamajo Doremi: This is done to Momoko, who is a key character in her introductory season, but by the next one is shafted in favor of magically grown-up Hana-chan and becomes merely window-dressing.
• In the Pokémon: The Series anime:
  • Brendan and Lucas, two of the male player characters and rivals if you play as a girl from the games, only show up as cameos in a couple of movies.
  • In Pokémon Black and White, Bianca is one of the player character's friendly rivals and makes frequent appearances. In the anime, she does show up fairly often but never rises above the level of supporting character. The other rival from those games, Cheren, only shows up in one episode as a Gym Leader (which is his Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 role)
  • Cheren is your childhood friend and rival in Black and White alongside Bianca. The anime didn't adapt the plot to the games so Cheren was ignored until he became a Gym Leader in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2. Cheren appeared in the anime as his sequel form as a Gym Leader. This also creates a bizarre issue where Bianca is younger than Cheren, and they don't seem to know each other.
  • N and Ghetsis were the Big Bad Duumvirate of Black and White, but they get little screentime and don't even have any Pokémon of their own.
• Hau from Pokémon Sun and Moon is also one of the player's two main rivals (the other being Gladion) with Hau making repeated appearances throughout the game. In the anime, Hau's role is drastically diminished as he doesn't appear until the third and final season of the Sun/Moon anime where the Pokémon League was about to be established. This is quite odd to not include Hau considering his grandfather, Hala, has made way more appearances than him and the games was quick to establish Hau being related to a Kahuna. Hau doesn't even have too many interactions with Ash and even later loses to him by a technicality in the Pokémon League.
  • Trading Pokémon is an important game mechanic however the anime focuses on Pokémon as characters and their relationships with their trainers, so discarding them frequently and easily isn't an option. Thus trading is far and few between.
  • Breakout Character Lucario has become a Series Mascot since its first appearance in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. Lucario is featured in several games and adaptations, often times being plot relevant. It and its pre-evolution have appeared several times in the anime (Lucario debuted in its own movie, Riolu had an arc in Sinnoh, several trainers have Lucario, etc). Both Riley and Korrina give you a Riolu egg and a Lucario respectively in two different games, but these events don't occur in the anime. In Pokémon Journeys, Ash acquires an egg that hatches a Riolu, which he later evolves into Lucario, but his Lucario only appears a grand total of two times in the next twenty episodes (one as a background character, the other as a distraction from poachers while Goh is left to tend Suicune, whom he captured after the poachers had already weakened it). It later gets averted when it gets a 3-episode arc fighting Bea, though between the aforementioned filler episodes, it basically had to wait forty episodes to become relevant before being relegated to unequivocal background character.
  • The Team Rocket organization as a whole is largely ignored in favor of heavily focusing on the Goldfish Poop Gang of Jessie, James, and Meowth. This is particularly evident in the original series; none of their plotline in Pokémon Red and Blue (such as their hideout in Celadon City or their takeover of Silph) is adapted, Ash only battles Rocket Grunts one time (aboard the S.S. Anne, where they didn't even appear in the games), and even Giovanni becomes The Unfought not only in the Viridian Gym, but for well over fifteen years! This itself caused plot issues as, apart from the original games and their remakes, Team Rocket is disbanded in every post-Gen 1 game. They're not in the anime, and thus Neo Team Rocket and Rainbow Rocket are completely Adapted Out.
  • Thanks to Team Flare's plot in the X/Y series centering around Zygarde instead, Xerneas and Yveltal play no major role in said series (unlike the version mascots before them). The best they get (outside of a Non-Serial Movie) is a special at the very end of the series, and even then, only in a flashback/story.
  • Generally, the newest "Team X" crime syndicate gets significantly less screentime than they do in the games, with the Team Rocket trio being more prominent antagonists. Team Skull may be the most egrigious case yet, though — not only are they given the usual cold shoulder in focus, but the series adapts Pokémon Sun and Moon's climax before Guzma (at that point The Dragon to Lusamine) shows up!
  • Poké Balls besides the original red-and-white ones are all this. In the games, they're used for catching under-leveled Pokémon and are quickly displaced by better Pokémon Balls. Most higher-level NPCs don't use red-and-white Poké Balls either. In the anime, everyone uses the original Poké Balls. The many other types of Poké Balls are all but cameos.
  • Many characters who reappear in the games don't reappear in the anime and thus their roles are less than in the games. For example, Sabrina in Black 2 and White 2 left being a Gym Leader to be an actress, but she didn't appear in the anime, and Ash didn't go to Kanto after Johto like the player does in Gold and Silver. Part of this might be because the several games take place either years before or after other games, but the anime is stuck in Comic-Book Time.
  • Pokémon Journeys has very strange cases of different kinds:
    • In regards to Ash's and Goh's Pokémon. In the case of any Pokémon that has already evolved to their last stage, chances are they disappear from the story for absurd periods of time.
    • Ash's Gengar gets hits the worst with this as it doesn't receive any special attention after it's captured except to crash and lose in battles (ironically, Gengar already had a history of its previous trainer ditching it behind) though it gets two focus episodes helping it attain Gigantamax, the series quickly goes back into filler episodes without so much as a mention of that happening.
    • Ash's reserves at Oak's, because Ash decided to make Cerise's Lab his main base instead.
    • Goh's team gets hits the worst as his starters and other "big name" Pokémon not named Raboot that appear with him in opening titles lose focus after they evolve once (ever since his Sobble evolved into Drizzile, it simply has disappeared for the next ten episodes over Grookey taking the lead). His Cinderace loses its status as a walking Pokémon, and it's his first Pokémon. Then there was his Drizzile, who literally didn't appear more than once during its state as a Drizzile for about twenty episodes until its evolution episode when it at least started to appear slightly more often after.
    • This also happens with Yamper; Chloe's family pet. Many of her earlier episodes involved how related she and her family were to Yamper. However, once she got an Eevee and a plethora of episodes featuring its evolutions, Yamper became a background character left to rot at her house. This is a bit more glaring due to this incarnation of Sonia never having a Yamper.
    • At the start of the saga, Team Rocket commonly appeared until the second half when they started to appear much less that previous sagas. Jarringly, this was after Sun & Moon, when they appeared far more than previous sagas.
    • Generally, any Galarian character due to the setting taking far more priority at Vermilion City in Kanto:
    • Rose only shows up as a short voiceless introduction before he shows everything he has to show in the Eternatus arc before disappearing from the saga altogether due to being on the run for his actions in trying to bring the Darkest Days.
    • Sonia gets far less spotlight, only appearing in one episode and showing up in the Eternatus arc. To make matters worse, she doesn't even have her Yamper, and her work in the Eternatus arc is nearly eclipsed by Goh himself, who takes over her own discoveries and makes her look redundant to have around except for her driving benefits.
    • Hop - The Rival of Sword & Shield - appears in the last episodes of the worldwide tournament and demoted to a simple fight against Ash using just Wooloo rather than being an actual participant. Hop is already reduced to a spectator for the Masters Eight as a result.
    • Marnie, the other rival, basically gets one episode to show a bit of her background and one battle with Ash (a one-on-one, even) before gettting written off alongside her brother and Team Yell immediately.
    • Averted with Raihan, who, ironically, shows up far more than any other Galarian Gym Leader just because of his close relationship with Leon.
    • Alain is quickly written off from the Masters Eight by way of battling Leon in the first round. But even before then, he didn't even bother to greet Ash with a friendly greeting but rather glare at him (for some reason, despite their openess as friends).
• Pokémon Origins: According to his team in Pokémon Gold and Silver, Red's highest level Pokémon is his Pikachu. Red in Origins however is only briefly depicted catching a Pikachu. His electric type of choice is a Jolteon, which isn't even on his game team.
• In Powerpuff Girls Z, the anime adaptation of The Powerpuff Girls, this happened to the narrator from the original cartoon. Episodes with an actual narrator are scarce, since this time, voice-overs are usually done by Blossom, Bubbles, Buttercup, Professor Utonium, and/or Utonium's son Ken.
• The Pretty Cure franchise loves Sixth Rangers:
  • Michiru and Kaoru, the Dark Magical Girl twins from Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star, who share the title of Dame Not Appearing In This Trailer. They have no merchandise whatsoever despite being on a Merchandise-Driven show, and they didn't even get to fight in the Pretty Cure All Stars DX movie and only showed up for a few seconds without any lines. The second DX movie finally gave them a speaking part, but it was very minor and they didn't get to fight. This is very noticable, considering they were the first Dark Magical Girls in the franchise. Their demotion actually began with Pretty Cure All Stars GoGo Dream Live, a five minute short made as DVD Bonus Content for the Yes! Precure 5 GO!GO! Non-Serial Movie. It stands out because Michiru and Kaoru don't appear at all, while almost everyone in Splash Star's supporting cast does.
  • In the second season, Hikari stole most of Honoka's screentime, leaving Honoka with less importance.
• The Prince of Tennis:
  • Taki appears along the Hyotei regulars at the street courts. Later he looses his spot against Shishido and isn't seen again until the Nationals, where his only role is to hold a machine and tell the speed of the balls (how fast are Inui's Waterfall and Ohtori's Scud Serve). In the anime, his role is expanded when Taki tries to offer himself to cut his hair instead of Atobe.
  • Also played with in the Musicals. In the 1st Season, Taki is only mentioned and/or alluded to been replaced by Shishido, while in the 2nd Season, Taki is included in the Hyotei cast with song parts.
  • The anime replaces the Midoriyama Tennis Club with Jousei Shounan. The Musicals only mentions them in a brief recount song.
• Doctor Tofu was one of the main characters in the first season of Ranma ½ as generally a relatively normal guy who would always show up to help Ranma out and give him advice, unless Kasumi was around which in turn saw him make a total jackass of himself due to his crush on her. After season two his appearances were relegated to showing up just once or twice a season. Which is still better than what happened to him in the manga where he just disappeared.
• Psycho-Pass Season 2 sidelined Ginoza and Yayoi despite that the former who is now an Enforcer had a lot of potential development while the latter, who is the only character that has a backstory episode, became more of a Flat Character. It gets worse in the movie where she and the two new Enforcers (Sugo and Hinakawa) are forced into the background with no relevance to the plot while Ginoza gets a few moments with Kougami.
• Revolutionary Girl Utena:
  • Nanami Kiryuu in Adolescence of Utena. It's widely believed that the director kept her in a limited role (as a cow, no less) because certain members of the staff didn't like her. She is the Alpha Bitch, but still. In the manga it was even worse, as she only ever shows up in one photograph and doesn't even make an actual on-panel appearance. Ironically Kunihiko Ikuhara has stated that Nanami was one of his favorite characters. Originally, Nanami wasn't going to be in the movie at all (she only had screentime because her Japanese voice actress wanted it), and in the manga, Chiho Saito never planned to make her an important character.
  • Souji Mikage was the main antagonist of the second arc of the anime series, but in the manga, he's relegated to one short sidestory.
• Sailor Moon: Happened a lot in the 90s anime, particularly to characters who were actually important in the manga.
  • Usagi's original group of friends were replaced by the other Sailor Guardians, although one of Naru's "final" episodes lampshades this. More inexplicable is the complete disappearance of any side characters over the course of the show. One source of occasional drama is the alleged inability of the girls to have either normal friends or boyfriends, despite them meeting dozens of victims of the week who they apparently become chums with.
  • Zigzagged with Usagi's first crush Motoki. He was promoted to Romantic False Lead in the first season and was promptly demoted to extra when Usagi and Mamoru finally got together. In the manga and Crystal, while Usagi had a crush on him, it was obvious who she was going to end up with and these versions don't try to put off the inevitable until the end of the Dark Kingdom arc.
  • Minako has a very slight case of this. She had her own title before it was decided to make an ensemble team. Sure, she's still around, but "one of many" instead of the main character. More of a problem in the anime than manga. In the former, Rei took her role as The Lancer. In the latter, Minako's the fourth most important character after Usagi, Mamoru, and Chibiusa and the most important member of Princess Serenity's bodyguards.
  • The Amazoness Quartet are much more important characters in the manga than the anime. Not only were they the main secondary villains of their arc, but they're among the few villains in the manga to be redeemed. They're redeemed because they're revealed to be Chibiusa's bodyguards—her equivalent of Usagi's Four Guardian Goddesses—who were kidnapped and brainwashed by Nehelenia. This fact is never mentioned in the anime, so they never become the Asteroid Guardians like in the manga.
  • Mamoru isn't nearly as important of a character in the anime as he is in other versions (like all others). The DK arc was his and Usagi's romance arc, but this was severely downplayed in the anime. Motoki looked more like a Love Interest while Mamoru was just a random jerk Usagi kept running into only because he was Tuxedo Mask.
  • Zigzagged with the Shitennou. Yes they got more screentime in the anime than they did in the manga, but their overall importance was severely reduced. In the anime, they're nothing more than Generic Doomsday Villains who work for Beryl for unspecified reasons. In the manga? They're Endymion's bodyguards. His equivalent of Serenity's Four Guardian Goddesses. They also make a couple of appearances outside of the DK arc in connection with the reincarnation of their master, Mamoru.
  • Ittou Asanuma was so demoted to extra his sole anime appearance was really nothing more than a Mythology Gag. Like several one-shot characters in the anime, he was a friend of Mamoru's who otherwise had no connection to the girls. Even worse in his case since the only one he meets is Usagi. Their encounter is brief (he asks if she knows Mamoru's number in America) and Usagi thinks he's shady, which is possibly another instance of the anime playing her jealousy for laughs. He could've been replaced with yet another filler character without altering the scene. In the manga? He's Mamoru's kohai who idolizes him (to the point he possibly has a crush on him), is friends with Makoto, and is interested in the supernatural, specifically aliens and UFOs. He also knows about Mako and the others being Sailor Guardians. Though also played straight in the manga; he's a major secondary character in the Black Moon arc and has a brief appearance early on in Infinity, but disappears for the rest and the entirety of Dream before making one last appearance in Stars, which was the (sort of) inspiration for his cameo in the anime.
  • Princess Kakyuu appears in all of three episodes (four if you count a shadowed cameo) in the anime before being unceremoniously offed. In one she finally appears at the end and in another is killed, so basically one whole episode. She was a major ally and help to Usagi after Galaxia killed all of her friends and lasts longer than the Starlights do. By contrast, the Starlights were Ascended Extras who survived all the other characters to accompany Usagi in the final battle against Galaxia.
  • Pluto and Saturn. Pluto was a major supporting character in Black Moon, but her Character Focus was instead given to the villains, particularly the Ayakashi Sisters who were Ascended Extras. Pluto ended up not doing anything for the entirety of the arc. Saturn had the least amount of screentime of any Sailor Guardian in the anime. Her big, onscreen fight with Pharaoh 90 was reduced to her appearing and promptly shuffling off to another dimension to defeat him (with Sailor Moon's help) after being hyped as The Dreaded the entire season.
  • The Inners themselves as the anime progressed. Starting in S, they mostly seemed to exist to be foils to Haruka and Michiru, but still received an occasional focus episode. Super S abruptly promoted Chibiusa to main character which resulted in some episodes where the Inners didn't appear in a major capacity at all. Mostly reversed in Sailor Stars, where they get plenty of focus episodes when not Character Shilling for the Starlights. They still get more focus than their manga counterparts, who have next to no autonomy from Usagi and serve mostly to Job, get kidnapped in Black Moon, and killed off extremely early in Stars.
  • Chibi-Usa herself was given much less focus at the start of Sailor Stars (with more being given to Usagi and the Outers, the latter of which were almost entirely absent from SuperS) before being removed entirely, and unlike the manga she never shows up again outside of photographs and a single dream sequence.
• In Samurai 7, Shino, Manzo, Mosuke and Yohei, who had bigger roles in the source material Seven Samurai, only have a few appearances in the series by comparison.
• Hanai in School Rumble. He was a main character is season one, but in season two was used less and less, until the extent of his appearances were a running gag about how he was stuck on a kite for several episodes. His role as the Large Ham seemed to have been usurped by Togou.
• Taruru replaced Chiroro as Karara's constant companion in early episodes of Sgt. Frog; she only got to debut after his Plot-Relevant Age-Up, and is still very much in her twin sister's shadow.
• Shining Tears X Wind: Kureha went from the main female character to a useless extra after she served her purpose as Souma's Romantic False Lead.
• Splatoon:
  • The manga is a comedic series focused on its characters competing in Turf Wars. The games' various single-player plotlines are heavily deemphasized, with the truncated adaptations that they do receive placing the game characters in minor roles while the manga original characters receive the focus.
  • Agent 8, Hachi, the main character in the Octo Expansion arc, all but disappears afterwards, not receiving major appearance in the Ranked Cup arc. Heck, his battle against the X-Blood is skipped since the chapter where it happened only reveals that he lost!
• In Squid Girl, Nagisa Saito became a background character from Season 2 Episode 2 through to Episode 11, to the point of not appearing in a few episodes. Poor girl.
• In-universe example in Shippu! Iron Leaguer; The Gold Brothers are put into unsuitable positions and even reserves after being beaten so many times, and eventually get fired from the team.
• This happens depressingly frequently in Shirobako, as a consequence of the cast being so huge. Apart from Aoi, most characters are flat until their day in the limelight, at which point they fade right back into the background. Even Ema, who in any other series would be a Deuteragonist, gets far less screentime than merchandise and trailers suggest she should.
• Tsukiyo Ooba from Sketchbook only gets a few lines of dialogue in the anime. Sure, she is an irregular cast member in the manga as well, but at least there she gets some of the funniest moments. Hopefully a second season will set this injustice straight.
• Sylphiel Nels Lahda appears in the first two Slayers seasons. She is absent from the third (and they even tease the viewer about it by giving her an eyecatch). She does appear in the final couple of episodes of the fourth, but has only a cameo in the beginning of the fifth (and is part of the penultimate eyecatch). Of course, in the original novels, she only appeared in two books (which the final arcs of seasons one and two were adaptations of), so there wasn't much material about her to work with.
• Sonic X:
  • The main focus and development is usually given to Chris or another supporting hero at first, with Sonic only stepping in when the action starts. The roles were reversed in the second series, in which Chris was Demoted to Extra and Sonic had more focus put on him.
  • In the game adaptations, the Egg Viper, the final boss of Sonic's story and one of the most popular boss battles of the series, has about one minute of screen time, while the Egg Walker, Tails' final boss battle, doesn't even appear.
• Daisuke Shima (Mark Venture) in the Space Battleship Yamato saga. Originally, he was the best friend and rival of Susumu Kodai (Derek Wildstar). He was also a third in the love triangle between him, Kodai, and Yuki Mori (Nova). He aquiesced halfway through the first series and everyone agreed that Yuki belonged to Kodai. Without the love triangle or professional rivalry, Shima just became another buddy who stood by Kodai. Although he did have his moments during the Yamato II (Comet Empire) series. He seems to just be walking scenery in Yamato: The New Voyage, Be Forever Yamato, and Yamato III (Bolar Wars). Shima's temporary death during Yamato II and permanent death in Final Yamato seems to have had little dramatic effect due to the fact that Yamato II and Final had so much going on that upstaged his deaths. Interestingly enough, in Arrivederci Yamato, Shima survived along with other mostly background characters such as Dash (Nanbu), Eager (Ota), and Homer (Aihara). It seems that producers and writers decided that Shiro Sanada (Sandor) turned out to be a more interesting character to develop, not that they were wrong.
• Spiral:
  • Kousuke Asazuki is barely seen again in the manga once the Hizumi arc starts. Complains about it in the last volume omake.)
  • Sayoko Shiranagatani though she's a Blade Child she basically disappears after the revelation.
  • Detective Saeki Tohru from Alive initially seemed like he'd be a main character of the series, until Kousuke barged in. He finally showed up again to complain in the last volume's omake.
• Once Daiki gets over Ninako, he only appears sporadically for the rest of the Strobe Edge.
• Happens to Robotech's Max Sterling and Mirya. After the "Force of Arms" episode, they only made sporadic appearances, usually non speaking. And even in "Viva Mirya", the love triangle buisness between Rick and Lisa still took up more screen time than was given to Max or Mirya. Neither Max nor Mirya appear in Prelude to Shadow Chronicles, but Admiral Hunter is said to have summoned Max to the SDF-3.
• This happens to Kyouko in Sweet Blue Flowers. After being in the limelight during the Yasuko story arc, she gradually shifts out of focus after Yasuko gets Put on a Bus. After one short arc, in which she returns to her fiancé, her role is downgraded to merely being one of the members of the drama club over which Akira presides. Of course, a female character who chooses a guy pretty much spells her own doom in a yuri manga.
• In the anime of Sword Art Online:
  • Argo only appears in one brief scene towards the end of the third episode. This is mostly due to the chronology of the light novels versus the anime. Argo the Rat was not a character in the original Sword Art Online novel at all. Rather, she was introduced in Sword Art Online: Progressive, which is a spin off/prequel series. Since the anime was a mix of the original novel and the first Progressive novel, Argo appears only during the first floor covered by the Progressive novel.
  • Speaking of SAO, Kirito himself gets hit with this during the Mother's Rosario arc, as he takes a backseat for the arc to focus on Yuuki and Asuna. He only makes a few brief appearances during the arc, the most notable of which being covering the Sleeping Knights (along with Klein) while they move to take on the Floor 29 Boss.
  • The Alicization Arc does this to everyone in the cast except Kirito, due to the fact that the story centers around Kirito being stuck in a VR world that all his friends aren't able to log into. This, combined with the arc being longer than all the previous arcs combined, were major factors in the mixed reception the arc received from fans.
• The eponymous characters of Tantei Opera Milky Holmes take a distant mentor role in Futari wa. Of G4, only Kokoro has a meaningful role (mainly in being one step behind the new protagonists, the Feathers). Thief Empire only appear as The Cameo, Color the Phantom are the new antagonists.
• The classic Meiji era writer Koda Rohan had a much more active role in the novel and live action film. But in Doomed Megalopolis, most of his actions are given to Kamo, a fictional onmyoji. Ogai Mori (another famous Meiji era writer), who was also a major supporting character in the book, is just relegated to a cameo in the cinematic adaptations.
• Plenty of fighters from the game, like Paul and King, have only stationary appearances in the background of Tekken: The Motion Picture.
• Tenchi Muyo!:
  • In the third OVA volume, Ayeka was reduced from main character status to practically being non-existent.
  • Washuu had a diminished role in both the Tenchi Universe and Tenchi in Tokyo series, to the point where she barely had an impact in the second half of both shows until their respective finales.
• Tenjho Tenge:
  • Nagi seems to have steadily drifted out of focus as the primary protagonist since the first flashback arc up until the beginning of the tournament where he became the Big Bad, sorta, and even then he spent several chapters before the finale wandering around off screen.
  • Of course, no one even comes close to the demotion suffered by Bob Makihara, who went from being a secondary protagonist to being a relatively low-level (if very likable) supporting character.
• In the Tokkô manga, Itto and Mayu become the main characters in their own dedicated arc, but in the anime they only make a few cameo appearences, and their arc is rewritten with them removed from it and are replaced by Ranmaru.
• All of the original main characters from the Tokyo Mew Mew manga were demoted to extras in the short-lived sequel, Tokyo Mew Mew a la mode, when manga-original Shirayuki Berii was made the new main character. Although it is said this was due to Executive Meddling, and the other Mew Mews were supposed to play a more important role, but Mia Ikumi was told not to include them very much, as she was restricted to two volumes.
• To Love Ru:
  • In the anime, Mikan's screentime decreases after the third episode. Most notable, there's one episode happening almost entirely on (And under) her (And her brother Rito's) backyard, but she doesn't get even one line. The OVAs and second season avert this, but still.
  • Mikan even lampshades this in the sequel manga To Love Ru Darkness, stating that she feels that she is becoming less important because Momo is taking away most of the things she used to do. However, she does get fairly good screentime so it's a downplayed example.
  • Lala and Haruna, who were the two most important characters after Rito, get hit by this trope in ''Darkness', becoming secondary characters.
  • The only character who retains their same level of importance is Rito, and even in his case he feels Out of Focus because the bulk of the time the story is being told from other characters POVs.
• Happens often in Transformers anime. Although most of the demoted characters will continue to make appearances throughout their series and some might still get shining moments, they will mostly remain background extras whose presence rarely makes a difference to the plot.
  • Transformers: ★Headmasters: Much of the cast from the original cartoon took on a smaller role with the anime as was customary with the franchise's Merchandise-Driven nature. It was most notable with the established characters who became Targetmasters. Blurr, Kup, Rodimus, Cyclonus, and Scourge were all upgraded into Targetmasters in the cartoon and thus stayed relevant with the newly produced toys. However, their new toys were never released in Japan and the anime reflected that. So while the five played a major role in the cartoon version of the "Masters" arc, the anime version had the Autobot trio in a minor role before being Put on a Bus while the two Decepticons faded into the background.
  • In Transformers Victory, God Ginrai, the mechanical component of Masterforce's hero, spends most of his time fighting Decepticons in other sectors (i.e. off-camera) and only appears to be destroyed and turned into what Transfans sarcastically label "a backpack and a pair of boots"- Star Saber's Mid-Season Upgrade.
  • Transformers: Energon was infamous for this, reducing several important characters with their own arcs to background filler within episodes. An example: Inferno, one of the main Autobots in the beginning, is tortured by Megatron, who reprograms him into a Decepticon. After much struggle, he kills himself, is reborn in a new body, and never does anything notable. Made worse in the American version, because it omits the episode in which the other Autobots react to Inferno's death, making it look like even they don't care.
  • Half the cast of Transformers: Cybertron. How long did it take for Evac to stop doing anything? Four episodes?
• The anime of Trinity Blood reduced some of the characters' roles. For example, Mary Spencer has a very prominent role in the manga and novels where she is the illegitimate daughter of Crown Albion Prince (making her and Ester as sisters) and a possible successor to the throne. The anime never mentions this.
• In The Twelve Kingdoms novels, Taiki and Youko share the mantle of main character, and get roughly the same amount of books. In the anime, he gets a five-episode arc that is never properly concluded.
• Ittoki Otoya in Uta No Prince Sama. In a sense. He is still part of the main cast in the second season, however, the first season gives him a bigger role and more screen time than other members of STARISH; in the second season, the counterpart of his importance from the first season is given to Cecil.
• Violinist of Hameln:
  • After Drum's defeat Prince Trom Bon drops out of the story entirely for several volumes. Once he comes back he returns to being a central character.
  • After being hyped up as one of the major characters, Corr Net loses all relevance to the story. Her Mazoku form is played entirely for laughs and, barring one Big Damn Heroes moment, only reduces her to a joke character.
• Once Hime starts her double life role masquerading as Shiro, her school friends Tsukino, Takayanagi, and Mitchi don't show up very often in Voice Over! Seiyu Academy, only appearing from time to time in chapters.
• Wandering Son:
  • Kanako was upgraded to a fairly important character between volume 1 and volume 2. She was Takatsuki's childhood friend and eventually Saori's Only Friend after Saori broke off ties with Nitori and Takatsuki (which caused her to appear less because she spent more time with Saori). She was steadily demoted as Saori befriended the others again. By high school she was demoted out of the series except for a few appearances.
  • Maho's boyfriend Riku appeared often in elementary and early into middle school. However, as time went on he appeared less and less.
  • Chizuru, Momoko, and Kanako get basically removed from the plot during high school. Momoko was a satellite character to Chizuru and Kanako had been demoted already, however they stopped appearing except for an occasional cameo after a while. They were put into an all-girls school away from Nitori and Takatsuki.
• Early on in Watashi No Messiah Sama, we are led to believe that the monster Zoa-Evil Katla is a boss or at least a strong monster. Turns out that it's merely a Mook of some sort and appears in the hundreds in major battles.
• After Weiß Kreuz Gluhen, Omi and Youji demote themselves by taking over Kritiker and getting married after developing amnesia, leaving Aya and Ken to become the backbone of a new assassin team in England while they only appear in flashbacks. Frustratingly, looked about to change, what with Youji being called by his real name in a cameo and Omi keeping tabs on Aya and Ken's actions, but the series was Cut Short.
• Why the Hell Are You Here, Teacher!?: Every volume of the series focuses on a different couple, usually related to the previous volume's characters by One Degree of Separation. The previous main characters never disappear, but they are reduced to a supporting role.
• World Witches:
  • The 501st JFW doesn't do a whole lot in Strike Witches: One-Winged Witches, since it focuses on Wilma and her relationship with the Isle of Wight Detachment.
  • Mio Sakamoto has a minimal appearance in the Strike Witches: The Movie after having a central role in the previous two seasons.
  • In Strike Witches, Perrine H. Clostermann has a minor role in 501st Joint Fighter Wing Take Off. She barely appears until the penultimate episode.
  • Since Luminous Witches focuses on the titular singing squadron, the 501st and 502nd Joint Fighter Wings's roles have been significantly reduced.
• X/1999: In the movie, Shiyu Kusanagi not only had his Gentle Giant and Friend to All Living Things persona stripped away to make him an explicit villain, but his relationship with Yuzuriha was left out, despite being probably the key aspect of his character, and to top it off, he was killed in a very mean-spirited manner by his own ally after only a few minutes of screen time. It could be justified as being necessary for the short length of the movie, but for fans of the character it was just painful.
• In Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, Itou and Tsubaki, and Shiraishi to some degree, get demoted to extras in the second witch war when Yamada and Miyamura are student council members. When Yamada and Miyamura return to the Supernatural Studies Club, the other student council members get demoted.
• Yo-kai Watch:
  • Manjimutt was a popular yokai in early episodes. He appeared even more often than Jibanyan. Eventually he was phased out to the point where he rarely appeared. According to a Komasan Taxi segment this was due to parents complaining that he was too sexual and that one of his scenes was too violent.
  • Katie's role as Nate's Distaff Counterpart received this after Hailey Anne was added in. Katie still appears as Nate's love interest but her role was decreased with Hailey instead acting as Nate's female foil. The games followed suit with the third game making Nate the definitive owner of the Yo-Kai Watch and having Katie not be playable.
• In the Tatsunoko adaptations of Yozakura Quartet, Kyousuke Kishi has fewer scenes.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • Ryou Bakura in the anime. In the manga, Bakura mainly acts as the Fifth Ranger most of the time, and even at parts where he's Out of Focus, he still maintains an importance to the main arc of the story. In the anime, he appears for the manga-adapted arcs but is excluded from every filler arc, including the entirety of Season 4. This treatment of him is notably parodied like crazy in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series.
  • After Doma, Mai's relegated to just making a couple of silent cameos for the remainder of the anime.
  • Mr. Crocketts has most of his role and appearances cut in the anime, including the briefcase scene and his explanation of Pegasus's plans to the group.
• Inverted in Yu-Gi-Oh! (first anime series). Unlike the second anime, Ryou Bakura is given more screentime even in episodes that correspond to the manga chapters before he was introduced. They don't show anything after Monster World, where he truly becomes part of the main cast, though.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! GX:
  • Johan Andersen plays a significantly smaller role in the manga than in the anime. No Gem Beast cards, no Ho Yay with Judai, just one instance of possession and a lot of bug chasing.
  • Poor Daichi Misawa. In the first season he was one of the main character's closest friends and rivals. In the second season he was slowly ignored, and was Put on a Bus half way through. In the third season he turned up again to provide Expo Speak, only to disappear again for a good part of the second arc, and appeared once to provide more Expo Speak, then to finally disappear for good. He wasn't even mentioned in the fourth season, and was one of the few characters from the very beginning to not get any sort of closure. Being Demoted To Extra is actually cited as the reason for his Face–Heel Turn in season 2.
  • Jun Manjoume was Judai's first rival and played a major part in the first season. In the second season, he’s Brainwashed and Crazy by Sartorius and serves as his main enforcer for most of the season. Come the third season, he’s given a little more attention then the rest of the cast, only to end up brainwashed again and serving as little more than a minor obstacle towards Judai, before being used as a sacrifice, along with most of Judai’s friends halfway through. He returns to prominence in the fourth season, interning under Edo to become a Pro Duelist.
  • Edo Phoenix was Judai's main rival in the second season and was the second most important hero in that season, as both of them can Screw Destiny. However, once the third season started, Edo made a few minor appearances in the first half, but returned in the second half with Kaiser as one of Judai’s few allies remaining. He appears in the fourth season taking Manjoume under his wing.
  • Kaiser was Judai's strongest rival in season 1, but he still has his own character arc after he graduaded. However, in the middle of season 2, Hell Kaiser disappears somehow from the plot after beating the living crap out of his younger brother. During the final of the third season, Hell Kaiser's heart problems reach the climax, which hospitalized him for the entire fourth season. His younger brother Sho, who has taken a lot of levels in badass, receives Kaiser's deck.
  • Yubel, the main antagonist of the third season, was fused with Judai at the end of it and ended up Sharing a Body with him. Despite this, they only make a small handful of appearances in the fourth season.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds:
  • Aki Izayoi fell into this going into the WRGP/Yliaster arc. In the first half of the series, Aki was a formidable, destructive, and ominous Dark Magical Girl, established as a powerful duelist and prominent rival, and later ally, for Yusei. In the second half of the series, nearly all focus is dedicated to Yusei, his connections to the main antagonists, and to a lesser extent his teammates Jack and Crow, and Aki consequently falls almost completely off the map for entire arcs at a time. For some idea, she gets three onscreen Duels in the Fortune Cup arc that introduced her (about fourteen episodes), another three in the Dark Signers arc (38 episodes), and another three in the entire last half of the series (around 90 episodes), and one of those Duels is shared with Crow.
  • Ruka and Rua are the least significant members of the main cast, but still get a fair bit of screentime and even a miniarc or two dedicated to them in the first half. After that point, they almost completely lose relevance, only showing up to be the resident dual Kid-Appeal Character and receiving sporadic appearances in the show's preliminary arc. Rua at least gets some resolution and finally becomes a Signer in the final arc, but Ruka's whole "connection to the Spirit World" plot vanishes almost in its entirety.
  • Carly was a major character in the Dark Signer arc, serving as both Jack's Love Interest and personal enemy. Once she lost her Dark Signer powers and her and Jack's love confession is somehow retconned, she is nothing more than one of Jack's three fangirls.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL:
  • Tetsuo Takeda had an important role as Yuma's best friend early on, even dueling Number 96, but later suffered from this, though he had it better than some and got his Days in the Limelight.
  • Also early on, Yuma used Leviathan Dragon nearly as much as he did Utopia, to the point where it was his secondary ace monster. After episode 10, though, it only shows up once, since at that point Yuma has an abundance of Numbers to choose from (and he almost always chooses Utopia).
• Yuzu was undisputedly the deuteragonist of the early arcs of Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, almost eclipsing Yuya at times and getting a fair amount of development. In the Synchro Arc, she continues to play a prominent role in the story, but is given less focus compared to the first season. Past that point, she's little more than a Living MacGuffin—never getting a chance to duel, rarely getting focus, and serving almost exclusively as an objective for Yuya and the current Arc Villain to fight over.
• YuruYuri: Invoked. A running gag is that Akari has "no presence", which means everybody ignores her and forgets about her existence.
  • In episode 3, when she's giving a stock shojo monologue about her personality, other girls sit in front of her and block her from view, and when the camera spots Kyoko pelting through the hallway it actually leaves Akari behind, mid-monologue, to follow her.
  • Throughout the two Doga Kobo seasons, Akari is continually upstaged in her Couch Gag by other characters — when it's given to Mari-chan, she stands on the sidelines and whines about her precious screentime. At one point, when all the first-years are left out of the episode due to the second-years' class trip, they all gather next to her in the Couch Gag and complain about her lack of presence rubbing off on them.
• YuYu Hakusho:
  • In the manga, Yusuke's mother Atsuko was present for much of the early story and attended the Dark Tournament, but gradually faded away. In the anime, virtually all of her appearances after the Yukina arc were cut out and she was removed from later versions of the opening.
  • Kuwabara loses most of his screentime after the Chapter Black saga. It's just his bad luck that he wasn't a demon.

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