Multinational Team

A stereotype for every continent. Except Oceania. And Antarctica.

Soldier: We're all Americans here!
Miss Pauling: Well, not all of us, obviously. Medic's German and Heavy's from Russ — Ow! What? Oh.
Heavy: [nervously] Ha ha! Germany! Russia! Is big joke! Big American joke on Soldier! Ooh, America. It is the place I am from. All the time.

— Team Fortress 2: Shadow Boxers

A Multinational Team is a group of characters with different, emphasized nationalities with an In-Universe justification for this diversity. They are almost invariably the good guys, although the bad guys might have their own version of a multinational team. The trope can occur in works of fiction that do not take place in the present or even on Earth: in The Lord of the Rings, for example, many diverse people from all over Middle-Earth band together.

The Multinational Team differs from the Five-Token Band in that:

• The characters are explicitly from different nations, not merely different ethnicities. If the diverse characters all grew up in the same suburban town, they are the Five-Token Band, not the Multinational Team.
• The team has been assembled for a specific purpose, usually by an independent party. If the diverse characters have no specific reason to be hanging out, again they are the Five-Token Band.

In other words, the Multinational Team explains why the team is diverse, whereas the Five-Token Band simply is diverse, often with no explanation. This is not to say that such teams are incapable of tokenism or stereotypes. They're simply different breeds of trope.

Note that "emphasized" does not necessarily mean "thrown in your face every five seconds." If the series makes enough references to the characters' nationalities for the viewer to be aware of it, then the nationalities have been emphasized. Compare the villainous counterpart, Equal-Opportunity Evil. If it's people with power, it's likely a Cosmopolitan Council. Compare/contrast Five-Token Band. Subtrope of Party of Representatives. Compare Mixed Animal Species Team.

This trope puts the heroes on the "heterogeneous" side of Alike and Antithetical Adversaries.

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Example Subpages:

• Anime & Manga
• Comic Books
• Films — Live-Action
• Literature
• Live-Action TV
• Video Games
• Western Animation
• Real Life

Other Examples:

Fan Works

Crossovers

• Event Horizon: Storm of Magic: Being a multinational corporation, The Company™'s mission to the star system features characters from all over Earth, including Fred Kovacs (Canadian/American), Daniel Zimmerman (American), Angela Cheong (Korean), James Lombardi (Italian-American), Akane Saito (Japanese), Silke Mertesacker (German), Katherine Chakwas (Afro-British), Cristina Di Stefano (Italian-Argentine), James Wong (Chinese), Robin Van der Merwe (South African), and so on.
• Super Sentai Alternate: The story Battle Fever J, the Global Lagoon is naturally this, only using a real group of multinational heroes due to the characters all coming from Black Lagoon (and one random Frenchman from Hellsing).

Discworld

• The Price of Flight: Captain Olga Romanoff muses on the multi-national nature of the Air Watch. The biggest single nationality and ethnicity is her own Rodinian. there are also Überwaldean, Borogravian; one Agatean; a Swommi; one each from Fourecks, the Foggy Islands, the Untied States of Aceria, and Rimwards Howondaland.^note The author had in mind all the different nationalities who fought in the Royal Air Force in 1940, and wanted to give this a Discworld twist

Godzilla

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Monarch's Multinational Team from Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) (the members who survived the movie anyway) return, and new additions to their numbers for the duration of this story's main time frame include the African-American Dr. Brooks and the late, Japanese Dr. Serizawa's son Ren.

High School D×D

• The Roots Of Hope features the Crossroads, a team that has representatives from several mythologies; Norse, Heaven, Hell, Fallen Angels, Olympus and Youkai.

Kingdom Hearts

• Re:Flection Scenario: Although none of them are of Earth, the Heralds of Dawn are based on a Phenotype Stereotype associated with the compass point they are named after: Norius has Northern/English/Norse long blond hair and blueish-grey eyes. Weselo has Western/Latin American olive skin and wavy dark hair. Easen has Eastern green hair styled similar to a Hime Cut and his uniform takes inspiration from Chinese hanfu. Souzi has Southern/African dark brown skin and red hair in a buzz cut.

The Legend of Spyro

• Pure Light: The Freedom Flyers oppose the usual strict racial hierarchy of Warfang by taking members from any species. Just on team Alpha under Cynder's command, there are three dragons, a long, a winged unicorn, a cheetah, some kind of anthropomorphic flying lizard, a griffin, and Baboush who may be a dragon. In the past there was also a wyvern.

Lyrical Nanoha

• Deva Series: The students at Hayate's academy are deliberately chosen from nations the world over. The Circles also have members from lots of nations.

My Little Pony

• Chrysalis Visits The Hague: The author seems to have made a point out of hardly any two characters being from the same country, with exception of the Equestrian ponies and some Dutch natives.
• Flutterspy: The three evil ninjas. Red Adder is from Stalliongrad, Blue Cobra is from Trottingham, and Yellow Viper is from Okineighwa.
• The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: Three of the Bearers were born (and grew up) in the Equestrian continent; Night Blade in Canterlot, Rex in the Under before moving to Middle Canterlot as an adult, and Page Turner in an unknown location before going to Canterlot when very young, while Xvital is an Ahuizotl visiting from the Cuanmiztl Kingdom, Vix-Lei is a minotaur visiting from the Minos Islands, and the griffon Wind Breaker grew up in Canterlot (but, as revealed in the sequel Picking Up the Pieces, was born in and kidnapped from the Griffish Isles and taken back to Canterlot when he was too young to remember).

Pokémon

• Pokémon Crossing focuses on a trio of trainers from different regions: Kidd (Kalosian), Tank (Hoennian), and Benedict (Hoennian/Galarian, born and raised Unovan). Cultural differences are highlighted through the series i.e. Kidd trying to order wine, Benedict's hotblooded personality getting him into fights, and Tank happily teaching about Hoennian culture.
• Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: While Ash's Battle Harem isn't quite this yet, it'll eventually include two Kantonian girls (Misty and Anabel), one Unovan (Iris), one Hoennian (May), one Sinnohan (Dawn), and one Kalosian (Serena). So far only the first three have joined, with Serena strongly hinted to be the next one.

RWBY

• DNMC has the titular team comprising one member from each of the four kingdoms of Remnant.

SCP Foundation

• SCP: Overlord: The squad known as MTF Epsilon-6 ("Village Idiots") consists of individuals from several places, identifiable by the flags on their helmets. They including Poland (Kolinski), England (Lambert), Italy (Cicero), France (Besson), and New Mexico (Reyes). Jansen doesn't have a flag on his helmet, but his accent sounds American.

A Song of Ice and Fire

• Alysanne, Lady of Winterfell: The Sunflowers are a theatre troupe with half of the performers from Dorne (including at least one orphan of the Greenblood), a Westeros-raised Lyseni, and a Braavosi, led by a woman from the Shield Islands.

Total Drama

• Keepers of the Elements: Each Keeper is usually from a different country.

Warhammer 40,000

• The Ragged Edges focuses on a space-age equivalent in the form of a Guard regiment assembled from last-surviving members of other regiments from across the galaxy.

Music

• How's this for a multinational team?
• Frequent in Korean Pop Music. Groups without at least one foreign member are few and far in-between and becoming less common each generation.
• Amahiru's lineup consists of a British singer (Archie Wilson), guitarists from France (Frédéric Leclercq) and Japan (Saki), a Dutch keyboardist (Coen Janssen), and an American drummer (Mike Heller).
• Arcade Fire consists of five Canadians and two Americans (Though as of 2019 Win Butler holds dual US-Canadian citizenship).
• Arch Enemy: Their current line up consists of guitarist Michael Amott, bassist Sharlee D'Angelo, and drummer Daniel Elardsson (Sweden) and vocalist Alissa White-Gluz (Canada). The former lineup had members from Germany (vocalist Angela Gossow) and the USA (guitarist Nick Cordle and Jeff Loomis).
• The Black Eyed Peas has will.i.am (African-American), apl.de.ap (Filipino-American), Taboo (Mexican-American) and J. Rey Soul (African-American). Former members include Fergie (mixed English, Irish, Mexican and Scottish) and Kim Hill (African-American).
• Bloc Party's original lineup comprised of Nigerian-British vocalist/guitarist Kele Okereke, Malaysian-British drummer Matt Tong, as well as bassist Gordon Moakes and guitarist Russell Lissack, both white British.
• Deathgrind band Brujeria has members from numerous parts of the globe. Lead singer Juan Brujo and backing vocalist Ciriaco Quezada are from Mexico, bassist/guitarist Shane Embury (Napalm Death) is English, and Pat Moed (additional bass) is from the United States. As of 2016, they've added another American (Henry Sanchez on additional vocals) and a Chilean (Anton Reisenegger of Criminal on guitar) to their lineup.
• The classic 1970-73 lineup of Can consisted of four Germans instrumentalists and a Japanese vocalist. Other times, the band variously had an African-American, a Jamaican, and a Ghanaian.
• Boy Band CNCO, born of a Latin American talent show, has five countries represented in its lineup: Ecuador (Christopher), Cuba (Erick), Mexico (Joel), Dominican Republic (Richard) and Puerto Rico (Zabdiel).
• Conquer Divide: All members are Americans, except for guitarist Izzy, who is British.
• Deathspell Omega is an Anonymous Band to the extreme, however the most commonly accepted theory regarding their membership posits that they have a French guitarist and drummer, a Finnish vocalist, and a Japanese bassist. They apparently used to be entirely French until their first vocalist Shaxul left.
• DragonForce is made up of English Marc Hudson on vocals, American Alicia Vigil on bass, Hong-Konger Herman "Shred" Li on guitars, English-born New Zealander Sam Totman on guitars, and Italian Gee Anzalone on drums. Former members include South African vocalist ZP Theart, English bassist Adrian Lambert, French bassist Frederic Leclercq, Ukrainian keyboardist Vadim Pruzhanov and Scottish drummer Dave "Compact Dynamo" Mackintosh.
• Dschinghis Khan began with two Germans, two Hungarians, a South African, and a Dutchwoman.
• Equinox, a supergroup (or "common framework") specifically formed to represent Bulgaria at the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest, featured three Bulgarians and two Americans.
• Foreigner was formed with Britons Mick Jones, Ian McDonald, and Dennis Elliot along with Americans Lou Gramm, Al Greenwood, and Ed Gagliardi. In fact, the band was named such because the band members were from different countries.
• Garbage consists of Americans Steve Marker, Duke Erikson, and Butch Vig and Scottish lead singer Shirley Manson.
• Girl Group G.R.L. consisted of three Americans, one Brit, and one Canadian.
• GogolBordello were formed in America by Ukrainian Eugene Hutz and have featured several Russians, Romanians, Israelis, Americans, English, Scottish and even a Scottish-Chinese member amongst their ranks. However, Russians will insist that they're an American band, on account of being formed there.
• Jazz unit Hiromi Uehara Trio Project consists of its namesake Hiromi Uehara (Japanese), Anthony Jackson (American), and Simon Phillips (British).
• Kreator consist of German Mille Petrozza and Ventor, Finnish Sami Yli-Sirniö and French Frédéric Leclercq.
• Ladytron consists of a Scot, Bulgarian and two British members (one of them of Chinese descent).
• Deathgrind band Lock Up consists of Englishman Shane Embury (bass), Swede Tomas Lindberg (vocals), Americans Kevin Sharp (vocals) and Adam Jarvis (drums), and Chilean Anton Reisenegger (guitars).
• Machine Head consists of a American Robb Flynn & Jared MacEachern, and English Matt Alston.
• Malevolent Creation is from the United States, but given that they have a ridiculous amount of former members even by death metal standards, they've unsurprisingly had a couple members from outside their home nation, those two being drummer Gus Rios (Venezuela) and guitarist/singer Lee Wollenschlaeger (South Africa).
• Megadeth current line up American Dave Mustaine and James LoMenzo, Finnish Teemu Mäntysaari and Swedish Dirk Verbeuren.
• The current lineup for the London-based power metal band Neonfly consists of Irish vocalist Willy Norton, Mexican-French guitarist Frederick Thunder, English guitarist Andy Midgley, French drummer Boris le Gal, and Channel Islander bassist Paul Miller. Midgley's predecessor as rhythm guitarist was the Irish-Filipino Patrick Harrington.
• Nervosa's current lineup qualifies; guitarist and mainwoman Prika Amaral is from Brazil (which is still the band's base of operations), while the rest of the lineup is from Bulgaria (Mihaela Naydenova) and Greece (Helena Kotina and Hel Pyre).
• No Devotion is a Welsh rock band (though one of them is English) fronted by an American.
• Pop group Now United has this as its main marketing point. Each member is from a different country: Any is Brazilian, Bailey is Filipino, Heyoon is South Korean, Hina is Japanese, Joalin is Finnish, Josh is Canadian, Krystian is Chinese, Lamar is British, Noah is American, Nour is Lebanese, Sabina is Mexican, Savannah is Australian, Shivani is Indian, Sina is German and Sofya is Russian.
• Obscura current lineup consists of vocalist/guitarist Steffen Kummerer and guitarist Christian Munzner (Germany), bassist Jerome Paul Thesseling (Netherlands), and drummer David Diepold (Austria).
• Ozzy Osbourne and his touring band consists of two Brits (including himself), two Americans, and a Greek.
• The Rolling Stones are this nowadays, with its primary lineup consisting of Brits and its touring lineup consisting of Americans.
• Slaughter to Prevail consisted of four are Russians Alex Terrible, Mike Petrov, Evgeny Novikov, & Dima Mamedov and English Guitarist Jack Simmons.
• Sunn O))) intially just consisted of Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson, both Americans. However, over the years the band has expanded to include the Hungarian Attila Csihar, the Australian Oren Ambarchi, and the Dutch Tos Nieuwenhuizen. They have also collaborated with artists from Britain, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Japan.
• Indie band Superorganism are a London-based group consisting of eight different members: Orono Noguchi (Japanese), Harry (English), Emily (Australian), Robert Strange, Tucan, Ruby, B (New Zealanders), and Soul (South Korean). It gets even trickier when you learn that Orono was based in Maine, while Harry and Emily were based in New Zealand, while Soul currently resides in Australia due to an expired work visa.
• Transatlantic is a progressive rock supergroup, so named because their members are from both sides of The Pond; Keyboardist Neal Morse and drummer Mike Portnoy are American, guitarist Roine Stolt is Swedish and bassist Pete Trewavas is British.
• tool consist of American Maynard James Keenan, Adam Jones & Danny Carey and British Justin Chancellor.
• Prague-based band Vesna, known for representing Czechia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023, includes three Czechs (Patricie Fuxová, Bára Šůstková, Markétka Vedralová), a Slovak (Tereza Čepková), a Bulgarian (Tanita Yankovová), and a Russian (Olesya Ochepovskaya).
• The Melodic Death Metal band Nightrage was formed in Greece, but have had several members based in Sweden since they relocated to Gothenburg, and have also had members from Finland, France, and Venezuela.

Pro Wrestling

• WWE's short-lived League of Nations stable featured Irishman Sheamus, Bulgarian Rusev, Englishman King Barrett and Mexican Alberto Del Rio.
• In fact, Barrett's previous stables, The Nexus and The Corre, also were multinational teams.
  • All Nexus members were Americans except for Barrett (English) and Justin Gabriel (South African). Later, during CM Punk's stint as the Nexus frontman, it also boasted Welshman Mason Ryan.
  • The Corre featured Barrett (English) and Gabriel (South African) alongside Heath Slater (American) and Ezekiel Jackson (Guyanese).
• Damage CTRL is made up of Bayley (Mexican American), Dakota Kai (New Zealander) and Iyo Sky (Japanese). Their 2022 Survivor Series War Games match would include Nikki Cross (Scottish) and Rhea Ripley (Australian). Two more Japanese in Asuka and Kairi Sane would officially join in 2023.
• Imperium featured Walter/Gunther (Austrian), Marcel Barthel/Ludwig Kaiser & former member Alexander Wolfe (German) and Fabian Aichner/Giovanni Vinci (Italian).
• The Brawling Brutes featured Irish Sheamus and English Butch & Ridge Holland. Their Survivor Series War Games would also include the Scottish Drew Mcintyre and Canadian Kevin Owens
• Team PCB featured English Paige, American Charlotte Flair and Irish Becky Lynch.
• The Judgment Day on the first run featured Canadian Edge, Puerto Rican American Damian Priest and Australian Rhea Ripley. On the second run featured Irish Finn Balor, Puerto Rican American Damian Priest, Australian Rhea Ripley, Mexican American Dominik Mysterio, and another Irish and Finn's former student JD McDonagh. 2023 Survivor Series War Games include Scottish Drew McIntyre.
• Bullet Club has multiple people from different parts of the world this extends to the leaders. Prince Devitt (Irish), AJ Styles (American), Kenny Omega (Canadian), Jay White (New Zealander).
• The Outcasts featured English Saraya, Australian Toni Storm and American Ruby Soho.
• 3MB featured Scottish Drew McIntyre, Indian-Canadian Jinder Mahal and American Heath Slater.
• WWE's LWO featured Mexican-American Rey Mysterio, Mexican Cruz Del Toro, Philipino-American Joaquin Wilde, Puerto Rican-American Zelina Vega and Puerto Rican Carlito Colón
• The Bloodline 2022-2023 run featured Samoan-Americans Roman Reigns, The Usos, and Solo Sikoa, Jewish-American Paul Heyman and Syrian-Canadian Sami Zayn.
• In NXT WarGames 2021 Women's Match featured Italian-American Cora Jade, Japanese Io Shirai, Scottish Kay Lee Ray and Mexican-American Raquel Gonzalez against Americans Toxic Attraction Mandy Rose, Gigi Dolin & Jacy Jayne, and Samoan-New Zealander Dakota Kai. Men's Match featured Team 2.0 Caucasian-American Bron Breakker, Italian-American Tony D'Angelo, African-American Carmelo Hayes and Australian Grayson Waller against Team Black & Gold Americans Tommaso Ciampa, Johnny Gargano, & LA Knight, and English Pete Dunne.

Radio

• Journey into Space: The crew is British (Jet Morgan and Lemmy Barnet), Canadian (Doc Matthews) and Australian Stephen "Mitch" Mitchell).

Religion

• In Christianity, it has become popular to depict the Three Wise Men who visited the infant Christ in this way. While the original text simply describes them as "wise men from the East," artistic representations of the trio since the late 1200s often have Caspar as white, Melchior as Arabic, and Balthazar as Black, representing the three major areas of the "known world" in Biblical times (Europe, Asia, and Africa, respectively). To further the point, the Wise Men are similarly depicted as being of three different ages, with Caspar as elderly, Melchior as middle-aged, and Balthazar as young.

Tabletop Games

• Sentinels of the Multiverse: The various heroes and villains come from a huge range of nations.
  • While many of the heroes — especially the Freedom Five — come from the United States (Legacy, Bunker, Tachyon, Absolute Zero, Argent Adept, Nightmist, Setback, Chrono-Ranger, etc) many more come from other countries. Fanatic is from Peru, Unity from Israel, Haka from New Zealand, KNYFE from Scotland, the Naturalist from Nigeria, Visionary from China, Parse from Australia and Sky-Scraper and Tempest from outside of Earth.
  • The villains are just as diverse. Outside of the obvious nonhuman ones, there's Baron Blade, who hails from a a small fictional eastern European country, Ambuscade from France, the Operative from the Philippines, and La Capitan from colonial Spain.
• Warhammer Fantasy Battle: While most of the regiments and characters in the Dogs of War are Tilean, they also include a wide assortment of troops and rogues from across the nations of the world. A mercenary army can potentially include Imperial exile knights, Arabyan cavalry, Norse marauders, Amazon warriors, Dwarf pirates, Dark Elf raiders, a High Elf dragonrider, Lizardmen raptor riders, Orc crossbowmen, Hobgoblin wolf riders, and similarly coloroful sorts.

Visual Novels

• An Aboriginal Autralian version in Lands of Fire. The core group comes from all over Australia, from the Yuin in the southeastern coast to the Arrernte in the desert and the Gamilaraay in between. The Gunditjamara reinforcements from South Australia also feature an Yolngu from the opposite side of the continent.
• Minotaur Hotel: The various guests that you will meet and may be able to recruit come from different countries and their respective country's myth. For example, Luke is of mixed heritage but was born and raised in the United States, Kota is from Japan, and Asterion himself is from Crete.
• Queen of Thieves: The Gilded Poppy are a team of thieves who come from a variety of national backgrounds. Nikolai is Russian, Remy is French, Vivienne grew up all over, Zoe and the heroine are American, Jett is British, and Leon is from Hong Kong.

Web Animation

• Eddie at The LMV: The LMV have a line-up of three black, two white, one Eastern-Asian, and an Ambiguously Brown.
• hololive: The EN branch has turned out this way, compared to the group's main (all Japanese) and ID (all Indonesian) branches. From their accents and other information given by the girls themselves, the first generation Myth has Calliope, Gura, and Ame being American (with Calli living in Japan), Kiara Austrian, and Ina of Korean ancestry and (most likely) living in Canada. The second generation Council includes two Australians (Sana and Baelz), two more Americans (Fauna and Mumei), and another Canadian (Kronii). In between, IRyS seems to be an American living in Japan, similar to Calli. And the third generation, Advent include the Midwestern American Nerissa, the Thai-descended Bijou, as well as most likely Canadians, Fuwawa and Mococo. While Shiori's nationality or domain is still unknown, but she once alludes her upbringing by casually mentioned that she likes Brazo de Mercedes, a traditional Filipino delicacy.
• RWBY: Each continent of Remnant has at least one kingdom, a safe place for humanity to flourish among the nightmarish creatures that stalk the world. Each kingdom contains an elite school that trains people to become Huntsmen and Huntresses, heroes who protect humanity from the threats to their existence. The world's best school is Beacon Academy, based in the Kingdom of Vale on the continent of Sanus, and run by the enigmatic Professor Ozpin; it either attracts the best students in the world or Ozpin actively headhunts them, so Beacon teams can consist of students who come from many different places. The heroes helping the Big Good to fight the Big Bad consist of two teams from Beacon Academy: Team RWBY, which contains Vale locals Ruby Rose and Yang Xiao Long, Weiss Schnee who is native to the Kingdom of Atlas on the continent of Solitas, and Blake Belladonna, who comes from the distant Faunus island of Menagerie. Team JNPR contains two characters of unknown origins, Jaune Arc and Nora Valkyrie, Pyrrha Nikos, who comes from the City of Argus on the continent of Anima, and Lie Ren, who comes from a completely different location on Anima, the village of Kuroyuri just outside the Kingdom of Mistral.

Webcomics

• Jet Dream; Like their "real" comic book counterparts, the transformed T-Girls of the Remix Comic version are an international team. In this version, J.E.T. D.R.E.A.M. operates under NATO supervision, and all the T-Girls are citizens of NATO countries: "Jet Dream Queen" Harmony Thunder (USA); Petite (France); Marlene (West Germany); Ting-a-Ling (UK colony of Fiji); Cookie Jarr (Norway).
• Stand Still, Stay Silent: The book-hunters have Finn, Norwegian, Swede, Dane and Icelander members, making them an omninational team by the standards for the Known World.

Web Original

• Whateley Universe: The Vindicators' current line-up includes a Swede, a Dane, a Belgian, a Canadian, and two Americans. For that matter, Pan-Asia, which is made up of Whateley Academy students from all over Asia, including Japan, China, and Vietnam.

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