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Quirky Miniboss Squad
Tremble before our well-rehearsed, synchronized might!

An ensemble of minions more developed than faceless mooks but not as developed as The Dragon. Occasionally a Dragon is actually part of the team, and will be the unofficial leader. The actual competency of this group varies widely.

This group is typified by an overarching design theme, but also an individual quirky personality to each which may seem oddly familiar. They are allowed to act funnier than The Dragon. They mainly provide a distraction to the heroes until the real plot kicks in. The Big Bad has little qualms with killing them off if they fail consistently, possibly because their jobs often entail a bare minimum of intelligence needed. Some groups are filled with backbiting and betrayal, with the occasional Minionshipping. Occasionally, one or two of the bunch will have a change of heart, and do a Heel Face Turn. That person is almost always a loner to the rest of the group anyway, especially if they become the Sixth Ranger.

If the heroes defeat their Dragon and their Big Bad, some or all of them may survive. They usually don't stick around in-show after that, but if they do, they may become the Terrible Trio or a bunch of Sixth Rangers.

See also: Terrible Trio, the typical hierarchy of the Quirky Miniboss Squad, and Goldfish Poop Gang, a sillier recurring enemy independent of the Big Bad. Contrast The Family For The Whole Family. May be made a threat with Team Rocket Wins.

Examples

Anime
  • Sailor Moon had a set of these guys every season (in order of appearance: Shitennou, Ayakashi Sisters, Witches 5, Amazon Trio, Amazoness Quartet, and Sailor Animamates). Each of these groups was made up of colour-coded evil counterparts of the Four Guardians (Ami, Rei, Makoto and Minako). In the manga, the Witches 5 were even POWER-CODED, and resurrected JUST to kill the senshi they copied!
  • Futari Wa Pretty Cure (including spinoffs Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash*Star and Yes! Precure 5) has a cadre of mid-level badguys every plot line, one of which usually ends up becoming The Dragon.
  • Kannazuki No Miko had the "Necks of Orochi", whose appearances parodied stock characters in anime. (As an aside, there were faceless mooks in the manga, but they never made an appearance in the anime.)
  • The "Dreaded" Ginyu Force from Dragon Ball Z, as seen in the page image. To be fair, before Goku comes along and shows them that My Kung Fu Is Stronger Than Yours, they don't have much trouble trouncing the rest of the group.
  • Trigun had the Gung-ho Guns, a group of assassins headed by a Dragon. They weren't played for comedy, however, and usually only appeared one at a time, leaving them somewhere between this trope and the Monster Of The Week.
  • Bobobobo Bobobo features the various blocks and divisions of the Hair Hunters, which included in their ranks everything from robots to martial artists to Talking Animals to animated objects.
    • Sometimes the objects aren't animated at all. There was an ordinary stick of gum in their ranks at some point.
      • Well, who better to replace the animate block of jelly that betrayed them than another comestible?
  • In Bleach, almost all Gotai 13 squads introduced in the Soul Society arc fall under this trope, but essentially, in terms of pure, utter quirkiness, the 11th squad stands on top.
    • Another example pops up later on with the former Espada, Nel Tu and her Fraccion.Extenuating circumstances involving another Espada transformed Nel into a little girl and she fled along with her Fraccion to live in the desert outside Aizen's keep, where they formed a little miniboss squad with a Hollow worm thing that they adopted as a pet, complete with a team pose◊ and a quirky name, though they can't actually◊ decide◊ on a name between them.
    • Bleach also has Ichigo's sisters' Sentai squad, the "Karakura Superheroes" (who similarily can't seem to decide on the colors), and it appears that Kon and the three new modsouls from the Bount arc have formed yet another. That makes 16 quirky miniboss squads; Bleach, after all, has Loads And Loads Of Characters.
    • The Espada could fit in here, as well.
    • A few of the Espada each have their own Quirky Miniboss Squad, particularly Grimmjow, Halibel, and Barragon.
  • The Goth Loli sisters from The Wallflower.
  • The Hyper-Zoanoid Five in Guyver. Of course, they barely fought the Guyver himself, and instead were targets for Aptom, who took down four out of five and even was able to get a sample of Zxtole's genetics.
  • The Homunculi in Full Metal Alchemist beneath "Father" (in the manga) or Dante (in the anime). Going a step below that, one of the Homunculi, Greed, has his very own mini-miniboss squad with his chimera henchmen (and henchwoman).
  • The Dark Lovers and Michel's winged servants in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch.
  • The Fearsome Four in Corrector Yui.
  • The Juppongatana in Rurouni Kenshin, almost all of whom have some underlying motive for helping Shishio and tragic back stories. The Six Comrades from later in the manga, however, are just Pyschos For Hire.
  • The Genei Ryodan in Hunter X Hunter.
  • Ashram's followers (Groder, Gaberra, Smeddy, Gilram, and Astar) from Record Of Lodoss War. They were also Evil Counterparts to the heroes: Ashram for Parn, Groder for Slayn, Gaberra for Leylia, Smeddy and Gilram for Shiris and Orson, and Astar for Deedlit.
  • The Numbers Combat Cyborgs of Jail Scaglietti in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.
  • Naruto is full of these. The Sound Four (which has Kimimaro as its Dragon), the Sound Three, the Sand Three are some examples, and just about every sub-arc of the Dreaded Filler Arc has one.
    • How could you not mention Akatsuki?
  • The Four Divine Beast Kings (Thymilph, Adiane, Guame, Cytomander) from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
  • Pasder's Four Machine Kings (Polonaise, Primada, Pizza, Penchinon) from Gao Gai Gar.
  • Diva's chevaliers from Blood Plus with Amshel as The Dragon.
  • Demolishor and Cyclonus from Transformers Armada. A dumb lug and a psycho.
    • Sky-Byte's Predacons from Transformers: Robots in Disguise, and, to a lesser extent, Scourge and the Decepticon Commandos.
  • In One Piece, almost every villain's named henchmen qualify as a quirky miniboss squad, with some Psycho Rangers thrown in (because there's generally one set up to fight every crew member, with several exceptions). In fact, One Piece villains as a whole rely on quirky miniboss squads more than mooks.
  • Gon Jem and his Shitennou in Metal Armor Dragonar. You don't get any more quirky in a Real Robot anime. Their weirdness does not keep them from being more than a match to the heroes in more than one occasion.
  • Samurai Deeper Kyo has several such groups. Perhaps most stunning is the fact that the protagonist and title character, Kyo himself has his own Quirky Miniboss Squad, the Shiseiten (translated as the Four Emperors in the american release). Also present are Sanada Yukimura's Sanada Ten and Nobunaga's Twelve God Shoguns. The primary villains of the series, the Mibu clan have several of squads of their own, the primary two being the Five Stars and the Four Elders. It gets even more complicated, however, when it is revealed that each of the four elders has his/her own Quirky Miniboss Squad, referred to as the Imperial Guards.
  • In a similar case to Kyo Dark Schneider of {{Bastard!!}} is also a protagonist with his own Quirky Miniboss Squad (The Four Riders of Havoc). In addition said minibosses have their own minibosses (Especially Kal Su, who commands 13 Generals with their own quirks).And there's also the various high ranking Angels and Demons.
  • Inu Yasha arguably has a number of these, including The Band of Seven and Kanna and Kagura, sometimes with Kohaku, Hakudōshi, and / or Akago.
  • Berserk has two: The Bakiraka from the Golden Age arc, Proud Warrior Race Guys who are ordered to stop the Five Man Band and the group of deformed torturers from the Albion arc, who are Improbable Weapon Users who receive demonic powers and are completely devoted to Mozgus, the Big Bad of that arc. The Bakiraka are killed by Guts and co while Guts completely defeats the torturers by himself.
  • Kenichi The Mightiest Disciple has the Eight Fists of Ragnarok. Or at least six of them, since the Big Bad and The Dragon (Odin & Berserker) were the First and Second Fists respectively. Somewhat inverted, as each of the Fists were individually more developed overall than Berserker was. Also, five of the eight (excluding the Big Bad, The Dragon, and The Starscream) eventually pulled a Heel Face Turn down the line.
  • Rave Master was chock full of these. Odds are if a main baddie is introduced, his squad wasn't too far behind.
  • Likewise Fairy Tail would often have squads as well. In fact one arc (The Paradise Tower) pulls a bait and switch which introduces one set baddies. But when they're trounced easily (in a single chapter too), brings out a much more serious bunch.
  • Bat, Buruge and Kite from Ginga Densetsu Weed.
  • Shaman King's Lily Five team.
  • Innocent Venus has the Phantom unit, complete with a knife-licker and a Chinese man who kills people with rather sharp tarot cards.
  • Mirumo de Pon!: The Warumo Dan become one of these to Dark and Akumi.

Comic Books
  • The Beagle Boys in the Scrooge McDuck comics and DuckTales.
  • Before he lent his name to a summer blockbuster, The Fallen created one in the second volume of Transformers: The War Within. Decepticon mystics Bludgeon, Mindwipe, and Bugly were given vague mystical power upgrades and charged with gathering a team of (seemingly arbitrary) Transformers so that The Fallen could attempt to summon Unicron.

Film

Literature
  • Subversion: The Discworld book The Last Hero briefly features a Quirky Miniboss Squad as the henchmen of Evil Harry Dread. As a traditional Evil Overlord, Harry has deliberately chosen the squad for stupidity, and they kill themselves in battle almost immediately.
  • In the Whateley Universe, Big Bad The Necromancer has put together a monster-themed gang called the Children of the Night. His Dragon Lycanthros is part of this gang, as well as Lady Darke, Nightgaunt, the Arch-Fiend, and the youngest and snarkiest of the group: Vamp. As of their second appearance, we learn that - in classic tradition for this trope - Vamp has been forced to join the gang and has been betraying them since before their first appearance.

Live Action TV

  • The Strike Team on "The Shield" follow into this mold, as far as the characters Shane Vendrell, Ronnie Gardocki, and Curtis "Lem" Lemansky serving as a quirky miniboss team for Vic Mackey. Indeed, by the end of the series, Shane murders Lem while Ronnie and Shane end up hating each other, right down to Ronnie keeping Vic from calling off a scheme to kill Shane.
  • Most Power Rangers seasons feature a Quirky Miniboss Team for the big bad, who often (depending on the whims of the writers and the sentai source material) either die, reform, disappear off the face of the Earth, or manage to escape justice by the end of the season.
  • In WWE, the Spirit Squad acted as a Quirky Miniboss Squad in the Shawn Michaels vs. Vince McMahon/D-generation X vs. McMahon Family feud.
  • Practically a requirement for any good Power Rangers Big Bad.
  • Tomica Hero Rescue Force has Maare, Saan and Shiika who work solo for the first few episodes but later start working as the Quirky Miniboss Squad for Daen and later his daughter Maen.

Real Life
  • An odd example is the Tennessee Valley Killer's posse, made up of a cow doctor who bred roosters for illegal fighting, and one guy who wanted to eat said roosters. Their case was dramatized in an episode of radio drama Gangbusters! on April 6, 1958, "Tennessee Trigermen".

Tabletop Games
  • In Warhammer 40000, command Squads and HQ choices with retinues can come across this way — particularly for players who assign personalities to the characters.
    • Inquisitors doubly so. This troper, at the height of his 40k while playing Witch Hunters, had the habit of using spare bits to make himself a new model for his Inquisitor. He has 6 Familiars, 4 Penitents, 3 Chirugeons, 5 Sages, 12 Acolytes and 14 Warriors. Making Quirky Miniboss Squads is the only thing that kept him sane while painting loads and loads of Necrons and Imperial Guard.

Video Games
  • God Hand's Mad Midget Five, a team of 5 midget Power Rangers with themes based around the suits of cards, led by Joker. Unlike most other Quirky Miniboss Squads, they are actually quite tough like all the other bosses in that game.
  • Sandy, Cindy and Mindy (Japanese: Dog, Mag and Rag), the Magus Sisters from Final Fantasy IV, act as a Quirky Miniboss Squad to Barbariccia, who herself is part of a larger Quirky Miniboss Squad to Golbez, along with the other three Fiends/Lords of the Elements. Arguably, the two groups led the way for others like "The Turks" in Final Fantasy VII, Organization XIII in Kingdom Hearts II, the Six God-Generals in Tales of the Abyss, and the villains of Wild AR Ms 2.
  • In Final Fantasy VIII Raijin and Fujin, Seifer's two sidekicks with their funny speech patterns. Raijin ends every sentence with "ya know?", (including a moment of silence in the beginning of the game). Fujin uses one to two word phrases, and speaks in ALL CAPS.
  • The Four Guardians from the Mega Man Zero games, who each lead a specific section of the Neo Arcadian army. Harpuia leads the airborne division, Fefnir the ground troops, Leviathan the navy, and Phantom the stealth units and intelligence division.
    • Emphasis on "quirky" on their interpretations in the manga.
  • The Hell Hounds in the Galaxy Angel Gameverse, although they're much more serious (and creepy) in the manga.
  • The Axem Rangers of Super Mario RPG, who are a Five Bad Band parody of Power Rangers/Super Sentai.
  • Solt and Peppur from Chrono Cross. They appear at seemingly arbitrary points in the game, their appearances never move the plot forward, and they are so much weaker then the party during their later appearance that they begin to border on Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain status.
    • .. During one (and only one) appearance in one of the many alternate story paths, they even have a third member- the hulking Ketchop, who to their dismay started using Solt and Peppor as weapons.
    • And then there's the Dragoon Devas, consisting of Karsch (with betrayal issues), Marcy (get your ass kicked by a 9-year-old Tyke Bomb), and Zoah (hulking giant behind a mask). They at least join the party after a while.
    • Don't forget Magus' three "sidekicks" from Chrono Trigger: Ozzie, Slash, and Flea.
  • The Minions of Saruin from Romancing Sa Ga. However they are not as quirky or bumbling like other minions in other games, since everything bad that has happened was because of their actions. You actually have to end up fighting all 3 in the final dungeon in the original SNES Version, but in the PS 2 Remake you only had to fight one, however if you defeated all 3 in the final dungeon, then you have the same results as the SNES version
  • The fighting polygon/wireframe/alloy Teams from the Super Smash Bros series.
  • Star Fox 64 had Star Wolf, a group of four pilots in ships that were identical to your team's; if you defeated them, they came back later as cyborgs with improved ships on the hard route (even if you didn't take the path where you fight them normally first.
    • They also appear in the pretty much same way in Assault and Command, but with 2 of the original members gone and only one replacement, and with a dose of Defeat Means Friendship (sorta).
      • They also get a triple dose of Ascended Extra. They essentially have more personality and actually have character.
  • Final Fantasy IX had court jesters Zorn and Thorn, who later turned out to be less "quirky" and more freaky as shit.
  • The Inspectors from Super Robot Wars III and Original Generation 02 except for their leader Wendolo is protrayed this way, they even argue who is the leader of the four minor Inspectors.
    • The Machinery Children in Alpha Gaiden and Original Generation 02 are another instance of this.
  • The Elements from Xenogears. Much of their quirkiness is due to the interplay between ditzy Seraphita and Robot Girl Tolone.
  • All five Metal Gear Solid games have their own distinctive Quirky Miniboss Squad, FOXHOUND, Dead Cell, the Cobras, FOX, and The Beauty And The Beast Unit respectively. Of course, being Metal Gear Solid they are portrayed relatively realistically, at least compared to other examples, replacing "Quirky" with "Homicidal", "Batshit Insane" and "Nightmare Fuel". The non-canon Ghost Babel had a particularly good one, Black Chamber, based on rejected concept art for the design of FOX-HOUND. Weirdly enough, neither Metal Gear Ac!d games have one.
    • Ac!d didn't, but Ac!d 2 had the 3 Test Subjects.
  • The Prism Rangers in the Disgaea series
  • The Black Fang from Fire Emblem 7. And inside of it, the Four Fangs ( one of its members, Jaffar, will go under a Heel Face Turn and join your group).
    • The Fire Emblem series in general has used this trope in every game since 6, possibly earlier. Most of these squads have three or four members; of those, one is often recruitable, and one is often fought either in the endgame or the chapter right before it.
  • The Four Bosses from the Duelhorn storyline in Final Fantasy Tactics A 2 appear to be pretty much this, but you never fight them together and they actually overthrow their superiors (that you never meet) at the end.
  • E-101 Beta, E-103 Delta, E-104 Epsilon and E-105 Zeta from Sonic Adventure (witha remodeled Beta as The Dragon). E-102 "Gamma" has a Heel Face Turn and decides to rebel against his robot brothers.
    • Technically, he's liberating them. Oh sure, it looks like he's blowing them up, but only to free the captured animal inside!
  • Nana, Saki and Mio in Grandia.
  • Ape Escape: The Freaky Monkey Five fits this to a tee.
  • WorldOfWarcraft has the Four Horsemen from Naxxramas; they fight as a group but are very distinct from each other. Mograine is aggressive and martial, Lady Blaumeux is cruel and bloodthirsty, Thane Korth'azz insults the players, and Sir Zeliek is a good guy acting against his own will. They have arguments as the players approach, and each have their own comments and quips during the battle. In Wrath of the Lich King, Mograine is replaced by Baron Rivendare from Stratholme, who has pretty much the same role and personality.
  • Skies Of Arcadia 's Admirals perform this role, forming bosses yet being completely pointless to the story.
    • With a few notable exceptions.
  • Cave Story's Balrog and Misery are a two-critter Quirky Miniboss Squad. Balrog fits this trope to a T, getting no respect, showing limited intelligence, and generally being amusing to the point of likeability. Misery fills the role of the Dragon squad-leader. You may think this doesn't add up to an entire squad, but Balrog is more than ample enough to make up for it...
  • Pokemon Ranger has the Go-Rock Quads.
    • The sequel Shadows of Almia also has the Sinis Trio.
    • Pokémon: Gale of Darkness also had the Hexagon Brothers.
  • "Uminekono Naku Koroni" has the Seven Sisters of Purgatory, each represented by one of the Seven Sins. Although they commit numerous murders, they're also just playful sisters that later are summoned by the protagonist's sister, Ange, as her only remaining friends. One of them lets the protagonist chase her around for stealing some food, so quirky is a good word for it.

Webcomics
  • In the "Painted Black" arc of El Goonish Shive, Grace's "brothers" Hedge, Vlad, and Guineas form a darker-than-usual version.
  • The Linear Guild in Order of the Stick.
  • Reakk, Psyk, and Mosp are the Dimension of Pain's Quirky Miniboss Squad in Sluggy Freelance.
  • The Dark Warriors from 8-Bit Theater are a very Quirky Miniboss Squad (all of whom were actually minibosses at one point or another).

Western Animation

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