Sixth Ranger - Television Tropes & Idioms

In Sailor Moon, first Chibiusa, and later, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Saturn, and still later, the addition of Chibichibimoon and the Starlights. Also, Jupiter and Venus in the first season, after Moon, Mars, and Mercury spent the first half as a Power Trio.
- Also, Tuxedo Mask in Season 1.
Done over and over in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch. Lucia, Hanon and Rina are a Power Trio throughout most of the series, but the plot of the first season is dedicated to finding the other four girls needed for a whole team... one of whom is a rogue fighting both the good and bad guys, while another is The Man Behind The Man (well, the woman behind... oh, whatever).
At least one every Digimon season, the first of which is always heavily hinted at in the twenty-first episode but introduced an arc later. Digimon Tamers had FIVE.
If you take it loosely, Hayate from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Actually, since Defeat Means Friendship, everyone in the show except Nanoha herself and Yuuno might count, with the good guys literally going from two people to a whole army (Hayate's Lesbian Army, to be precise).
Hikari in Futari Wa Pretty Cure Max Heart attaches herself to the existing Odd Couple. Our most compact example, until someone finds a Second Ranger somewhere.
- Second Ranger? More like Second Rider.
- Yes! Precure 5 GOGO! (which is itself a sequel) brings out Milky Rose as the "mysterious" sixth member. Unusually for the trope, she keeps her power level throughout the series, still defeating the Monster Of The Week on her own after the Five Man Band has resorted to using the Spirit Bomb every week.
- Recently, Fresh Pretty Cure added a Fourth Ranger to the original Power Trio: Cure Passion, a reformed villainess.
Wedding Peach, originally featured a Power Trio consisting of Wedding Peach, Angel Daisy, and Angel Lily. But in the second season, a "Sixth Ranger" is added in the form of Angel Salvia, a mysterious character with a modified costume who wields a sword, is much more mature and powerful, and frequently acts independently of the main trio.
Ghost Hunt has two examples of this. The first is Lin Koujo, who was injured in the first episode and then left out to heal until the end of episode three. The second is Yasuhara Osamu, who shows up in episode 14. These two characters also follow the 'power is inversely proportional to the number of episodes in' rule mentioned at the top of this page: Lin is easily the strongest character in the series excluding The Hero Shibuya Kazuya, but he doesn't show his power until the final episode, while Yasuhara has absolutely no power whatsoever and basically does all of the research for the group.
Tsuruya, for the Five Man Band SOS-Brigade is very involved in their activities, but for some reason isn't recruited. That is, despite being a natural co-conspirator of Haruhi, since they are so similar. She also appears to know that the SOS-Brigade isn't "normal", telling them to work on their masquerade more.
- She actually states that she prefers looking from outside.
Zechs from Gundam Wing is the Sixth Ranger when he's on the Gundam Pilots' side and The Rival when he's not. Appropriately enough, his name is derived from the German word for "six", fitting in with the series' Theme Naming.
The Prince Of Tennis:
- Shitenhouji: Chitose Senri transferred to the school late (in fact, he was never supposed to even be part of the team, but the author changed this to accomodate the story, and in so doing pushed the team's vice-captain into almost complete irrelevancy), and in many ways remains a loner
- Hyoutei: Hiyoshi Wakashi is a loner, initially held as a reserve. He would like to change the status quo but is not able to do so. In some way he is the Token Evil Teammate
- Rikkai: Kirihara Akaya is the lone second year among a team of third years. From the start he DOES aim to shake the status quo. He's actually simply assimilated.
- Seigaku: Echizen Ryoma starts out as a Sixth Ranger and becomes Designated Hero
Soldat J and King J-Der from Gao Gai Gar fit pretty well. In his first appearance, he shows up out of nowhere and massacres the three Primevals that had just annihilated the hero's main base and, it appeared at the time, the entire main cast aside from the hero himself. While Soldat J never truly joined the heroes, coinciding goals caused him to fight alongside them all the way to the end of the series and OVA. Interestingly, while the main protagonists did somewhat catch up to him, he was still more powerful than any other major character in the series except for the main character himself.
Voltron has two that could be considered sixth rangers : Either Princess Fala/Allura or Sven/The Shirogane Brothers. In the twenty episode second season of Voltron, made not from Go Lion but new animation, Sven actually gets one last chance to pilot Blue Lion before the second finale.
The Slayers TV series loves this trope almost as much as sentai shows do.
- At the beginning of the series, Lina and Gourry form a duo and Zelgadis is an enemy, then later fighting against both sides, and finally settles in as an ally.
- By the beginning of the second season, they've established themselves as a standard four-man RPG team, but Martina keeps pursuing them and trying to curse Lina, before finally more-or-less joining them near Katahto.
- Borderline example: Filia attacks the team at the beginning of the third season, but she's joined by the second episode.
- If you count only his third-season appearances, Xellos starts out pranking them, then joins them to fight the apparent villain, then switches sides a half-dozen times before finally joining them for the last couple of episodes.
Abarai Renji of Bleach definitely counts. He begins as the enemy, but it's quickly revealed he has good intentions and a helpful UnluckyChildhoodFriend status to Rukia. Eventually Renji teams up with Ichigos human gang in most situations. He is the shinigami most likely to be included in arcs taking place in Karakura town. The filler arc then Hueco Mundo arc confirmed his status as a main character.
Guyver, being an homage to Kamen Rider and Kikaider, has Guyver III in the role of the Second Rider.
One Piece essentially works this way, even though Luffy didn't have a Five Man Band established since the beginning. However, by the time he went through Reverse Mountain, he had The Hero, The Lancer, The Big Guy, The Smart Guy and The Chick. You could say all the Nakama that joined him after that are Sixth Rangers.
- Well Chopper could count as the Team Pet and Franky has more The Big Guy traits than Sanji. Brook and Robin are straight Sixth Rangers.
Most of Goku's allies in Dragonall Z started off as enemies, or at least as rivals. Yamcha was a bandit that fought with him over the dragon balls. Iien and Chaou-tzu were students of a rival of Master Roshi's, and went up against them in a tournament. Picollo, Vegeta, Number 18, and Fat Buu were all trying to kill Goku at some point.
Kaworu from Neon Genesis Evangelion, for about 5 seconds...
Shion from Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, then Hanyuu.
Kagura from Azumanga Daioh. She starts out as a rival in another class, but joins the group in the second year, as part of a Xanatos Gambit by Yukari to win the Athletics Festival.
Taki of Eyeshield 21, who becomes the tight end for the Devil Bats. He joins during the middle of the Death March through America and is eventually Flanderized into becoming a huge idiot and an extra person to make short passes to. Only on one instance was he a winning factor for the team.

Back when the X-Men were a Five-Man Band, Mimic was the first new student at Xavier's (also the first non-mutant X-Man). He hasn't appeared much since leaving the team, but I think he's been a low-level criminal for some time (a waste of potential after seeing his Exiles counterpart in action).
- Well he did start off by blackmailing his way into the X-Men, so no surprise there. Although that might actually disqualify him as a Sixth Ranger.
  - Mimic technically started as a villain before joining the team, and died shortly thereafter. Of course, this being a Comic Book Death, he eventually got better, but it's notable that it took Marvel about 20 years before they even started toying with the idea of bringing the character back (as opposed to the 20 minutes it usually takes).
- Iceman has also accused Havok of being a Sixth Ranger, in addition to the rest of the verbal abuse he's heaped on him in recent years. Once he went as far as to proclaim any X-Man who wasn't one of the original five as a Sixth Ranger (and ergo not a 'real' X-Man), for the sole purpose of spiting Havok; this might have gone better for him had he not been saying this to Nightcrawler.
  - Not a new development. Iceman was extremely rude to Nightcrawler and the other New X-Men while they were recuperating after fighting Krakoa. This troper would be more grateful to the people who saved his life after spending days as the tortured captive of a monstrous living island, but maybe that's just him.
  - Not to mention the fact that much of Iceman's animosity towards Havok is entered around one Lorna Dane.
Victor Mancha of Runaways.
- Recently, Xavin.
  - ... And much more recently, Klara Prast.
About a fourth of the the way into its run, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, the Archie-published book based on the first animated series introduced Ninjara, a mutant ninja fox, as an antagonist. A few issues later, she joins the turtles and becomes a series regular, appearing in every story since.
In Mafalda both Miguelito (who turned the Four Temperament Ensemble into a Five Man Band) and Libertad would count, but the latter is a better example.

Star Wars' Lando Calrissian. Some people tend to forget that for most of The Empire Strikes Back he was the bad guy who sold out the good guys to Vader, and Chewbacca nearly strangled him to death. But he was just so suave a character that when he switched sides everyone was more than happy for it.
- So selling out constitutes giving up a droid, your best friend and his best friend, and some lady you've never met in order to save the lives of millions. Yeah, in that case, Lando was a bad guy.
Captain Barbossa of Pirates Of The Caribbean. Although it is likely the awkwardness was subsided between Dead Man's Chest and At Worlds End for the characters, they do seem strangely okay working with their former enemy.

Ax from Animorphs.
D'Artagnan from The Three Musketeers — they didn't even bother changing the name when he joined.
- Actually, the final chapter of the book is titled "The Four Musketeers".
Starting in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Neville, Luna, and Ginny (all of whom but Luna had been recurring characters before) began to function as a sort of auxiliary trio to the main characters.
Stationery Voyagers has Neone, a subversion in that she was always meant to be part of the original team, but got delayed by reason of being on another planet.
- Then there was Liquidon, who didn't fight the team but instead needed their help to get his name cleared as he was mistaken for a terrorist.
- Viola also pulls it off.
- Perhaps the most egregious example is Cybomec, subverted in that it was only a Cybomec the one possessed by Richard Ribando that joins, not the Clandish "Cybomec" Consto that nearly killed everyone. He becomes Preamble instead.
- Erasaxo, while technically number six, was part of the original team. His reclusive nature and small size tend to make him an afterthought to others though. Made worse in that he's ordered by the Xylien Society not to leave the ship very often.

Naturally, the parade of mid-season additional team members in Super Sentai and Power Rangers, from which this trope takes its name. Almost every series (in Super Sentai, this is reduced to only most series after 1991) has one of these. One of the most famous, of course, is Tommy, the Green/White Ranger of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, who joined the Five Man Band of the original Rangers. In fact, the episode of Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger (the show used to create the original Power Rangers) in which Burai/Dragonranger debuted was specifically called "The Sixth Warrior".
- Zyuranger and MMPR (by adaptation) are the joint Trope Namers; while examples of this trope existed in previous Super Sentai shows, Zyuranger was the first to call the character a "Ranger" (because it happened to be one of the first since Himitsu Sentai Goranger to actually call the heroes "something Ranger") and the first example to be both literally the sixth and a recurring character.
- Years before Burai appeared, JAKQ Dengekitai introduced Big One. X-1 Mask from Hikari Sentai Maskman also predates Burai, but is a subversion, as he did not join the recurring cast, only lasting one episode.
- Invocation of this trope created an interesting situation for the production staff of the Lightspeed Rescue season; they wanted to carry on the tradition of the sixth ranger, but there was none in GoGoV, the corresponding Super Sentai season. As a result, they created the Titanium Ranger from whole cloth and assigned him a Zord that didn't belong to any one Ranger in GoGoV.
- Mighty Moshin' Emo Rangers, a UK fan-made series (that made its way to MTV) which parodies both the Power Rangers and "emo" culture, did this in its first season with the addition of Fai, the Purple Fashioncore Ranger. Production on a second season has been delayed for over a year, but it is rumoured to feature a seventh team member.
Inverted during Season 3 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Faith starts out good...
- Played mostly straight in season 4, with The Initiative.
- Inverted during season 5, with the Knights of Byzantium, who start off as possibly ally or enemy (attack Buffy, but also beat up Glory's Mooks) before becoming full-on enemies due to their unwillingess to show mercy.
- Uh, Spike? Started off as a Big Bad in Season 2, later performed a Heel Face Turn and did indeed end up as the protagonist's boyfriend.
Charles Gunn fits this trope in the Buffy spinoff Angel. He shows up right before the Season 1 finale fighting Angel for most of the episode, then joins the team officially in Season 2.
Derek Reese in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, who showed up late in the first season.
Koichi Shiranami/Ryujinou in Ryukendo.
Charmed has Leo, Cole, Chris, Billie, and Coop all acting as sixth rangers to varying degrees.
Reno 911! gave us Deputy Kimball in season 3.
Kamen Rider takes the cake for reducing this trope to a Second Ranger phenomenon, beginning from the first season, when Hongo Takeshi is joined by Ichimonji Hayato, the first second Rider. In later seasons we have V3 and Riderman, Stronger and Tackle, Den-O and Zeronos, Kiva and Ixa, Decade and Diend, and Double and Accel.
Oddly, Iron Chef has a one of these: Kobe in the original series fits the trope almost perfectly (as he even has his own customised entrance).
Kylie Minogue was once designated as the pink Wiggle.
Richard Grieco's character, Dennis Booker, on the crime drama, 21 Jump Street. His character was then given his own short-lived spinoff.
Nasir silently joins the Merry Men at the end of the pilot episode of Robin Of Sherwood after being set up as a minion of the bad guys. Yes, that's one episode in, but it's also a brand new Robin Hood character after about 600 years...
Pavel Chekov in Star Trek The Original Series.
Sylar, arguably, by the season four finale. Doesn't look good for him though.
- Made worse in that he already tried it once a season before, and that didn't work out so well.

Rare Real Life example: Iron Maiden had five men line-ups since 1980. Then when Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith decided to return to the band, Janick Gers served as a Sixth Ranger to a reunion of the golden years Maiden.

Magus (optionally) joins the party very late into Chrono Trigger, significantly less powerful than he is when you fight him (either at the halfway point of the game *or* if you chose to fight and kill him there instead of have him join you.) He very much has an 'odd man out' feel to him in other ways as well (he has no 2-person combination attacks and very few three-person combination attacks, the initial six characters have 3 2-person combination attacks for each of the five other characters among them, and there is one 3-man combo attack for each mix of Chrono + 2 of the other first six.)
- The 'odd man out' feel might also have something to do with the fact that, although everyone else in the party becomes good friends, Magus doesn't really caring if you or anyone else in the party lives or dies.
Most JRPGs have a section where the party is exactly 3 (or 4, or 5, whatever the max party size) is members.. with characters leaving and being conspicuously replaced, until suddenly you get a 4th (or 5th, or 6th) ranger, and every point after that you can pick your own party (often having the other characters who left earlier come back)
- A few games buck the trend in an unexpected way by never actually giving you a permanently set last member. Final Fantasy II continues shifting out the 4th party member without the player's control straight up until the final dungeon, at which point one of the main villains joins your team.
- Meanwhile, some other games (such as Final Fantasy XII and Tactics) have a party slot dedicated to whatever NPC you'll be dragging around until you hit the next plot point, and leave you a man down the rest of the time.
- Golden Sun: The Lost Age has an interesting variant - the heroes from the first game will join the party as Fifth through Eighth Rangers after a certain point in the story.
Iori Yagami in The King of Fighters, who was initially introduced as Kyo's rival (to the point that Iori was trying to kill him most of the time), and then became his reluctant ally when Orochi showed up.
Chitose and Natsume in Galaxy Angel, especially the games.
In Super Robot Wars W, the Golion team actually asks Guy of Gao Gai Gar, an old friend of theirs from the space academy, if he wants to be their Sixth Ranger. Although he politely declines, he occasionally ends up playing the role anyway, especially considering that in this game, both Ghaleon and Golion have the same origins. The game actually references the Sixth Ranger trope a bit; when Guy points out that Ghaleon can't combine with Golion, Kogane comments that the sixth member of such teams typically has a special Humongous Mecha that tends to overshadow the other five in terms of power.
- The GoLion team helps out Guy, too. During the battle between Guy's GaoFighGar and an enemy repli-GaoGaiGar in the FINAL storyline, another Replijin of GaoGaiGar's own Sixth Ranger, King J-Der, shows up to make things worse... at which point the Hundred Beasts King appears to even the odds.
Sheena, in Tales Of Symphonia; her joining the party (formerly a Five Man Band) marks the point at which the plot begins to twist.
- And it's interesting to note that the Sixth Ranger added to the earlier PSX remake of Tales of Phantasia was Fujibayashi Sheena's possible descendant, Fujibayashi Suzu.
In Lunar 2: Eternal Blue, the party is in flux for most of the early part of the game, gradually picking up additional characters, eventually stabilizing on 5 members (not including Lucia, who is not always player-controlable, and is occasionally abducted and must be rescued by the party). One of the antagonists, Leo, joins then leaves the party several times as a Sixth Ranger, both as him self, and as his blatantly obvious alter-ego "Mystere" (the absurdity of his disguise is lampshaded by the other characters).
Depending on how you played the game, you probably went through the majority of Devil Survivor with only 3-5 party members. Cue the final day when the rest of the supporting cast get tired of being NP Cs. Depending on the decisions you've made throughout the game, it is entirely possible for your party roster to literally double in size.
In Sonic Adventure 2, on the Last Story, every villain and hero teamed together to get to the cannon to stop it from blowing Earth to smithereens. Except Shadow. Amy finds him in a room where he's just staring at the Earth, not even wanting to help. She eventually convinces him (along with a memory of his long dead and possibly only best/sisterly loved friend Maria), and he goes out to help just because of Maria. While everyone had a level designed to their characteristics, Shadow finally shows up at the end, when Knuckles and Sonic are ready to shut down the cannon by using the Master Emerald to put the other emeralds in control to stop the laser. The thing in their way? A gigantic, prototype lizard. Shadow shows up, and, in what's considered a C Mo A, starts a boss fight. Shadow is literally the sixth person on the team. Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Eggman, Rogue, and finally Shadow at the end.
Flora might be this in the Professor Layton series of games.
Most veteran players in Pokemon will have one 'mon in their six slot party learn nothing but Hidden Machine moves, which are needed to get through various environmental obstacles. The reason why these moves are given to one Pokemon is because they cannot be replaced by newly learned moves, and typically range from mediocre to useless in combat. As a result, trainers will end up with a Five Man Band for fighting and a utility knife who will never see the next level-up.
- Subverted in D/P/Pt: When you fight the Champion, Cynthia, her Milotic has Surf instead of Hydro Pump, which trades some power (Hydro Pump's 120 vs. Surf's 95) for flawless accuracy and three times the PP. Surf is also notorious in the mind of This Troper as having been changed to only target enemies in a 2v2 battle in R/S/E to target all monsters except the user, much like the venerable Earthquake, in D/P/Pt.
Towards the end of disc 3 of Final Fantasy VIII, you get Edea, who has just been freed from being Brainwashed And Crazy as a party member. She stays with the party until you go into space.
Later on in Dragon Age: Origins it's possible to recruit Loghain into your group. However in doing so your Lancer Alistair will leave you for allowing the man who let countless people, including the King and his father figure Duncan to die into the Grey Warden. Few people get along with him, particularly Wynne, who makes it clear she distrusts him at best.
Serena Corsair in Guardian Heroes. Although technically she joins forces with Han and his friends at the very beginning of the game, she doesn't become a playable character until the player completes the game once on Normal.

El Goonish Shive started with a Comic Trio and now has an eight-person main cast. Justin and Nanase aren't really Sixth Rangers, but Grace qualifies if Layla (below) does. Susan and Ellen are definitely better examples, though: Susan started out disgusted with Elliot and Tedd before befriending them through Sarah, and Ellen began her life as Elliot's self-proclaimed Evil Twin.
Aylee from Sluggy Freelance starts off as your standard Alien parody trying to eat our heroes, but makes peace with them after becoming Torg's secretary, and eventually a full-fledged member of their Nakama.
Aaron/Jackson from Samand Fuzzy. Although most characters besides the titular duo are confined to one particular story arc (outside of cameos), Aaron managed to join with them at the end of the third story arc and has stayed a major character since.

French amateur Sentai parody France Five starts out with the introduction of the Sixth Ranger ("Silver Mousquetaire") to the Five Man Band, but still faithfully follows the trope since the episode is supposed to be in the middle of a hypothetical TV series.
- Also, he doesn't actually join the band before his Heroic Sacrifice, Taking The Bullet for his de-brainwashed sister.

Rugrats started out with a main cast of Tommy, Chukie, Phil, Lil, and Angelica, with occasional appearances by Susie. Then came Dil...
Season one of Thomas the Tank Engine started with a core cast of five engines(although James was only named a few episodes into the season). About halfway through, Percy was introduced. Ironically, like the Trope Namer pictured above, he's both green, and literally the sixth member of the team.
- This also applied to Duncan and Rusty from the narrow gauge railway. Also, Emily is considered a sixth ranger to the main cast, from season 8 onwards.
Layla of the Winx Club (introduced in the 2nd season premiere), although she's on the good fairies' side from the start, and the biggest misgiving anyone has is Layla feeling left out when Stella mentions "the five of us" in one episode.
Toph turned the protagonist's team on Avatar The Last Airbender from Three Amigos into a Five Man Band when she filled the empty The Big Guy spot as a Cute Bruiser. After a few episodes, she fits in pretty well despite the occasional argument with Katara.
- Zuko joins the group as the more archetypal Sixth Ranger shortly after his Heel Face Turn, with much suspicion and distrust and at least one death threat from Katara.
- Then three episodes later, Suki joins the group.
Code Lyoko: The gang invited William to join the team in "Double Trouble", only for him to get turned evil half-way into the next episode, "Final Round". May be heading for Double Subversion, given his Promotion To Opening Titles even while he remains possessed by XANA.
- It's not Double Subverted. William doesn't return back to normal until the very end of the series.
Codename: Kids Next Door subverted the Sixth Ranger without creating a Sixth Column with Tommy Gilligan.
Terra in the animated version of Teen Titans.
Danny Phantom: Power Trio group composed of Danny, Sam, and Tucker, then upgrades to include a fourth member in their Team Phantom with Jazz, though she wasn't initially accepted at first.
X Men Evolution: Rogue pulls a Heel Face Turn and joins the X-Men after she realizes Mystique tricked her into joining the Brotherhood and thinking the X-Men wanted to kill her.
ReBoot had Mouse as a Sixth Ranger, especially with how she didn't get along with Dot. After a few appearances her skills became invaluable to the team, and she filled in The Smart Guy role.
- In the fourth season, a much more traditional Sixth Ranger joins, former villain Hexadecimal.
Subverted in a recent episode of Chaotic, when a character joins the main characters possessing all the traditional fifth ranger qualities. (Even filling the vacant Chick slot in the Five Man Band), but later leaves after gaining fame from becoming the first person to scan a M'arrillian.
Shifty Dingo in the second season of Blinky Bill after the dingo family performed their Heel Face Turn. He also qualifies as The Smart Guy of the team, probably due to being the weakest and most timid of the males.
Street Sharks, featured Moby Lick, a whale.
Transformers Animated has two sixth rangers. The first and more conventional one is Jazz, who joins at the end of the episode before the finale, and the second is Sari, who is quite literally upgraded from Tagalong Kid. Gets weapons and armor installed and everything.
In the first few episodes of 6teen, Caitlin tries to earn her way into the group, but later fits right in.
In the dinosaur-flavoured Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-style cartoon Extreme Dinosaurs, the team originally consists of four dinosaurs - T-Bone the t-rex, Spike the triceratops, Bullzeye the pterodactyl, and Stegz the...yeah. In the later half of the series, they are sent to an alternate dimension and bring back the ankylosaur Hardrock to become their fifth ranger. Except he's barely mentioned or acknowledged even after then. Hmmm.
Subverted in The Powerpuff Girls - every attempt to add a fourth Powerpuff, whether it was a similarly superpowered girl created in a lab for the purpose (Bunny, Dynamo) or an outside person attempting to join the group (Princess, initially), failed miserably.

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