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Spotlight Stealing Squad / Anime & Manga

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Spotlight-Stealing Squad in Anime & Manga.

  • 7 Seeds despite having an Ensemble Cast, though the problem lessened somewhat as the Teams began to mingle together.
    • Prior to the mingling, any of the Teams could be called this. Particular mention goes to any Team that is not Summer B. Team Summer B was the one that started the series off, with some time spent on them to begin slowly developing the characters, before dedicating several chapters to introducing a new Team.
    • Hana Sugurono is a single character example. Part of Team Spring, she was already introduced as being the most active out of the group and the series eventually broke off into a mini-arc revolving around a disease that Hana catches and needed to be cured. A lot of emphasis was eventually put on her again when it was not only revealed to some of the Teams that she got into the Project through nepotism, but also when she was thought to be dead. And again, a later arc follows Hana, on her own for several chapters, before she finally encounters other characters.
  • Arachnid:
    • Setsuna Dinoponera is a bit of an over-the-top Attention Whore who spectacularly beats and demeans people while hogging the spotlight for herself despite seemingly having nothing to do with anything. This goes on for three volumes until she is Put on a Bus to Hell, but then her motifs ended up used for multiple characters in the author's other series, to the point one antagonist in Caterpillar is a recolor of her and he had her front and center on his Twitter profile banner for years. Blattodea then effectively promotes Dino to tritagonist, not only revealing her actual name but also making her friendship with the new heroine Chiyuri and her recovery from being zombified major plot hooks.
    • Ran "Kabutomushi" Kabuto, a prideful director of a training facility for assassins who's tasked with protecting the heroine Alice, is one of the most prominent supporting characters in Arachnid. She even gets to kill the Big Bad! In the prequel Caterpillar, Kabuto notably has a story arc of her own involving a quartet of her stundents trying to take revenge on her. It reveals she's a distant successor of sorts to the protagonist of Jackals.
  • Attack on Titan:
  • Sakaki gets a disproportionate amount of focus in Azumanga Daioh compared to the other characters, but that's probably because her Shrinking Violet-ness means she's either the focus or gets ignored.
  • In Berserk, Big Bad Bishōnen Griffith and Co. have taken up about two volumes worth of material. About two volumes come out yearly. It was fine at first but when Casca's mental recovery and long awaited reunion with her lover Guts, was postponed to focus on the exploits of Griffith for three chapters... the response from fans was vexed to say the least. To be fair it isn't unreasonable to say people care a tad more about the Star-Crossed Lovers reuniting, than the pretty boy villain and his deluded followers fighting lesser monsters.
  • Bleach: The films are an example of this as they focus excessively on the Gotei 13 characters to the exclusion of other characters, even the rest of the human True Companions. In the manga, Tite Kubo has so many characters to rotate through that it can sometimes seem like this trope is in effect when it's debatably a case of too many characters needing to go through periods of being Out of Focus so that everything and everyone can be covered. The ones hit the worst by this are the characters who started out as being the main cast, and more often than not spend time idling in the background while the Shinigami are the ones who drive the plot especially Uryuu, Orihime, and Chad.
    • Downplayed and somewhat justified with Nozomi Kujō from the anime-only Invading Army Arc. She only appears for the Invading Army arc and nowhere else, but she is the most important female character in the arc, but again, only that. During that arc, she completely replaces Rukia and Orihime so that they often ended up with almost no lines in episodes. It should also be noted that unlike Rukia and Orihime, who have no direct connection to the Big Bad, Nozomi is not only deeply connected to him, but she also has a major part to play in his plan, so it makes sense that the story would focus a lot on the two of them.
  • The anime Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo parodies this, with the character Don Patch trying to constantly steal the spotlight from the others. Less often in the manga.
  • Syaoran Li of Cardcaptor Sakura, his infatuation with Sakura and slightly more prominent development as her teammate took a fair amount of the final arc, since the conclusion of the series mostly revolves around Sakura resolving her romantic feelings for him. The anime upgraded his role even earlier by granting him his own mini-cast, including his cousin (and fangirl) Meiling, as well as a few episodes more devoted to himself than the title character.
  • A Certain Scientific Railgun: Touma takes this role in the Sisters arc, being the one who defeats the Big Bad instead of Mikoto. This was unavoidable since the series is a spinoff of A Certain Magical Index, where Touma is the main character, and Touma is the one who beats him there (and indeed, a point is made in both that he has to be the one to do it ensure the Level 6 Shift project shuts down). To a lesser extent, he also does this in the Daihasei Festival Arc, where Mikoto is controlled and used as a pawn of the villains. In this case, several other characters are equally important in resolving the situation.
  • Danganronpa 3: Originally, fans believed that the story would focus on the survivors of the first game in Side:Future, and in the 77th Class in Side:Despair. In Side:Future, all survivors fell in and Out of Focus constantly while the 77th Class was mostly Demoted to Extra/Advertised Extra. The ones to keep constant focus on them through out the entire show ended up being the former 74th Class Trio, Munakata, Sakakura, Yukizome, and Mitarai. Yukizome was a protagonist on Side:Despair' while Munakata played as the Big Good and Sakakura was helping them, in Side:Future, Munakata becomes The Heavy and Sakakura The Dragon. The trio ends up having as much importance if not even more importance to the plot than the survivors and most of the 77th Class. Mitarai, for his part, is Enoshima's Unwitting Pawn and the force behind a major plot point during Side:Despair and the Anti-Villain antagonist of Side:Hope.
    • The trio gets hit right back with this in Side: Hope, where Class 77 is revealed to have woken up from the Neo World program and takes up the bulk of the episode, with the Foundation playing second fiddle. Continues well into Super Dangan Ronpa 2.5, where the cast, even parts of the 77th cast again, get cameos at best.
  • Digimon franchise:
    • Digimon Frontier. The last quarter of the show consists mostly of EmperorGreymon and MagnaGarurumon getting the pulp beat out of them by Crusadermon and Dynasmon, Koichi getting a little bit of plot, and J.P., Tommy and Zoe getting to stand around and do nothing.
    • Digimon Adventure: (2020): Taichi and Agumon take up the lion's share of the opening and are involved in almost every single main plot of the series, even if the focus is on another character. During the fight against Millenniummon, Taichi and WarGreymon are the ones to deliver the final blow, despite Patamon and Gatomon having achieved their super powerful Ultimate forms. In the final arc of the series, the group splits up and goes in separate directions in order to discover each of their own Ultimate forms—despite being in different areas of the continent and hundreds of miles away from each other, Taichi and Agumon arrive to assist the other Digidestined in each episode of the arc. Lastly, Agumon was even able to achieve three different Ultimate forms (WarGreymon, BlitzGreymon, and Machinedramon) before anyone else was able to unlock one.
  • The Japanese All-Star Team in Eyeshield 21 includes other players besides Gaou and Agon, but they get less focus in some later chapters.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • Vegeta after his debut, frequently stole the limelight from Goku and Z-Fighters. The first time is was on Namek where his fight against Freiza and his Elite Mooks took precedence over Gohan and Krillin finding the Dragon Balls as well as Goku's training, and it only stopped when Goku arrived. The second time was during the Android Saga when Goku was suffering from the Heart Virus and Vegeta (in his new Super Mode) gloriously took the Androids apart, until Android 18 showed up and knocked him down several pegs. Vegeta does it again later when Goku is training in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, Vegeta wrecks Semi Perfect Cell with his Next Tier Power-Up. He then grasps the Idiot Ball and gets defeated by Cell's Perfect Form. Much later in the Buu Saga, Vegeta again steals the show, knocking out Goku and fighting Majin Buu himself before performing a Heroic Sacrifice. All of this is ironic, since Toriyama never intended Vegeta to be such a Breakout Character. He was just an Arc Villain who was going to be killed off.
      • Cruelly subverted in Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' as Goku is taken out of action towards of the end of the movie. Vegeta easily steps up to the plate and gloriously curb stomps Big Bad Frieza, whom Vegeta has wanted to take his revenge out on for years. But then Frieza blows up the planet and kills Vegeta. Forcing Whis to Time Travel and giving Goku opportunity to burst in and take down Frieza again. Vegeta is pretty ticked off that Goku stole his moment.
    • Before Vegeta, Piccolo was the one who could steal the spotlight from Goku. He is the one who leads the Z-Fighters in the Saiyan Invasion and even on Namek, despite being dead. Piccolo is wished back in order to get a power up, and then gives Frieza himself a hard time. Piccolo does this again for the last time during the Cell Saga, as he fuses with Kami. This powers him up enough to be able to beat up Imperfect Cell and equal Android 17 in a fight. He effectively stole the limelight from Goku and Vegeta. Sadly after nearly being killed by Cell, Piccolo developed Can't Catch Up and is degraded to The Smart Guy for the Buu Saga. In the movies however Piccolo still managed to steal the limelight away from the Saiyans, right up to Dragon Ball Z: Bojack Unbound and decades later in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero.
    • Future Trunks deserves a special mention, when a cyborg Frieza along with his dad King Cold land on Earth, Goku is off-planet and the Z-Fighters are not nearly strong enough to fight the invasion. Then Trunks shows up, goes Super Saiyan and cuts Freiza to confetti with his Cool Sword and then kills King Cold as well to the utter shock of the Z-Fighters. Trunks would have similar moments later on, as the story focuses on him destroying the Androids 17, 18 and Cell of his own timeline and in Dragon Ball Super he's the main focus of his new Saga and does the finishing blow to the Fused Zamasu. But none of these moments have topped his first appearance.
    • Gohan steals the show from Goku and rest at the end of the Cell Saga becoming the strongest character in his Unstoppable Rage against Cell and effectively takes the torch from his father as the protagonist by defeating Cell. However this becomes subverted in Buu Saga as despite Gohan being the protagonist, Goku, Vegeta and Gotenks steal the limelight away from him and despite becoming "Ultimate Gohan" he gets absorbed by Super Buu and Goku becomes the The Hero again. The limelight finally swings back to Gohan in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero where both he and Piccolo get a Next Tier Power-Up and Gohan himself gets to off a Big Bad again something that no protagonist has done since Z.
    • In Dragon Ball GT Pan and Giru often took screen time from Goku and Trunks, unlike other examples fans weren't amused since both Pan and Giru were highly irritating characters. Toei understanding this shifted focus back to Goku for later Sagas.
    • Even though both Kale and Caulifla in Dragon Ball Super didn't appear in the Universe 6 Saga and are recruited late into the Universe Survival Saga, they ended up stealing the spotlight from other Universe 6 members (particularly Hit) in that they have a significantly greater screen time than the other team members note . Similarly Android 17 steals the show in the Universal Tournament Saga as he is wins the tournament and wishes all the other Universe that were erased back. Frieza gets this in Super as seen by Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' and the expanded anime adaption, his presence in the Universal Tournament (where he last longer than Vegeta and helps Goku ringout Jiren) and has a large role in Dragon Ball Super: Broly. This quite ironic as despite being a iconic villain Frieza before his revival was mostly Overshadowed by Awesome and suffered Villain Decay usually being defeated with ease by the heroes e.g. Gohan in Fusion Reborn.
    • In Dragon Ball Super: Broly the focus is on the titular berserker who overshadows Goku, Vegeta and Frieza for most of the runtime. However when Goku and Vegeta fuse into fan favourite Gogeta he effectively steals the show for Final Battle.
  • Fairy Tail: after his introduction, Jellal was in pretty much every major arc in the series, which is something not even some members of the Five-Man Band can claim. As his backstory is heavily tied to Erza's, he seems to always appear when she's in distress.
    • In the Grand Magic Games arc, as Jellal (disguised as Mystogan) participates in the games in the Fairy Tail B team, though this doesn't last long before he's back to largely doing his own thing again.
    • Lisanna in the first anime adaptation, by way of Adaptation Expansion. The first season or so, any scene she has even a passing mention in will move into a long flashback about her. It's worth noting that, outside of a side story chapter, she had all of maybe three panels in the actual manga. Eventually, this stopped at around the Edolas arc, probably because after this she turns out to not be dead after all and joins the main cast.
    • Side-character Cana becomes this during the Tenrou Island arc where she is literally promoted to main-character status alongside anyone who people consider to be part of Team Natsu. The monster Character Development she receives in this arc after being in the guild as nothing but side fodder for so long took A LOT of people by surprise.
  • In Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA, Shirou suddenly gains massive focus during 3rei!. But it's not Illya's bumbling brother that is being referred to here: It's Miyu's brother, who wasn't seen in the story before this arc, that received this newfound prominence. His backstory alone changed the narrative from fanservice-fueled magical girl battle action to Heaven's Feel-lite.
  • Food Wars!: After Azami's entry, almost the entirety of the manga is focused on Erina Nakiri and her family issues. The progress of other characters is ignored. The goals of the eponymous protagonist Soma are never resolved properly and the epilogue is all about Erina happily living with her parents.
  • Nagisa Misumi from Futari wa Pretty Cure. The series is supposed to be about both her and Honoka, but most episodes focus strongly on her.
    • And the same goes for Saki from Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star, being an expy of Nagisa even on this.
    • As a break from tradition, this is averted in HeartCatch Pretty Cure!. This may be related to a different dynamic between the leads.
    • Suite Pretty Cure ♪ has the same Tomboy and Girly Girl dynamic between its leads, and again, the tomboy steals the spotlight.
    • Mana from Doki Doki! PreCure gets a disproportionate amount of focus within the story compared to other Pretty Cure leaders. Apparently, the staff had more of an emotional attachment to her than any of the other characters, which does a fair bit to explain this.
      • Then, there is the Christmas Episode where Mana loses some of her spotlight, yet the whole episode is heavily focused on her, even if she doesn't appear on-screen.
    • Let's not forget that whenever new Precures come out, the original Precures go more further and further back. As one person on Anime News Network says, "someday we might not be able to see them anymore". This would prove true in later Pretty Cure All Stars films, but inverts their positions in the 15th anniversary film where they appear in a mainline role again: It's just the original duo and Hugtto! Cures driving the plot, with many of the others playing side or bit roles.
  • The Galaxy Angel manga based on the video game series spends a disproportionate amount of time and focus on Milfeulle and Chitose. Ranpha got a bit of spotlight early on, but otherwise...
  • At certain points, Guyver becomes "Aptom featuring those Guyver people". In particular, he is the one that takes out the Hyper-Zoanoid Five (except for Zxtole), considering that they were amongst the few enemies that could actually give Sho a good fight.
  • Nagato in Haruhi Suzumiya gets a lot of attention, even though Haruhi and Kyon are supposedly the main characters. Haruhi tends to stay in the background due to being Locked Out of the Loop, and Kyon is often only relevant because he's the narrator. Nagato, on the other hand, was the center of the anime-infamous Endless Eight arc and the regular-famous Disappearance movie/book that followed it. She's also the focus of the lengthy two-part tenth novel, and a lot of earlier stories. She even has an entire Spin-Off series, The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan.
    • Ironically, in the aforementioned Spin-Off, Haruhi seems to be stealing the spotlight back, starting with a Chekhov's Gunman cameo in the first episode, moving to a flashback that makes her important to Nagato's recent past in the second, until finally stealing the show starting with her third episode debut. As of the fourth episode, this spotlight hogging has yet to show any signs of abating.
  • Inuyasha: The Band of Seven take up an entire arc as villains for the heroes while Naraku is gaining power in Mt. Hakurei. They are so all encompassing for this arc in the anime that the fourth opening "Grip!" features them more prominently than Naraku. If you started watching the show with this arc you might think they were the main villains.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
    • In Phantom Blood, Dio Brando steals a lot of limelight from The Hero Jonathan Joestar, and the anime adaptation even focuses on Dio's life in poverty. Araki has even admitted Dio is the "true protagonist" of Phantom Blood. Dio would return to steal the show in the finale of Stardust Crusaders and other JoJo media.
    • In Stardust Crusaders, Jean-Pierre Polnareff tends to have more screentime than other characters, almost more than the protagonist Jotaro Kujo. His personality is very distinctive, he's outspoken about getting revenge for his sister, he's a prime target of the Monster of the Week formula, and many episodes focus on his Character Development. He and Team Pet Iggy also develop a special bond that can be very emotional at times, especially when Iggy sacrifices himself to save Polnareff.
    • A slight case happens in Golden Wind. Despite being this part's JoJo (well, GioGio), Giorno seems to be less of a primary protagonist than an deuteragonist in the story in general, especially compared to the intended deuteragonist, Bruno Bucciarati.
  • Kagerou Daze: Shintaro is intended to be the (Loser) Protagonist with a digitized-troll side-kick, and indeed, whether or not he is a Hikikomori is implied to be the pivotal point of the time-loops, if Lost Time Memory is to be believed, but his little sister Momo very frequently steals the focus away from him, Ene, and the rest of the Mekakushi Dan, despite having relatively little story relevance (especially compared to Shintaro, Ayano, Konoha and Marry). It's gotten to the point that she gets almost sole focus for two episodes of the 12-Episode Anime. The fact that she's Jin's favorite character doesn't help matters. Then again, Fridge Brilliance strikes when you realize that her Eye Power is literally to draw attention to herself. And she hasn't yet got it under control.
  • According to Kanako, Mariya and Matsurika are this on the second season of Maria†Holic. Not really true though, in fact, Kanako herself is a bit of this, at least compared to the first season, and same for the Dorm Leader (while Mariya and Matsurika got comparatively LESS screentime).
  • Subaru in Mayo Chiki!. Sure, she's the winning girl on a Supporting Harem, so her having more screentime than the other girls is more or less expected and understandable. Having her get more screentime than all the other girls put together, said other girls all loving her and making most of their screentime and motivations revolve about Subaru is not.
  • Medaka Box: Kumagawa Misogi has been consistently tied to the plot since his debut, and at some points even overshadows Medaka and Zenkichi.
  • The main character of My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, Catarina Claes, is this in the context of the original plot, the otome game Fortune Lover. She's supposed to be an antagonist and Hate Sink who torments the heroine and two of the love interests (and doesn't even appear in some routes), and gets her deserved comeuppance by being either exiled or killed in the end. But because she's reincarnated with foreknowledge and tries to change things into an outcome she can survive, she somehow ends up in the center of attention, with the four love interests, two minor rivals and the heroine vying for the second spot. Ironically, she's completely oblivious to all this and thinks the game's story line is still playing out as it should.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack spent most of its time with Quess Paraiya in a movie which is supposed to be about the final battle between Amuro and Char. Only by the time she’s finally out of the picture in the last part does it finally focus on Amuro and Char.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny: Those on one side of the Broken Base call Kira Yamato (protagonist of the previous series, Gundam SEED) this after his return two thirds of the way through the show, and the subsequent evolution of Shinn Asuka into an Anti-Villain.
  • My-HiME: In comparison to the original anime, the manga focuses more on Yuuichi Tate and his misadventures at school than those of the girls fighting to save it.
  • My Hero Academia has a very large cast of characters many of whom receive focus now and then as part of being an Arc Hero. But the two who stand out the most among cast are easily Katsuki Bakugo and Shoto Todoroki, the former being The Rival to Izuku Midoriya and a large part of the series is centered on their dynamic with each other, overshadowing Deku's relationships with the rest of his classmates. Todoroki started off as Deku's main opponent in the second story arc, but his troubled relationship with his family soon became the series` most recurrent subplot. As if to confirm this, Bakugo has topped every single popularity poll after the 1st one with his votes dwarfing Deku's by a significant margin, and even Todoroki managed to place 2nd over him in one poll. The Anime seems to have picked up on this and most of the marketing focus on them as the main Power Trio.
  • Naruto:
    • Shikamaru has this treatment for the Hidan arc, which he is basically the main character of for a significant portion. Of all Naruto's other classmates, he is the only one that has received honest, in-depth character development and frequent appearances after the timeskip, to the point that he is practically a main character now. It has also been also lampshaded at one omake of the anime, with some characters mentioning that the series should have been renamed "Shikamaru" during said arc.
    • Team 10 gets more spotlight in the manga then any of the Konoha side-characters in Naruto: Shippuden. Including being given the spotlight in the Hidan and Kakuzu arc, the 4th Shinobi War also shows this with the Team 10 reunion which even gave Choji of all people some rarely seen Character Development. No other of the Konoha 11, so far has gotten this kind of treatment in the war.
    • Rock Lee was a show-stealer during the Chuin Exams Arc. In his very first appearance he curb stomps both Naruto and Sasuke, the latter whom tries to use Sharingan on him and fails spectacularly as all of Rock Lee's Charles Atlas Super Power has eclipsed his bloodline power in sheer technique. Later he pulls a Big Damn Heroes protecting Sakura from the Sound Ninjas and then Lee goes up against the undefeated Gaara and almost wins in what is considered one of the best fights in the franchise. Subverted later as while Lee gets a Dynamic Entry saving Naruto from Kimimaro, Lee is sidelined for most of Time Skip.
    • The Uchiha clan were supposed to all be dead except for two members, Sasuke and Itachi. Then we find out there's another, then we find out that he was claiming to be another, and then we find that that another-another Uchiha was actually dead, but gets resurrected, and then we find out that almost every arc villain, and the vast majority of the plot, were because of the machinations of certain Uchiha who just couldn't handle things not going their way. This trope used to be named after the Uchiha clan, as "Uchiha Syndrome". Black Zetsu, the villain responsible for everything that happened in the series, chose the Uchiha to be the "main cast" for his "Story of Shinobi". In short, the Uchiha became the center of everything.
  • One Piece:
    • While every crewmember the Straw Hats has one Moment of Awesome in most arcs, the two members who‘ve most frequently stolen limelight from Luffy are: Zoro and Sanji, who are incidentally the strongest and most popular Straw Hats after him. In any given arc (e.g Alabasta, Skypeia, Water 7, Thriller Bark etc) Luffy will be imprisoned, swallowed by a giant snake, trapped in between two houses or just unconscious, giving free rein for either Zoro and Sanji to be badass and fight the villains.
    • Subverted in Wano arc however as at one point Luffy is imprisoned while Zoro, Sanji and Law (see below) fight the Beast Pirates in the Flower Capital, however the story switches to Luffy's adventures in prison for five chapters and rest of the crew's escape from Flower Capital is off-paneled.
    • Played for Laughs but Buggy the Clown gets more panel and screen time of any non-Straw Hat character, the story will often cut to what he is doing and Buggy frequently steals limelight in arcs such as in Impel Down and even in Marineford. Since Oda has admitted Buggy is his favorite villain it's not much of a shocker.
    • Ace stole the limelight from his brother Luffy in his introduction in manga and continued to do so in the anime before leaving, then he stole the show again when fighting Blackbeard but was then defeated and imprisoned. While Ace does die in Marineford he proved to be such a Breakout Character that he got his own novel series.
    • Speaking of Ace, his crew the Whitebeard Pirates during the Marineford steal the limelight from more Luffy more brutally than Zoro and Sanji ever could. Throughout the arc Luffy despite his best efforts is simply Overshadowed by Awesome by Whitebeard and co, getting knocked around by the Marines and Shichibukai forcing the Whitebeard Pirates to save his ass frequently. It was more than likely intentional to show how far out of depth Luffy was in that war.
    • Trafalgar Law was well liked in his debut but he only became this trope post-Time Skip when he effectively stole the show in Punk Hazard and continued his streak in Dressrosa (despite being a Badass in Distress at certain points) to extent where he almost killed the Arc Villain Domflamingo himself. In the 5th popularity poll Law knocked Zoro off his perch as the 2nd most popular character, meaning he truly is a Breakout Character.
    • Brook surprisingly manages to steal the show in the Whole Cake Island arc (away from Sanji whom the arc is about and Luffy too). In the arc Brook: holds his ground against freaking Yonko Big Mom herself, after destroying her Soul Power Mooks with his powers and stealing her Poneglyph rubbings, breaks her treasured portrait of Mother Carmel and then he pulls off a Flash Step against her in the Final Battle and cuts her living cloud Zeus (Big Mom’s Homie) in half. There’s also Nami, who gets control of Zeus and uses it to spectacular effect against Big Mom in the Final Battle.
    • The Mink Tribe effectively do this in the Zou arc as Luffy and crew arrive after the massive conflict between the Minks and the Beast Pirates has already taken the place and the events are detailed to the crew by the Minks. Also apart from a brief Flash Back where Sanji’s group beat up a few Elite Mooks, The Straw Hats neither meet the Arc Villain Jack and his minions or fight them which is a first for One Piece.
    • The Revolutionaries (especially Sabo) take a lot of screen time from Straw Hats in Dressrosa, the anime Filler adds more later along with flashbacks. The Reverie arc follows the Revolutionaries directly while the Straw Hats are sailing to Wano, and it also brings back every Royal character whom the Straw Hats befriended up to that point. Subverted however, as all the exciting action that happened at Reverie was off-screen.
    • Samurai Kin’emon and co aka The Red Scabbards in Wano arc are quite literally a spotlight stealing squad. While the Straw Hats tend to meet many allies who wants to take down the antagonists of any given arc, the Red Scabbards’s fight against Orochi and Kaido in revenge for their lord Oden has gotten dozen upon dozens of chapters worth of focus (some before the heroes even reached Wano). Most telling some chapters in Wano don’t even contain the Straw Hats being focused entirely on the Scabbards. In more recent chapters they're the ones fighting Kaido!! Performing a Combination Attack with the Power of Friendship that actually moved Oda's editor to tears, although Luffy and other Supernovas soon take over the fight after the Samurai are beaten.
  • One-Punch Man:
    • Garou has been featured in more of the current chapters than Saitama has. This tends to be the case with One Punch Man, as it focuses on the side characters quite prominently. But he's the standout despite being the villain. He's had more arcs focusing on him than almost any other character.
  • This seems to be a major problem in many of Fujio Akatsuka's works:
    • In his most well known work, Tensai Bakabon, Bakabon himself gets shafted in favor of his own father, who resonated with audiences more and took larger roles in crazy schemes. Akatsuka himself liked to dress as him and used his catchphrase until the day he died. This was mitigated a bit in Shonen Bakabon since it put the focus back on him, but he got a new matching outfit that goes with his father's to compensate.
    • In Osomatsu-kun, Iyami and Chibita became this over time, to the point where it was fondly remembered for their crazy antics and actions (especially Iyami's infamous "SHEEEEH!" line and pose). Osomatsu and his brothers were still relevant, but relegated to bit characters for whatever Iyami and Chibita were up to this week. The one time that they did get to shine as a focal point was in their sort-of sequel Osomatsu-san, but they had to have a major personality overhaul before anything like that could happen.
    • Moretsu Ataro had this in Nyarome and Boss Kokoro.
  • Pokémon: The Series:
    • Oshawott is an amusing subversion: It tries to be this trope, but several times he is shunted by Pikachu to the point of being a Running Gag.
    • The Team Rocket trio get a disproportionate amount of screentime compared to each region's own evil team, largely due to being in every single episode from their first appearance up until the Black and White series. It's more evident than ever in Sun and Moon — because they're the long-established Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains, the other group of comic relief loser villains, Team Skull, rarely make appearances, with Guzma being a no-show for a very long time. The trio also happen to be immensely popular with the creative staff.
    • Some of Ash's Pokemon, like Infernape and Greninja, will generally dominate over the rest of their teams as The Ace of their respective series, with other Pokemon and even Pikachu being prone to experiencing The Worf Effect for it. Infernape is more consistently dominant, as it was one of Ash's most reliable Pokemon ever since its capture and a crucial part of Ash and Paul's rivalry, but Greninja is more excessively dominant, as it got an entire year of being directly in focus over Ash's other Pokemon, complete with an exclusive Super Mode and a Chosen One prophecy to its name. Seeing as how both of them are huge fan-favorites, though, one or both may be considered examples of Tropes Are Not Bad.
      • Of course we have to mention the original scene stealer, Charizard, who set the precedent for Infernape and Greninja later on. After Ash caught him as a Charmander, it was consistently one of his most reliable battle competent Pokemon, arguably even more than Pikachu. After Butterfree (who left rather quickly), Charizard was the first fully evolved Pokemon Ash had gotten and even when it was in its disobedient phase, it was consistently portrayed as the Powerhouse of his team. After Ash reconciled with Charizard and he actually obeyed, this trope was in full force as Ash would use him in almost every major battle after and was the deciding factor in most of them. Probably for this reason, Charizard was Put on a Bus shortly after and only shows up in a few key moments to allow Ash's other Pokemon time to shine.
    • Goh from Journeys is a rare example of a secondary main character doing far more than Ash himself. Although most Filler episodes don't focus on either of them, the chances that Goh will so casually catch a Pokemon within 10 seconds of spotting it are absurdly high, while Ash sits by and gets nothing to progress on his run as a PWC participant unless the episode focuses entirely on his ranked battles (and even then, Goh may still end up catching Pokemon).
  • Re:Zero: Emilia is ostensibly the main Love Interest, but about halfway through the first season she gets sidelined and Rem, one of two twin demon-maids, spends most of the remaining episodes adventuring with the protagonist (something Emilia never really does) and experiencing several tragic deaths. She's still intended, canonically, as a doomed competitor to Emilia, but the way it's written seems indecisive; an entire episode is devoted to Rem's Love Confession, instigated by Subaru essentially asking her to elope with him, but for convoluted reasons they both decide that he should pursue Emilia instead. (The anime effectively ignores Subaru's thought about Rem suggesting to be his second wife.) The audience took the hint and ran away with it—Rem is vastly more popular than any of the other female characters, and the merchandise manufacturers have noticed.
  • Sailor Moon:
    • The anime succumbs to this in the fourth season, often having episodes where the Inner Senshi never even showed up, and the season focuses a lot on Chibiusa/Sailor Chibi Moon. The problem with the heavy focus on Chibiusa in the fourth season is that, in the manga, she is meant to be the focus character and the anime follows that. However, Chibiusa never got the Character Development in the previous season, so it's jarring that the Joke Character is suddenly the main character.
    • This gets especially bad in Crystal, where the Inner Senshi's contributions get drastically undermined in earlier arcs by Mamoru constantly having to bail them out, as they repeatedly give up with zero effort in fights. This only gets worse in season 3 where the Outers completely show them up in every way, reducing them to little more then damsels on demand. Added to the fact Crystal completely cuts out any of the side stories that actually gave them a smidgen of development. Characters like Rei have their personalities watered down to the point where it's barely noticeable.
    • The Starlights in Season 5 sometimes get more attention than the Inner Senshi themselves. Naoko Takeuchi, creator of the original Sailor Moon manga, was surprised that the Starlights had been given bigger roles in the anime than they had in the manga, though it continues the trend of the 90s anime where it gave minor characters and minor supporting characters from the manga larger roles in the anime.
      • While the Starlights as a whole had been considered a spotlight stealing squad, Seiya/Sailor Star Fighter was a one-woman spotlight stealing squad in a similar vein to Usagi, getting more episodes dedicated to her than Yaten/Sailor Star Healer and Taiki/Sailor Star Maker ever had, though that was because of her closeness with Usagi.
  • In Saint Seiya: Saintia Sho, the Gold Saints do most of the fighting, and several of them only seem to appear because the author wanted to show them before their deaths in the original story.
  • In Sherlock Hound, Professor Moriarty gets a hell of a lot more screen time than the title character. His inclusion in every episode except the first means that other villains from classic Sherlock Holmes stories (such as the villain of The Speckled Band), never see the light of day in the episode based on their story. Possibly, Kyosuke Mikuriya took a lot of influence from his predecessor Hayao Miyazaki's work on Lupin III (especially the Zenigata-esque Lestrade) and so tried to make Moriarty the Villain Protagonist.
  • Slayers: Normally, when the plot thickens, Lina gets the most focus, shifting away from Gourry, Zelgadis, and Amelia. However, when the third anime season rolled around (Slayers Try), Filia becomes the Guest-Star Party Member, and because the plot revolves around the dragon race (which she and the Big Bad of the season are a part of), the four main characters are not given as much focus. The fifth episode is about Filia ranting and being subjugated to a trial, along with antics from Xellos — given that she serves the gods and he serves the demons of that world, the sexual tension between them is the main Running Gag.
  • Sonic X:
  • In the Sweet Blue Flowers manga, Kyouko's troubles with her fiancé Kou suddenly get full attention, right in the middle of a very important relationship story arc concerning the main characters, Akira and Fumi.
  • The Alternate Universe series, Tenchi Universe, is known for its emphasis on Ryoko, as evidenced in the opening credits, which starts with a silhouette of her and ends with a zoom-in on her face. This is emphasized even further in the 1999 Tenchi Muyo! movie, Tenchi Forever!, whose ending implies that Tenchi is attracted to Ryoko, and the Tenchi/Ryoko pairing is in the cards, which amazingly makes this a Tenchi timeline that doesn't utilize the Tenchi Solution.
  • Kamina from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was something of a spoof of this — from the start he was given a lion's share of the attention, culminating in a scene designed to punch you in the gut…. Lampshaded in an omake in the manga.
  • In To Love Ru, Lala is the most prominent character next to the main character, Rito, because the story is about her self-insertion into his life, both socially and romantically. In the follow-up, To Love-Ru Darkness, she is effectively replaced by her younger sister Momo due to the shift in focus to her harem plan and her invasion into his life. It takes until the final third of the story for Lala to be a significant role that sticks, such that the author announced it as her grand return on the title page.
  • In Tokyo Mew Mew, Berri takes over the spotlight in a La Mode as Ichigo joins the other Mew Mews in being background characters.
  • As a result of being Merchandise-Driven, Transformers suffers from this quite a bit. Whenever new toys are released, their characters are going to push older characters into the background. In particular, the end of series 2 of The Original Series featured very few characters who weren't Combiners, and after The Movie, the Combiners themselves were relegated to playing second fiddle to Rodimus' Five-Man Band and the reformatted Decepticons. Later on, they themselves were driven out to allow the Headmasters to take center stage; unfortunately, all the other characters became mush less competent soon after the Headmasters were introduced. Transformers: Super-God Masterforce took a step away from this, introducing the Pretenders, but even that wasn't safe as for part-way through the focus shifted from the Pretenders to the Godmasters, Ginrai, pilot of Optimus Prime's would-be new body taking the spotlight for obvious reasons, developing into Gary Stu status, saving the day at the last minute.
  • Kirie gained more screentime in UQ Holder!, particularly once the manga started to run on a monthly basis. She gets more screentime, and a lot more fanservice, compared to other characters — including those that debuted before her, including Yukihime.
  • The protagonist of Urusei Yatsura is supposed to be Ataru, but Lum (who was originally supposed to be a one-shot character) became so important that not only the series often got renamed after her in other markets, when it seemed that Ataru was quitting as the main character she pointed out it couldn't be because she was the main character.
  • At the time Sasaki Kojiro's first story arc was finished it comprised more than 1/3rd of the entirety of Vagabond releases.
  • After Sizer's early Heel–Face Turn in the Violinist of Hameln manga, Michiaki Watanabe spends an increasingly inordinate amount of time reminding us of her tragic backstory, her bloody past and her goal of eventually atoning for her sins. Soon, there is at least one chapter per volume containing yet another flashback to Sizer's past, and she ends up at the center of the entire story arc of volumes 19-28. Who was that "violinist" guy we were supposed to be paying attention to, again?
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters gave The Rival Seto Kaiba even more prominence than he had in the manga, in which he was already a Breakout Character. He got a filler arc dedicated to him and his family history, a major role in the DOMA filler arc plus another smaller filler arc where the villain had beef with him, and got to take part in the anime's version of the Memory World arc and play a key role in saving the day by attacking Zorc when he is about to kill Yugi and the others. (For comparison, in the manga he didn't appear in the Memory World arc at all until the very end. Because he wasn't present in the original story, the anime basically has him wander around and not do much of note until the final battle with Zorc.)
    • The first Yu-Gi-Oh! anime did the same. Kaiba originally appeared in two manga plotlines during the period the anime covers, but his massive role in later chapters led to them throwing him into a ton of filler episodes, including the "Game Master" story arc, which has more episodes devoted to it than any other arc. Oddly enough, they also mostly wrote Mokuba out of the series.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX:
    • While all main protagonists tend to get the most amount of spotlight and plot relevance, nobody is as bad as Judai Yuki in this series. Most of his friends either fail or don't get a chance. The Seven Stars Assassin arc is the most blatant example, as Judai manages to defeat five of the seven while five of his six fellow Key Guardians end up failing in the end while the last Key Guardians turns out to be the last of the Seven Stars.
    • After Season 1, almost every duel Judai wins is due to Neos, the Neo-Spacians, or some Fusion of them, and his standard Elemental HERO cards end up mostly cannon fodder until he draws Neos.
      • Among the Neos Fusions, Flare Neos ends up becoming the most common Contact Fusion, and Magma Neos becomes the most common Triple Contact Fusion, both of which require Neo-Spacian Flare Scarab as one of the materials.
    • Season 3 of GX also introduces a bunch of new characters of which one, namely Johan, instantly turns into Judai's best friend. The whole season is basically about them first having to save Duel Academia (along with the other exchange students), then one pulls a Heroic Sacrifice, the other has to save him, goes bonkers and so on. And that all happens with Judai's original friends being treated as background characters or ending up as Sacrificial Lambs.
    • Although, Johan isn't guilty alone. The other exchange students are also this and basically become the relevant characters of season 3, whereas most of the main characters become sidelined as cannon fodder.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds has Crow, who has had multiple duels contrived to showcase him. One of these duels had him pull off a First Turn Kill in his very first episode. Early plot treatments had him as a minor character, but it seems someone on the writing staff had a bit of a fondness for him, as by the time the show got to air, he was Yusei's never-mentioned best friendnote , and by the end of the season ended up being treated as the tritagonist (despite appearing far later than all the other main characters), even picking up a Signer mark for reasons that were never explained all that well. The vast majority of the cast outside of Yusei, Jack, and Crow being severely Demoted to Extra meant that Crow only became even more central from that point on.
    • Bruno, who, after an appearance of only ten minutes, draws the main character's attention from all his other friends to himself.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL at times didn't quite seem to know who or what they wanted to focus on character-wise. But in the last two arcs, the Arclight brothers, a Quirky Miniboss Squad of one of the second arc's villains, manages to make a comeback as allies, squeezing out five Duels between the three of them (most of them are Tag Duels), which is a lot considering it happens right when the show was nearing its end. Meanwhile, Yuma's other friends and allies accumulated throughout the series, other than Shark and Kaito, are either treated as barely focused cannon fodder or made to Opt Out when the going got real toughnote . A far cry from the earlier series where the True Companions would stick with The Hero to the very end.
  • A long-running joke in the Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V fandom is that Yuzu was the real protagonist, as she was part of a mystery-based subplot involving the two Knights of Cerebus, while Yuya was busy fighting the Monster of the Week type of quirky duelists. Then the subplot was revealed to be the real plot, Yuya gets thrust right in the middle of it, and one of the Knights of Cerebus dies, averting this trope for good. (Ironically, a common complaint later on was about the exact opposite problem of Yuzu being Demoted to Extra.)
  • Soulburner from Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS follows Crow's footsteps as he quickly became the deuteragonist, overshadowing older characters like Go Onizuka and Blue Angel in terms of character importance. He defeated both in order to show off his Salamangreat deck, which is broken in the real world, and he was able to get two battles in season 3 whereas Playmaker and Revolver only got one each, one of them being against Revolver which he wins. It's bad enough that he's the default character for VRAINS in Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links - you have to separately unlock Playmaker!
  • Yuri is My Job! has the Beta Couple, Kanoko and Sumika. While Hime is the main character and the series alternates between Hime/Mitsuki arcs and Kanoko/Sumika arcs, some of the Kanoko/Sumika arcs go on longer, such as the one that began in Volume 9. Additionally, Hime and Mitsuki are Out of Focus in Kanoko and Sumika's arcs, while Kanoko and Sumika play supporting roles in Hime and Mitsuki's arcs.

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