Sixth Ranger / Anime & Manga

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• Albegas: Parodied with Goro Kumai. He aids the heroes in protecting the Earth against the forces of the Dellinger Empre, but he's regularly forgotten by everyone while the main three are showered with attention and treated like celebrities. In one episode, dedicated fans of Albegas create the "Albegas encyclopedia", a fan-magazine that details such as the combining of Albegas, the strategy the Dellingers used up to that point, and it's pilots. However, it doesn't mention Goro or his robot, causing him to get angry and complain about the lack of respect he gets.
• 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 plan by Yukari to win the Athletics Festival. Kaorin to an extent, too, given that while she may hang out with the main cast from time to time she never actually transfers into their class.
• Berserk: Post-Eclipse, Guts forms a loose Five-Man Band with Schierke, Serpico, Farnese, and Isidro, with the elves as Team Pets and Casca as a rather tragic example of The Load. Then their journey takes them out to sea, and Farnese turns out to have a fiancée with a Cool Ship. Enter Rodrick, the Sixth Ranger.
• Renji Abarai is the most obvious example in Bleach, becoming committed to fighting alongside sworn enemy Ichigo and his close pals after getting defeated by him in the Soul Society, and succeeding in rescuing Rukia together. Renji's still an abrasive guy but likes chilling around with Ichigo whenever nearby, especially in the anime's numerous filler arcs.
• Choujin X: In the first chapter, the reader is introduced to the manga's three central characters: Tokio Kurohara, Azuma Higashi, and Ely Otta. Immediately following the Time Skip, the reader is introduced to Palma Shishinegura, who quickly receives far more focus than the bulk of the supporting cast do, to the point that she decidedly receives the most development outside of only the three aforementioned characters. Also, like Tokio and Azuma, she inherited the powers of a Choujin X and has attracted the specific interest of Batista Hoshi. On top of that, she's shown alongside Tokio, Ely, and Azuma in a lot of official promotional material. Overall despite her late introduction, the vast majority of the fanbase has come to consider her the fourth main character.
• Cyber Team in Akihabara started with Hibari, Suzume, and Tsugumi as a Power Trio. About halfway in, Kamome shows up and acts antagonistic, but forces her way into the team somewhat awkwardly. In the second half, Tsubame is introduced as a villain and eventually Heel Face Turns close to the end of the series.
• Izutsumi of Delicious in Dungeon is technically party member number five, but as the team already has the other archetypes for team members (with Laios being a combination of The Big Guy and The Leader) she fits squarely in this role.
• 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. But it comes as the result of a Heel–Face Turn every time.
  • Digimon Adventure: Hikari/Kari and Tailmon/Gatomon. Kari should've joined at the beginning with the other Digidestined, but was sick and missed the event when they all got sucked in together. As a result, her partner was abducted and raised by one of the later villains.
  • Digimon Adventure 02: Ken with his partner Wormmon, the villain of the first arc before making a Heel–Face Turn, and joining as The Atoner.
  • Digimon Tamers: There could be seven Sixth Rangers if you want to be technical, but the Wild Card turned Dragon turned Atoner Impmon fits best if you want to look at just one. Ryo also has a good claim. He's the last to officially join the team and the only one on par in terms of power and competency with the core Power Trio. He's also the only one outside the core three to biomerge with his partner.
  • Digimon Frontier: Koichi and The Spirits of Darkness, the twin brother of The Lancer who was trapped in a coma and corrupted by darkness initially.
  • Digimon Data Squad: Ikuto/Keenan and Falcomon, a wild child the core trio meets when they enter the digital world. It takes some time to get him to acknowledge them.
  • Digimon Fusion: Nene with Sparrowmon and Monitamon. (Joining Xros Heart). At the end of the season, there’s also her brother Yuu/Ewan.
  • Digimon Adventure tri.: Meiko and Meicoomon. Unlike all the others, the series is only one-sixth of the way done by the time they're officially inducted, but the fact that the other eight have been a team for more than half a decade makes up for it.
  • Digimon Universe: App Monsters: Yuujin and Offmon.
  • Among the band of Digimon knowns as the Royal Knights, Alphamon can be considered this. He literally only appears when there is a grave threat to the Digital World.
    • Notably, in spite of the stakes in previous Digimon seasons, he has not appeared at all until Digimon Adventure tri.. That really says something about how bad the situation has to be for him to appear at all.
• Eyeshield 21:
  • Taki, 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 in one instance was he a winning factor for the team.
  • Musashi even more so. His existence has been alluded to since chapter 1, first appeared in volume 5 as a nameless contractor, and had his identity revealed in volume 7. He appears to be a jerkass at first, but it's soon revealed to be a facade and he's actually a really good guy. He doesn't join the team till volume 18, and his importance to the team only being hyped up during his first two matches. Afterward, we rarely even get to see his kicks and his role in the story significantly decreases... until the final match of the Christmas Ball that is, where he performs his first real 60-yard kick and seals the victory for the Devil Bats.
• Fairy Tail has Gajeel, who started off as an Evil Counterpart to Natsu until he joined the guild, whereupon he became The Rival, and is still not trusted by some members of the guild. He is, however, a Double Agent for Makarov and takes on the tough job of spying on Raven Tail for him. There's also Wendy Marvel and her sidekick Carla, who fills the temporary 6th character spot in their intro arc, but proceeded to become a permanent addition to both the guild, and the usual focused team of Natsu/Lucy/Gray/Erza/Happy.
• In Flowering Heart, the mysterious, aloof Syuel ends up joining the team eventually.
• Soldat J and King J-Der from GaoGaiGar 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.
• 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 does all of the research for the group.
• Gundam series:
  • Schwarz Bruder and Allenby Beardsley from G Gundam. Super Robot Wars Reversal ran with this idea towards Allenby, especially as the game seemed to have portrayed the Shuffle Alliance as a Super Sentai-esque team.
  • 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.
  • After War Gundam X has a traditional example in Ennil El. She's an enemy for most of the show thanks to a grudge against Garrod, but when she accidentally befriends Bridge Bunny Toniya she starts on the road to a Heel–Face Turn. Then she joins the crew outright to help them fight the SRA and New Federation, and would have gotten a Gundam of her own had the series completed its full run.
  • Even though he joined too late, Yzak Joule is this to the Three Ships Alliance in Gundam SEED.
  • Tag Along Guy Saji Crossroad and Action Girl Marie Parfacy fill the role in Gundam 00. Graham Aker, formerly The Rival, becomes one in The Movie.
• Guyver, being an homage to Kamen Rider and Kikaider, has Guyver III in the role of the Second Rider (to those who don't know, Guyver II was the Evil Counterpart).
• In Haruhi Suzumiya, 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, though other people on the outside sometimes considers her part of the group.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers has Canada, to the point that few ever notice him with the ones that do mistaking him for America.
• Alice Maresato joins the band of survivors in Highschool of the Dead after being saved by Komuro and Hirano.
• In the Hourglass of Falces manga, the main four from the anime are also joined by Luke and Milina, who serve as Zelgadis and Amelia's replacements in the second half of the novels. Luke acts as Lina's Lancer in this story, thus the snarky, well-rounded fighter Milina fits this trope.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Iggy from Stardust Crusaders joins the main characters' group on their journey to defeat DIO halfway into the part, serving as the Sixth Ranger in Joseph, Jotaro, Polnareff, Kakyoin and Avdol's pre-existing team.
  • Rohan Kishibe from Diamond is Unbreakable joins the cast halfway into the part, and helps the Joestars hunt down Yoshikage Kira.
• Iino from Kaguya-sama: Love Is War is recruited to the student council after losing to Shirogane during his reelection, replacing an unseen third year as the new Auditor. Her best friend Osaragi was offered the position of General Affairs Officer (also previously filled by an unseen third year), but she had no interest in joining the student council and simply remains a member of the supporting cast for the entire run of the series.
• Lucky Star had a whole slew of sixth rangers that joined the cast about halfway through the show's 24-episode run. Misao and Ayano start off as Living Props before eventually becoming recurring characters, while Yutaka, Minami, Patty, and Hiyori don't show up until the new school year starts. Humorously, Misao lampshades this by pointing out that she and Ayano had been there from the beginning, but were simply Out of Focus.
• Lupin III started out with the main cast being just Lupin's friend Jigen and the stranger Fujiko. The samurai Goemon was added later on because the creator thought there should be a clearly Japanese character. True to the trope's usual form, he was a bad guy at first - an assassin sent to kill Lupin - but they soon became allies instead.
• If you take it loosely, Hayate from Lyrical Nanoha. Actually, since Defeat Means Friendship, everyone in the show except Nanoha herself and Yuuno might count, with the good guys going from two people to a whole army (Hayate's, namely).
• Macross Delta Absolute Live has Bogue Con-Vaart, the only Aerial Knight to escape Heimdall's takeover of Windemere, join up with Delta Squadron as Delta 6 making him a near-literal example of this trope (though his addition only restores Delta Squadron to a proper Five-Man Band seeing as Messer died beforehand). To an extent, Maximilian Jenius qualifies as while he does act as The Mentor for Delta Squadron, he mostly remains in a supporting role as the commander of his own ship before eventually hopping back into a Variable Fighter for the Final Battle as a sort of 11th-Hour Ranger.
• Majestic Prince is considered to be Super Sentai as a real robot series, and as such it naturally has a color-coded Sixth Ranger, Ange, pilot of Black 6, who joins at exactly the midpoint of the series.
• Martian Successor Nadesico had a huge cast as it was, but continued to pick up more as the series progressed. First was the three spare Aestivalis pilots, Ryoko, Izumi, and Hikaru. After they returned to Earth, they reluctantly allowed military-appointed leader Admiral Munatake, the company chairman's secretary Erina, and fifth pilot Akatsuke Nagare the chairman himself. Finally after the exiled crew's hijacking of the Nadesico, the Jovian pilot Shiratori briefly joined.
• 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).
• James Bond in Moriarty the Patriot joins Moriarty's team after volume six, well after his group has been established. He's even the sixth member of the band!
• Tenten from Naruto gets this treatment ALOT, especially compared to the other main Konoha Girls. Fans are often outraged at Kishimoto, for neglecting to give Tenten a properly established backstory (or even a satisfying portion of screentime). Truly those that adore Tenten, value this gem in the rough the most.
• Kotaro from Negima! Magister Negi Magi, who started out as an enemy, but thanks to Defeat Means Friendship, turned into The Rival and eventually this. Though in a series where there are constant additions to the main cast, several more can fit this.
• Nichijou:
  • Nano is a major character from the start of the series, but never interacts with the other leads. It isn't until halfway through the series that she actually starts attending school and joins the group. Accordingly, the credits change to reflect this.
  • Also Fe-chan, Weboshi, and Mihoshi. The first two were present in the background, but didn't become recurring characters until about halfway through the series' run, while Mihoshi doesn't even show up until episode 18. Like Nano, the three girls were added to the opening credits right around the time they joined the cast.
• Hana in the 4th season of Ojamajo Doremi. She transformed from her baby form to her human form to become the same age as the girls. Before that, Onpu was the Sixth Ranger to the original Power Trio, though she was fully integrated into the team in Sharp.
• One Piece
  • Even though Luffy didn't have a Five-Man Band established since the beginning, by the time he went through Reverse Mountain, he had The Hero, The Lancer, The Big Guy, The Smart Guy and The Heart. Vivi joined after this, and for a while was the Sixth Ranger until she left again. You could say all the True Companions that joined him after that are Sixth Rangers, though, including her.
  • Jimbei is a more traditional example, being the first person to join the core Straw Hat crew after the Time Skip, much later than their last official member, Brook. For this reason, Jimbei is initially unaware of the full dynamics of the crew.
• Pokémon: The Series has a whole horde of recurring secondary characters, both human and independent Pokémon, who join the main party for specific episodes or arcs. Sometimes, they will be counterparts to characters from the games, but they're just as often Canon Foreigners. Misty, Brock, May and Dawn also act somewhat like Sixth Rangers in their return appearances.
  • The Sun and Moon series has an odd variation where the protagonist is the Sixth Ranger, due to Ash meeting up with an already extant group. (Pikachu, though still an outsider, is merely the Fifth Ranger of their Pokémon, however, as Lillie would not obtain her starter Pokémon, Snowy, until after they had met).
  • The second half of the "Sun & Moon" series has the aforementioned group, with Ash now serving as The Leader, form a part-time Sentai squad to track down Ultra Beasts. During the Necrozma incident, Gladion came onboard as a more traditional example of the Trope.^note loner, Custom Uniform, uses Lunala to contrast with Nebby/Solgaleo
• 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 accommodate 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 the team's star player.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion will introduce a new Magical Girl named Nagisa Momoe, who is clearly meant to evoke this trope. But they don't exactly play it straight. For one thing, she spends most of the film as Team Pet "Bebe", which is a slightly altered version of Nagisa's witch form Charlotte.
  • The online RPG game places this situation on Homura in regards to the pre-existing Magical Girl team of Madoka, Mami, Sayaka, Kyoko, and the Player Character. The combination of Homura's newness to the rest of the group (beyond just her New Transfer Student status), her unsociability and aloofness, and her choice of firearms and explosives presenting an ever-present risk of Unfriendly Fire on melee-fighters Sayaka and Kyoko make her integration into the group difficult - the later chapters of the main storyline place more focus on this.
  • The manga Puella Magi Oriko Magica has an example in the form of Yuma Chitose, a young girl who is convinced to contract by Oriko. Unlike most examples, however, it only happens for this timeline, and her fate in the other timelines is never revealed.
• In line with the myriad of homages to Super Sentai, The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World reveals that, in addition to the Kizuna Five, there is also a Kizuna Silver, nicknamed "Sil". According to Red, she was so observant that she could say things you'd never admit as if seeing right through you.
• In Sailor Moon, first Chibiusa, and later, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Saturn, and still later, the addition of Chibi-Chibi and the Starlights.
  • The Outer Senshi provide egregious examples. They are somewhat xenophobic, but disappear for vague reasons whenever it'd be tricky to have overpowered characters the next season around. Whether or not they become weaker is moot, since the last season sees them as Cannon Fodder. Another example is Mamoru/Tuxedo Mask, as he joins before any girl other than Usagi.
• Ikki from Saint Seiya is the quintessential Sixth Ranger... despite being the fifth member of the core team.
• Jokingly deconstructed in Samurai Pizza Cats, where a set of proud Sixth Rangers is snidely narrated as the "B-team", who fight villains that main crew are too busy or can't be bothered to fight.
• Sgt. Frog: Dororo and Angol Mois like to trade places being this and The Heart, depending on the episode.
  • In the anime, Joriri joins the Keroro Platoon officially during an episode of the 6th season. However, because Status Quo Is God, it turns out there was a mistake and he leaves... That event was still referenced afterwards though and he continued to be a minor recurring character for the anime.
  • The manga introduced an actual sixth ranger in chapter 174. The "Second Keroro Platoon", a young recruit also named "Keroro", whose Keron Star gives him alternate modes based on the data of each platoon member. He befriends a human child called Tomosu, who's an occult fan and member of an occult club, similar to Fuyuki, but he's younger and actually a Fuyuki fan himself.
• The Slayers TV series features frequently this trope:
  • 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.
• Crona from Soul Eater subverted this even after his/her Heel–Face Turn, as they did not take part in several of the battles between the heroes and Arachnophobia, and even reluctantly became The Mole for Medusa in order to mentally cripple Stein. In the manga, they were thought to be kidnapped by Arachnophobia, but they actually willingly returned to Medusa and sank deeper and deeper into madness after the Time Skip, even after they killed the witch.
• The Mother's Rosario arc of Sword Art Online centers around the "Sleeping Knights", a tight-knit guild lead by Yuuki. While Asuna never officially joins the guild, she becomes their seventh ranger, joining them in a party and aiding them in their quest to clear a floor boss by themselves.
• The Blue Knight / Masaya Aoyama was this to the Mews in Tokyo Mew Mew. Mew Berry from the sequel was also very much like this.
• 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 GoLion but new animation, Sven actually gets one last chance to pilot Blue Lion before the second finale.
• 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.
• Being practically Yo-kai Watch meets Super Sentai, Yo-kai Watch Jam - Yo-kai Academy Y: Close Encounters of the N Kind has several examples:
  • School Student President Ranto Kirigakure/Mist Shadow, who initally antagonized the heroes for his personal revenge agenda, and later Chiaki Hebiyama/Sky Snaker and Nozuchika Mitsumatagi/The Viper, who once fought the heroes as heads of the School Mafia; in both cases notable for being the heads of two of the three great powers in the Academy, eventually join the team to fight their common enemy the aliens.
  • Later, Kuka Nanakumo (a reinstated Kumako Kumoike) builds a UR Watch and (with the help of the team's summoned Onryo friend Momo) becomes Momonga Lady.
  • Unusually, Fubuki Himekawa/Clock Lady, while part of the team from the movie, did not get a YSP Watch until Episode 3 (coincidentally, in which the team fought her would-be Onryo partner, Broken Clock); likewise, Mataro Tamada instead got a Shining Watch in Episode 27 to become the TV Hero Shining Boy and only got a proper UR Watch in Episode 44 to become T-Dine.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds had Crow become the Fifth Signer, while Rua/Leo became the Sixth Signer with about a dozen episodes left to the end of the series, making the latter more of an 11th-Hour Ranger.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • Bakura, moreso in the manga than the anime, who joins the core four of Yugi, Jonouchi, Honda, and Anzu. He notably has this role for most of the manga, while in the anime it only really lasts for the Duelist Kingdom arc. If anything, for the majority of the anime, Kaiba actually somewhat fills the role moreso than anyone else.
  • Despite having been there from the start, Pharaoh Atem himself is this to an extent; he and Yugi only really identify as entirely separate characters to each other. Ishizu and all the major antagonists (except Pegasus) act as if there is only Atem, while everyone else acts as if there is only Yugi.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: Yuzu is a main character who never joins the Lancers due to being separated from them 99% of the time, but she's generally considered to be their friend and ally. Other prominent forefront members who are fighting along the Lancers are Kaito, Edo and Jack whereas people like Sora and Crow become official members of the Lancers and thus do not count.
  • Earlier than that, Gongenzaka was somewhat of a regular visitor of the You Show Duel School. He's a student of another Duel School, but he appeared in You Show so often that he was even allowed to duel for them as one of their three defenders.
• Karin first appears in episode 3 of Yuki Yuna is a Hero. The rest of the Heroes had been friends for months and had been Heroes for a few weeks before Karin popped up. She is The Ace of the group, as she had been training for years to be a Hero. The Taisha told Karin to supervise the others. She acts uppity due to the others being less experienced than her, but is mostly tsundere and is heavily implied to have an Inferiority Superiority Complex.

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