Five-Man Band cleanup

HOLY -

...I think I'm going to come back and start this tomorrow.

Anyone know anything about the examples left on Anime A-D?

I mentioned I had concerns about a few that haven't been addressed:

• .hack//Legend of the Twilight: Two subversions. Need a second opinion on that. Shoehorn?
• Bubblegum Crisis: "By process of elimination" sounds shoehorning. Second opinion?
• Crayon Shin-chan: Smells like shoehorning, but need a second opinion.

Other than those, I think we're in the clear, unless someone wants to have another look. At the very least, it's much better than previously.

Okay, let's see what I can do with the webcomics subpage.

Eight Bit Theatre - clear shoehorn; they require lengthy explanations and are actually a four-man team (and I use the term "team" lightly here).

Arthur King Of Time And Space - eight people is not a five man band

Bomberman Land Parody - Critter County - The Crossoverlord - Drow Tales - El Goonish Shive - ditto

Exterminatus Now - four-man team (Jamailla is never actually part of their team) and the roles are shoehorned

Fans - characters with multiple roles

Girl Genius - three-man team with a love interest, and those aren't the main characters of the comic anyway.

Home Stuck - troll blue team has characters on multiple roles; troll combined team is way too big. Post-scratch kids is only four.

The Inexplicable Adventures Of Bob - more than six

Jewel Vixens - Newshounds - ditto

Least I Could Do - not a 'team' by any stretch of the word

Looking For Group - characters in multiple roles

Order Of The Stick - the order of the Scribble is speculation since these characters don't actually appear in the comic long enough to figure out their group dynamics

RPG World - Supernormal Step - The Wotch - more than six

The Wotch Cheer - only four, and roles don't fit

...whew!

Also, we should remove The Medic as a viable "extra role" from the main Five-Man Band page.

You mean, as in that it's generally one of the ones in the main team? If it's someone outside the team, it's usually someone in Mission Control. Which really is an addition you find every now and then.

Well, yes. The main page says The Medic is usually The Smart Guy, and almost always when I encounter the medic it's a shoehorn to put a seventh or eighth character on the five-man roster.

If it's not an auxilary role within their Smart Guy or Chick, and not an actual auxilary character, I'd delete them.

I did a wick check for those mentioned in FiveManBand.AnimeA-D we deleted (which I forgot before). Several of them didn't have the trope there anyway, which suggests a weak example to me, or someone who just wanted to list them on the page.

Should we leave the few examples we still have questions over undecided for now and move on to Anime E-H?

Being not familiar with any of the anime series, I must say that the following strike me as possibly incorrect:

Dot Hack Legend Of The Twilight: that the smart guy is a healer is not a "subversion"; however that the chick has the attack magic strikes me as wrong, doesn't that make her the big guy?

Azumanga Daioh, Bobobo Bobobo Bobo: more than six people.

Bubblegum Crisis: if the big guy is only listed "by process of elimination" then that's by definition a shoehorn.

Crayon Shin Chan: too many people, confusing explanations, duplicate roles.

Digi Mon: too many people, in all subsets

Dinosaur King: ditto

So I think we should look into these and possibly remove them.

The first and last subsets of Digimon are only six people, it's just that they've added random jargon.

Chosen Children (Adventure 02)

Here, we can axe the Mentors, since they aren't part of the band. T.K. as The Heart is incorrect. He's always The Lancer.

edited 22nd Jun '12 4:50:37 AM by lu127

Yeah, when I looked through the list, I ignored all extras, unless they were clearly a part of the team, and that pushed them above six members.

However, we might as well remove them, as they're not relevant to the trope. It's just an exuse for people to list more characters. If they feel so strongly that these characters have to remain on the page, I'd say it's doubtful they're not actually on the team, which breaks from the trope, and thus makes the entire example ineligible.

@Spark 9: Keep in mind that when counting people, only the number counted under the core five roles count towards the six-person limit, as the other character roles are by definition aren't part of the core team; they're more hangers-on. Only if the extra people are actually core members of the team would it disqualify a band from Five-Man Band.

However, good catch on the Dinosaur King one; that's ten people shoved in there. I'm deleting that one.

Great Ghu! The Barack Obama page has Five-Man Band! *headdesk*

edited 22nd Jun '12 12:33:12 PM by Xtifr

I saw that too. Kill with fire.

It has No Real Life Examples Please, and while Barack Obama allows some troping, Five-Man Band surely doesn't fall under that.

Dinosaur King was actually a proper example. There were two names for each character, not ten characters in the band. I put it back.

Oops. Sorry. This is why it's important to have people who know the works helping us. XD

I didn't; I just looked it up. I got suspicious because it just looked too neatly doubled up, especially with the matching surnames, and western/eastern names.

edited 22nd Jun '12 7:58:02 PM by Feather7603

It's actually not: The series starts as a three-person group—Rex, Max, and Zoey—along with their three dinosaurs. Spike Taylor and Reese Drake are like Zordon and Alpha 5 in the original Power Rangers—constant allies and series regulars, but not part of the same unit: note that in the series' second arc, only the initial three are seen in every episode; Spike is kidnapped along with all the other parents and appears only occasionally, while Reese remains behind in the present and appears even less.

edited 23rd Jun '12 10:31:30 AM by DoKnowButchie

How often are they a full team? I don't think they need to be that at the start (allowing for introductions and such, which may take a few episodes), nor all seasons (especially as later seasons often mess with the team dynamics). From the descriptions of a few episodes I read, it seemed like that was how they acted.

Cutting it for that reason is completely different than cutting it for being too many.

What should we do about the examples that seem questionable (particularly the three in post 28) but that we don't really have enough information to make an informed decision on? Do we cut them (reducing the likelihood of leaving bad examples up), or leave them in, leave them as discussion points, and hope someone with familiarity comes along (reducing the likelihood of cutting good examples)?

edited 23rd Jun '12 10:35:53 AM by Nocturna

Well, we still have a lot of work before the trope is cleaned. We can make a note, and move on to the next page.

My stance is to cut every unambiguous example (or to port it to the discussion page) to avoid any misuse bait.

Re: Dinosaur King: They all know each other from the start, and are a constant presence on the show during its first arc; however, unlike the main three, they don't appear in every episode, and are very rarely on the field, since neither has dinosaurs and therefore can't be teleported. Reece's role is to keep the team informed of any new dinosaurs that crop up and to keep the teleporter running; very occasionally, she'll introduce new tech. Spike is just there because he knows what's going on and has his own interest in dinosaurs; what's more, his contribution to the team tends to be his knowledge and connections rather than any sort of physical ability expected of The Big Guy—the heavy physical lifting is usually done by the dinosaurs themselves.

ETA: Here's the original Japanese opening. Note how Reece and Spike are both given different types of shots as the rest of them, and how those tend to include Aki, who's also a series regular but is kept Locked Out of the Loop.

edited 23rd Jun '12 11:20:24 AM by DoKnowButchie