Question about adding cast members

@MAT13 wrote:
For live-action TV shows (English or foreign), episodes usually have fixed opening where main cast is listed. In English shows that don't have such openings, they usually start listing main cast as the episode starts, before writer and director, and always separate guest cast by adding "Guest Cast" and then list guest. In the end credits these all may appear again grouped, but intro or beginning of the show always somehow lists main cast. Anyone that appears in the end credits only along with main cast under generic "Cast" or just being listed is usually guest cast. I can't think of a live-action show that didn't list main cast at the beginning.

Anime are exception since they always list all cast in the end credits.

I understand what you are saying but I don't think the actors who appear week after week would like to be called "Guest cast". Any characters appearing at the beginning merely indicates that they are starring roles of higher importance above the rest of the "main" cast.  To list anyone else as "guest cast" suggests a temporary status not the more permanent status of a regular cast member.

@KenF wrote:
I understand what you are saying but I don't think the actors who appear week after week would like to be called "Guest cast". Any characters appearing at the beginning merely indicates that they are starring roles of higher importance above the rest of the "main" cast.  To list anyone else as "guest cast" suggests a temporary status not the more permanent status of a regular cast member.

I don't think it matters if the actors themselves do not agree with that, if the show producers/creators don't consider them main cast. If they quit, the show wouldn't suffer, if the actual main cast did, it would either stop or had to change drastically.

But let me give you a parallel to most Korean dramas. Many of guest cast there literally appear in every single episode just as main cast, but they are not given that much time on-screen and they are definitely not considered main cast. Some other sites treat these as "Recurring Roles" where they have (1) Main Cast, (2) Recurring Roles, and (3) Guest Stars.

Unless there is some official announcement saying that all these are main cast, I would go by how TV series handle it.

Also, number of appearances isn't always the important factor. Sometimes guest cast may appear many more than main cast... I can think of Meitantei Conan case where "Shinichi Kudo" appears very few times in comparison to recurring guest cast that appears 100s of episodes, even though he is the actual main character. But that is because he appears in every episode as Conan, a new persona he turned into, but the real him is still the main character, despite the lack of appearances in his actual form.

But now that I've heard we must go how episodes treat cast, even in anime, simply treating every character in anime as main cast seems like a ludicrous idea and a daunting task to handle, especially for shows like this that has 1000s of characters and they're clearly not all main cast. The bottomline is, the producers and creators clearly have in mind who the main cast are, and just because the animators include all of them on the same screen does not mean they are all main characters. That's certain, and forcing our way of handling main cast... I'd rather not add those guest cast as main cast at all and leave it for someone else :O

@TomSouthwell wrote:
Can you find this specific conversation? 

I tried looking through most common posts, but couldn't spot the title about it. Can't pinpoint who from or where I heard this.

Still, the idea of adding 1000s of One Piece or Meitantei Conan characters and fixing all animes we ever have on file is something I would never do. Our policy may be to go as the credits are in the show, but it should be obvious to anyone, and not just the writers and producers of that anime, that Bus Driver who appeared in episode 768 and never again and said "This is the last stop, all passengers should disembark." could not possibly be the main character in the series even if he's credited in the same end credits list with the main characters.

End credits mixing main and guest cast in a single list isn't new even to live-action series, but live-action series have opening credits, animated series do not, hence the distinction between main and guest characters in animated series isn't visibly clear, but it is logically once you start watching or check the official web sites.

@MAT13 wrote:
I don't think it matters if the actors themselves do not agree with that, if the show producers/creators don't consider them main cast. If they quit, the show wouldn't suffer, if the actual main cast did, it would either stop or had to change drastically.

But let me give you a parallel to most Korean dramas. Many of guest cast there literally appear in every single episode just as main cast, but they are not given that much time on-screen and they are definitely not considered main cast. Some other sites treat these as "Recurring Roles" where they have (1) Main Cast, (2) Recurring Roles, and (3) Guest Stars.

Unless there is some official announcement saying that all these are main cast, I would go by how TV series handle it.

Also, number of appearances isn't always the important factor. Sometimes guest cast may appear many more than main cast... I can think of Meitantei Conan case where "Shinichi Kudo" appears very few times in comparison to recurring guest cast that appears 100s of episodes, even though he is the actual main character. But that is because he appears in every episode as Conan, a new persona he turned into, but the real him is still the main character, despite the lack of appearances in his actual form.

But now that I've heard we must go how episodes treat cast, even in anime, simply treating every character in anime as main cast seems like a ludicrous idea and a daunting task to handle, especially for shows like this that has 1000s of characters and they're clearly not all main cast. The bottomline is, the producers and creators clearly have in mind who the main cast are, and just because the animators include all of them on the same screen does not mean they are all main characters. That's certain, and forcing our way of handling main cast... I'd rather not add those guest cast as main cast at all and leave it for someone else :O

Not to be difficult but comparing Korean productions to American productions isn't exactly apples to apples due to cultural differences.  Also, the characters in question, have equal screen presence, spending the same time shoulder to shoulder on screen.  Just because they aren't mentioned in the opening credits doesn't necessarily mean they weren't intended to be part of the main cast due to contractual agreements with the title stars.  For example, William Shatner had special contractual considerations for his name appearing larger than anyone else's during the credits.

@KenF wrote:
Not to be difficult but comparing Korean productions to American productions isn't exactly apples to apples due to cultural differences.  Also, the characters in question, have equal screen presence, spending the same time shoulder to shoulder on screen.  Just because they aren't mentioned in the opening credits doesn't necessarily mean they weren't intended to be part of the main cast due to contractual agreements with the title stars.  For example, William Shatner had special contractual considerations for his name appearing larger than anyone else's during the credits.

You're not difficult, and we all have our ways of what we consider logical or illogical, and that's why policy is there so we can follow that instead of our own preference. But bottomline here is, I'm just one of the users here, like you, and I don't decide how this is handled or how something should be handled. In the end, you should only care about what main staff on this site tell you, and they will almost always tell you to follow the policy. And then, based on if you agree with how its handled or not, you can either follow the policy or leave it for someone else to handle it instead. Or try to reason with them in order to change or update the policy, but I'm not sure if that ever happens... maybe in some new type of case that hasn't been considered yet. But I doubt that this is it. I see your reasoning, and I personally don't agree that those recurring roles should be main cast unless credited to appear as such. I've seen episodes where main cast doesn't show up at all, maybe for a few seconds, and entire episode is led by some recurring role, but to me that doesn't mean he's main cast, it just mean that particular episode revolved more around that particular character. But that is my logic, which is clearly different from your logic. Or maybe it's just our personal preference. Just how my logic cannot overcome the idea that all anime should be main cast simply because they're credited all together every time, and if that ends up somehow enforced, I'll probably just add real main cast only and leave all the guest cast for someone who agrees with such policy.

It just becomes too stressful when you try to force your reasoning onto something else decided by the owners of a site. You may present it as an idea, and maybe sometimes it may be agreed upon, but when it's not, you either accept it or just let other users handle that part and you do other parts that don't stress you, like add screenshots or new episodes and so on. So good luck in however you decide to proceed... I'm not the one that needs convincing one way or the other ;))

@MAT13 wrote:
I tried looking through most common posts, but couldn't spot the title about it. Can't pinpoint who from or where I heard this.

Still, the idea of adding 1000s of One Piece or Meitantei Conan characters and fixing all animes we ever have on file is something I would never do. Our policy may be to go as the credits are in the show, but it should be obvious to anyone, and not just the writers and producers of that anime, that Bus Driver who appeared in episode 768 and never again and said "This is the last stop, all passengers should disembark." could not possibly be the main character in the series even if he's credited in the same end credits list with the main characters.

End credits mixing main and guest cast in a single list isn't new even to live-action series, but live-action series have opening credits, animated series do not, hence the distinction between main and guest characters in animated series isn't visibly clear, but it is logically once you start watching or check the official web sites.

But thats not our policy though. Look at the main cast of The Simpsons. It doesnt matter if a character appears once or 100s of times. 

@TomSouthwell wrote:
But thats not our policy though. Look at the main cast of The Simpsons. It doesnt matter if a character appears once or 100s of times. 

I see, so that is the case then for all anime series. So our policy goes against what original creators of the show consider main cast? Is there even a point of having main and guest cast when all characters are in a single group. Okay, I may slowly fix some of the anime I'm watching, but it'll take time. But I'll be sure not to add guest cast to anime any more, no matter how minor the roles are.

One thing that is good about guest cast is that they are ordered based on number of the appearances. Main cast are just ordered in the way they were added which is bad because it sort of gives same importance to someone appearing in 1 episode as someone who appeared in 100 episodes, if he was added first. Shouldn't that be fixed to use the same display ordering as the guest cast is following?

Imagine if Bart Simpson was added under the cast after you've added 20 side characters who are main cast. Bart would rarely appear on the episode's page. Should I suggest this to be "fixed" or do you guys like that the main cast is displayed in order user added them and not in descending order of number of episodes they appeared in?

@MAT13 wrote:
I see, so that is the case then for all anime series. So our policy goes against what original creators of the show consider main cast? Is there even a point of having main and guest cast when all characters are in a single group. Okay, I may slowly fix some of the anime I'm watching, but it'll take time. But I'll be sure not to add guest cast to anime any more, no matter how minor the roles are.

One thing that is good about guest cast is that they are ordered based on number of the appearances. Main cast are just ordered in the way they were added which is bad because it sort of gives same importance to someone appearing in 1 episode as someone who appeared in 100 episodes, if he was added first. Shouldn't that be fixed to use the same display ordering as the guest cast is following?

Imagine if Bart Simpson was added under the cast after you've added 20 side characters who are main cast. Bart would rarely appear on the episode's page. Should I suggest this to be "fixed" or do you guys like that the main cast is displayed in order user added them and not in descending order of number of episodes they appeared in?

Have you actually read the animation policy? If you have any other official source that says this is main cast, thats what you would use. 

It wouldn't matter if Bart is 200th down the line. Main cast is also ordered in amount of appearances. 

@MAT13 wrote:
You're not difficult, and we all have our ways of what we consider logical or illogical, and that's why policy is there so we can follow that instead of our own preference. But bottomline here is, I'm just one of the users here, like you, and I don't decide how this is handled or how something should be handled. In the end, you should only care about what main staff on this site tell you, and they will almost always tell you to follow the policy. And then, based on if you agree with how its handled or not, you can either follow the policy or leave it for someone else to handle it instead. Or try to reason with them in order to change or update the policy, but I'm not sure if that ever happens... maybe in some new type of case that hasn't been considered yet. But I doubt that this is it. I see your reasoning, and I personally don't agree that those recurring roles should be main cast unless credited to appear as such. I've seen episodes where main cast doesn't show up at all, maybe for a few seconds, and entire episode is led by some recurring role, but to me that doesn't mean he's main cast, it just mean that particular episode revolved more around that particular character. But that is my logic, which is clearly different from your logic. Or maybe it's just our personal preference. Just how my logic cannot overcome the idea that all anime should be main cast simply because they're credited all together every time, and if that ends up somehow enforced, I'll probably just add real main cast only and leave all the guest cast for someone who agrees with such policy.

It just becomes too stressful when you try to force your reasoning onto something else decided by the owners of a site. You may present it as an idea, and maybe sometimes it may be agreed upon, but when it's not, you either accept it or just let other users handle that part and you do other parts that don't stress you, like add screenshots or new episodes and so on. So good luck in however you decide to proceed... I'm not the one that needs convincing one way or the other ;))

I agree that it can be stressful trying to follow someone else's logic when it conflicts with your own.  One last confusing example.  If you ever look at the credits for the original "Lost in Space", you will find Guy Williams & June Lockhart listed in the opening credits as starring roles but Bill Mumy, Angela Cartwright, Mark Goddard & Marta Kristen listed as co-starring and to add even more to the confusion, Jonathan Harris is listed as "Special Guest Star" BUT, in the closing credits no such distinction is made and all are listed together.  It does not compute!!!

@KenF wrote:
I agree that it can be stressful trying to follow someone else's logic when it conflicts with your own.  One last confusing example.  If you ever look at the credits for the original "Lost in Space", you will find Guy Williams & June Lockhart listed in the opening credits as starring roles but Bill Mumy, Angela Cartwright, Mark Goddard & Marta Kristen listed as co-starring and to add even more to the confusion, Jonathan Harris is listed as "Special Guest Star" BUT, in the closing credits no such distinction is made and all are listed together.  It does not compute!!!

Yeah, perhaps that was one of the later seasons where they kept original opening, but where he was no longer main cast and just appeared as special guest star.

Opening credits list actors' names, but not the characters they play like end credits... which helps when some main character plays multiple roles... mainly protagonist and antagonist, or an evil clone. That's why in Orphan Black, main actress is just mentioned by name in the opening which means any role she plays (and she plays many of the clones, which just happen to be main cast) can be added as main since it isn't mentioned in the opening to which role her name applies as main.

I've seen cases where main character appears as his twin or something in just one episode, and is added under "uncredited" instead. This reminds me... I wonder if Lt. Cmdr. Data and Lore are both main cast in Star Trek TNG, seeing how opening credits just lists actor, and not the role he plays, lol. Unless Lore is credited specifically under guest, by our policy he should be grouped with main cast. But really, the policy itself isn't at problem because it's trying to cover all the cases, normal and weird ones. Shows simply don't credit people in a consistent manner, which is why such inconsistencies happen ;))

As I understand it, Jonathan Harris' credit as "Special Guest Star" was negotiated from day 1. I guess he was a bit of a prima donna.