What do you call stories in which the author just keeps adding more and more and more characters to the detriment of character progression?
Is it just because the writers don't know what to do with the characters they already have, or is it more likely to happen when they try to create more waifus?
Cast bloat
I think some writers like to think that more characters = good worldbuilding when that's just not true. I don't mind large casts at all, but named characters should have at least some sort of arc or contribution to the story.
Nope, him create a full narrative world where we can discover Manu things
Kamachi knows what he wants to do with his characters. His problem is that he has too many ideas and tries to stuff them into the story, making the story much longer than it needs to be with exponentially more characters than necessary. He's perfectly capable of ending series in a timely manner (BooBoo: 7 volumes, Zashiki Warashi: 9 volumes, Blood Sign: 10 volumes). Index is on it's 44th volume and some of the most recognizable characters have embarrassingly little development to show for it.
That works.
HeroAcademia still handles its secondary cast well. They haven't been shoved to the background like the Bleach classmates and we get a bit of character progression and discovery for them.
I will admit that Horikoshi has for the most part done well with them, but I fear how long that will last as he adds new groups of characters every arc. Eventually, there has to be a point where he can't juggle all of them.
Index has less to do with the chars and more about the progression of the worlds. You have the core characters, then you have the support, and then you have the world building chars who are there to help expand the world. I don't mind it so much because I know what I'm in for, but I can see how it pushes some people away.
What about Saten? How does she fit into all of this?
Spin-off relegated support char to do the dirty work and bridge gaps when no one else will because she's the fourth fiddle and the leftover of the group.
I don’t like that. Kamachi needs to learn how to write a story.
Anything from Narita usually
Watch school rumble.
Huge casts is a classical style of narrative.
Famous examples include the bible, lotr, 3kingdoms, odyssey.
And you need to learn how to fuck off.
Durarara! has a large cast of cool characters. Season 1 was amazing. I never watched any of the sequels but I heard they are okay but not as good as S1.
I think the only character that's really shitty is Index.
More Waifus is the answer
The only way to redeem index is return her memories and give her to stiyl
Fuck that, Stiyl belongs with komoe. Best ship in the whole series.
What i meant return her as a pet
The large cast works for Durarara because they are, as you said, pretty cool characters for the most part and there are multiple storylines going on.