Spin-Off shows waiting for seaosn 2 to bring in older characters

This is a Stragey for Spin Off builindg that I've noticed the existence of recently in fairly recent stuff, maybe it always existed.

Some people don't like it, or they don't like the second half of it.

Obviously I feel like I have to start with The Mandalorian since that's the first time I noticed this approach being a thing, but it may not actually be chronologically first one this post covers.  I've come to hate talking about Star Wars in the current climate of the internet, but sometimes it's unavoidable.

The Mandalorian season 1 features no characters we already knew, not even minor characters, it's always featuring Star Wars stuff, but while introducing new characters and usually new locations.  Season 2 then has Mando meet characters from Clone Wars and even the Original Trilogy.

This approach works, if Mando was sharing screen time with older legacy characters right from the start their shadow could have made it difficult for him or the other new characters to make their mark.  But once they're established it's then cool to see these new characters we've come to like meet other characters we like.

But now I have to address what I said above.  There is a certain type of aggressively anti-fanservice fan among those who make YouTube Videos that liked the independence of season 1 and felt season 2's bringing in the older characters was chickening out on that.  And I feel like you're not really a Star Wars fan if you're so damn hostile to seeing Star Wars characters in a Star Wars show.  I'm a fan of Star Wars because it has characters I like, not vauge late 70s aesthetics.

Mando season 2 is still principally about Mando, none of the other characters detract from that but are  there to serve Mando and Grogu's story.  But JustWrite in his Andor video said season 2 was still good but it feels like the story was built around enabling all these cameos and crossovers.  And I say so what, every story is written to do what the writers want it to do, which may or may not also be what the fans want.

I have mixed feelings on Andor, I feel it is not remotely the bold and brave political manifesto so many shallow online leftists are pretending it is, but I did enjoy it more then I expected to, which is frankly at all.  However JustWrite's praise of the show's avoidance of Fan Service, even noting the lack of Aliens, I can't agree with.  Because for me that just makes this story feel like any other shallow YA Dystopia from the early 2010s barely even wearing Star Wars clothing.

I suspect Andor when it gets a season 2 will also follow the formula I'm talking about here.  Now it's technically not because it's main/title character is a prior established character, but Cassian Andor in Rogue One was such a bland blank slate generic cishet male hardened solider archetype that this show was effectively building a new character.  In a way it hurts Andor's status as a prequel to a prequel as I'm wondering where this personality is going to disappear to, but whatever.  Now that he's signed up to the Rebellion I predict season 2 will inevitably bring in more characters we've seen before, even if they're mostly characters from prior Disney Star Wars, both Solo and Obi-Won featured Proto Rebel groups who could play a role, and most of the cast of Rebels have Live Action actors now thanks to Ahsoka.  I hope Disney has the guts to bring back CGI Leia and Tarkin.

But it's time to finally move this discussion outside of Star Wars.

Disney had actually done this before with Milo Murphy's Law, in season 1 it's connections to Phineas and Ferb are just occasional in-jokes until the very end, then they do the big crossover and former P&F characters become a more regular presence in season 2.  And it worked out great, I'm still annoyed at the lack of a 3rd season.

I was in fact already noticing this about Mando years ago and back when Pennyworth only had 1 season I was hoping it'd do the same.  But it's a Batman prequel way to far in the past to really feature any more then who they did and where the show did wind up going is mostly fine, I feel it's underrated in fact, it's a better fictional depiction of Fascism then any Star Wars has ever been.

But I'm mostly a Weeb now and so the rest of this post shall be about Anime.

The principal Anime example of this approach is Lostorage incited Wixoss.   For the first 9 episodes I didn't even think it was actually in continuity with the original Mari Okada written Wixoss saga with it's very different rules and everything.  Episode 10 however establishes that one of the most minor notable characters in this show is also one of the most minor notable characters from Selector infected Wixoss.  But it's a subplot that doesn't really impact the resolution.

That show's second season Lostorage conflated Wixoss is then about bringing the Lostorage cast and the original cast together.  So I entered it very hyped and do like it over all, but I don't feel like I can praise it's execution of this approach as much.  Now the thing is in the rules of good writing people like JustWrite base their career on this season 2 crossover may well qualify as more "organic" then Mandalorian Season 2, but Organic vs Contrived is not a dichotomy that concerns me.

I first of all simply feel that basically doubling the cast of this show for season 2 kind of made it need more then just 12 episodes.  This is after all the first show where the rules for the new version of the Selector Battles aren't even partially set up in the first episode.

Now the character who was very minor in all previous shows becoming the Main Character for the Avenger Assembling is itself probably the best part of how they approached it, and this character being a Kuudere of sorts makes her very appealing to me personally.

But I also can't help but feel like I'd have preferred the only additional OG Wixoss character to be added was Akira Aoi, or at least gave her a lot more of the focus.  Akira was the only major character of the original who's story felt incomplete, plus her specific history with the character serving as the glue connecting these stories fits perfectly.  But instead Conflated winds up effectively regressing her Spread development and using her mostly as a punching bag, very mean-spiritedly.  I like Akira and one of the things I like about Anime is it not being as Hostile by default to her personality type as western Nerd media often is. Conflated's opinion of Akira seems like what a western Nerd's would be, and it's shockingly not the only time Conflated does something that feels more western.

There is a plotline in the latter half where the villain manipulates the main protagonists of the prior shows into fighting each other, and it so annoyingly reminds me of how every DC or Marvel Superhero crossover has to feature them fighting each other for some dumb reason first.  And I know this probably isn't the only Anime to do this, it's maybe even in Anime I've watched before, but in a show that I'm thinking of as tangentially related to the Magical Girl Genre it feels wrong.  As a fan of both Batman and Superman I understand why those characters would sometimes come to blows, but as fan of these Anime protagonists and others like them I know them jumping into a fight without even trying to talk first is really out of character.  And the thing is this franchise has built in reasons for people who aren't enemies to still battle each other, they didn't need to do this trope to get this fan service, they chose to.

But I also feel Conflated should not have included Yuzuki if they were going to be afraid to even acknowledge the existence of Kazuki.  My personal headcannon for what happens after the end of Spread/Destructed is a Yuzuki/Kazuki/Hanayo threesome.  This show wants to neither confirm or contradict any shippers on that triangle to appease them while not grossing out whatever normie audience the show has.  But to me Yuzuki simply isn't Yuzuki if that is never on her mind.

Basically the difference between Conflated and Mando season 2 is that Mando didn't turn the entire Original Trilogy Cast into new main cast members.

There is actually a third Wixoss show now but I haven't watched it yet, I will probably give it a try eventually.

Another Anime that does this to a lesser extent is Magia Record.  The original Madoka cast have a handful of cameos in season 1, but season 2 is where they team up with the new cast, and then they're mostly out again for season 3.  Magia Record was fine but I'd already talked about why Madoka EU stories the way they tend to be handled have a limited appeal to me.

Update February 2023: Season two of House of the Dragon can't do this in terms of specific characters, but in a sense the Starks finally entering will have the same effect.  Having no Starks in season 1 is part of what helped it establish it's own identity, but now that the Dance has started the North is going too have to play some role.