A common phenomenon in anime and manga is the sudden, unexpected popularity of a side character. At first glance, it seems like an odd phenomenon. There's all these perfectly good characters right here, why start some weird fanclub for a character that has a two-minute speaking role? Oftentimes these characters are nothing more than archetypes, a collection of a few mildly amusing character traits with no real depth, and yet they still end up wildly popular among the fanbase.
In fact, one of the reasons that these characters are so popular is because of their lack of character depth, an example of this being the series Angel Beats, from the notoriously melodramatic studio Key. When a popularity poll of the characters was held, the most popular character (by an order of magnitude) was the joke character TK, whose entire purpose in the show had seemingly been to say funny things in bad English, whereas everyone else's purpose was seemingly to say funny things and then say something horribly depressing and die. So why was TK so popular? Simply the fact that he was excluded from this paradigm. Angel Beats was such a mess of pacing that having even one character who could be relied upon to do one thing with reasonable certainty was comforting. While Angel Beats was uncommonly bad in terms of mood consistency, even for an anime, there are a variety of other shows with similarly popular one-note characters: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya's Taniguchi or Tsuruya, or most of Black Lagoon's irregular cast, for example. The less focus there is on a particular character, especially in terms of characterization, the less chance for a mistake. A good, though admittedly not quite anime example of this is the difference between the side characters of the first and second Valkyria Chronicles games; where the first one had shamelessly shallow one note characters and the second gave a fair amount of characterization to each soldier, the first was by far superior because all the extra characterization did was show that they were still one-note characters, only now it was over the course of three annoying cutscenes.
Another important aspect of the side character is their ability to rely on a single joke; even if the joke gets tiresome after a while, the character's far enough from the main narrative that it's unlikely to affect enjoyment of the show as a whole (This is far from certain, though.), the ur-example of this being the aforementioned Taniguchi from Haruhi Suzumiya, who managed to make his voice actor, Minoru Shiraishi, playing himself in another show, one of the most popular male characters at the time. This was accomplished with about half an hour of combined screentime over the course of Haruhi's 28 episodes. And yet his popularity can be traced back to a single scene which, in retrospect, isn't even that funny. There's probably a good argument to be made here about memetics that I'm not equipped to make, but in the end there is an element of luck to it: can we sell this character to the fanbase? More importantly, it's not hard to tell when a character is being "sold" to the viewers, which they'll generally find offensive on an unconscious level.
So, then, what can be learned about characterization from side characters? Why are they popular? Is it because they're more easily identifiable, or the opposite? Just as much meta-effort, in the form of merchandising, is often put into these side characters as is the main characters, so why does it feel like less effort is put in within the boundaries of the show? Ultimately, a lot of this depends on the show in question, and its individual quality. A good show, obviously, is going to have just as good main characters as auxiliary. See for example Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and the popularity of its leading cast. But there is a purpose for the auxiliary cast, and it's more than to just fill out the world and make it seem populated, though that is a part of it. In a sense, side characters are one-dimensional purely for the purpose of interacting with the heroes. Why, then, do they become so popular?
Another important aspect of the side character is their ability to rely on a single joke; even if the joke gets tiresome after a while, the character's far enough from the main narrative that it's unlikely to affect enjoyment of the show as a whole (This is far from certain, though.), the ur-example of this being the aforementioned Taniguchi from Haruhi Suzumiya, who managed to make his voice actor, Minoru Shiraishi, playing himself in another show, one of the most popular male characters at the time. This was accomplished with about half an hour of combined screentime over the course of Haruhi's 28 episodes. And yet his popularity can be traced back to a single scene which, in retrospect, isn't even that funny. There's probably a good argument to be made here about memetics that I'm not equipped to make, but in the end there is an element of luck to it: can we sell this character to the fanbase? More importantly, it's not hard to tell when a character is being "sold" to the viewers, which they'll generally find offensive on an unconscious level.
So, then, what can be learned about characterization from side characters? Why are they popular? Is it because they're more easily identifiable, or the opposite? Just as much meta-effort, in the form of merchandising, is often put into these side characters as is the main characters, so why does it feel like less effort is put in within the boundaries of the show? Ultimately, a lot of this depends on the show in question, and its individual quality. A good show, obviously, is going to have just as good main characters as auxiliary. See for example Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and the popularity of its leading cast. But there is a purpose for the auxiliary cast, and it's more than to just fill out the world and make it seem populated, though that is a part of it. In a sense, side characters are one-dimensional purely for the purpose of interacting with the heroes. Why, then, do they become so popular?
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