Edit: OMG, I'm an idiot. So... only today I learned (after many, many years) that Ronin Warriors is NOT Saint Seiya?? Those are two different shows entirely??
I have barely heard of Ronin Warriors. Saint Seiya is to me is famous for being the fujo juggernaut that was the first significant case of bishes in shounen bringing in crazy female fanbases. (I watched some old clips a while back and they were ahead of the femboy curve - had some very androgynous sounding, very pretty men in that show before CLAMP and FF became big names.) Apparently it's also huge in south america as it got licensed there but the anglosphere missed out for ages - presumably it was too weird and huge to bother licensing and it has the awkward mix of violence plus extreme femboys which isn't easy to market.
The five man band has a brilliance in terms of narrative potential - if you need to split into two teams you can have 2:3 or 4:1 which make for great balance issues. There's also the issue in that three characters can be too few, four too even, six too many and seven requires more work than most writers can manage. I have a very soft spot for the trio dynamic but it works best for sibling sets or ragtag friend groups having smaller adventures; if you want a grander scale conflict then five people allows you to have characters specialise and feels more like an organised unit. It is interesting how odd numbers tend to prove more popular than even numbers (aside from duos - I don't really think you get many quartets or groups of 6 or 8) and I think that boils down to how there's always a need for an imbalance whether it's 4 supporting 1 or the team splitting so 2 deal with one problem and 3 deal with another. OG Ducktales I suppose was a 4 person group most of the time but sometimes could be as much as a 5-7 person group depending on the situation but that had the advantage in that it typically defaulted to 1 old man and 3 children so there wasn't much man power between them and the skillsets were restricted, plus when you had additional characters it was either an adult for muscle/a tech gimmick or another child. EDIT: Forgot Ninja Turtles though they sometimes get a sort of fifth person involved if you count Splinter, April, Casey etc.
"I'm not sure, but I think this trope peaked in the 90s and has now thoroughly gone out of fashion / is hard to find nowadays. I think this is because shows aimed at children tend to be more sophisticated now"
I'd say it's a merchandising change in that this was huge when toy companies sponsored most of these shows (or were considered when the shows were produced) and now that's not really so much the case on the western side. Anime is a bit trickier as Gundam and Sailor Moon definitely were about the merch, Pretty Cure franchise also, but they're no longer relying on this method as hard as they used to. The European cartoons did trios or 5 man bands for a while in the 00s with Totally Spies, W.i.t.c.h. and Winx Club (though Winx Club kept adding new members so I think it was something like 7 at the end) but I'm not sure if that's still being pursued, again merchandise was part of the goal. I didn't pay much attention to MLP Friendship is Magic but I think that was the last big western animation I remember using that sort of dynamic. Given that western animation is in such a bad shape, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a return to a trio or 5 man band with the intent of a large merchandise campaign.
no subject
I have barely heard of Ronin Warriors. Saint Seiya is to me is famous for being the fujo juggernaut that was the first significant case of bishes in shounen bringing in crazy female fanbases. (I watched some old clips a while back and they were ahead of the femboy curve - had some very androgynous sounding, very pretty men in that show before CLAMP and FF became big names.) Apparently it's also huge in south america as it got licensed there but the anglosphere missed out for ages - presumably it was too weird and huge to bother licensing and it has the awkward mix of violence plus extreme femboys which isn't easy to market.
The five man band has a brilliance in terms of narrative potential - if you need to split into two teams you can have 2:3 or 4:1 which make for great balance issues. There's also the issue in that three characters can be too few, four too even, six too many and seven requires more work than most writers can manage. I have a very soft spot for the trio dynamic but it works best for sibling sets or ragtag friend groups having smaller adventures; if you want a grander scale conflict then five people allows you to have characters specialise and feels more like an organised unit. It is interesting how odd numbers tend to prove more popular than even numbers (aside from duos - I don't really think you get many quartets or groups of 6 or 8) and I think that boils down to how there's always a need for an imbalance whether it's 4 supporting 1 or the team splitting so 2 deal with one problem and 3 deal with another. OG Ducktales I suppose was a 4 person group most of the time but sometimes could be as much as a 5-7 person group depending on the situation but that had the advantage in that it typically defaulted to 1 old man and 3 children so there wasn't much man power between them and the skillsets were restricted, plus when you had additional characters it was either an adult for muscle/a tech gimmick or another child. EDIT: Forgot Ninja Turtles though they sometimes get a sort of fifth person involved if you count Splinter, April, Casey etc.
"I'm not sure, but I think this trope peaked in the 90s and has now thoroughly gone out of fashion / is hard to find nowadays. I think this is because shows aimed at children tend to be more sophisticated now"
I'd say it's a merchandising change in that this was huge when toy companies sponsored most of these shows (or were considered when the shows were produced) and now that's not really so much the case on the western side. Anime is a bit trickier as Gundam and Sailor Moon definitely were about the merch, Pretty Cure franchise also, but they're no longer relying on this method as hard as they used to. The European cartoons did trios or 5 man bands for a while in the 00s with Totally Spies, W.i.t.c.h. and Winx Club (though Winx Club kept adding new members so I think it was something like 7 at the end) but I'm not sure if that's still being pursued, again merchandise was part of the goal. I didn't pay much attention to MLP Friendship is Magic but I think that was the last big western animation I remember using that sort of dynamic. Given that western animation is in such a bad shape, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a return to a trio or 5 man band with the intent of a large merchandise campaign.