Team Shot



This is a visual trope: a shot of the main cast of a work whole posed as for a group photograph or portrait, usually against an abstract or "typical" background. Often the shot is "assembled" by sliding or fading individuals or small groups into their places in the composition. This is a common way for the opening credits of a work to end.

Team shots are usually restricted to the protagonists of a show, although sometimes the antagonists may appear, either as a small, slightly separate group or as an image above and/or behind the heroes.

Observe the influence on live-action: Power Walk.

Compare V-Formation Team Shot, Super Sentai Stance.

Anime and Manga

 * This is the standard way to end the credits for most Humongous Mecha series.
 * The opening credits for El-Hazard: The Magnificent World end with a classic Team Shot, as do the various Sakura Taisen OVAs, and Grenadier.
 * Fushigi Yuugi offers an unusual variation in that the heroes take up one corner of the screen while two of the main antagonists fill the rest, framing them.
 * Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 puts its team shot on top of a moving vehicle.
 * Love Hina Again parodies the trope by building a classic Team Shot with all the girls in front of the Hinata Apartments, and then literally dropping Keitaro into the scene to lay battered and broken on the ground in front of them. Then Naru lands on him, sitting.
 * Yu Yu Hakusho -- one of the ending sequences almost perfectly matches the description.
 * Sailor Moon, every season.
 * Every Digimon series
 * Most, if not all Dragon Ball Z openings feature this at the end.
 * Tokyo Mew Mew, including colour-coded spotlights matching the heroines.
 * Outlaw Star's opening, which also serves as a Spoiler Opening as
 * Every Pretty Cure series. Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash Star has some fun with it, having the mascots float by after the pose is struck, with the girls turning to watch them.
 * The opening credits of Ai Yori Aoshi ends with a static shot of the main characters in front of the mansion, looking like they're posed for a portrait. Which makes a lot of sense, given the "photograph" theme that runs through both seasons of the series.
 * Very common in The Slayers openings.
 * Both supplementary manga from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha As and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS end this way with a photo of the team after beating the tar out of each others in a "mock" battle both times. A third one is used during the "true ending" of the StrikerS manga after the epic battle between Signum and Nanoha, the ex-members of Riot Force Six have an after-party remembering the good times and in the last panel of the manga they take a commemorative photo with the main cast from A's, plus Vivio, Rein and Agito.
 * Vandread, with updates for the second season, even.
 * Moldiver's credits end with a Team Shot that shows both Moldivers and their "real" identities as separate figures. (See that page for an image of the Team Shot.)
 * Similar to the above, .hack Legend of the Twilight Bracelet manga has a page at the end called "Unplugged", showing the players behind the characters standing in a pose like this, including both the antagonists and protagonists. This is also the first time any of their true appearances are shown.
 * Doki Doki School Hours has this with Mika-sensei meeting up with her students.
 * One Piece does this in most of its openings, but strangely has never done it as the closing shot. Usually the final shot is a close-up of the show's alternate logo, or of the crew's pirate flag.
 * The latest season subverts this, by including the team shot in the opening recap narration instead. Perhaps this is because
 * Katekyo Hitman Reborn. Obviously, it's about a group of seven guys (and a girl, but that can be justified) fighting the Big Bad.
 * Hanaukyo Maid Tai La Verite. At the end of the opening credits all of the main maid characters and Taro are in a line facing the audience.
 * Pokémon is no exempt to this, but special mention goes to the beginning of the Spurt! theme, showing off most of Ash's Pokémon, whether they're still under his care, released, in-training or otherwise.
 * The end of the Mai-HiME opening features a good portion of the female cast lined up, including most of the female students, Mashiro and Fumi.
 * The first opening of Mai-Otome ends similarly. In Mai-Otome Zwei, the participants in Operation Meteor Breaker pose for a picture after destroying an asteroid.
 * Tiger and Bunny features one at the end of both opening themes and at the beginning and end of the second ending theme.
 * THE iDOLM@STER - Several In-Universe, not counting both openings and a few of the endings.
 * Present in the ending credits of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

Comic Books:

 * Too many covers to count.

Film

 * The credit sequence for Watchmen -aka the "The times they are a'changing" sequence- ends on a team shot of the New Minutemen/ Watchmen. It's nearly a Book End since there's a photo of the original Minutemen about half a minute in when the film title comes up.
 * The last shot of the Street Fighter movie features this with all surviving good guys doing their classic Victory Pose.

Literature

 * Shows up in one form or another in at least two Megamorphs Animorphs books.

Live Action TV

 * Present in the opening of Law and Order: SVU, as the large ensemble cast makes the Power Walk from the other series impossible.
 * The DVD box for Heroes does this.
 * House and the ducklings do this in the opening sequence of House MD.
 * Appears in Criminal Minds. Most seasons have an opening sequence that ends with this (although a few cut out Garcia and one cut out Rossi, putting that person in a separate box on the side. The current season (7) has the whole team lined up at a hearing in the season premier. The opening sequence always ends with the whole team standing together in front of the title card.
 * Warehouse 13, especially in S3 when that is literally the ENTIRE OPENING.

Video Games

 * A deconstruction: In Sakura Taisen, after every battle, the heroines (and hero) pose for a photo with the tagline "Shouri no POSE, kime!" (Roughly, "Victory Pose, Set!") The hero finds this somewhat awkward the first couple of times it happens. Every time new characters are introduced, they also find it incredibly dumb - but a couple of battles later, they're happily joining in. The high-water mark is in the third game, where the hero is assigned to command a new team of girls - and is left as the only one posing, whilst his new comrades-in-arms recoil in horror.
 * Most Backyard Sports games.
 * Team Shots are popular among players of MMORPGs, especially in City of Heroes where they are usually taken after the completion of a Trial or Taskforce.
 * Every game in the Galaxy Angel gameverse, as well as the Galaxy Angel anime. (Yes, they each deserve their own entry. They're about as similar as a Greek epic and a sitcom.)
 * Mocked hilariously at the end of the Mad Midget Five's intro in God Hand, where their team pose involves falling on their backs and kicking their legs up into a V. Gene, watching all of the preceding, can only respond with a stunned, "Douchebags!"
 * The intro to the first Streets of Rage.
 * Team Fortress 2, notably at the end of the "Meet The Team" movies and general promotional artwork. Of course no one character is more important, but they do seem to be arranged to some extent by popularity among players.
 * The opening animation for the DS version of Chrono Trigger features someone taking a photograph of all the playable characters  off a table.
 * Win a battle via All-Out Attack in Persona 4, and the party gathers together for a team-shot Victory Pose (that is, everyone does their own victory pose en masse).

Web Comics

 * Lampshaded, like everything else, by Order of the Stick.
 * In Earthsong, we get one of the good guys. Then we get one of the bad guys. Also has some (presumably unintentional) Rhymes on a Dime.
 * Pose as a team, BECAUSE SHIT JUST GOT REAL

Western Animation

 * Happens in Kids Next Door.
 * Happens two thirds of the way into the intro for Thundercats.
 * Chris tries to take a Team Shot photo of the cast in the first episode of Total Drama Island, the twenty-two teens stand on the dock and smile, only to have Chris repeatedly delay the shot because of technical difficulties ("I left the lens cap on!" Or "Need a new roll of film!") when Chris is finally ready and about to take the photo, the dock collapses under the campers' combined weight, sending everyone but Chris crashing into the water.
 * In Justice League and it's sequel like doing it, for Unlimited it's a seventy-member team shot.
 * Occurs twice in the Recess opening title. One of the more famous pieces of promotional artwork for the show has the main six in a group shot as well.