1 MC, 1 Secondary with about 10% POV time
2 antagonists
7 supporting with one pulling some antagonist duties
2 antagonists
7 supporting with one pulling some antagonist duties
25 named characters, including the main character, his sidekick, about 4 antagonists, and various other people who wander in. I'm thinking of adding a cat and a dog, too.
You guys probably think I was kidding, or making a joke, when I said my story has 42 characters.
I'm not.
I'm writing about a society of some half-million people, who are for the most part at odds with not only one another, but their situation.
To be more specific, of those 42 characters, one is the main, half a dozen are supporting protagonists, half a dozen are antagonists, and the rest have names because it's easier to do that than to continually say stuff like "the big male, the one with the cauliflower ear" every time he shows up.
To be more general, the story involves some thousands of extras who wriggle in and out of various scenes much like the crowds at the mall. They are, in some ways, as important if not more so, than many of the named characters.
Currently I total I have 31, counting MCs, secondary, and small walk ons. I assume it'll get more, but hopefully not too many more.