All There in the Manual: Difference between revisions

For example, many anime [[Original Video Animation|OVAs]] based on a manga begin with a [[One We Prepared Earlier]] situation and rarely explain themselves under the assumption an OVA (being an occasional test run for a series) will typically be watched by someone who has read the original manga.

Fairly common in [[Anime]], this is mostly unknown in American shows, although it seems to be steadily picking up speed with shows like ''[[Lost]]''. However, it's very common in American comic books, possibly because of the assurance the stereotypical fan is obsessive enough to collect supplemental material (see [[Ultimate Universe]]).

Compare [[Deleted Scene]].

== Anime & Manga ==

*** There's going to be a third project that takes place in the real world too.

*** On the other hand, watching the anime first will completely spoil most of the plot, especially one particularly dramatic twist that occurs at the end of the second game. So it's not really clear what order these were meant to be seen in.

** Not everything has made it to the west. .hack//Zero still hasn't been translated. Seeing as it was set in The World R:1 and they've moved on past R:2 to R:X, it's doubtful it will see light of day. Or be finished in Japan for that matter.

* ''[[Pokémon the First Movie (Anime)|Pokémon the First Movie]]'' could not be fully understood without the CD drama "Birth of Mewtwo" to accompany it. Fortunately, it was later included for American fans in the ''[[Pokémon Mewtwo Returns (Anime)|Pokémon Mewtwo Returns]]'' DVD.

* The ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross|Macross]]'' [[The Verse|universe]] includes significant amounts of supplementary canon from books, comics, and video games in addition to the series and OVAs that were actually filmed.

** The final fate of [[Super Dimension Fortress Macross|Hikaru, Misa and Minmay]] is buried in the manual for ''Macross M3'' -- They were lost with the rest of the crew and passengers of SDF-2 Megaroad after they apparently encountered a black hole.

* Ryo Akiyama from ''[[Digimon Tamers (Anime)|Digimon Tamers]]'' is literally from the ''[[Digimon Adventure (Anime)|Digimon Adventure]]'' [[Alternate Universe]], and thus he and his Digimon don't follow the same rules as the rest of the cast. This is all [[All There in the Manual|explained via the multiple video games he stars in]].

** Similarly, Ken's backstory in ''[[Digimon Adventure 02 (Anime)|Digimon Adventure 02]]'' has him disappearing into the Digital World as a kid and reappearing a short time after; later, we see a scene of him adventuring with another kid and getting infected by a Dark Seed. These are both references to the game where he teamed up with Ryo.

** Unfortunately, ''none'' of these games were released [[No Export for You|outside of Asia]], so this resulted in some confusion.

* The supplementary manga and Sound Stages of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (Anime)|Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' explains how Nanoha learned the Bind spell during her battle with Fate, who that Linith woman was in the [[Lotus Eater Machine]], what the heck happened to Arf in the third season and what that gift from Reinforce that Vita was talking about was.

* Want to know the [[Backstory]] for ''[[One Piece Strong World]]'''s villain, Gold Lion Shiki? You have to either go read the supplemental "Chapter 0" or watch the OVA based on said chapter.

* The OVAs of ''[[Gravitation]]'' take place after nearly the entire manga, only obliquely hinting at its events in flashbacks; Yuki's [[Dark and Troubled Past|troubled past]] isn't even ''mentioned''.

** ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam F 91 (Anime)|GundamF91]]'' may be the biggest example of this in the MSG franchise. As a result of originally being a TV series that was cut down and compressed to a movie partway through production, most of the story is completely dropped from the movie. The movie does not show how Seabrook and his friends defeat Cosmo Babylonia and the Crossbone Vanguard. So, to actually finish the movie's story as well as find out various things that happened within the movie but were skipped because of time constraints, you have to read the manga or novels. Which have never been officially released in the US.

* See also ''[[Zoids]]'', whose ''main continuity'' (Battle Story) is almost entirely told in the model kits. None of this information ever gets translated.

* ''[[The Five Star Stories]]'' by Mamoru Nagano contains some of the most ambitious worldbuilding in anime and manga history, a lot of which gets little exposure in the series proper. Fortunately, the English editions come with sections from the sourcebooks printed in the back of each issue, including full-colour illustrations.

* ''[[Devil May Cry (Video Game)|Devil May Cry]] [[Devil May Cry the Animated Series|The Animated Series]]'' doesn't bother to fully explain Dante's connection to Trish or Lady, their respective histories being found in the first and third game. Amongst others.

== Fan Fic ==

* Arguably in ''[[Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality (Fanfic)|Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality]]''. (Note: Spoilers even if you've read every chapter) The fact that {{spoiler|Voldemort turned the Pioneer plaque into a horcrux}} is heavily implied, but by no means confirmed, in the text. It is explicitly stated in the author notes.

* In the ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' fanfic ''[[Deva Series (Fanfic)|Academy Blues]]'' (As [[Lyrical Nanoha (Franchise)/Fanfic Recs|recommended here.]]) If you want to fully understand how some characters' powers work, and the personality of many of the [[Loads and Loads of Characters]], you need to read the review replies the author gives, as well as read the [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3510860/1/Academy_Blues_Side_Stories side stories for the series.] Which is ironic, given that the author [[Word of God|has declared his]] [[Pet Peeve Trope|dislike for this]].

* The same can be said of ''[[The Open Door (Fanfic)|The Open Door]]'', at least in so far as knowing more things, though to Academia Nut's credit the main story is fully comprehensible without needing the [[Word of God]].

== Film ==

* Many of the more bizarre elements of [[Stanley Kubrick]]'s ''[[The Shining]]''--Danny's [[Imaginary Friend]] Tony, the dead woman in the bathtub, the fellow in the dog costume administering a blow job--are explained in detail in the original [[Stephen King]] novel.

* Back before there were DVDs or the Internet to provide you with summaries of deleted scenes, you had to read the novelization of ''[[Superman II]]'' to find out how Superman got his powers back.

* A portion of the plot of ''[[The Matrix Revolutions]]'', as well as certain sections of ''[[The Matrix Reloaded]]'', are explained only in the video game, ''[[Enter the Matrix]]''. Also, there's a "bridge" episode between the ''[[The Matrix (Film)|The Matrix]]'' and ''[[The Matrix Reloaded]]'' in ''[[The Animatrix (Anime)|The Animatrix]]''.

* In the collector's edition DVD for ''[[Two Fast Two Furious]]'', there is a special opening that details Brian's travel from California to Miami.

* The movie ''[[Cloverfield]]'' has an entire backstory played out through a prequel online manga and [[Alternate Reality Game|a series of fake websites]] including [[My Space]] profiles, corporate sites and even a "love letter" collection of videos.

** The book and movie complement each other. The book explains the confusing parts of the movie including the starchild, and the movie conveyed the writing through spectacular imagery. The reason for this was that the book was written as the same time as the film.

* An [[In Universe]] example: The complex and confusing rules for ghosts in ''[[Beetlejuice (Film)|Beetlejuice]]'' were apparently all explained in the Handbook for the Recently Deceased. Unfortunately, notes the Maitlands, it's so technical that it's nearly incomprehensible. This nicely [[Lampshade Hanging|moots any criticism]] of apparent contradictions in the movie's cosmology, since the audience hasn't read the manual.

** A great deal of the characters in both trilogies are never named until the credits. Ki-Adi-Mundi, Kit Fisto, Aayla Secura, Plo Koon, Yaddle, Nien Nunb, Dengar, Bossk, IG-88 ... the list goes on and on. And unless you already knew the character's name from EU material, you'd have no idea what character was being referenced in the credits.

** Many of the vehicles are never named in-series, including Star Destroyers (in the original film), AT-ATs and AT-STs, X-Wing fighters and so on.

** ''[[Revenge of the Sith]]'' begins with Coruscant under attack and recently "kidnapped" Chancellor Palpatine a prisoner on General Grievous's ship. While it's not strictly necessary in order to understand that setup, the first series of [[Clone Wars]] cartoons (the [[Genndy Tartakovsky]] ones, not the CGI ones) actually showed his kidnapping. The last episode of that series ends the moment the movie begins.

*** The same cartoon has the introduction for General Grievous; going only by the movies he appears out of nowhere and his presence is never explained.

* Much of the background of ''[[Rose Red]]'' (the titular house featured in the miniseries) is covered in detail in ''The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer''. Without it, its just a bunch of people going to a haunted house that hates them.

* ''[[Southland Tales]]'' (by the director of ''[[Donnie Darko]]'') apparently makes more sense when you read the comic books connected to it.

*** Keep in mind that it becomes readily apparent that the film's a pseudo-sequel to ''[[Donnie Darko]]''. It greatly expands on the character roles described in The Philosophy of Time Travel, so it's almost a manual about the manual...

* ''[[Donnie Darko]]'' itself. One of the reasons it has become a cult [[Love It or Hate It]] film is that it is not self-contained at all. Nothing about the Manipulated Dead or Tangent Universe is ever explicitly (or implicitly!) stated, requiring you to read the script-book or check out the director's commentary at length to have any hope of getting the plot.

* The fourth and final book in [[The Dalemark Quartet]] is followed by a "Guide to Dalemark," a sort of glossary of terms, places, and characters. It contains a lot of supplementary information not mentioned within the stories themselves.

* In case you were wondering just what the hell Gilead was, what purpose the Gunslingers had, and why the Tower's down to two Beams, try reading a book called ''Black House'' by Peter Straub and [[Stephen King]]. You'll actually get more information there about what ''[[The Dark Tower]]'' is all about that you will in all seven of King's books.

* [[The Dresden Files]] has an [[The Dresden Files (Tabletop Game)|RPG supplement]] that not only exists in-universe, but was edited for content by Dresden, and includes references to upcoming books.

* [[Eoin Colfer]] released a tie-in book to the ''[[Artemis Fowl (Literature)|Artemis Fowl]]'' series which contained some "interviews" with the main characters and the author, the substitution cipher for the Gnommish alphabet, and two short stories involving Holly Short and Mulch Diggums.

== Tabletop Games ==

* ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' has a small library of rulebooks, rules supplements, codex sourcebooks, codex supplements, alternate army lists, Imperial Armour collections, Chapter Approved collections, etc, etc. And that's just the latest edition.

* The metaplot in the old ''[[Old World of Darkness (Tabletop Game)|World of Darkness]]''. You can play the roleplaying game without the metaplot, but the game writers scattered the metaplot and canon character background stories across various rule supplements, novels set within specific gamelines, crossover novels between the different gamelines, and computer games. ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade (Tabletop Game)|Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' especially had the whole series of "clan novels" towards the ''End of the World'' metaplot. The final supplements that detailed the final fate of the various races and factions (or at least gave lazy Write Your Own Ending options to chose from) still sucked. Other people found it completely awesome, though.

** This was especially egregious with later books, in particular the later Changing Breeds books. The Nagah (Were-snake) tribe book is the only book that ties [[Tabletop/Hunter The Reckoning|Hunter: The Reckoning]] into the rest of the Werewolf/Vampire line, and does this with a single paragraph. {{spoiler|Turns out that Hunters are Gaia's last-ditch attempt at saving herself, since all her ''other'' children have utterly failed in the task.}}

* Abused by the creator of Old Man Henderson, one of but a handful of characters to win [[Call of Cthulhu]]-the author wrote Henderson a 320 page backstory which allowed him [[New Rules As the Plot Demands]]. To quote the author:

{{quote| The point to having such a long backstory was three-fold: 1: to ensure the GM would never actually read it and 2: Since he would never read it except for in excerpts i pointed out to justify things, I could re-write and change things around completely at random without anyone noticing and MOST IMPORTANTLY 3: Convince everyone that I was serious about this character, and that it wasn't simply the game wrecking bullshit that it was. Dickish yes, but he really did have it coming.}}

** You also need [[Chain of Memories|the spinoff on the GBA]] to understand some of the plot points of ''[[Kingdom Hearts II (Video Game)|Kingdom Hearts II]]'' -- which is a [[PS 2]] game like the first.

*** In an odd surprise from [[Square Enix]], ''Re: Chain of Memories'' was released in North America in December 2008 (but not in Europe, because [[Memetic Mutation|Square-Enix really hates Europe]]). For the unaware, this is a remake of said GBA game, but on the PS2, and in Japan it came bundled with the [[Updated Rerelease]] of KHII.

* [[Square Enix]]'s "Ultimania" series. These monstrous manuals easily contain a hundred pages for a ''short'' book. Most of them are suitably [[Doorstopper|doorstoppers]] and are packed with all of the information anyone could ever want about the game and its storyline. Unfortunately, it's all in Japanese so it is up to the kindness of fan translators for this information to be shared for a broader audience.

** On a similar note, the ''Reunion Files'' book is essentially ''Ultimania'' for ''FFVII: Advent Children''. It further explains several plot elements, such as who the Remnants are and {{spoiler|the fact that they're actually inadvertently undertaking Sephiroth's will}}, amongst other things. Mercifully, it's in both Japanese and English, and a lot more is covered in the more readily-available ''Advent Children Complete'', but it's still annoying that it's only conventionally available in Japan.

* The ''[[Dark Forces Saga (Video Game)|Dark Forces Saga]]'''s backstory for the protagonist was first given in the manual for the original game and was later [[Retcon|contradicted]] by a trilogy of graphic novels. It was later revealed in an RPG supplement that the original manual were lies written by the agent who recruited him to make him seem more trustworthy.

* The instruction book for the original ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Video Game)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' [[NES]] game states that the Turtles' main mission in the game is to capture Shredder's <s>Retromutagen Ray generator</s> Life Transformer Gun, with which they can turn Splinter back to a human. This is why, at the end of the game, Splinter is restored to his human form; the game itself makes no mention of the transforming gun.

* Looking at a whole other type of Splinter, the ''[[Splinter Cell]]'' games have a metric crapload of extra stuff ranging from novels ("Created by" [[Tom Clancy]], with a negligible amount of help from his two sub-writers, their four ghost-writers, and the four ghost-writers 8 different ghost-writing-agencies), secret-filled flash-websites, trailers, teasers, articles, spinoff-games, multiplayer campaigns(!), etc.

** The third game in the series was somewhat notorious for explaining the story ({{spoiler|namely the manslaughter/murder of Sam's daughter, his short career in crime, subsequent imprisonment and the undercover infiltration of JBA.}} solely through preview articles and trailers.

* ''Pirates!'' used (ironically) an anti-piracy technique best explained by this trope. In your first confrontation with another ship, you would be shown a flag and asked to identify the famous pirate that it belonged to. These pirates, and their flags, were only ever shown in the manual. There is no indication given in-game as to how important it is that you get this right, or whether you got it right at all, but if you answer incorrectly, the game quickly becomes [[Unwinnable]] as you will never find any other ships at sea.

* ''[[Zelda II the Adventure of Link (Video Game)|Zelda II the Adventure of Link]]'' had a rather standard [[Save the Princess]] plot in its opening crawl. The manual, however, revealed that the princess you were saving was actually the current princess' distant ancestor who had been put into an eternal sleep because she wouldn't reveal the location of the third Triforce piece to her brother and an evil wizard. It also explained that this is the reason the princess is always named Zelda -- in honor of the one under the spell.

** Oddly enough, the intro in the English version almost implied that it was the same Zelda from the first game, whereas the Japanese version clearly specifies ([[Blind Idiot Translation|in badly translated English]]) that it's "Another Princess Zelda". The ''[[Nintendo Power]]'' preview of the game also implied that it was the same Zelda.

* The notorious 1985 flop ''The Great Space Race'' for the ZX Spectrum came with the back-story for every character in a series of comic strips (which actually looked like first-drafts drawn with marker pen) in the manual. This kind of thing was common in the 8-bit era as memory and cassette/disk space was limited and traditional media was often used to provide background and atmosphere for game worlds.

* ''[[Golden Sun (Video Game)|Golden Sun]]'''s instruction booklet came with notes on everyone's relationships to one another, and a map of the continent you would be exploring. A similar cheat sheet came with ''The Lost Age'', which in addition to helping you keep tabs of your adventure, helped newcomers who hadn't played the first game catch up on what was going on.

* Much of the [[Backstory]] of the [[Rance (Franchise)|Rance]] world is described in [[Alice Soft]]'s magazine, the Hanihon. Information of past Demon Kings, the Eternal Heroes, how the current nations were formed, and so on are all there. Much of the information is translated on [http://sites.google.com/site/bbshut/home/rance-data this website].

** It's even useful when it comes to the main characters, for example, it reveals that [[The Woobie|Cody]] and [[Dumb Blonde|Lindsay]] are both [[Spoiled Sweet]], even though the series itself never mentions how rich they are.

* ''The Art of [[Kung Fu Panda]]'' has all kinds of intriguing easter eggs: scrapped character designs and whole characters, like Po's mother and all the Mooks who originally worked for Tai Lung before he was deemed [[Rule of Cool|more frightening]] [[Determinator|all by himself as a one-man army]]; the latter included the Wu Sisters (three snow leopard assassins), wolves and crocodiles and goats (who appear in Po's [[Dream Sequence]]), and a four-armed yak god demon on fire. Also, explanations as to how Oogway came to the Valley of Peace, why [[Carnivore Confusion|all the villagers are pigs and sheep]], lost locations (like an alkali flat, a bandit inn, and two immense statues of a snow leopard and panda kung fu masters [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|on which Po and Tai Lung were to fight]]), and much more.

* Each episode of ''[[Star Wars the Clone Wars]]'' is accompanied by a comic, episode guide, and creator commentary on the official site. While these normally just contain trivial info, they were all but necessary to watch the "Dooku captured" episodes. The comics explained Anakin's voluntary capture and showed how Anakin and Obi-wan got drugged, the episode guide explained how Dooku lost his sabers (the monkey-lizard pickpocketed him!) and the commentary video was Filoni explaining that he believed even Dooku can be captured by pirates if he's sufficiently outnumbered.

* When ''[[Lilo and Stitch The Series]]'' was still in production, Jess Winfield kept in touch with the fanbase at TV.com and helped confirm numbers, names, and functions of each experiment featured on the show. With ''Leroy and Stitch'', all we need to find out are the remaining functions. Oh, and among other things, he confirmed that {{spoiler|the 628 pod seen at the end of Experiment 627's episode}} was just a throwaway joke.

* ''[[Young Justice (Animation)|Young Justice]]'' has a tie-in comic, like most DC [[Animated Adaptation|animated adaptations]], but theirs is co-written by writers and producers from the series and goes into details like why the Justice League abandoned their headquarters at Mt. Justice, how Artemis found the battle with A.M.A.Z.O., and just ''why'' [[Superboy]] hates monkeys so much.

* ''[[Thundercats 2011 (Western Animation)|Thundercats 2011]]'' has the [http://crewofomens.tumblr.com Crew Of Omens Blog] where they take questions and hold chats, and the [http://soundslikejeff.wordpress.com/ Sound Designers' Blog], where they detail the sound art created for the show.

* A lot of information in ''[[Rollbots]]'' on the various tribes and special information regarding characters can only be found on the Rollbots webpage on the [[YTV]] website, which can now no longer be accessed. Even when it was available, many aspects of it could not be viewed from outside Canada.

* Much information about the ''[[Teen Titans (Animation)|Teen Titans]]'' could be learned from the ''[[Teen Titans Go]]'' comic book such as Terra's origins and much of Starfire's family.

[[Category:Canon Universe]]

[[Category:All There In The Manual]]