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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"We're in the middle of a scene you don't remember in a narrated flashback framed by a flash-forward in a prequel book. There's no way in hell you're finding your way back here."''|'''[[Fourth Wall Observer|The Oracle]]''', ''[[
{{quote|''"They can't even make a sequel that follows in consecutive order. We have a sequel to the original, a prequel to the original, a sequel to the prequel, a prequel to the prequel, and a sequel for the young Link of the prequel's prequel!"''|[[
One step further than [[Back to Front]], the story order is not directly related to chronological order at all. Either the storyline jumps back and forth along the timeline, or portions of the story are re-told along a period of time already covered.
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The simplest form of this, [[Simultaneous Arcs|covering the same time frame from different perspectives,]] is equivalent to a [[Rashomon Plot]]. One way of doing this is to have a "present" storyline going on as the "past" occasionally pops up and mixes things around, as a variation of [[How We Got Here]]. Or a character spends time using a [[Whole-Episode Flashback]] as a [[Framing Device]]. While they are related, there is still a dividing line as one of those storylines has to still be jumbled chronologically.
According to [[The Other Wiki]], this is professionally known as "[[Non Linear Story|non-linear]]" style. Sometimes this is also referred to as [[Quentin Tarantino
Compare [[Real Time]]. Don't confuse it to [[Out of Order]], which is where the proper order of the stories are shifted around because of a [[Executive Meddling|dodgy schedule]].
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* Even though it's a simple [[Slice of Life]] series, ''[[Hidamari Sketch]]'''s episodes don't take place in chronological order. Luckily, each episode gives a calendar date in its title.
** The episodes that take place during Nori and Nazuna's first year are in chronological order with each other, but in different places throughout are episodes and half-episodes from the previous year and even Sae and Hiro's first year.
* ''[[
* ''[[Rental Magica]]'' is aired out of order, but the show's website shows where each episode is supposed to belong. The DVDs keep the anachronistic airing, though, presumably because it holds the most dramatic tension that way.
* An episode of ''[[Martian Successor Nadesico]]'' was told in [[Anachronic Order]] when half the cast was having their brains hacked through their [[Nanomachines]]. Most scene cuts did feature a time-stamp to help alleviate the confusion, but the principle was there.
* ''[[
* Both the film adaptation and the original novel of ''[[
** The film of the 5th chapter is also shown in a [[Anachronic Order]], with both large retellings of the same time period as well as small jumps or repetitions.
* ''[[Yami to Boushi
* ''[[Touka Gettan]]'', produced mostly by the same people as ''Yamibou'', is told completely in reverse order.
* This was accidentally done the first time around for DiC's dub of ''[[Sailor Moon]]''. The order was a followed: a full "Queen Beryl" arc, followed by the "Rini/Negamoon" arc up-to the point where the last two of the four Negamoon sisters are healed, then the full "Doom Tree" arc. In repeats, the orders in correct order: full "Queen Beryl" arc, full "Doom Tree" arc, then at that time the unfinished "Rini/Negamoon" arc.
* The first volume of ''[[Phoenix]]'' tells the very beginning, the second the very end, in the far future. After that, it more or less alternates between the increasingly-less-distant future and past, converging on the present, [[Author Existence Failure|which it never reached]].
* ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]'' is somewhat out of order due to a number of reasons, including time travel. Its always in order from ''somebody's'' point of view, but an in-universe observer (such as the cast of ''[[
* A rare non-[[Mind Screw]] example: ''[[
** The anime makes a bit more sense, since each episode is usually centred around a single time period. It's still pretty anachronistic, though.
* ''[[Ga
* ''[[Twentieth Century Boys|20th Century Boys]]'' has five or so timelines interconnected and two more which take place in virtual reality.
* ''[[Billy Bat]]''. 1940s to {{spoiler|Biblical times to the 1950s to feudal Japan.}}
* In ''[[
* ''[[Hyakujitsu no Bara]]'' shows the main characters' childhoods, their time in the [[Military Academy]], and the present day, all jumping back and forth quite a lot. Even the very first scene is set up to look like the story will be told in flashback (being a [[Train Station Goodbye]]), only to immediately jump forward six months to the present time.
* [[The Tatami Galaxy]] goes there within the first episode.
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== Comic Books ==
* Dr. Manhattan in ''[[Watchmen (
* The ''[[Sin City]]'' stories were published in [[Anachronic Order]]. A timeline of the main stories (and a few others that can be pinned down relative to them): ''That Yellow Bastard'' (with "Just Another Saturday Night" concurrent), ''A Dame To Kill For'' (with "Blue Eyes" and ''The Hard Goodbye'' concurrent), "Wrong Turn," "Wrong Track," ''Hell and Back'', ''The Big Fat Kill'', ''Family Values''.
* ''[[Atomic Robo]]'' frequently jumps around from the titular character's current activities with TeslaDyne and various exploits in the last 80 years, though, helpfully, we're always given dates and locations. Even if that location is "the Vampire Dimension".
* While the over all plot line in Brian Azzarello's & Eduardo Risso's crime noir series ''[[
* The first year of Priest's run on ''[[Black Panther]]'' made mad, passionate love to this trope. Figuring out what lead to what was half the fun.
** This was hilariously [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]]/[[Justified Trope|justified]] when it was explained that Everett Ross, the character doing most of the narrating, absolutely ''cannot'' tell a story straight.
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* Done intentionally with the three separate plots in ''[[American Born Chinese]]'', and is essential to the overall story.
* The comic ''[[Love and Rockets]]'' started as an anthology series, but soon settled into (mostly) two regular series: The ''Palomar'' series, about a small town in Central America, was told as a series of flashbacks and jumped forward and backwards in time. The other stories, referred to as the ''Locas'' series, took place in present-day Los Angeles and were told in straight sequential order. Ironically, after the ''Human Diastrophism'' storyline, the ''Palomar'' stories started being told in a linear fashion while the ''Locas'' stories started jumping around.
* ''[[
* Silent Hill: Among the Damned, is in this order. Since [[Tropes Are Not Good]], this serves only to cause confusion, especially for Linkara.
* The Ultimate Thor miniseries was essentially three stories in one: Thor in Ancient Times, Baron Zemo - {{spoiler|who is actually Loki in disguise}} -'s plots involving Frost Giants in the middle of World War II, and Thor shortly before joining The Ultimates. The mini jumped between all three of these very sporadically.
* A lot of stuff written by [[Grant Morrison]]. For example, the storyline [[Grant Morrisons Batman|Batman RIP]] begins with Batman trimuphingly yelling "You're wrong! Batman and Robin will never die!" We don't see who he's talking to and the rest of the story is set six months before, including introducing us to the charcter Batman was/will be talking too {{spoiler|Le Bossu}}. Batman RIP ends with Batman {{spoiler|disappearing after being seen last in a helicopter which crashes in Gotham river and explodes. His ripped cowl is then found in the water by Dick Grayson, who's the Batman seen in the opening scene, not Bruce}}. Bruce then is in [[Final Crisis]], which begins a few hours after Batman RIP (and includes a fair amount of [[Anachronic Order]] in itself, since the final issue is told in non-linear [[Flash Back]].) A few monthes into Final Crisis (and therefore after Batman RIP was published), we got Batman RIP: The Missing Chapter, which explains how Bruce got from {{spoiler|the exploding helicopter}} to the JLA headquarters, where he is at the start of [[Final Crisis]].
* A [[Warhammer
== Fan Works ==
* Chapters 24 and 25 of ''[[Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality (Fanfic)|Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality]]''.
* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' [[Fanfic]] ''[[The Joy of Battle
* Used in the [[Fan Fiction|fanfic]] ''[[Kyon:
* As a nod to ''Hetalia,'' this is used throughout the ''[[Nineteen Eighty Three Doomsday Stories]].'' The time period jumps between 1983 and 2010, with a further jump to 2031.
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* Perhaps the most severe example is ''[[Twenty One Grams]]'', which takes huge leaps in chronology, with no framing device and no discernible pattern, more or less scene to scene. It takes about half an hour and a carefully-made flowchart of the plot points presented thus far to orient yourself enough to know what's going on in any given scene.
* ''[[Distant Voices Still Lives]]'' runs it a close second, though; about all you can say is that scenes in the first half of the film chronologically precede scenes in the second half. Otherwise, the film operates in a kind of free-associative manner, slipping backwards and forwards through the years, mimicing the mechanisms of memory.
* Used with great success in several of [[
** ''[[Pulp Fiction]]'' begins and ends in the same scene, and {{spoiler|we see one character ''die'' in a scene before he plays his role in the climax.}} ''Pulp Fiction'''s proper chronological order of events: {{spoiler|The prologue to the Gold Watch, the prologue to Vincent Vega and Marcellus Wallace's Wife, The Bonnie Incident, the Restaurant, Vincent Vega and Marcellus Wallace's Wife, the Gold Watch}}.
** ''[[Reservoir Dogs]]'' jumps back and forth between before the robbery and after it.
** ''[[Kill Bill]]'' helps us track the timeline by the Bride's list of people to kill. Notably, we see one name crossed off her list in the beginning of the first film who doesn't die until the climax.
** ''[[Jackie Brown]]'' is told in a linear fashion, except for the sequence with the money drop, which is told from three perspectives in a manner similar to ''Reservoir Dogs'' and ''Pulp Fiction''.
* The ''[[Are You Afraid of the Dark?]]'' [[The Movie|movie]] ''The Tale of the Silver Sight'' temporarily uses the "same time frame from different perspectives" approach, without [[The Rashomon]] or flashbacks.
* The movie ''[[Go (
* ''[[Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind]]'' flips back and forth a bit, changing scenes as you go, and for part of the film you're confused about which part of the relationship is being portrayed. {{spoiler|Pay attention to Clementine's hair colour if you're confused.}}
* [[Christopher Nolan]] loves this trope:
** His first movie, ''[[Following]]'', is told in flashback as the main character relates events to a detective. The flashbacks interlace scenes beginning (approximately) at the beginning, at the one-third point, and at the two-thirds point, and each moving forward from there.
** ''[[
** ''[[The Prestige]]'' takes place in three timelines: after Borden has been sentenced for Angier's death, Angier's trip to the United States to see Tesla, and the rivalry between Borden and Angier before Angier's trip. This is done by having Borden (in his jail cell) read Angier's journal (from the trip), which was also when Angier was deciphering Borden's journal (which described the buildup of their rivalry).
** [[Batman Begins]], [[Inception]] and [[Insomnia]] all use parts of non-linear narrative to an extent, just not as great an extent as the aforementioned three. The only film not to use any at all is [[The Dark Knight]].
* ''[[Premonition]]'' with Sandra Bullock scrambles an entire week out of order for the viewers and the main character.
* ''[[
* ''[[Rendition]]'' follows two different subplots at the same time, but doesn't reveal till the very end that they take place at different times in the story.
* The movie version of ''[[Speed Racer (
* The storylines of the ''[[
* ''[[Vantage Point]]'' shows the same 20 minutes over and over from a different perspective.
* The [[Akira Kurosawa]] classic ''[[
* ''[[
* The movie ''[[Shorts]]'' is so named because the larger story is broken up into five shorter stories, which follow a normal causal sequence, but are shown out of order.
* The opening scene of ''[[Trick
* ''[[Two For The Road]]'' intercuts five different timelines to show a couple (Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney) as they first meet, get married, drift apart, and reconcile. The juxtapositions produced by this juggling make the story quite poignant.
* ''[[Primer]]'' -- made even more confusing because the plot itself is about time travel, so it's all a bit hazy chronologically.
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== Literature ==
* [[Older Than Feudalism]]: [[
* In the novel and film ''[[Slaughterhouse
* Likewise, the book ''Galapagos'', also by [[Kurt Vonnegut]]. The plot moves forward through time, but only on average. A large part of the book consists of flashbacks and flashforwards ranging from a couple months to a million years.
* ''Use of Weapons'' by [[Iain M Banks|Iain M. Banks]] alternates chapters between "past" and "present" events, with the "past" chapters being told in reverse order, so that the story diverges rapidly in space and time as a rather unorthodox form of backstory exposition. And then there's the flashbacks in ''both'' plot threads to complicate matters. It also has a prologue and epilogue that are quite difficult to pin down in the timeline at all. (Possibly the first "Culture" novel written, Banks notes that he shelved it for decades because its original incarnation was lumbered with an impenetrable multi-thread storyline which required the reader to think in higher dimensions.)
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* [[Stephen King]]'s novel ''[[IT]]'' jumps back-and-forth between two time periods (the 50s and the 80s), but follows each of these two periods chronologically. (That is, if we don't count ''normal'' flashbacks which also appear within ''each'' of the two narrative threads.) Not so in the [[Film]].
* Steven Brust's [[Dragaera]] novels about Vlad Taltos are written out of chronological order, with the original intention that they should each be able to stand alone. Some individual novels are told out of order. ''Jhereg'' alternates between two timelines, while ''Tiassa'' has three timelines that have whole books in between them. Brust wrote ''Tiassa'' with the specific intention of making it impossible to place the novels in chronological order.
* ''The Dispossessed'' by [[
* The novels in [[Alastair Reynolds]]' ''Revelation Space'' universe mostly do this to some degree--the catch is that, because of [[wikipedia:Relativity of simultaneity|the way relativity works]], it's actually unavoidable.
* A lot of big influential Hispanic writers were fond of using this one, probably ever since Julio Cortázar wrote his book ''Rayuela'', which has effectively two stories in one book: one which is found reading the book from front to back, another reading the book in the order given by the author. [[Gabriel Garcia Marquez]] also used the Anachronic Order in quite a bit of his stories.
* Seen in ''The Time Traveler's Wife''. It would be hard to make the scenes strictly chronological anyway, since the two protagonists are living them in different orders. (And Henry lives a number of them ''twice''.)
* Joseph Heller uses this extensively in the novel ''[[Catch
* [[Orson Scott Card]]'s ''Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus'' is told with chapters alternating between historical fiction of Christopher Columbus and far future science fiction about the Pastwatch project. Eventually the two plot lines merge due to [[Time Travel]].
* The various threads of [[Michael Moorcock]]'s ''Eternal Champion'' series appear to take place in separate time streams. For instance, the ''Elric'' and ''Corum'' series have two [[Intercontinuity Crossover|Intercontinuity Crossovers]] where Elric and Corum meet each other, but time is apparently moving in opposite directions from their point of view, meaning that in each instance one is familiar with the other while the other is not.
** Erekose is the most obvious example of this trope, as not only do his stories jump around between different time streams; but he himself has lived anachronically since leaving his John Daker incarnation.
** Elric is particularly prone to anachronic crossovers with other Eternal Champion incarnations; and they other incarnations are more likely to recall him, than he is to recall them. It's strongly implied that Elric is, if not the first incarnation of the Champion (that appears to be Erekose) at least the earliest in "real-world" chronology.
* The [[
* In the infamous ''[[Gravity's Rainbow]]'' chapters can begin anywhere in time, and always cut to dreams sequences, flashbacks, flashforwards and other tangents before returning to where they started.
* The main story of ''[[Illuminatus]]'' takes place in a pretty linear fashion, across a few months in [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future|the spring of 197X]], but takes detours along the way to a few years in the future, ancient [[Atlantis]], and everywhere in between.
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** ''[[Fire and Hemlock]]'' begins with Polly at 19 getting ready to return to uni, then flashes back through her memories from age ten to age fifteen before coming back round to ninteen again.
* [[Sandy Mitchell]]'s [[Ciaphas Cain]] novels are presented as edited pieces of his rambles about his history, in no particular order. The first three books are in chronological order, the fourth is a prequel, the fifth takes place between books two and three, and the six takes place in the ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' universe's "present day" long after the events of the rest.)
* In [[Dan Abnett]]'s [[
* ''Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant'' by Anne Tyler jumps back and forth between the childhood and adult lives of the family of the story.
* ''[[The English Patient]]'' is more or less set at the end of [[World War Two]], but devotes many chapters and extended flashbacks to the characters' backstories.
* ''Ceremony'' by Leslie Marmon Silko jumps between the main character before WWII, the main character as a child, the main character's mother, and current time.
* The [[Diane Duane]] [[
* The protagonist in Chuck Palahniuk's "Survivor" is speaking the entire story into the flight recorder of the plane he has hijacked. His narration unfolds two time lines. One is his time after being one of the few survivors of a suicide cult while the other time line covers his indoctrination. The disjointed narrative is highlighted be the page and chapter count of the book running backwards running down to the point when the plane will run out of fuel.
* ''[[A Prayer for Owen Meany]]'' is in chronological order of chapter topics, but the lengthy digressions can go years forward or backward in the timeline. At times the author seems to expect the reader to be confused, providing the same information over again when it's necessary to understand two different events.
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* This trope and [[Neologism|Neologisms]] are the reason why many people give up to the Brazilian you-must-read-book ''[[The Devil to Pay In The Backlands]]'', in which the first person narrator tells his own history in the way it comes to mind, and justifies himself, because "to tell anything right and straight, it must be a thing of little value".
* ''[[Atlanta Nights]]'' seems to feature this, but given all the continuity errors it's really hard to say.
* [[Robert E. Howard]]'s ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]'' stories are not in sequence. It starts with him on the throne, when most are of adventures in his wilder youth.
* ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]'' are each linear stories, but are written in non-chronological order, and many fans of the book insist that they can only be appreciated that way because of the setup and payoffs; for instance, the [[Lemony Narrator]] ([[
* The chapters of ''[[Last Dragon]]'' are in chronological order, but the events within the chapters are rather jumbled up.
* ''The Good Negress'' by A.J. Verdelle is told somewhat like this. The events are more or less in chronological order(i.e. it may go to something that happened in October, then skip back to July, then back to November), but there are frequent flashbacks to when Denise was back in the South with her grandmother, and there are frequent time skips.
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* Maurice Leblanc's ''[[Arsène Lupin]]'' stories are published in no particular order, so one tale might take place when he is a well-established thief, and another will be about him during his early years, perhaps even before he has settled on the Lupin name.
* Common in the later entries of the [[Mithgar]] series - the first chapter will feature the heroes in the middle of a quest, then a lot of chapters jumping back and forth between what they're doing "now", how they met, what they were like as children, and relevant world events throughout the whole era, before finally settling in a time period and continuing forward towards the climax. Each chapter comes with a time-and-place heading to help you keep track of how it all fits together.
* [[Rudyard Kipling]] does this in ''[[The Jungle Book (
* [[Kim Newman]]'s ''[[Dark Future (
* ''My Sister's Keeper'' jumps between time-lines according to whose point of view the chapter follows.
* ''The Night Circus'' can be split into two narratives. The main one takes up most of the novel and is chronological, while the secondary one takes place several years in the future. The climax of the novel occurs when the two narratives meet.
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== Live Action TV ==
* ''The Nine'' was based on revealing the whole season out of order. The main characters start the pilot just after being held hostage together. What happened during their captivity is revealed as they moved forward and during brief flashbacks in each episode.
* The episode "Sunday" of ''[[
** The pilot of ''[[
* The flashbacks and flashforwards of ''[[
* While episodes are always broadcast in chronological order, individual episodes of ''[[
* The ''[[
* The [[Power Rangers]] metaseries' order, by season goes something like this. [[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers|1992, 1993, 1994, 1995]], [[Power Rangers
* ''[[Kamen Rider Kiva]]'' keeps switching from 2008 to 1986.
* The [[Doctor Who]] episode "Blink", written by [[Steven Moffat]]. Most of the episode was told in the present, alongside events that happened in the twenties (Kathy Nightingale), sixties (the Doctor, Martha and DI Shipton) and (offscreen) eighties (Kathy again), warning about things in the present, all inside of a [[Stable Time Loop]]. From the viewpoint of the main character (the Tenth Doctor), he doesn't meet the episode's guest lead (Sally) until a year after the main action, despite relaying a message from the late 1960s.
** Another Moffat episode, "The Big Bang" features the Doctor travelling back in time through his personal timeline three times. The [[Cold Opening]] is also set several minutes (from the audience's perspective, really it's {{spoiler|1900 years}} after the opening titles. Similar cold openings occurred in "The Girl in the Fireplace", "Love & Monsters" and "Silence in the Library".
** We see River Song as {{spoiler|a month-old baby}} in her fifth appearance, "A Good Man Goes to War" (2011), and dying in her first appearance "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" (2008). In simple terms, her timeline is opposite to the Doctor's. Except when it isn't. {{spoiler|In fact, "The Impossible Astronaut" has three Rivers at once, with one of them witnessing the other's actions, which is seen from the other River's POV in "The Wedding of River Song"}}.
* ''[[
* ''[[
* In ''[[Once Upon a Time (TV series)|Once Upon a Time]]'', the story is told by interspersing scenes set in present day [[Town
== Music ==
* The story of [[Blue
* [[David Bowie]]'s [[Rock Opera]] ''1. Outside'' uses anachronic order for both the short story in the liner notes and the songs/spoken transitions on the album.
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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* Most of the ''[[Magic:
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== Video Games ==
* The ''[[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
** ''[[
** ''[[Ace Attorney Investigations]]: Miles Edgeworth'' has, so far, the biggest anachronic order yet. The chronological order of cases is {{spoiler|4th, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 5th. Admittedly, the 4th case is a flashback case that takes place years ago, but it gets weird with the others; at the end of case 3, for instance, the person who committed the murder in case 1 shows up.}}
** ''Ace Attorney Investigations 2''s third vase, The Inherited Turnabout, has you jumping between playing as Gregory Edgeworth in 2001 and playing as Miles Edgeworth in 2019. You're making an eighteen year time jump now and again.
* ''Zelda'' only just now released [[Word of God|an official timeline]] to accompany ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
** What makes this perhaps the ultimate example is that use of time travel has created three parallel time lines, and they have felt free to alternate between timelines when releasing new games. ''[[Skyward Sword]]'' takes place at the earliest point in the timeline, before the split happens.
* ''The [[World in Conflict]]'' campaign starts in the middle of the story, then suddenly goes to the beginning of the war after a cliffhanger, then returns to the time after the cliffhanger to wrap it all up.
* ''[[Suikoden]]'' chronologically starts with [[Suikoden IV|IV]] (IS 302-07 of the in-universe calendar), the first game of the series with [[Suikoden Tactics]] occuring during [[Suikoden IV]]., followed by [[Suikoden V]] (IS 449), [[Suikoden I]] (IS 455-57), Suikoden Card Stories (IS 459), [[Suikoden II]] (IS 460) and then [[Suikoden III]] (IS 475).
* The continuity of the ''[[
* The timeline of the ''[[
* The game ''Magical [[
* The timeline of the ''[[Street Fighter]]'' series currently goes like this: ''SF I'' , ''SF Alpha''/''SF Alpha 2'', ''SF Alpha 3'', the ''SF II'' series, ''SF IV'', ''SF III''/''SF III 2nd Impact'', ''SF III 3rd Strike''. The events of the first ''[[
* Currently, the latest ''[[Star Ocean]]'' game is ''[[Star Ocean the Last Hope
* The ''[[Lufia]]'' series' chronological order is 2, 4, 1 and 3, although the fourth is a [[Gaiden Game|sidestory]].
* ''[[
* ''[[Eternal Darkness]]''. OK so, Alex is in [[Late to
** This becomes [[Fridge Brilliance]] when, in the secret ending, it's revealed that {{spoiler|Mantorok has been messing around with time}}.
* ''Pokémon'' games seem to be like this. ''[[
* ''[[Castlevania]]''. Each game has a very specific date, ranging from the late 11th century to the early 21st century, and, after the first sequel, there has yet to be two consecutive games closer to each other than a century. For reference, the first game took place in 1691. And, although we have two games that serve as an epilogue to the overall plot, with a hint to a new storyline starting, ''we still don't have the climax''.
* ''[[Radiant Silvergun]]'' starts you off on Stage 3, then after that you have the option to go to Stage 2 (events prior to Stage 3) or Stage 4 (in chronological order). Then the game continues to stages 5 and 6, culminating with what is numbered as the {{spoiler|''first''}} stage in the game.
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* The ''[[Samurai Shodown]]'' chronology follows this order: ''V'', ''I'', ''III'', ''IV'', ''II'', ''64'', ''Warriors' Rage'' (arcade), ''Edge of Destiny'', and ''Warriors' Rage'' (PS).
* The ''[[Ninja Gaiden]]'' franchise has a somewhat loose continuity between its various incarnations beginning with ''Ninja Gaiden Shadow'' for the [[Game Boy]], followed by the Xbox version of ''Ninja Gaiden'', ''Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword'' for the DS, the Xbox 360 version of ''Ninja Gaiden 2'', the NES ''Ninja Gaiden'', ''Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom'' for the NES, and ''Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos'' for the NES (where Ryu loses the Dragon Sword at the end, establishing ''III'' as a prequel). It is unknown where the original arcade game fits in the canon (if it does) or the Sega games for that matter.
* The ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[The Adventures of Sam
* The first week of [[
* The ''[[Hitman]]'' games do this in a very interesting way, across two games, no less. Hitman: Contracts, a fully fledged game built around the flashbacks of the main character(so already in anachronic order) turns out to be the {{spoiler|ending of the third level of ''Hitman: Blood Money'', the fourth installment of the series.}}
* The trailer for ''[[Dead Island]]'' does this.
* The first three games in the ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' series are in chronological order. Then we got an interquel (that starts near the end of the first game and ends at the start of the third) and a prequel set ten years before the series began. Basically, the order goes like this: ''[[
* It can happen unintentionally in ''[[World of Warcraft]]''. Quest lines force players to do them in order, but some quest lines are follow-ups to quest lines in lower level areas; due to the freedom in the game, there is nothing to stop players from doing the follow-up quest line first.
** Why is John J. Keeshan impressed that you're still alive in the Burning Steppes? You obviously skipped the Redridge Mountains.
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** Death Knights get the most confusing treatment. Their starting area takes place just before the events of Lich King, then they leave to gain allegiance to their respective faction, emerging into a post-cataclysm Azeroth (the allegiance quest still acts as if Lich King is just starting up) then they go to Outland (which takes place BEFORE their starting area), then to Northrend for the Lich King story, and that's where it starts to make sense.
* ''[[Calling]]'' is played this way. Shin dies in the first chapter and then Rin meets him in the next one.
* The true ending of ''[[Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
* The first [[
== Web Comics ==
* ''[[
* ''[[Just Another Escape]]'', Almost the basis of the comic, to the point of the past, present and future being colored and drawn in different ways to better differentiate them. All of the story arcs are events shown in a non-chronological order, over what seems to be a (mostly) 3 year span.
* As mentioned in the quote above, [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in the [[Troperiffic]] ([[Exactly What It Says
* ''[[
** The main characters are introduced out of order, going backward in time for each character after Rose, and the perspectives jump around every few pages to progress each character and give the readers information. For example, time was skipped chronologically {{spoiler|to Act 1 when John opens Dave's present and reads the letter, which makes him reconsider following gC's commands.}}
** The trolls {{spoiler|have their Pesterchum chats with the main characters in a different order chronologically. This confuses both parties at times and creates miniature time loops.}}
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* Since the ''[[Whateley Universe]]'' is written by over a dozen different authors, it's not really surprising the stories aren't all in chronological order.
* ''[[Marble Hornets]]'' uses this (via [[Scrapbook Story]]) to ''terrifying'' effect. The first season is split between the events surrounding the original student film (which are themselves out of order) and the way these events begin to creep into Jay's life in the present. Season two is split between the present and the events of the seven month real-time gap between seasons, {{spoiler|with at least one jump back to the student film.}}
* ''[[
== Western Animation ==
* Though most of the show is episodic in nature, ''[[Darkwing Duck]]'' had many episodes early on that featured characters such as Morganna, Liquidator, Neptunia and and so forth before any introduction episodes were given to those characters. To feature a character before introducing them isn't inherently anachronic order, but virtually all of those characters were given introduction episodes later. Morganna, in particular, had several episodes devoted to how her character began as a villain, then gradually became a hero, which confused some viewers, who'd seen the hero version of her first. This perplexing broadcast and production order also carried over to the show's DVD release. This is due to the show's dual weekly/syndication nature, with the weekly episodes later folded into syndication schedules.
* The first ten episodes of the third season of ''[[
* ''[[Star Wars:
** Season 3 is radically using this trope at the moment. Over half of the episodes are made to fit in between past episodes, often exploring holes in various storylines.
** This is more noticable with any episode featuring Fives and Echo. While there is a definitive chonological order for all of the episodes, the first episode they were featured in (Rookies) was first aired in the first season, with a prequel airing in the 3rd season. Practically lampshading this trope, the follow up episode to Rookies was also the episode directly after the aforementioned prequel. In addition, nearing the end of the third season the two clones return again. {{spoiler|only to have one of them being killed.}}
* The season 4 premiere for [[The Venture Brothers]] does this. The episode covers a period of over 8 months with the various scenes shuffled completely out of order until the post-credits scene which is the final in both the episode and chronologically. There's a method to it. The scenes at the Venture compound are shown [[Back to Front]], while scenes with Brock are shown in chronological order. The constant switching of scenes is what makes it confusing. The order is marked by the price of a comic book shown at the top of the screen at the beginning of each scene.
* The second season of ''[[
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