Out of Focus: Difference between revisions

This also often happens for optional characters, but as you'll notice; they're...well, optional, so the events are written without them.

 

 

== Anime & Manga ==

* During the switch from ''[[Dragon Ball (Manga)|Dragon Ball]]'' to ''[[Dragonball Z]]''...

** Side character Lunch fell through the cracks. She didn't even get [[Put On a Bus]]; she was just gone. The creator eventually admitted sheepishly that he had forgotten all about her.

** This arguably happens with Goku himself for much of DBZ. In "Dragon Ball" he was almost always involved in whatever main actions were going on beginning to end, while most of "Dragon Ball Z" has him usually spending it either healing from some injury or unavailable at the time as he's training off world to get stronger or he's racing to join the rest of his friends in time for an important fight. As a result, most major actions are being carried out by Gohan, Piccolo, Vegeta, Trunks or someone else while Goku is generally only really brought into play when things truly hit the fan (and often even a little after).

* ''[[Bleach (Manga)|Bleach]]''

* Aki from ''[[Keroro Gunsou (Manga)|Keroro Gunsou]]''. She is the mother of the Hinata family and thus the 'highest rank' in Keroro's eyes. Of course it was obvious she would be out of focus due to her job which makes her come home rarely. But she is portrayed as a main character so having her only make an appearance in background events is kinda sad. We also know very little about her.

* ''[[Sailor Moon (Manga)|Sailor Moon]]''

** Later seasons do this to the Inner Senshi. In ''Super S'' and ''Stars'', they're basically one composite entity and barely exist as individuals (except in occasional powerup or focus episodes. Hell, Jupiter and Venus ''share'' some of theirs.)

** Also Usagi's ''entire family'', who in beginning were a very important emotional anchor just kind of faded away the longer the story went on. Maybe this is why so many fan writers like to ship Hotaru/Sailor Saturn with Shingo.

** The moon cats (Luna and Artemis) began to become out of focus in the final season.

* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh (Anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh]]''

* Season 3 of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh GX (Anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh GX]]'' saw Asuka, Manjoume, and Shou become completely irrelevant as the exchange students steal what would have been their roles in the season.

* In ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh 5 Ds (Anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh 5 Ds]]'', characters are regularly [[Put On a Bus]] for the sake of resolving new problems.

** They also do it [[Adaptation Explanation Extrication|from the first episode, for no reason]].

* In ''[[Bakuman｡ (Manga)|Bakuman｡]]'', Miho has been seen much less after {{spoiler|the news comes that PCP will not get an anime, and Mashiro and Takagi must come up with a manga that will}}, a significant setback in their promise to have Miho star in their anime. Justified in that Mashiro and Takagi have promised not to meet in person until they fulfill their promise.

* Tadakuni slipped out of presence over the run of ''[[Daily Lives of High School Boys (Manga)|Daily Lives of High School Boys]]'', despite being the protagonist. This has been lampshaded [[In Universe]] in both manga and the anime adaptation; the anime even said his out of focus is because he was [[The Generic Guy|too plain]].

 

** Jin and Sun got a pretty bad case of this in several seasons. In the first season they both appear in most of the episodes and get their own centric episodes but after that all of their centrics get lumped together as one and their role in the plot diminishes considerably. For starters, in season 3 they both disappear for about six episodes in a row and have no dialogue in several others. Its also around this time that they start to just sort of follow other characters around for want of something to do other than the occasional [[Character Focus]]. Luckily they both get some decent character development in seasons 4 and 6 which keeps them from being completely useless. {{spoiler|It also helps that their death scene was probably the show's biggest all time [[Tear Jerker]].}}

** All 3 non Daniel Faraday freighters after season 4. Charlotte never got much love for the writers {{spoiler|and then she dies.}} Miles pretty much just becomes a two man comedy team with Hurley and doesn't get a season 6 centric episode. Season 5 sets Lapidus up as important, with Bram thinking he may be a candidate he becomes a regular and then goes out of focus with the candidate story shifting focus to other characters with nary a mention of Frank. Poor guy doesn't even get flash sideways cameo and is basically just comic relief. {{spoiler|Until the finale when his [[Dropped a Bridge On Him|unceremonious death]] turns out to be a subversion and he pulls off a final [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] by successfully getting the survivors off the island.}}

** The year before in ''[[Power Rangers SPD]]'', Disney didn't want to hire yet another regular actor to play Sam the [[Sixth Ranger|Omega Ranger]]. Since the showrunners were kind of stuck with him thanks to [[Stock Footage]], they resorted to [[Fake Shemp|Fake Shemping]] and cut his presence down to the occasional token appearance.

*** Likewise, Aisha had similar treatment in her tenure on [[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]].

** Hey, Veronica, where did [[Black Best Friend|Wallace]], the Watson to your snarky Holmes go for two seasons? Why'd Mac become your bestie for season 3?

** Budget cuts prevented most of the cast (other than Keith, Veronica, and Logan) from being in most episodes of that season.

** In the earlier seasons, Jenna seemed to repeatedly take several episodes off. This largely ended after her character fully [[Flanderized]] into a [[Ted Baxter]] / [[Attention Whore]] type. Back when she didn't get much focus, a typical nonappearance of hers was [[Lampshaded]]:

{{quote| '''Tracy:''' Everything worked out with Jenna's dad visiting.<br />

* This happened to Potsie on ''[[Happy Days]]'' after Richie and Ralph left the show.

* Ryan is still listed as a main character in the credits of ''[[The Office]]'' (USA) but it has been a long time since he has had a plot of consequence. At this point Andy is clearly the ''de facto'' most prominent character after the main four and Ryan lags behind most of the supposedly secondary cast.<br />Ryan has a get-out-of-jail-free card, because the actor who plays him also happens to be one of the executive producers of the show. Well, he's a writer who got promoted to executive producer. It isn't like he pitched a hissy fit.

* Spoofed on ''[[Community (TV)|Community]]'', where one episode features an entire Abed subplot of befriending a pregnant classmate relegated to the background. In some scenes, Abed's plotline is shown onscreen, but literally [[Out of Focus]].

* Kyra Rockmore, Kenan's sister in ''[[Kenan and Kel]]''. After Season 2, she rarely ever appears in the show. She doesn't even appear in episodes with the rest of her family or The Chicago Witch Trials episode which would have been a perfect opportunity to bring up her crush on Kel. She does, however, appear in the series finale movie as well as the graduation episode.

* Came up in the 8th season of ''[[Scrubs]]'' due to budget cuts; every member of the main cast was [[Out of Focus]] for at least one episode.

* Compared to her ''[[CSI]]'' supervisor counterparts [[CSI: Miami|Horatio Caine]] and [[CSI New York|Mac Taylor]], Catherine Willows from the mothership suffers from this, in favor of the Ray Langston Show.

* Genelle Williams' character Leena on [[Warehouse 13]]. Although Williams is a main contracted actor, she's actually not in very many episodes, and her character Leena has little screen time in episodes she is in, and has little impact on the plot. Leena isn't even acknowledged in series promos that supposedly higjlight all the main characters. Williams is also absent from the new intro sequence.

* This trope is notably [[Subverted Trope|subverted]] in ''[[Friends]]''; all six main characters appear in every single episode and are involved in every episode's plot.

* [[Parenthood]] has mild examples as many characters (especially the children) simply do not exist - and are never mentioned - in episodes that do not focus on them.

 

== [[Toys]] ==

 

 

** Some other games also have natter between enemies they state they are out to get or know somehow. For example; Nino, Jaffar, and Renault actually have a few things to say to Nergal instead of ''just'' of Athos and the lords in ''Rekka'', In ''Path of Radiance'', Ashnard will have a conversation with Ike, Mist, Elincia, Tauroneno, Haar, Jill, Reysa, Esa, Nasir, Tibarn, Naesala, and Giffca if they attack him. He also says something to any laguz if he fights him.

* In ''[[Tactics Ogre]]'' as well as its spinoff, any of the special named characters with custom portraits who join you will ''rarely'' get a word of dialogue after their story arc is over. Some like Kachua, Canopus, Guildus, and Mildain play relevant parts in the story in ''[[Tactics Ogre]]'' if they're still alive. However; the ending certainly doesn't forget that they joined you at all, oh ''noo'' - So if you kept ''all'' the named characters who joined you through the story alive and didn't dismiss or let anyone die, be prepared for a ''long'' ending! And some of these characters even join in groups, too - so as you can bet, there's a ''LOT'' of possible variations!

** Orson and Shiven deserve special mention. Depending on which path you took, one will join your party, and the other will simply vanish from the storyline. If you took path A, Orson will be a boss because he's still with Rictor's Army. If you took Path B, Orson will join you because he was dismissed from Rictor's troops and Shiven will actually...vanish into the shadows until a good part into chapter three when {{spoiler|Cybil is nearly killed by Alphonse}} and he shows up out of almost ''nowhere'', However this is actually justifiable; [[Fridge Brilliance|Shiven is actually a ninja who was hired to spy for Cybil - he was off in the shadows]].

* ''[[Final Fantasy XII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XII]]'' inverted the usual way this happens: instead of the hero and his girlfriend being the main characters, everyone else in the party (except for Fran) got all the [[Character Focus]] while Vaan's role was to exist as a way for them to reflect on and work through their problems.

** Donald Duck and Goofy were Sora's constant companions in ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'', ''[[Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories]]'', and ''[[Kingdom Hearts II (Video Game)|Kingdom Hearts II]]''. After that, they've fallen by the wayside. They only had brief cameos in ''Birth By Sleep'', were just unlockable multiplayer mode characters in ''358/2 Days'', and their biggest role in ''Coded'' was reminding Data Sora about what they and the ''real'' Sora did together in the past. In the upcoming ''3D'', "dream" versions of them are set to appear in a ''Three Muskateers''-based world, but the real things still aren't up to much.

*** This arguably started happening as early as ''[[Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories]]''. They were very major characters in the first game, as their search for King Mickey is one of the driving forces of the plot, but as more original characters, such as Roxas, Naminé, and Organization XIII, were introduced and [[Character Focus|focused on]], Donald and Goofy ended up losing quite a bit of limelight. Come ''[[Kingdom Hearts II (Video Game)|Kingdom Hearts II]]'', their only role is to pretty much just be... there, the two are no longer essential to the story, and they aren't even present during the final battle.

** This backfired a good deal with X7, where at the start of the game, you're given Zero and [[The Scrappy|Axl]], with X going into a pacifistic role. X7 isn't liked very much.

* In the ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' DLC expansion ''Crash Course'', Bill has no new lines, and uses earlier lines when they aren't quite appropriate. This is because his voice actor, Jim French, was busy with his other jobs and Valve couldn't get in touch with him in time to record lines.

** The Author is trolling the readers

* Done intentionally in ''[[Fite]]'', where Gorgado's face actually replaces Guz's in the header for a while.

** To be fair, any conversation that Fighter becomes a part of would be sidetracked by his [[The Ditz|low]] mental abilities. If they wanted to get any exposition done at all, his silence was the only option. Depending on the current story arc, said exposition would be about magic or the elf kingdom, with the mages and Thief trading roles as [[The Watson]]. Poor Fighter was left out of pretty much all story-important conversations by necessity.

 

 

** Ever since coming back from the dead for supposedly the last time, Kenny rarely has anything to do -- he either just stands there and doesn't say anything, or he doesn't appear at all. This is lampshaded quite a few times, and occasionally he will have his time in the spotlight.

* As ''[[Drawn Together (Animation)|Drawn Together]]'' came to focus more and more on Captain Hero, formerly important characters such as Foxxy Love and Princess Clara were reduced almost to background roles while supporting characters such as Ling-Ling seemed to barely be in the show at all anymore.

** Goo as well. Though this probably had more to do with the fact that she was a [[Sixth Ranger]] in a show that was already [[Loads and Loads of Characters|overcrowded with characters]].

* All too prominent with [[Butt Monkey]] Tucker in ''[[Danny Phantom (Animation)|Danny Phantom]]''. By season three, he's either ignored, downplayed, or disappears to make room for Sam and her growing romance with Danny.

* In the third and last season of ''[[Dragon Booster (Animation)|Dragon Booster]]'', the plot centered more on Artha and Moordryd, and the other characters were essentially there to fill time or get defeated by the pair.

** Mostly because the unmade ''Academy'' seasons were supposed to focus on their studies there.

* A number of fairly well-defined characters of ''[[Kim Possible (Animation)|Kim Possible]]'' were pretty much forgotten in later episodes, notably Josh Mankey, Zita Flores, and Felix Renton. The latter two appeared in the [[Series Finale]], [[Pair the Spares|having apparently started a relationship]]. Josh only really existed to be Kim's crush, so between her getting over him in the third season and a [[Relationship Upgrade]] with Ron for the fourth, he became redundant.

* In [[Classic Disney Shorts|Disney's classic shorts]], the calmer, more genteel [[Mickey Mouse]] gradually lost top billing to hot-tempered [[Jerkass]] [[Donald Duck]]. Mickey appeared in barely any cartoons during [[World War Two]], and eventually had to wait ''30 years'' from his last classic appearance in ''The Simple Things'' until ''Mickey's Christmas Carol''.

** In ''[[Mad (Magazine)|Mad]]'''s [http://johnglenntaylor.blogspot.com/2009/01/mickey-rodent-mad-19.html parody story from issue 19], [[Parody Names|Darnold Duck]] keeps complaining that [[Parody Names|Mickey Rodent]] is still around while Darnold himself is more popular. At the end of the story, Mickey traps Darnold in a realistic zoo, an act he planned for years to regain his popularity.

* One of the many things that went wrong with ''[[Hey Arnold (Animation)|Hey Arnold]]'''s movie was the fact that, while the series gave many background characters their [[Day in The Limelight]] (one of its notable strengths), only Arnold and Gerald {{spoiler|(and Helga)}} get much action in the movie. None of the background students get any lines, and Phoebe (a regular student) gets only one line. Heck, Arnold's grandparents, Helga's dad, and the Sunset Arms boarders, get more time than most of the other students.

* In the early days of ''[[The Simpsons (Animation)|The Simpsons]]'', Bart had his best friend, Milhouse, and a second-best friend, a kid named Lewis. As Milhouse, Nelson, Martin Prince and Ralph Wiggum got [[Character Focus]], Lewis never developed any of the quirks that made the other four interesting, and so he was [[Demoted to Extra|demoted to background character]].

*** Richard was always a background character, though, his role was "kid that Lewis hangs with when he's not with Bart and Milhouse". Actually in recent seasons he's been getting lots of random speaking lines. The first step towards [[Ascended Extra]]?

* One of the reasons (but hardly the only one) that ''[[Total Drama Island (Animation)|Total Drama Island]]'' fans dislike the [[Seasonal Rot|second season]] was that almost half the contestants from Season One were cut out. What makes it worse is that the neglected campers were mostly the ones who hadn't gotten very far originally, and thus missed a chance for greater [[Character Development]] even though some of them (Cody, Noah and Ezekiel, for example) have [[Ensemble Darkhorse|surprisingly large fanbases]].

* In the early episodes of ''[[Phineas and Ferb (Animation)|Phineas and Ferb]]'', Django seemed to be at least a semi-regular member of the main characters' group. Unfortunately he never developed much of a personality and kind of fell by the wayside; in season two he's only gotten two voiceless cameos.

* By the mid 1960's most of the recurring characters from ''7 [[Looney Tunes (Animation)|Looney Tunes]]'' were gone aside from [[Daffy Duck]], Speedy Gonzales, [[Wile E Coyote and The Road Runner (Animation)|Wile E Coyote and The Road Runner]], and the occasional odd appearance by Elmer Fudd. Even their star character [[Bugs Bunny]] was gone; his last cartoon was in 1964 and he didn't appear in any new shorts until 1980.

* ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants (Animation)|SpongeBob SquarePants]]'': Nowadays, Gary only gets a few lines per episode, and Sandy appears 1 to 4 times a season, and Mrs. Puff and Larry only appear once in a blue moon. Spongebob, Patrick, Squidward, Mr. Krabs and Plankton are the only regulars now.

** It's gotten so bad that at one point Sandy Cheeks was referred to as Sandy Squirrel. That's right, ''the writers have literally forgotten her name.''

* Both [[Pocahontas (Disney)|Pocahontas]] and [[Mulan (Disney)|Mulan]], despite being marketed as official [[Disney Princess|Disney Princesses]], actually do not appear in most of their merchandise unlike [[Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (Disney)|the]] [[Cinderella (Disney)|six]] [[Sleeping Beauty (Disney)|core]] [[The Little Mermaid (Disney)|prin]][[Beauty and The Beast (Disney)|cess]][[Aladdin (Disney)|es]] (and to a much lesser extent, the recently introduced [[The Princess and The Frog (Disney)|Tiana]] and [[Tangled (Disney)|Rapunzel]]) let alone several group artwork.

** This may have to do with controversey over using a real person's life as a fairytale in the former's case, and the fact that Mulan is not actually a princess.

* Fifi LaFume from ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures (Animation)|Tiny Toon Adventures]]'', who appeared semi-regularly in Season 1 and even got a [[A Day in The Limelight|major role]] in [[Tiny Toon Adventures How I Spent My Vacation (Animation)|the movie]], but appeared quite rarely in Seasons 2 & 3 (Much to the disappointment of fans), only getting four shorts of her own in the entire series.

* Dana Tan, Terry's girlfriend from ''[[Batman Beyond (Animation)|Batman Beyond]]'', had fewer appearances and lines after the first season, and overall only had one episode about her. Mary and Matt [[Mc Ginnis]], Terry's mother and brother, never even got a focus episode.

** Applejack has suffered a little from her family becoming important supporting characters, in that her scenes are often hijacked by her supporting cast, and she spent a good half of her spotlight episode missing.

** Scootaloo is currently the only Cutie Mark Crusader that hasn't had her own spotlight episode, and Sweetie Belle's sole spotlight episode so far was shared with Rarity. Apple Bloom on the other hand...