Out of Focus: Difference between revisions

** In 2010 episodes of the manga (the anime only got up to Volume 4), {{spoiler|the four main girls themselves go somewhat out of focus since they graduate high school and go on to different schools. Konata and ''Patty'' of all people are the only two who remain together. The manga has started to focus more on a "new generation" of girls at Ryooh High School.}}

* In the ''[[To Love Ru (Manga)|To Love Ru]]'' manga, Ren appears less and less as the series goes on. Mainly because his [[Gender Bender|female alter ego]], Run, gets more screentime. Though even Run doesn't get that much anyway.

* Shouko remains [[Out of Focus]] for most of ''[[Asatte no Houkou (Manga)|Asatte no Houkou]]''.

* In ''[[Ouran High School Host Club (Manga)|Ouran High School Host Club]]'' [[Otaku|otaku girl]] Renge had a whole chapter dedicated to her in the manga, but then she fell into the background. She does still make quite a few cameo appearances such as during the Halloween chapter, and is said to be one of Haruhi's customers. The mangaka, Bisco Hatori, said she had intended to make Renge a more frequent character, but for whatever reason she never went through with. On the flip side, the anime adaptation turned Renge into an [[Ascended Extra]] and the [[As You Know]], [[Genre Savvy]] [[Fan Girl]]. Bisco-sensei was happy to see Renge get more screentime, even if it did become less frequent toward the anime's finale.

* In ''[[Azumanga Daioh (Manga)|Azumanga Daioh]]'' Sakaki seems to get most of the focus throughout the series... until her animal plot is resolved with Mayaa coming back. For the last two episodes of the show, she has MAYBE ten lines total and about half of those are random background/crowd chatter lines it seems. For most of the rest of the series, Kagura probably falls into this most of the time as, despite being one of the main six, she doesn't show up properly until a little under halfway through the series and is rarely (if ever) the focus of an episode (or the small mini-episodes that make up one episode).

** To say nothing of Kaorin, who gets relegated to the secondary cast almost immediately and hardly shows up at all in the last third of the series.

* During the Yotsuba arc in ''[[Death Note (Manga)|Death Note]]'', the perspective subtly but noticeably shifts from Light and his plotting to that of L and the task force, making it closer to an ensemble show. L's moral ambiguity comes into greater focus, Matsuda gets his [[Day in The Limelight]], Misa gets in on the action by the end, and Aizawa gets some nice [[Character Development]]. There's a reason for this - during that arc, Light doesn't have his memories of using the Death Note, and his purpose during those episodes is to be the [[Only Sane Man|voice of reason]] for L when he suggests letting people die in order to catch Kira. {{spoiler|Which makes it even more jarring when he gets the Death Note and his memories back at the end of the arc, and his [[Xanatos Roulette]] that's been running in the background the entire time is revealed, culminating with the death of L.}}

* ''[[Love Hina (Manga)|Love Hina]]'' gives us five initial potential love interests, with three more later on, {{spoiler|[[Foregone Conclusion|although it's fairly evident that the main character Keitarô gets with Naru in the end]]}}. All but one, Mitsune "Kitsune" Konno, get fairly detailed backstories, growth, and [[Character Development]]. Kitsune plays a [[Cool Big Sis]] role to Keitarô and was a student with Naru, but little else is known about her.

** Also, the foreign ten-year-old Sarah MacDougal gets focused in for a part of one early volume, then is cast aside for the rest of the story.

* In episode 13 of ''[[Persona 4 (Anime)|Persona 4]]'', the story is mostly told from the perspective of the protagonist's surrogate little sister, Nanako, as she conducts a childish investigation while pretending to be a cartoon detective. Later in episode 14, we see exactly what [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|the Protagonist was up to]], and [[Contrived Coincidence|how Nanako saved the man]] who operated the fireworks (he was choking), and because of the things she did<ref> Nanako suggested a delivery service for two people who wanted shaved ice and let a girl borrow her toy wand to fish out a scarf from a tree branch</ref>, indirectly helped the Protagonist save the life of a mother after she was struck in the head.

** Taken to an extreme when all four main characters become this in the third anime season; they're used as props to save the world, which is overshadowed by the idiotic [[Belligerent Sexual Tension]] of [[Holier Than Thou|Filia]] and [[Affably Evil|Xellos]] and the stories of the dragon race, the [[Big Bad]], and even the [[Those Two Guys|mooks that work for him.]] It wouldn't be so bad if the [[Character Development]] that the four of them were gaining was more or less gone.

* Happens from time to time in ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (Manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]''. Story arcs tend rotate focus amongst the main cast.

** Although a little more focus was placed on her at the end of season 5, when she got married, Cerie previously appeared just often enough on the show to remind you she was still there.

* Despite having a credit as a main character, Jake Sisko from ''[[Star Trek Deep Space Nine]]'' fell victim to this quite often, particularly in the final season of the series. This is actually a case of [[Absentee Actor]] rather than writers not spending time on Jake. Cirroc Lofton was simply unavailable for most of the final 2 seasons. A good deal of episodes were written to focus on Jake and had to be tweaked to not include him so heavily. (Ever wonder why "Far Beyond the Stars" has Sisko dreaming he's a writer? Jake was supposed to be the one it happened to.)

** The Simon (Number Four) and Doral (Number Five) model Cylons are hardly seen anymore, and certainly have had far less character development than the other models. Arguably the Fours were never prominent outside one episode, but the Fives had a fair amount of screen time in the first year of the show.

** And then there's D'Anna, who {{spoiler|opts to stay behind on Earth after everyone else leaves}}, and Leoben, who {{spoiler|sort of freaks out when Starbuck finds her own body and is then never seen again, despite vast hints earlier on that he was a fairly central and important player}}.

[[Category:Script Speak]]

[[Category:Out Of Focus]]