History Main / OutOfFocus

* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'' has an odd example. Go find a piece of art--fanart, official, whatever--containing four of the five MagicalGirl heroines. Which one is left out? It's Kyoko, isn't it? Exceptions to this are rare: four of the end-of-episode artworks have four of the girls, and ''all'' of them lack Kyoko. The series page image, which is commonly used in promotions, does the same thing. Kyoko is the last main character to appear (in episode 4), but she ultimately gets more screen time than Mami and has a pretty obvious LesYay thing with Sayaka, so the reasons for her being excluded so often are unclear. It's possible that this was to preserve TheReveal of her first appearance, since most artwork featuring four girls was produced before the fourth episode. After the conclusion of the series, most artwork shifted to either feature all five girls or feature [[ShipTease pairs.]] [[http://danbooru.donmai.us/data/sample/sample-ef30b405db45e5aa2a99c1231fcaa8d8.jpg One of the few post-series pieces]] to feature four out of five actually features Kyoko over [[MsFanservice Mami]].

* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'' has an odd example. Go find a piece of art--fanart, official, whatever--containing four of the five MagicalGirl heroines. Which one is left out? It's Kyoko, isn't it? Exceptions to this are rare: four of the end-of-episode artworks have four of the girls, and ''all'' of them lack Kyoko. The series page image, which is commonly used in promotions, does the same thing. Kyoko is the last main character to appear (in episode 4), but she ultimately gets more screen time than Mami and has a pretty obvious LesYay thing with Sayaka, so the reasons for her being excluded so often are unclear.

* Ever since the failure of ''New X-Men'' and ''Young X-Men'', most of the 21st Century X-kids have fallen victim to this. With the exception of a few characters like {{X-23}} and Prodigy (who was plucked from limbo and added to the YoungAvengers), most of the young mutants faded into the background in favor of the ''newer'' young mutants who were introduced after ''Comicbook/MessiahComplex'' and ''[[Comicbook/{{Avengers Vs X-Men}} AVX]]''.

* Maya Lopez, AKA Echo, falls victim to this in Creator/{{Brian Michael Bendis}}' first run on ''ComicBook/{{New Avengers}}''.

* In ''{{Futurama}}'' the original premise (and first season) of the show was built on Fry adjusting to living [[FishOutOfTemporalWater 1000 years in the future.]] Fry's character adapted to his surroundings far quicker than the writers planned, so the show ended up evolving to focusing more on the case as a whole ([[SpotlightStealingSquad especially Bender.]]) The Post-Revival Comedy Central Era was especially more of an [[EnsembleCast Ensemble Show]] over all

** Many of the new characters in ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'' have yet to make an appearance outside the ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'' games. Though this is slowly being rectified, as Alex, Yun and Yang, Ibuki, Makoto, and Dudley have since made appearances in other Capcom games. Also a partial justification, as ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'' is currently at the end of the ''Street Fighter'' timeline, and some characters' stories, such as Necro, Urien, and Twelve, are based around the game's BigBad, making it hard to find a good reason to put them in other ''Street Fighter'' games..

** Disney's Disney/PeterPan also ends up in this. Tinker Bell gets her own spin off series, and Captain Hook and his crew appear in JakeAndTheNeverlandPirates. In fact Tink appears more often in the media than Peter.

* The MassEffect series had numerous characters and some were given more focus than others.
** The squad from the first game, minus [[CowboyCop Garrus]] and [[WrenchWench Tali]], were sidelined into either ExpositionFairy territory (Liara or Wrex) or in a single cutscene ([[BoisterousBruiser Ashley]] and [[MindOverMatter Kaidan]]) come the [[MassEffect2 second game]].

* This happens to Huey Freeman in TheBoondocks, which is odd considering he's meant to be the main protagonist. He got plenty of focus in the first season, but after that he only seems to be there just to comment on things happening around him, or to advise other characters against something, and his more outspoken attributes have been largely downplayed. The majority of episodes from season 2 onwards focus on Riley, Granddad, or even ''Ruckus''.

* This happens to Huey Freeman in TheBoondocks, which is odd considering he's meant to be the main protagonist. He got plenty of focus in the first season, but after that he only seems to be there just to comment on things happening around him, or to advise other characters against something, and his more outspoken attributes have been largely downplayed.

** In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' as a whole, the major OutOfFocus revolves around the world's factions. ''Blood Elves'' and ''Draenei'' were the sole focus of their expansion, but have absolutely no continuation beyond the end content of BurningCrusade; including any of it's named characters, such as their faction leaders, having no appearances whatsoever in future content.
*** WrathOfTheLichKing continues this trend with the rebel ''Death Knights'' of Ebon Hold being pushed aside when ''Cataclysm'' arrived despite their major focus during the fall of the Lich King. ''MistsOfPandaria'' will tell if the same trend plagues the introductions of the Goblins and Worgen introduced in ''Cataclysm''.

** 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 (except for a brief appearance in the GrandFinale, despite vast hints earlier on that he was a fairly central and important player]].

** 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]].

* During the switch from ''Manga/DragonBall'' to ''Manga/DragonBall Z''...

* In ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', Hikari, [[ThoseTwoGuys Toji and Kensuke]] became gradually less important as the show progresses, until they finally [[PutOnABus left the city off-screen due to their homes being destroyed]]. In interviews, HideakiAnno even admitted that the school setting and its characters had become irrelevant to the plot far quicker than he'd initially expected.

** Some time around season five, many of the oldest supporting characters either became rarely seen, or just [[LivingProp shoved into the background]]. At least two of them were KilledOffForReal. Officer Barbrady, formerly a major character and the only cop in town, is now basically unseen, while a whole police force is now regularly shown.

** Similarly, on ''BoyMeetsWorld'', the youngest Matthews sibling went out of focus and then disappeared completely, but she showed up a few seasons later, played by [[TheOtherDarrin a different actress.]]

** The manga at least [[AuthorsSavingThrow attempted an explanation]]. [[DeathByAdaptation Shinji accidentally killed Toji]] during the Bardiel incident, and subsequently avoided Hikari and Kensuke because he was unable to face them after what he'd done.

** 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.

* In ''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.