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Ambiguous Time Period

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Mallory: What year do you think this is?!
Archer: I... Yeah. Exactly. Good question.
Archer

An Ambiguous Time Period is where the series takes place at a certain time in the past or future and in the same universe as ours, except for the story elements added by the author, but doesn't state anything specific. This is either because the time period is completely unmentioned, or because it's mentioned but elements of the story or Word of God state that the fiction uses a different calendar than ours. If dates are given, they tend to be kept as vague as possible, hence the ubiquity of non-specific years such as 199X and 20XX in fictional settings.

Sometimes Anachronism Stew will unintentionally (and sometimes intentionally) confuse viewers into wondering when the work takes place.

When the ambiguous time period is obviously not long ago, it's an example of Present-Day Past. Could also be an unofficial form of a Retro Universe. This trope is the temporal version of Where the Hell Is Springfield? Contrast Period Piece and Unintentional Period Piece. See also Like Reality, Unless Noted.


Examples:

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    Anime and Manga 
  • It's not made clear when most of the Angel Beats! cast died. It's implied that you don't have to all be from the same time period in order to be together, nor do you have to be a school kid to appear in Heaven (you automatically just de-age into your younger form). Kanade received Otonashi's heart after he died but it's unknown how long she lasted with it. If she died decades later, the anime could take place 20 Minutes into the Future. On the flip side, Ayato's school uniform (a gakuran and a hat) is outdated by 21st century standards. This implies that he either died decades earlier or that he was an adult when he died.
  • Belle (2021): The anime does not give an exact time period beyond basic 20 Minutes into the Future though it cannot be earlier than the 2020s judging by the tech needed for the U simulation.
  • Captain Tsubasa has this with Anachronism Stew and Comic-Book Time. Japan never qualified into World Cup was a plot point up until World Youth arc. The next arc, Road to 2002, starts with stating that World Youth was set in the year of "19xx" and it's stated that this arc is set between 1998 and 2002 to the point that they show the France national team becoming the winner of 1998 World Cup, that Japan qualified into World Cup for the first time in 1998, that several characters stating the next World Cup in 2002 will be set in Japan and South Korea, and that Tsubasa and his friends aimed to be Japan representatives in the 2002 World Cup.
  • Delicious in Dungeon: Played for Laughs in a Christmas Episode gift exchange series of sketches. Whether or not it's supposed to be set in the medieval time period of the story or the modern day is unclear (Delgal is gifted a copy of Ring Fit Adventure by Thistle, but most of the other gifts are mundane objects like liquor, a quill pen, or a whetstone), although only Kabru seems to notice.
    "If there's Christmas, where are we and what time period are we in? Is there still a dungeon?"
    "So Tokyu Hands or Loft are things that exist in this era...?"note 
  • In Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, the series takes place in what appears to be the usual fantastical medieval times, however, upon close inspection the fashion some characters wear, specifically side characters who aren't dressed as obviously gaudy as the main ones, are clearly from somewhere around the early 20th century, with coats, suits, shirts, pants straight out of the industrial revolution but without any technology from our times, with magic being the analogue to high-tech but society in general function as if it were medieval times, with the architecture and city politics being clear analogues to it.
  • Golden Kamuy: Satoru Noda stated that he left the exact dates of the story open to debate, though it begins in 1907 with the Russo-Japanese war.
  • Gundam takes place in the future, but thanks to their excessive use of Alternate Calendar (several, in fact) how far in the future is impossible to pinpoint. We do get a few clues, however:
    • In Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket it's mentioned January 14th, U.C. 0080 falls on a Monday, while Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ mentions 0088 is a leap year. Apparently somebody once did the math based on this and found 2047 to be the earliest possible date for the changeover (technically, the earliest date would be 2019. The 2047 start date much touted in Fanon is based on some sourcebooks that give 2045 as the last AD date mentioned but don't specify when exactly the switch happened. Sunrise has since declared all timelines that mention the AD era non-canon, though, so now it's anybody's guess).
    • Gundam Wing seems to take place in the mid- to late 23rd century, based off of two pieces of information: the novelization of the series mentions that the circus where Trowa Barton hides out is about to celebrate its 600th anniversary, and the circus' logo (seen in artbooks) has "Since 1667" written on it.
  • Heaven's Design Team seem to exist in a setting completely out of time, as the designs for long-extinct animals sometimes come up after modern animals that still exists today.
  • Hello! Sandybell: With the innovation in technology and vehicles, you'd imagine the anime takes place in The '80s, which was the time of it's release. However, the Shearers use rotary phones.note 
  • Heaven's Design Team seems to exist in a setting completely out of time, as the designs for long-extinct animals sometimes come up after modern animals that still exists today.
  • Is the Order a Rabbit?: Although it uses a lot of current technology (and ostensibly takes place in Japan), the series also heavily invokes pre/inter-war Europe, especially during the city arc. Aoyama-sensei, who is in her mid-20s, apparently had wet nurses, a practice that largely died out in the west once baby formula was invented, and the Royal Cats Hotel's maid costumes look like something out of the Edwardian era.
  • Inazuma Eleven seems to take place some time in the present to its release. However, in the follow-up, Inazuma Eleven GO (which takes place 10 years later), the technology is still how it would be in 2008. This is especially jarring whenever you see a character use a cell phone, the show's cast using cell phones actually being the theme of one of the show's endings. And they're all using flip phones you'd expect to find in 2005.
  • A number of Junji Ito's works are fairly timeless, with anything that would specifically date them usually being absent. Uzumaki, for example, doesn't have anything dating it to any point more specific than "sometime after the 1950s", and many of his one-shots are similarly hard to date. Remina is set in the future year "20XX", but given its deliberately Zeerust aesthetic (complete with flying cars!), it's hard to tell when it's supposed to be.
  • Kagurabachi: Automobiles in this setting seem to be much older than modern times, with cars straight out of the 40s and 50s while there's an operational steam train, the same can be said for the buildings, which vary between 50s western and classic Japanese architecture. Meanwhile, characters dress and speak as if they're speaking from the time the manga got released (albeit still not everyone, since some background characters wear traditional Japanese clothing when out on the street).
  • Kaze No Shojo Emily: The original novel the anime is based on (Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery) was set in the 1920s, but the anime series is more ambiguous about it, lacking the Victorian aesthetic.
  • Kill la Kill is a li'l ambiguous about when the show takes place. While the show does barrow aesthetics of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, the flashbacks implies that the show takes place in an AU version of 2013-2014: Ragyo's hair and clothing style is consistent with the 1990s.
  • Kiki's Delivery Service: At the beginning of the movie, one of Kiki's friends mentions discos, so it would seem the movie takes place in the 1970s or later, but most of the technology we see looks like it's from the 1950s or earlier. The Disney dub omits this reference, but adds in very 1990s techno music during the scene with Madame's granddaughter, muddying things even further. Also not helping are the dresses Kiki's friends from her hometown wear, which wouldn't look out of place in the Victorian era.
  • Lady!!: Supposedly taking place in the 1920's, the manga has things such as push-button phones (when candlestick phones would be the norm) and characters dressing in more contemporary fashion.
  • Konohana Kitan: At first the series appears to take place in a version of the Edo period where most people are Little Bit Beastly, but then increasingly modern-looking clothing begin to pop up on ordinary humans. Eventually it's made clear that everything happens in the present day, but not entirely within our world.
  • It's hard to pin when Michiko & Hatchin takes place. There are vehicles from the 1970s, TV broadcasts with an '80s and '90s style, and every building and infrastructure looks run-down. That said, the show takes place in an undeveloped third-world country, so it makes sense that many of the cars and buildings are outdated.
  • My Hero Academia: It's hard to tell when exactly the story takes place, other than it being in the future. Though the level of technological advancement shown seems to place the setting 20 Minutes into the Future, it's been stated that most scientific research has slowed down in order to focus more on the study of Quirks, meaning that the actual year could be centuries ahead of ours. The implication given by the One For All Quirk is that the manga takes place in the ninth generation after Quirks came into existence, but even that gives a rather vague idea of time.
  • Naruto: You'd think the series takes place in the past with its traditional Japanese aesthetics, use of animals in labour and rural setting. With some episodes featuring stoves and electricity, you'd guess again that it takes somewhere around the 1800s-1900s period. Then, you'll also occasionally see a television and a laptop in the background and reconsider...
  • Ni no Kuni: Regarding the setting of the Ni No Kuni world. The movie begins showing an old man heavily implied to be Oliver. In the other world, Yu and Haru arrive in a kingdom called Evermore. It is ambiguous how much time passed between the events of the games, and the movie, especially since the second game implied several hundred years passed since the first one. WMG suggests it's Narnia Time.
  • In the Heart of Kunoichi Tsubaki: Unlike its two sister series, which both establish themselves in the modern-day, In The Heart of Kunoichi Tsubaki does not hint at nor give any indication as to when the series takes place. The characters' style of dress could place them in the Edo or Meiji periods, but their speech and behavior could place them in the Taisho period or even modern-day.
  • Record of Ragnarok: Human history is stated to lasted 7 million years in the work by present day. The start of the "Old Stone Age" was dated to be around 2.5 million years agonote  at most while the Bronze Age was around 5000 years ago, in which the latter is defined as "early human history." The closest to the figure stated would be the formation of the homo sapien genus itself, which took place around 6-7 million years ago. Either this, or the story takes place in an unspecified far future.
  • Ringing Bell: The story's time period is unknown, but implied to take place somewhere in the America Midwest (possibly somewhere in Minnesota, Tennessee, or Maine) during the early 20th century. Since Yanase prefers his works to remain timeless, the story and other adaptations never reveal what year the story takes place.
  • Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle seems to take place in a medieval Standard Japanese Fantasy Setting, with a Hero going on a quest to rescue the captive Princess from the Evil Overlord. However, as the manga progresses, it becomes clear that there are a lot of modern elements to the setting, despite the prevailing medieval aesthetic; television, video games, amusement parks, Idol Singers, high-tech sleep pods, and other non-medieval things (or Magitek versions thereof) show up regularly. The series tends to alternate between leaning on the High Fantasy elements and the more modern Slice of Life aspects depending on Rule of Funny.
  • Professor Gerald's diary in Sonic X is signed "20XX". The diary is around 50 years old.
  • Sunday Without God: While the world does appear similar to the real world, it's hard to say when this series takes place. Most of the fashions are fairly contemporary, but with a fantastical flair, so that makes it harder to pin down the exact era. For technology, characters use varying styles of guns and rifles, cars are still around even if they don't look to be very common, and an electronic scoreboard is shown in a flashback. However, no computers, televisions, or cellphones are shown (in fact, Julie has to use a payphone in one episode).
  • Tokugawa no Saru is a a manga about a traditional Japanese swordsman. Going by aesthetics alone, you would guess it either takes place in the 1800s or after the turn of the 20th century.
  • When Marnie Was There: The women at Marnie's parent's fancy party are in fashions ranging from the 1920s to the early 1960s, making it vague as to when it takes place. Unless it's only Marnie or Anna's imagination of the party. It possibly takes place around the time when the film was released, you can see cordless telephones and a widescreen television.
  • The Witch and the Beast: On one hand, the Global Holy Church resembles a high-tech magical society with floating medieval castles. On the other hand, we have Orlencia which is straight up Gothic Victorian London that still use horse and carriages as a mode of transport. However, generally speaking, fans seem to point that the overall world is set somewhere between the 1910s to the 1920s given the prevalent use of Art Deco and some Art Nouveau designs.
  • Witch Enforcer: Witches brought about immense technologic advancement to humans. While the setting looks like Gaslamp Fantasy, things like broadcast television were already invented, so the timeline for the series is really anyone's guess.

    Comic Books 
  • 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank: The year is never stated, but the technology resembles that of the 1980s or 1990s.
  • The time period of The Babysitters Club comics are set in is unclear, in contrast to the explicitly 1980s-1990s source. The fashion is timeless, but the technology level is pre-mid 2000s and children are given more freedom than they usually are in the 2000s and afterwards. The plot of the series relies on it being set pre-2000s because most people wouldn't let 12 year olds babysit afterwards. Dated references from the original books, such as the insult that one of the parents doesn't know what Rainbow Brite (a 80s cartoon) is, are kept.
  • The setting of Daisy Kutter is meant to evoke the Old West, or at least a Steampunk/ Cattle Punk version of it, but anachronistic technologies like radio sets, personal telephones, autonomous androids, a steam-powered Mini-Mecha and holograms intermingle with more period-appropriate set pieces like steam powered trains, saloons, horse barns, a "cat house," and one-on-one Showdown at High Noon gun battles. Said radio set even provides an Anachronistic Soundtrack in the form of a Brazilian Jazz station that plays "Girl from Ipanema" — a song the wasn't written until 1962.

    Comic Strips 
  • Crabgrass was originally set in the 1980's, but the exact time period was deliberately made more vague as time went on. The comic's official description on GoComics only states that it is set in "an ambiguous time before cellphones and the internet."
  • The Far Side tries to avoid pop-culture humor in favor of animal or science jokes and generic satire, with the human characters dressing as if it's some point between the 1930s and the '60s. Adding to the confusion are the "historical" strips set in the Stone Age, medieval times, the Old West or whatever, which are sometimes described in the present tense and sometimes in the (implied) past tense.

    Fan Works 
  • Fly Me to the Moon is ambiguously dated between 2000 and 2018 due to the past being implied as the 1950s.
  • The Hetalia: Axis Powers fanfic The Joyous One:
    A/N: I'd like to remind you that this is a pastiche of (mostly) fake early 1800s/late 1800s/1900-1925ish
  • Don't Haze Me : Kim Possible ended in 2008, but the fanfic takes place during Kim's college years and mentions Netflix. While Netflix's streaming services did exist in the late 2000s and early 2010s, the story could also take place contemporary to when it was written.
  • Love Worth Waiting For combines three films from vastly different time periods: Mulan (206 BC–220 AD), Frozen (1840s), and Peter Pan (1900-1919). This makes it impossible to tell the time period. To make it more confusing, Mulan refers to Captain Hook's crew as "vikings."
  • Meeting of Minds: While it's not outright stated when the fic takes place, context clues imply it's the mid-2000s and that the events of both works involved in the crossover (The Transformers and Animorphs) occur later than they do in canon. The Yeerks having minimal knowledge of Cybertronians suggests the latter species hasn't been active on Earth for very long, which doesn't check out with the canon timeframes of either work due to the Decepticons becoming public knowledge years before the first Yeerks arrived on the planet. There's also the matter of Rumble referencing Hannah Montana, which first aired in 2006; per both canons, this would've happened years after the Yeerks were defeated and while the Decepticons were off-planet for an extended amount of time.
  • The flashbacks to 60 years ago in the oneshot Veritas Dolor feature Nat King Cole's version of "When I Fall In Love" from 1956.

    Films — Animation 
  • Disney Animated Canon:
    • The Little Mermaid (1989): Most of the fashions and technology suggest an 18th century setting, but the film is littered with anachronisms, from Ariel's 1980s hairdo to her sparkly gown at the end, to her poofy Princess Diana-esque wedding dress. Also, Chef Louis seems to have walked out of a 1930s slapstick comedy.
    • The Lion King gives no indication of what time the story takes place. There are references that hint it is set in present day and the Timon & Pumbaa cartoon series confirms this (though that show is very dubiously canon). On the other hand, since we never see any humans, it's still plausible to depict the setting as taking place in very ancient or even prehistoric times. Possibly the only clue we have is the appearance of Mount Kilimanjaro, which has more snow than it has lately (due to climate change), meaning it's not set in quite the present day.
    • A lot of the Disney films have this; being fairy tales, they're just set "a long time ago." Sleeping Beauty actually does say "This is the fourteenth century" (though the fashion doesn't match) and newer films tend to aim for more historical accuracy (for example Frozen is set in the 1840s, albeit with some Anachronism Stew here and there), but most of the rest don't even have that.
  • The Australian animated film Epic (1984) is set on the distant past, as it begins with an "In the beginning..." and it features monsters and a dinosaur, alongside present day Australian Aborigines and mammals. It also features The Great Flood which the narrator on the original version implies it to be the Biblical Flood.
  • Frankenweenie: At first glance, the setting seems to be somewhere between The '50s and The '60s. You can tell it from the look of the cars, clothes, or domestic electrical. Additionally, Mrs. Frankenstein is a housewife, there is (save for Toshiaki and Nassor) a Monochrome Casting as the segregation was still in effect, there are no cell phones (but there are phone booths), people film in Super 8... It makes sense if you consider that Victor is an Author Avatar for Tim Burton, who was a kid in The '60s. And yet, Pluto's demotion from from its previous planet status is evoked, something that happened in 2006. Also, Bob suggests to use a computer simulation rather than being used as a guinea pig for the scientific experience of Toshiaki, while the Barbie doll Weird Girl is seen playing with has a contemporary look.
  • The Land Before Time is like this, but with prehistoric life. The main characters are an Apatosaurus, a Triceratops, a Saurolophus, a Pteranodon, and a Stegosaurus, with a Tyrannosaurus rex as the villain. Given the widely different times all of these species lived in note , what time period the movie is set in is anyone's guess. The sequels make it even more ambiguous.
  • The Madagascar franchise doesn't make it especially clear when it's set, as it features a somewhat retro aesthetic but the dates visible in the films' Freeze Frame Bonuses alternate between implying the franchise takes place in either the 80s or the present day. Given that realistic animal ages are used, there can't be that much time between movies.
  • Mavka: The Forest Song: The village feels very much like rural Ukraine from the 19th century, the guns of Big Bad Kylina's two brutish henchmen feel likewise, there's a 1900s car, and then there are things like the Kylina's assistant's very modern dandy, fashion-oriented flamboyance (with an English name in 1980s-like typo on the back of his coat), chainsaws and a big wood-cutting machine on tracks.
  • As an affectionate throwback to the zombie and supernatural horror films of the 1970s, ParaNorman appears very retro, with all the TVs, most of the cars, many of the houses, and the cheesy old horror movies that Norman watches looking very 70s, however there's a number of very modern touches that seem to clash with this:
    • The kids still go to the library rather than the internet to look up info on the witch's curse, but all of them have flip phones, Selma has a laptop, the TVs and movies we see in a store window look very modern, and all the parents at the school play (as in literally all of them) have 90s-2000s era video camcorders.
    • There's also a number of socially progressive attributes to Blythe Hollow that would have been very unlikely in the 70s, like the town's only apparent cop being a black woman and homosexuality being publicly accepted enough for Mitch to casually mention his boyfriend to someone he doesn't know that well.
  • The Peanuts Movie is deliberately vague about when it is taking place, aiming for both nostalgia and sense of timelessness that could (with a few exceptions) pass for any era between the 1940s and today. Among the older elements are Snoopy still using a typewriter (rare since the 1990s at the very latest), Linus still referring to World War I as "The Great War", Westerns still being popular (The Lone Ranger is evoked), and interest in the 1960s space program. Accompanying those are more modern or contemporary tropes, such as karate and 21st-century dance pop (which may or may not be perceptible to the characters).
  • Pixar:
  • The Incredibles seems to take place in 1960s, but they have computers that function similarly to what we have today. Even the one seen in Bob's office, despite its retro design, would be out of place for that time period. There's also VHS players, which didn't come out until late 70s. Further complicating things, the comics have cell phones and Internet, in line with late Noughties' technology (Violet has her own laptop, for instance) and the sequel having a villain named "Screenslaver". Not to mention that in both films, the technology utilized by the villains far exceeds anything we have today in everything from robotics to matter-manipulation. Brad Bird stated that the time period is based more on what people in the '50s and '60s thought the future would be like, so the setting being an Alternate History may justify this.
    • Ratatouille: Considering the technology and vehicles, it would be easy to assume that the story is set in the 1950s-60s; however Gusteau's will is dated to 2004. This does corroborate with Ego's quick childhood flashback, as this was not how the world looked like, clothing and decorating-wise, in the 1910s-20s.
    • 2019's Toy Story 4 takes place nine years after an indeterminate point between the second and third films. It's not clarified if Comic-Book Time is in place or not. Everything looks fairly timeless and there's nothing more modern than a car GPS.
  • Intended to be the case in Rise of the Guardians — the town of Burgess in the "present-day" was specifically based off towns from the 80s/90s to give it that timeless feel, and there isn't much in the way of technology like smartphones.
  • The Super Mario Bros. Movie: It's a bit iffy when the action takes place. At Brooklyn, people are seen at arcade machines and playing classic Nintendo games, both of which were prominent in the 80s, yet Luigi has a cell phone that looks a bit too... modern to fit in that time period. The film's prop artists at least seem to think that it takes place in the modern day, as the pipes on the Bros' van are dated to 2021; if this is the case, the retro Easter eggs can be chalked up to isolated cases of people appreciating old media.
  • The exact time (and place) in which Wallace & Gromit have their adventures has never been clarified. What we see of the duo's house and surrounding city suggests a roughly late 50s-early 1960s British setting. For example, the truck that Wendolene Ramsbottom drives in A Close Shave strongly resembles a 1951 Guy Otter lorry, but Wallace's beloved Wensleydale Cheese was producing very little cheese in the 1950s and struggled financially throughout much of the latter half of the 20th centurynote . There are also no computers, except that some of the technology appears far too advanced for the 1950s (albeit with a distinctly old-fashioned Diesel Punk aesthetic). One could simply chalk this up to Wallace (and a few others, like Wendolene Ramsbottom's late father) simply being a cracking good inventor, but there are other small touches that suggest such things are more commonplace and not always attributable to Wallace's invention, like the sophisticated Laser Hallway in The Wrong Trousers, the moon robot in A Grand Day Out. The overall setting appears to be something of a minor Retro Universe, but the World Limited to the Plot and the absence of any other humans until A Close Shave doesn't make things any more clear.
  • When Marnie Was There lacks much modern technology, everyone has "timeless" but modern day attire, and is based off a book from the 1960s. It could easily take place in the 1990s, 2000s, or 2010s. Marnie makes it even more confusing as her clothes and name are old-fashioned, though it's justified as she's Dead All Along and from the mid-20th century. An easily missed scene shows a character with a smartphone, implying the movie takes place in the 2010s.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Babylon A.D. takes place sometime in the near future, but it's never exactly stated what year it is or even what decade. Rough estimates based on bits of information present in the film, such as the age of the Soviet submarine, place it roughly somewhere in the early 2030s.
  • Batman Film Series: Reporters use very old fashioned cameras and a lot of the film's elements seem to be from The '40s, and yet Batman himself has very modern technology; far better than anything that existed when the movie was made! The closest the franchise comes to explicitly addressing this is in the 1989 original, when a character is shown reading a newspaper from 1947 — but the scene is also set in a newspaper office, where archived newspapers are certainly not uncommon. The costume designers for the Burton/Schumacher films even admitted that, as least as far as the costumes are concerned, the second film, Batman Returns, is set in an alternate 1947 with modern/futuristic technology.
  • This Beautiful Fantastic, released in 2016, apparently takes place in present-day London, but all the technology is pre-digital and the costumes look vaguely period.
  • The Roald Dahl book The BFG was released and set in the 1980s, as shown by the Queen being fairly young and brown-haired then. In the film by Steven Spielberg, the cars seen are rather old-fashioned but the Queen is much older and looks like her 1990s' self thanks to the grey curls. Adding to the date clouding is a scene where she calls "Nancy" on the phone and asks if "Ronald" is there.
  • Brazil is set "Somewhere In The Twentieth Century" — whilst genre convention would normally dictate a dystopia of this type was set in the future, it's also very Zeerusty and could just as easily be a twisted version of the then present-day world. It's left deliberately ambiguous, and in a way the precise setting isn't meant to be that important.
  • DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story: Word of God has it that the movie was supposed to take place in the early 1990s, but a number of thing (including Peter renting Mona Lisa Smile on DVD, as well as the existence of digital cable) would suggest it's just in the present day; it looks as if it could have been set in the present day.
  • It is hard to pinpoint exactly when Final Girl is supposed to be set. The cars and the dresses the women wear all point out to the late 1950s and the early 1960s, but the television in William and Veronica’s motel room is in color with a digital display and the guns they use are far more modern than that.
  • The 1993 film adaptation of The Fugitive plays with this, and not just because it's an updating of a 1960s TV series. The movie does a very good job of not tying the story to any particular time period, partly because the early 1990s (the filming date of The Fugitive and ostensibly its time period) was a fairly conservative era with very few particularly glaring fads or peculiarities and partly because a few subtle retro touches are slipped in, such as a Polish immigrant who can barely speak English and The Dragon of the evil plot being made up to look like a grotesque Film Noir villain. The most specific technology the movie ever calls attention to is computers — specifically, PCs with MS/DOS screens and dot-matrix printers, apparently putting the action sometime between 1980 and 1995.
  • A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night: Each character seems to exemplify a different time period in their clothing and demeanor — The Girl, in her striped shirt, short hair, and love of records, seems '60s; Arash loves his '50s clothes and car; Atti looks like she walked out of the 1930s, etc. The actual set looks modern, with oil drills and powerplants in the background.
  • Halloween (2007): The early scenes take place 17 years before the rest of the film, but they don't necessarily depict 1990. The fashions, cars, etc. are actually mostly (but not totally) '70s-influenced. However, the present-day scenes mix in some '90s technology such as cell phones with (then) contemporary fashion and cars.
  • Harry Potter: The London scenes of the earlier Harry Potter films are mostly set in areas of old buildings, so time period can be hard for an average moviegoer to determine, the main clues of then-modern times being the cars shown. A brief appearance of the now-demolished Southwark Towers, however, narrows down the possibilities to between 1976 and 2008. Averted by the books, which explicitly take place between 1991 and 1998.
  • It Follows appears to take place in a world that is a strange blend of various decades between the 1950s and 2010s. The TVs are '70s at least, and play old black-and-white '50s features too often for it to be any sort of marathon or simple showing of classic movies. The cars are largely '60s designs. Our heroine visits a very retro movie theater with a live pianist. One of the main characters reads a book on a strange contraption roughly resembling a Kindle in the shape of a flip-mirror. Only one person is shown to have a cell phone. Not to mention the strange lack of black people in Detroit.
  • Most of the time, The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking seems to be set around the 1940s (when the first books were written). However, the characters are shocked when a local man "invents" a flying machine and Pippi's sailing adventures with her father seem to be out of the 17th century.
  • Noah is set at some time in the remote past (barring the possibility that what we're seeing is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, of course), but we're not told exactly when. The only compelling clue The Bible offers is that it's definitely taking place before the reign of King David (circa 1000 B.C.); beyond that things get very vague. And given the characters' tribal/hunter-gatherer lifestyle and the fact that agriculture barely exists, it's obviously happening before 3000 B.C. Finally, one animal seen fleetingly in the film appears to be some bizarre prehistoric creature, suggesting that the action is taking place at least several thousand years before the rise of human civilization. So this could be sometime during the late Paleolithic Era, perhaps a few centuries or so before the Western Hemisphere was settled, resulting in a date of, say, 14,000 B.C. (Of course, Jewish tradition — where the story of Noah originated — directly contradicts all of this by holding that the universe was created no earlier than 6,004 years ago.) Making things even more confusing is the level of technology that exists among the other sinful humans — a brief montage at the beginning shows what appear to be skyscrapers, but ones constructed primarily of wooden scaffolding and stone (something that has never existed at any period in human history), while Tubalcain's followers have metal armor and weapons, suggesting a medieval level of technology, but in very modern styles, with helmets that resemble SWAT team gear or welder's masks, and carry rocket-launcher like weapons that fire the glowing combustible rocks we see used as fuel and fire sources throughout the movie.
  • In Penelope (2006), not only do cell/mobile phones and the internet apparently not exist, it's questionable whether answering machines even exist given the fact that several characters are shown surrounded by tons of phones. Notably, said phones are all corded, and Penelope has no trouble finding pay phones to use. Something of a plot point is made of Penelope's dowry, a practice no longer in play in modern-day America (at least officially, though there might still be some cases of a form of Nobility Marries Money quietly happening). The clothing, however, is distinctly 1990s/2000s, credit card use is apparently common, and things such as shatterproof glass exist.
  • The River (1951) has a very ambiguous setting. It is set in India, apparently during The Raj — the protagonists are the Britons that run a jute factory, and their families — but other than that there's little hint of just when the setting is supposed to be. New American arrival to India Captain John lost his leg in "the war", but there's no hint as to which war. Protagonist Harriet is a tween girl, and the film is narrated by an older Harriet, which may hint to a post-World War I setting (the film was released in 1951), but that's it. (The source novel was set in the 1920s.)
  • Roh: The story seems to take place in some pre-modern (possibly pre-industrial) era, but the sheer isolation of the characters deep in the forest, along with them wearing traditional Malaysian clothes that could be worn in any time period, makes it hard to pin down when exactly.
  • The Room (2003): The dressing of the main set is nondescript and not specific to a certain period. Johnny specifically avoids mentioning what film he, Lisa, and Denny are going to see. The only thing that ties it to a specific period is the cassette recorder Johnny uses to record telephone calls but given that he is shown taking it out from a cupboard, it could simply have been put in storage.
  • The Royal Tenenbaums: Until the final scene has the date on Royal's tombstone being listed as "2001", the movie otherwise seemed to be set somewhere between 1976 and 1984.
  • Se7en could have taken place any time between the 1970s and the movie's 1995 release. Somerset uses a typewriter to type his case notes: this can be justified by the fact that he's about to retire and there isn't any point in or enough time to teach him to use a computer. Index cards are still used to identify books in a library and their borrowers. The library watchmen listen to classical music.
  • Shakes the Clown: The city of Palookaville appears to be stuck at some blurry point between the 1940s and 1960s, with certain characters in suits and fedoras and clowns still hosting children's TV shows — if not for references to Madonna and the Watergate scandal, and cocaine being a recreational drug.
  • Strange Behavior: There is a vaguely retro, 1950s-eque look to the film, but also some modern touches that suggest a present-day or near-future setting.
  • Star Trek: The Motion Picture is set at least 18 months after the Enterprise returned from her five year mission, but beyond that, the timeline is somewhat ambiguous. It's generally assumed that Captain Kirk's five year mission as seen on the original live-action and animated series ran from 2265-70, but we don't know if the Enterprise returned home immediately thereafter, and whether she sat a while before the refit could commence in earnest. Originally, semi-official sources like the Star Trek Encyclopedia and Chronology placed it in 2271, i.e., assuming pretty immediate return and refit, but more recently, the timeline has been a bit more generous, either stating 2272-73 or just generically "the early 2270s."
  • Underworld: Rise of the Lycans: The film appears to be set in the Late Middle Ages, due to the abundance of knights in full plate and crossbows; however, the vampire nobles dress in attire that looks very much modern. It doesn't help that we have no idea what country all this takes place in.
  • Winterskin: It's never stated when the movie's supposed to be set. The architecture, dress, and Agnes' rifle seem to suggest it's colonial America. However, Billy states that he and his father repair snowmobiles for a living and Billy finds the guts of a radio in Agnes' house.
  • The Wizard of Oz:
    • The film could take place in 1899 (when its source material was written) just as easily as it could in 1939 (at least in Oz, where the Emerald City's technology is state-of-the art by 1930s standards and the skirts on the women are shorter than the 1890s would have allowed). The simple costumes, rural setting, and old technology (including a horse-drawn carriage) are all pretty vague. Miss Gulch's outfit in particular evokes more of a turn-of-the-century appearance. Of course, it helps that the state of Kansas (except for Wichita and Kansas City, of course) is even in the 21st century a fairly sleepy place where things tend to stay the same.
    • One of Dorothy’s songs uses the phrase "thumbing for a hitch," and she makes a thumbs-up gesture as she’s singing — a reference to something that first arose in the 1930s. But this could be shrugged off as a minor anachronism, if one supposes the story's setting to be the turn of the 20th century.

    Literature 
  • The Berenstain Bears: It's hard to pinpoint exactly when the stories featuring the family are taking place. The action never leaves Bear Country, which features very few technologies aside from (early-to-mid-century) cars note  and (pre-1950s) telephones. Shopping malls and color television appear to be fairly new, suggesting an approximate date of 1970; however, one book shows what looks suspiciously like a Rubik's Cube, which was invented around 1980.
  • The Blue Lagoon, written in 1907 by Henry De Vere Stacpoole, intentionally presents an ambiguous time period. This ambiguity serves several purposes: to appeal to a wider audience by avoiding specific historical markers, to create a timeless story focusing on universal themes and characters' experiences, to provide an escapist and fantastical atmosphere, and to allow for symbolism and allegory. While the exact reasons for the ambiguous time period are speculative, these factors contribute to the novel's enduring appeal and exploration of deeper meanings.
  • The Calf Of The November Cloud was published in 1977, but it is unclear when it exactly happens. The story is set in Kenya and involves a Masai young boy, but nobody seems to have heard of firearms or met any European or Middle-Eastern settlers, so it must take sometime before the 1840s, at the latest.
  • It would be easy to assume that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory takes place in the early 20th Century (around the time of the author's childhood) because of the Bucket family's absurdly exaggerated poverty and Charlie's father's horrible factory job, except that Mike Teavee is considered a Spoiled Brat because he's addicted to television. Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator confuses the issue even more with all its science fiction elements while being an Immediate Sequel.
  • Conan the Barbarian: The stories take place sometime between 20,000 B.C. and 9500 B.C. Or as his short story "The Phoenix on the Sword" puts it, "Between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas."
  • Crictor was first published in 1958, but takes place during an unspecified time period. The style of dress favored by Madame Bodot and all the background characters (long dresses with high collars, sailor suits for the children, and everyone wearing a hat while outdoors) resembles the 1900s-1910s. The copious use of gas lamps throughout the story also indicates the late 1800s or early 1900s. Early automobiles and a toy pickup truck appear in the story, and Crictor climbs a utility pole to rescue a kite for a pair of children (though whether the utility pole holds telegraph wires or electrical wires is another question). Crictor also helps a pack of boy scouts learn to tie knots, though scouting didn't begin in France until 1911.
  • Diamond Brothers series became this, due to the series schedule slipping a lot. The first book The Falcon's Malteser was released in 1986, so one would think that the series would continue to take place during the 1980s, but then as the books were slowly released, they began to suffer from Time Marches On once the fourth book was released the 2000s. Then when the recent book was released in 2007, one of the brothers had turned an age. It's an '80s/'90s/New Millennium mishmash.
  • Evolution: It's not stated exactly when "A Long Shadow" (the first chapter in the Descendants section) takes place. The characters can only speculate that it must have been more than a millennium since civilization ended and they were put into cryostasis.
  • The Harda Horda anthology has three different examples across its stories:
    • Rail Station Attendant: It's the near future. How far into it? Maybe 50 years. Maybe 150. It doesn't really matter for the story itself.
    • Dear Mr. M.: The action takes place somewhere in the tail end of the 19th centurynote , and the letter itself is written somewhere later, probably after WW1, given a "modern" societal upheaval is mentioned.
    • Fiery Tail: We don't even know when the main character was born, but it's vaguely implied to be in the near future. From that moment on, even more, unspecified time has passed, but given that Earth went through being hit by a swarm of asteroids, a new ice age as a result of that and then recovered fully from it, there is a good chance thousands, if not millions, of years have passed, while human survivors were stored on Space Arks for the duration.
  • Human Resources (2018) when not set in the far future, takes place in some vague time period with bunny-ear TV sets, cheap motels, and no cell phones.
  • It's never mentioned when Land of Oz takes place. The first book came out in 1900 and the fourth book appears to involve the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (although it is never specified in the text what the year was or if it was that earthquake in particular). The 1925 book The Lost King Of Oz implies the series began in the late 1800s (and that several years have passed since it began). When Dorothy is accidentally sent back to America, the anti-aging spell from Oz stops working and Dorothy turns middle aged.
  • The Quantum Thief: Based on the hints, the story seems to take place approximately 300-400 years to the future, but time has become almost irrelevant in a world where most human beings have been uploaded into immortal computer systems that can alter their subjective sense of time by increasing or decreasing processing cycles. The oldest Sobornost Gogols that work in the Deep Time are believed to be at least tens of thousands of subjective years old.
  • David Drake's series RCN and The Citizen Series both take place roughly a thousand years after Earth was half-destroyed (by Colony Drop in RCN, by biological warfare in Citizen). Beyond that, there's so much Schizo Tech in both settings that the time period relative to the reader is vague at best.
  • Riordanverse: The books do not mention birth years for most of the characters. This is deliberate; according to author Rick Riordan, the Riordanverse is set in a loosely-defined "present day" that isn't tied to real time and only advances as the action in the books advances. This means that although The Lightning Thief was published in 2005, that's not necessarily when the story takes place, and it does not put Percy Jackson's birthday on August 18, 1992, given he is 12 years old during the events of that book.
  • The Scorpio Races: The time period is never mentioned. Word of God has said that she knows when it is set, and the location of the island it's set on, but she will not say.
  • It's hard to nail down exactly what period A Series of Unfortunate Events is set in, as "advanced" computers lie alongside telegrams and early mid-19th century automobiles and fashions, as well as practically medieval outlooks on child labour, medicine and the law. The only Word of God statement about when it is set is "The Year of the Rat".
  • Shades of Grey: The last known date when the Previous (that is, modern humans) existed is 2296, which was revealed by a reciept for cheese of all things. The Citizens of The Collective aren't even sure what day of the week it is compared to the Previous; as the series begins, it is the year 0496 by their calendar. In the second book, a character manages to calculate that the year in Chromatica is 2803, using their knowledge of comets.
  • The Shady Hollow series by Juneau Black is published as "Vintage Crime", but it's difficult to tell exactly what vintage. Being set in a small town in what is implied to be Upstate New York (in a World of Funny Animals) makes it even harder. Most of the time it seems to be vaguely at the end of The Gilded Age, with a wealthy sawmill owner modeled after the Astor, Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt families, and cars don't decisively appear (ambiguously "a wagon" does but most people walk or fly with wings), as well as etiquette schools. One character is a holdover from The Wild West. But 1950s style diner uniforms appear, modern romantic mores, and offhand references to modern books complicate it.
  • Stray was published in 1987 but takes place in a time period where milk bottles are still left at doors.
  • The A Tale of... series mixes together several films that are in completely different time periods, making it impossible to pin down the time period of the books.
  • Treasure Island: The year is given as "17—" and the mentioning of King George not clarifying which King George it is, the setting could theoretically be anywhere from 1714 to 1799. Some textual evidence does allow us to narrow it down further, however - the suggestion that England is at war with France would imply a range of 1740-63. Bow Street Runners are mentioned, dating it to after 1749. Stevenson's treasure map includes a date of 1754, and Flint has been dead at least three years, so it must be after 1757. And since they visit a friendly port in Spanish America, it's presumably before Spain entered the Seven Years' War in 1762, so it most likely takes place in the last years of the 1750s or the first two years of the '60s. (The Disney version sets it in 1765, incidentally.)
  • Vatta's War and Vatta's Peace by Elizabeth Moon take place sometime far in the future. It's indicated in Cold Welcome that nobody knows much about where Earth is or how long ago their area of space began being settled (aside from Slotter Key's date of settlement being about 300 years ago): Ky Vatta's shipwreck survivors encounter technology and wildlife that were probably left behind by Earth-origin terraformers, but the tech is so ancient that nobody has much of an idea how it works.
  • Warrior Cats appears to take place in the present day. However, nobody knows how long in the "past" the background lore goes back — Word of God has flip-flopped on whether the Clans have been in the forest for fifty years or thirty, both of which are considered to be too short by fans considering all the leaders and generation gaps we know about. When you go all the way back — before the Clans were formed, before the Tribe was formed, back when their ancestors lived by the lake — there seems to be modern construction equipment; it describes yellow vehicles. Most people accept the series as taking place slightly in the future because of this, but it's not clear exactly when.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Chilling Adventures of Sabrina has modern attitudes mixed with technology, cars, and fashions of The '60s. The characters reference '50s movies as being old, and some have cell phones; however, TV's are still '60s models, and Sabrina's aunts still use rotary phones.
  • Doctor Who: The U.N.I.T. stories take place sometime in the 70s, or maybe the 80s. Not even The Doctor or U.N.I.T. themselves know for sure.
  • The Good Place, in Season 2, after many years spent rebootingnote , celestial beings still make reference to pop culture of the late 2010s. We find out in Season 3 that time works a lot differently in the afterlife.
  • Gotham's version of its title city has tons of anachronisms going on; the many retro touches include 1950s (and in some cases older!) music still being popular, mild disapproval (from other gangsters) of a woman wielding great power in the underworld, and Oswald Cobblepot's Ambiguously Jewish immigrant mother. Gotham City seems to have progressed faster on social issues than the real world and slower on others — as mentioned before, women holding positions of authority is somewhat looked down on, but homosexuality is rarely worth commenting on, even by the gangsters. Cell phones seem to phase in and out of existence as well, with Bruce and Selina scouring downtown Gotham for a phone booth in a Season 1 episode. The intent seems to be that Bruce Wayne is Batman in the present day, therefore this is "the past", but making it clear when in the past would tie down how long it's going to take Bruce to become Batman. note 
  • Legion (2017) has '60s/'70s fashions and aesthetics, as well as dialogue implying it takes place in that period, but this is contrasted with modern and at times futuristic technology.
  • Pryor's Place falls victim to this: the basic format of the show is Richard Pryor reminiscing about various childhood experiences, however his stories show his childhood friends in obviously 80s attire, not to mention such things as break dancing and arcades exist. It could all be justified, however, in that his stories are fictionalized versions of his life.
  • Pushing Daisies more than likely takes place in the present but has a lot of homes with older television sets and Parisian-style phones, along with very few references to the internet.
  • On Riverdale, an adaptation of Archie Comics, there are laptops, but old style cars are commonplace. A local gang are referred to as "greasers", and Jughead dresses in an emo style rooted in The '90s. The football uniforms look largely dated, but the students use modern slang, and attitudes towards sexuality and race are modern as well. The dialogue even explicitly states that the timeline takes place in the present day. The Season 2 premiere featured the Riverdale General Hospital, with doctors and nurses wearing 1950s-style uniforms. Really, it's a healthy mix of The '50s and the 2010s. Lampshaded when the drive-in is torn down because the times have changed.
  • A Series of Unfortunate Events, which, like the above Pushing Daisies, had Barry Sonnenfeld as one of its directors and producers, is this in spades. But some references to online auctions are used as a joke (in particular, in the first episode when Count Olaf is referring to a defective hourglass).
  • Star Trek: The Original Series: In the early episodes, the writers deliberately avoided mentioning the exact time period the show takes place relative to the present day, but by the time of episodes like "Space Seed" (which involved a group of Human Popsicle superhuman exiles from 1996) it's established the show takes place in the mid-23rd century.

    Mythology and Religion 
  • The Bible:
    • Most stories in the Old Testament are set during the reign of unnamed kings and pharaohs. The first Israelite king whose reign can be dated using extra-Biblical sources is Ahab, the eighth king of Israel; he is mentioned in the Kurkh Monoliths as leading the Israelite army during the Battle of Qarqar (853 BCE), part of the Assyrian campaign in the Levant.
    • Averted by The Four Gospels, which are explicitly set during the reign of Emperor Tiberius of Rome (14-37 AD).

    Tabletop Games 
  • Monopoly would obviously have to be taking place sometime before about 1890, when monopolies were declared illegal. However, the drawings on the board and the cards are 1930s style, and one of the playing pieces is a sporty roadster.
  • In Paranoia the year is always 214 since Friend Computer likes the number. This means that the players have no idea how long Alpha Complex has been a hellhole.

    Theater 
  • Duke Bluebeard's Castle intentionally has no specified time or place in the notes, letting directors interpret it however and whenever they wish.
  • Hadestown's opening lines have Hermes say "Once upon a time, there was a railroad line / Don't ask where, brother, don't ask when." It's overall implied to be set in the United States during The Great Depression, but it's intentionally kept vague and laden with anachronisms as befitting a myth like this.
  • The Opening Narration of Little Shop of Horrors says it set "On the twenty-third day in the month of September, in an early year of a decade not too long before our own." The movie says the same in its Opening Scroll but a radio report later mentions President Kennedy, meaning it must be set between 1961 and '63.
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor: Since Falstaff and his friends are from the Henry IV plays, The Merry Wives of Windsor must logically take place in the same time period. However, there's nothing in the actual plot or setting to indicate that it's set any time other than Shakespeare's own days.
  • The Rocky Horror Show left the time period unspecified, but the movie has Brad and Janet listening to Richard Nixon's resignation on the radio which would set it in 1974. A lot of the aesthetic of the world outside the castle, and Brad and Janet themselves, seems to be very 1950s. However, the original ending of the movie features a movie theater showing Jason and the Argonauts, firmly dating it to 1963.

    Video Games 
  • Ace Attorney:
    • Narrowly averted in the mainline games. While it's made abundantly clear that the series is set Next Sunday A.D. to justify the odd legal system, there is only one explicit mention of what year an event takes place. The DL-6 Incident happened on December 28, 2001, fifteen years to the day before the end of the fourth case in the first game. All other events in the series are dated relative to this event.
    • Also narrowly averted in The Great Ace Attorney. Although the year is never explicitly addressed, the inclusion of the Historical Domain Character Natsume Soseki as a character with a given age means that the first game is set in 1899-1900. (Apparently an alternate version, though, as there's a new building going up that didn't in real life and people are talking about things besides the centennial and The Second Boer War.)
  • Blood (1997) has an overall tone and feel that's meant to be reminiscent of the early 1900s, with a rustic atmosphere in the environments and rather old-looking weapons (the main automatic weapon is a tommy gun, drum mag and all), with later material claiming it takes place in 1928. However, technology from much later in the century regularly creeps its way in: one of Caleb's main tools is a Zippo lighter (1932), which he uses with one weapon to create an Aerosol Flamethrower (entered wide use in the 40s), his shotgun is based on a model from the 70s, the napalm launcher is entirely made-up but based on a technology that wouldn't become widely available until the 40s, and so on. And that's not even getting into the constant pop culture references to horror movies, most of which are well inside of the decade the game was made.
  • The Crash Bandicoot series has a habit of time skipping by years every new game, but never specified when the original game took place. However, this is averted with Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, a direct sequel to Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, which specifically dates the game in 1998 (the same year Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped released). The same game plays it straighter with the year for the Bermugula's Orbit world being dated as "???", though the amount of memorabilia found in Oxide's ship implies that it's set sometime after Crash Team Racing.
  • Danganronpa is pretty unclear about what year the games take place in, due to a mix of Next Sunday A.D./20 Minutes into the Future, the story's general lack of scope or reference to real-world issues outside of the Tragedy, and the fact that despite having a clear timeline of events, no end year is given with each individual installment. Thankfully, this is partially averted when one counts the class numbers for each batch of Ultimates over ever year (the newest batch before everything going to shit being Class 78), which at the very least puts Hope's Peak Academy's founding within the 1940s, which probably goes out of its way to explain the human experimentation and sheer corruption/inequality of the school.
  • Death Loop has a visual style most reminiscent of the 1960s. That said it, contains technology like desktop PCs called "minicoms," with a functional bullet board system that would be more at home in the early 1990s. Which is not to mention the retrofuturist tech put on display in certain parts of the game, like the semi-intelligent computer, 2BIT. Word of God says it Never Was This Universe and is instead a later time period in the world of Dishonored.
  • The Devil May Cry series in general refuses to give an exact calendar, not even a fictional one, in any shape or form. The events in each game happen in a vaguely described "modern times" with the presence of technology and fashion that could be from anywhere in the eighties to the 2000s and beyond, most evident in 2, 3, and 5 with its initial urban settings before Dante and friends traverse the more demonic locations. The lack of cellphones in the series is the greatest barrier in any attempt to assume when the series could take place, since cellphones rapidly change over time more so than most other tech, thus seeing a model on-screen would greatly help any assumption. The indication of days and dates passing in 5 was the first time the series ever had something close to a calendar being taken into consideration. It's difficult to read exactly when the series takes place; the models of the cars and Dante's rotary phone imply that it must be the 50s or 60s, but then Dante's boombox (right next to a jukebox, mind you) means that it must be at least the late 60s, then Nero shows up in 4 with some very modernized-looking cordless headphones and it really becomes impossible to determine the time period.
  • Double Dragon 2 places the game in "19XX".
  • It's natural to assume that Far Cry 2 takes place in the same year it was released (2008), and no specific date is ever given, however you never see any technology that wasn't around in the 1980s or 1990s (one character, a Western journalist, even uses cassette tape recorders and a black-and-white film camera). The ending also implies the game is a flashback that takes place at some point prior to the present day. A character in Far Cry 4 (which takes place in 2014) is heavily implied to be one of the villains from Far Cry 2 who has undergone a Heel–Face Turn; he looks at least a couple decades older than the character in Far Cry 2 did. Given that the game is loosely based on the Sierra Leone civil war of the 1990s, this timeframe makes sense.
  • Five Nights at Freddy's:
    • Five Nights at Freddy's 4 unambiguously takes place in The '80s, before the events of the first game, but beyond that, it's unclear as to just what year it takes place in. At first, it would appear to be 1987 due to the teasers prior to the game's release featuring the number, toys of the Toy animatronics from the second game (which happens in '87) appearing, and the entire game building up to what looks like the Bite of '87. However, an Easter Egg reveals a TV advert/program that has a copyright date of 1983 — this, along with Fredbear having a restaurant open (when by 1987 it had been closed for years) seemingly suggests it happens on that year instead. Then the Halloween update added Nightmare BB (whom Scott considered canon unlike the other new animatronics), who looks like his Toy bretheren, seemingly putting it in 1987... only for Sister Location to have an Easter Egg involving the rooms from 4 appearing by typing "1983" on a keypad in the Private Room.
    • Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location takes place after Freddy Fazbear's Pizza closed down, but due to its numerous iterations, it's hard to say which one specifically it refers to. The presence of high tech animatronics and even an A.I. guiding the player, as well as a voiceover from who is implied to be the Greater-Scope Villain suggests it happens in between the first and third games (thus the mid/late 1990s to the early 2020s), though the exact year is still unclear.
  • Grand Theft Auto 2 is set in an impossible time with contradictory hints or statements. The introductory video was filmed in late 90s New York City and looks nothing like the game. The game itself is set in "Anywhere City" where several factions vying for control of the criminal underground, the largest being a company called Zaibatsu Pharmaceuticals. The city is generally has a Cyberpunk Used Future look to it, and the cars are designed with a retro-futuristic look ranging from 30s- to 70s-style vehicles, and including styles from America, Europe, and even Soviet Europe (exclusive to The Mafiya). More specific clues are:
    • The leader of the Russian Mafiya is a former Red Army Soldier, implying it takes place within a lifetime of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
    • Promotional material for the game lists it as "3 weeks into the future", and a promotional website also references police records from 2013.
    • A DJ on the radio mentions the new millennium is coming, which would put it just before 2000 or just before 3000.
  • Kokoro No Doki Doki Senpai makes no mention of its time period, although based on the backgrounds and characters' clothes it can reasonably be assumed to take place sometime in modern-day Japan. Its sequel, Kokoro Baka Monogatari, downplays this trope by explicitly taking place during 201X. Furthermore, one of the characters wears a MAGA hat at one point, which narrows the time period to between 2016-2019.
  • Live A Live avoids specifying dates at which chapters occur (although the timeframes are much clearer). Logs in the Science Fiction chapter even go so far as to hide dates with X's (although the "copyright" text in the Captain Square minigame makes it clear it takes place no earlier than 22nd century).
  • Nigel from The Lost Crown never does get a straight answer when he asks what year is it in Saxton, a region filled with anachronisms due to its numerous hauntings.
  • The Mother trilogy indulges in this quite a bit:
    • EarthBound Beginnings was originally set in 1988, but starting from the 1990 English localization and carrying into all later releases, this is changed to an ambiguous point in The '80s. However, since the game doesn't include anything that'd particularly date it specifically to the late 80s in the first place, it feels closer to 1980 or 1981 than to 1988, aiding the ambiguity in later releases.
    • EarthBound (1994) is set in "199X", and goes out of its way to avoid any particular trends from the decade in order to feel just as applicable to 1999 as to 1990. Consequently, the game includes not only elements that would feel contemporaneous to audiences in the game's initial release year of 1994, but also elements indicative of the post-80s cultural hangover that marked the early 90s and even aspects that were phased out by the 1970s, such as rotary phones and elementary school-age girls in bows and dresses.
    • Mother 3 takes things a notch further by outright refusing to give any particular indicators of a range of years, simply being set an ambiguously long point of time after EarthBound, though the modernized Tazmily and New Pork City borrow considerable elements from EarthBound's "199X'' setting as well as a few more additions indicative of the pre-smartphone 2000s, including cell phones with extendable antennae.
  • New Legends is set allegedly in the Ming Dynasty, but there are firearms and helicopters being used in the game, as well as enemies resembling Gas Mask Mooks (gasmasks being invented in the early 20th century) and the main villain using a Kill Sat as his trump card. Whether the game takes place in an alternate, Steampunk version of the real world or it's actually set in the future is never explained.
  • Paper Chase: The intro text for the BASIC version describes the time period as "the not so unreal future. (It might even be today)."
  • Professor Layton likes to do this a lot. If you ignore the steampunk/dieselpunk design which implies it to take place in an alternate universe, it can be assumed that the games take place during the 1960s-70s given the color TV sets and style of the series.
  • The kids at Whispering Rock Summer Camp in Psychonauts talk and act like relatively modern-day kids, but they make references to media and cultural phenomenon from all over the place. The fact that they're all psychic and can, therefore, see things in the future and past, only serves to make it more ambiguous. And if you thought the surprisingly-detailed timeline of Whispering Rock's history you can read in the parking lot will help you, trust us, it won't. According to an official "Friendster" parody website, the game takes place in the early 2000s, but it's unknown how accurate that is to the final game.
  • It's never mentioned when Sonic the Hedgehog takes place. Is it set in the 1990s, contemporary times, 20 Minutes into the Future, or the far future? The characters dress and live in a modern day-esque setting, all while fighting powerful robots and handling very futuristic inventions, and the flashbacks to 50 years ago (in both Sonic Adventure 2 and Shadow the Hedgehog) have a mid-1900s aesthetic (what with the monochrome photographs and the overall fashion). Yet, even 50 years ago they had futuristic advanced technology and science, such as genetic engineering and space colonies, far beyond early 21st century standards.
  • Strikers 1945 is specifically set in 1945 (the first game anyway). The planes/tanks resemble those from the World War II era, but they all have futuristic weapons, and the bosses are giant transforming war machines.
  • As a possible reference to EarthBound, Undertale takes place in 201X. Or rather, the opening scene takes place then; the actual events of the game take place later — implied to be much later. Yet the human world looks more or less in the current day, and technology sometimes seems to be a bit outdated, like the designs of the cellphones and computers. Though this may be justified, considering most of the technology seems to have been pieced together from things Alphys found at the dump.
  • Warframe:
    • It's unclear how far in the future from our present day Warframe is set, but it's equally unclear how much time has passed between the end of the Orokin empire and the New War and Warframe's 'Present' day. At one point in the closed beta, the Lotus said that the Tenno had been asleep for 'centuries' but currently she says 'for generations'. Not helping matters are the fact that the Sentients are machines who have a form of Genetic Memory that means that experiences aren't lost over generations and the fact that there are living Orokin in the Origin system in the form of the Entrati family and Ballas. The most common estimate among the playerbase is that the Orokin empire fell about 2,000 years prior to the game starting, given how most people think that the Earth's moon is a myth.
    • The only time the game averts this is when it's talking about a particular point in the past: Albrecht Entrati sent himself back in time to 1999 in an attempt to escape the Indifference, and if the teasers for that expansion are any indication, brought back some Orokin technology along with him.
  • The Famicom in Madotsuki's room suggests that Yume Nikki could take place as far back as The '80s (though one of the dream lands is a clear homage to EarthBound Beginnings, which was released in Japan in 1989), but it could otherwise be set anywhere between then and the Turn of the Millennium (when the game was made). Just one of the many ambiguous details this setting has to offer.
  • ZanZarah: The Hidden Portal: It's hard to tell when exactly the game takes place. On one hand, Amy's house interior and the urban landscape in the windows look almost Edwardian; on the other, her house has a television and she herself runs around with a Walkman on her waist.

    Webcomics 
  • Alice and the Nightmare is rather ambiguous about its period. On one hand, the fashion is Victorian and there are carriages used; on the other, there are also mini-fridges, plasma screens and Tron-like suits. The closest we get to a clue is Alice and Edith both reading Lewis Carroll's book.
  • Word of God states that the calendar saying that the year is 3031 in Ava's Demon is not the BCE/CE calendar we're familiar with.
  • El Goonish Shive is set in the year "20XX" according to Word of God. It's also explicitly an alternate universe, but the fact that several of the characters work in a video rental store means that it's some time before the rise of streaming services drove such stores out of business.
  • Little Nuns features basically no post-1900 technology except for an old-fashioned camera, a vaguely 1970-era van, and a motor scooter.
  • Joe vs. Elan School is said to take place over three years in the mid-to-late 1990s, but it's very unclear what the exact years themselves are. At the beginning of the story, Joe tells another student about Eminem; late in the story Joe is forced to put up signs for Jay Cirri's gubernatorial campaign. However, Eminem's first major hit wasn't until 1999 when The Slim Shady LP was released, and the real-life "Cirri's" last run for Maine governor was in 1998, though he lost the Democratic primary in June. May be justified due to the author fudging finer details to help conceal his true identity.
  • The Manor's Prize: The comic is in black-and-white and the manor's home theater involves an old-style projector. Cars are older in style, also, but there is no explicit information given on what time period the story takes place in.
  • It isn't really clear at what time minus. takes place. Background characters often dress like people in the 1890s, but none of the main characters do, and people's attitudes don't seem to be any different from the modern day. It is implied that mid-20th century technology, including automobiles, exists, and city skylines are dominated by modern-looking skyscrapers, but we never see cell phones or even computers. Finally, when one character is sent to the past, she is stuck in what is very clearly Victorian times, yet is able to live long enough to return to the present, albeit as an old woman. Word of God says the comic was designed as a throwback to the old early 1900s newspaper strips, and so the setting could be anywhere between then and the late 2000s, when the comic was made.

    Web Videos 
  • Crossed Lines: It's not really clear when the series is supposed to be set. On the one hand, Mr. Traverse is shown to have a smart phone in Episode 4, and Episode 4 has his company building an electric locomotive with a computer A.I. that's able to hack into the railway's control box. On the other hand, Ramona states that we went to the moon only ten years prior.

    Western Animation 
  • Amphibia: The titular world is in a parallel universe from Earth, but its present-day technology of the world is overall consistent with 1600s-1700s Earth, with inventions like telescopes and violins being commonplace, but no use of electricity or combustion engines at all. In the distant past Amphibia was far more advanced because they used magic to steal technology from other worlds. No one uses firearms, but that's justified by this being a kids' show.
  • A Running Gag in Archer is the Anachronism Stew, which is lampshaded often. "No Good Deed" shows a gravestone that states the series takes place in the 1900s, but flowers cover up the last two digits. Word of God has stated that it is a mix between 1960s decor, 1970s cars, and early 1980s computers alongside modern cell phones, the Internet and morals.
  • The flashbacks in the Avengers: Black Panther's Quest episode "Yemandi". Yemandi herself has an Age of Sail look, complete with tricorn hat, but Thor is still a young man and has yet to claim Mjolnir, which should put at some point between prehistory and the Viking Age. The rest of the episode doesn't offer much in the way of clues — it's set in rural Scotland with no buildings except an ancient castle and a combat ring, and the only other characters are a fighter in bearskins and Morgan le Fey (which sets it during or after the Arthurian Era).
  • Bob's Burgers could either be in the 2010s or the current decade but it's not really clear which. We do see some kind of current technology but one of the earlier eps had a minor character using a flip-phone. The only thing we concretely know is that Bob and Linda got married in 1998 and that Bob's mom, Lily died about "30-somethin' years ago". Other than that, the show seems to be running on Comic-Book Time.
  • Given the choice of vehicles, Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines is presumably set during World War I. The appearances and mentions of a phone that can operate sans landline and surfing movies (not to mention Dick Dastardly's Wacky Races car the Mean Machine) makes the timeline a variable. Sister show The Perils of Penelope Pitstop is more settled on its setting of Mack Sennett silent comedies.
  • DC Animated Universe:
    • Batman: The Animated Series has technology and aesthetics from a wide range of era and the few dates shown contradict each other. In the Grey Ghost episode, there is a People magazine cover with him on it that dates the episode in late 1992 and "Joker's Favor" shows a still valid driver's license dated to 1991. But if the dates in Thomas Wayne's yearbook are to be believed, the series' "present day" is in the late 1940s.
    • The Sequel Series Batman Beyond is set either 40 or 50 years after the end of Justice League Unlimited. Evidently, nobody involved with either show can agree on this.
  • Ed, Edd n Eddy was created with this in mind so it can appeal to a varying amount of age groups. The series could take place in The Noughties just as easily as it could take place in The '70s. Small references here and there, especially in later seasons, heavily imply that it takes place in the 2000s, though. The fact that it crossed over with Codename: Kids Next Door and The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy further imply it takes place in the 2000s.

  • Hanna-Barbera's series of The Little Rascals is supposedly set in the late 1930s, but they have microcomputers, commercial television and push-button traffic controls.
  • My Life as a Teenage Robot has a look that blends retro-futurism inspired by The '50s with technology similar to the 2000s. In the episode "I Was a Preschool Dropout", Jenny tells Brad she was only born five years ago (from their time) and Brad then begins to list a number of events that all happened at that time. One of these was "Super Bowl 100". Given that 2002, the year the series and episode were made, was also the year of the 36th Super Bowl, and in-series five years had passed since "Super Bowl 100", this would make the show take place in 2071. Add 64 to 36 to get Super Bowl 100, which makes the year 2066 (2002 + 64), plus five years since Super Bowl 100 makes it 2071.
  • Onyx Equinox takes place somewhere in Mesoamerican history, deliberately unspecified. It does show the remnants of the Olmecs and Classical Mayan temples, but also major Maya cities co-existing with the Aztec empire.
  • When Over the Garden Wall finally has a Whole Episode Flashback to our world, we don't see any modern technology; also, Wirt owns a tape recorder and a tape of "3 Non-Blondes," referencing a band most popular in the 1990s. Word of God says that the aesthetic was meant to be anywhere from the 1970s to 1990s. The Unknown, for that matter, is an Anachronism Stew, featuring Americana from the Puritan days to the early 1900s. Justified, however, in being an Another Dimension (and possibly the afterlife).
  • Rugrats could easily be mistaken for perpetually taking place in the early 1990s — especially since the successor series, All Grown Up!, takes place ten years later and was created after the Turn of the Millennium — but later episodes imply the late 1990s due to the Internet playing a large role in the second movie's plot and mentioning later dates.
  • Samurai Jack: Both Jack's home time period and the Bad Future he's sent to at the start of the series are pretty ambiguous. In his original time, Jack was apparently a contemporary of numerous different, conflicting cultures — for example, he trained in Ancient Egypt with the original Egyptian polytheist gods apparently still being worshipped while also being trained by Robin Hood, who lived many, many centuries after Ancient Egypt stopped practicing that religion. Then when he goes to the future, there's advanced technology and robots everywhere but many times Jack comes across villages which are essentially medieval with no modern trappings whatsoever. And the tribal village in "Jack vs. the Ninja" makes those look modern by comparison.
  • Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles is set a thousand years after Usagi Yojimbo, but it doesn't feel like the 27th century, being a sort of Magitek Cyberpunk setting where the Shogunate still exists, and Edo has become Neo-Edo, possibly without ever being Tokyo.
  • The Simpsons achieves this largely by virtue of being a Long Runner where the characters are Not Allowed to Grow Up — the earlier seasons in particular had deliberate elements of Retro Universe, but the show has been on so long and is such a venerable property that the established continuity often doesn't fit with the generally present-day setting. So, for example, flashbacks to Marge and Homer's high school days are still set in The '70s (except for one widely disliked episode that had them as college students in The '90s and another episode set in the 2000s), but flashbacks with Bart and Lisa as little kids are generally set in the Present-Day Past — although earlier episodes established their birth years as 1980 and 1984 respectively ("present day" Bart and Lisa are ten and eight, so that gap doesn't make sense either). It's probably best not to think too hard about it. This gets lampshaded in an episode where Homer's first kiss is revealed to have happened when he was Bart's age. It may have been in The '60s, The '70s, or even The '50s, as he puts it.
  • Spirit: Riding Free: The setting, like that of the first movie, seems to be the mid-1800s, given the buildings and architecture, but the regular wardrobe of the three main leads looks very 21st century.
  • Summer Camp Island takes place mostly on a camp so technology is limited. From the amount that's seen, the cartoon seems to take place in the 1990s or early-to-mid 2000s.
  • Thomas & Friends seems to take place in the early-to-mid 1900s, given the old phones, no technology, and Queen Elizabeth appearing as a middle-aged woman and Prince William as a little boy. Despite that, some of the buildings look like they could be from the early 2000s. This is averted in The Railway Series, which is explicitly set during the time of their publication, with real-world events at the time of their writing directly influencing the stories.

 
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Cowboy Future Time Period

Owen depicts his story in the future but depicts it in a western setting, where they ride on horses and don't use modern technology, despite the fact they're in New York City. His family is confused with this setting, but Owen just wants them to roll with it.

How well does it match the trope?

3.5 (2 votes)

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Main / AmbiguousTimePeriod

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