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Next Sunday A.D. is almost exactly the same as The Present Day. Same politics, same technology, same brands, same popular culture...the only difference is that when you glance at the calendar, it shows a date about a year or two after the series was released. Writers often set a series in Next Sunday A.D. to avoid people wondering why they didn't hear about the deranged serial killer or alien invasion on the news.
The trope name comes from the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Opening Theme, though that series is not an example of this trope.
Compare Twenty Minutes Into The Future, wherein the difference in time frame is a bit more apparent.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Death Note: The manga was first released in 2003 and the first few chapters were set in 2004, reaching 2010 by the end. The anime was released in 2006, but when L is spying on Light, the timestamp says 2007. The dub started broadcasting on Adult Swim that year, losing the effect.
- The Death Note creators' new series Bakuman started out roughly present day, I think maybe even a few months behind, but now has advanced to 2-3 years in the future over the course of the series.
- The Suzumiya Haruhi anime was released in 2006. The light novel series it was based on started in 2003. The psychic timequake that everyone is investigating occurred in 2007, and the main series takes place in 2010, though this isn't revealed until some time later.
- Digimon Adventure 02 aired in 1999, but was set in 2002.
- Digimon Tamers, aired the year after, is set in "200X"; a calendar in the background of one episode says "2001".
- The original Digimon Adventure had the entire series set in August 1999, revealed to both the audience and main character Taichi Yagami when the latter returns to the real world for a couple of hours, and notices the calendar on the fridge in his home.
- Paradise Kiss. It run from 2000 to 2004, but since main character Yukari is stated as being born during the Heisei era (that is, after 1989) the events have to take place in 2006 or later for the dates and ages of the characters to add up.
FanFic
Film
- The What If Mockumentary Death Of A President aired in 2006, but was set in 2007.
- Back To The Future was released on July 3, 1985, but used October 26, 1985 as the present date. So it was set a little less than four months in the future...
- And the sequel, made four years later, begins the day after that. The third film (made in 1990) ends later the same day. Given the nature of the plotlines, this hardly matters...
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day was released in 1991, but set in 1995 (as John is supposedly 10 years old).
- In The Sarah Connor Chronicles (which disregards Terminator 3) the date of Judgment Day has once again shifted into the future compared to the series' airdate. In addition, the characters travel to a later point in time that's a closer match.
- It doesn't so much ignore T3 as prevent it.
- And the upcoming fourth Terminator movie is set in the future of T3, not Sarah Connor. The series has officially entered Timey Wimey Ball.
- And The Sarah Connor Chronicles is starting to have people who travelled back in time at different points remember different versions of hist—... Future history. Timey Wimey Ball indeed.
- The Neo-Noir gangsta rap flick Belly takes place in late 1999, but the movie was made in 1998.
- A newspaper headline in Superman Returns explicitly sets the movie in September 2006, a few months after it hit the box office. That it's set as occuring five years after Superman II, which undeniably was set in 1981, can be attributed to Comic Book Time.
- In Disney's Tower of Terror Made For TV Movie, the characters refer to the events from the prologue (set on October 31, 1939) as having occurred sixty years ago. This would set in the film in 1999 or later despite the fact it was released in 1997. Presumably, this was done so that the film would date less quickly.
- The movie Knowing was released in March 2009 but the story takes place in October of the same year.
- Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah was released in 1991 but set in 1992.
- The Net was made in 1995 but was set between June 11, 1996 and June 10, 1997, and most likely was set in the first three months of 1997. The date of birth for "28-year-old" Ruth Marx was shown as June 11, 1968. Most of the film is set in California, and usually in heavy rain, which occurs mostly in the winter there.
Literature
- The book Carrie was released in 1974, but set in the late '70s.
- Most of Stephen King's books time set is a few months after their publication. (i.e. a March-released book is set for that July)
- The short story Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges was written in 1941 but has a postscript dated 1947.
Live Action TV
- Doctor Who, beginning with "Aliens of London", which has a "present day" of about 12 months after airdate. The current (2008) series has has a "present day" of 2009. Notably, some future episodes seem to have forgotten this, leading to a somewhat inconsistent timeline.
- The UNIT stories of the Third/Fourth Doctor era seem to take place at some point in the future, but how far is a matter of some debate
 .
- This is lampshaded by the Doctor himself in one episode, as he talks of his work with UNIT back "in the '70s...or was it '80s..."
- Three words: Timey Wimey Ball.
- The Middleman is probably set in 2009 despite its 2008 broadcast date, though it never quite comes out and says so.
Video Games
- Persona 3 was first released in 2006, but takes place across 2009-2010.
- Along the same lines, Persona 4 was released in 2008, but takes place two years after
- Every game in the Splinter Cell series is set two years after its respective release date.
- Command And Conquer: Generals is somewhere between this and Twenty Minutes Into The Future: the game was released in 2003, but takes place roughly around 2018, being the American Kill Sat pretty much the only difference between our world and the game's world.
- Well... and most of the USA's laser tech tanks et al, and China's nuclear triggerhappiness.
And propaganda towers that heal wounds. I wish my stereo set could do that.
- Notably, much of the more fantastic weaponry only became available in the Zero Hour expansion pack.
- Perhaps a better example being the original game, ''Tiberium Dawn:" the game supposedly takes place in 1995 (the game was released early in that same year) and the only real difference in tech levels between that game and the real world in 1995 was the existence of stealth tanks, advanced hover planes, and one example each of a Kill Sat and Frickin Laser Beams. And, oh yeah, Tiberium. Other than that, the game sprites are based on real-life equipment for the most part, like M1 tanks.
- The first Resident Evil game was released in 1996, but set in 1998.
- The House Of The Dead was released in 1996, and set on December 16, 1998. The House of the Dead 2 was released in 1998 and set on February 26, 2000.
- House of the Dead 3 and 4 abandoned this with 3 being set in an apocalyptic future and 4 being set in the past three years after 2.
- Fahrenheit, released in 2005, was set in 2009.
- The Ace Attorney Series takes place mainly from 2016-2019 in Phoenix's games and 2026 in Apollo's game.
- The original Japanese games,though, seem to take place in present day, so you see mobile phones and a digital camera (it's even implied that film is still widespread) that look like from around 2000. In a game set in 2016.
- That's just Zeerust, hombre. It was still 2016 in Japan.
- Left 4 Dead is set several months in the future, as shown through death notices in the church.
- Valve's so sneaky, they sneak in updates to the dates on those notices via patches every few months.
- The 2005 game Battlefield 2 is set in 2007.
- If Captain Price is to be taken literally about his comments of his wet work mission taking place ten years after the Chernobyl accident, that would place the flashback mission in 1996, putting the date of the rest of the game in 2011.
Web Original
- They tried to do this in the Whateley Universe. The first term of school is set in fall 2006, while the first stories came out in 2003 or 2004. But they've written so many stories with so many characters that they're still in winter 2006!
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