History Main / AmbiguousTimePeriod

* ''{{Manga}}/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).

* ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'' 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.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'' trilogy indulges in this quite a bit:
** ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'' 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 The80s. 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.
** ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'' is set in "[[The90s 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 19''70''s, such as rotary phones and elementary school-age girls in bows and dresses.
** ''VideoGame/Mother3'' 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 [[spoiler: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.
* ''VideoGame/NewLegends'' is set allegedly in the UsefulNotes/MingDynasty, but there are firearms and helicopters being used in the game, as well as enemies resembling GasMaskMooks (gasmasks being invented in the early 20th century) and the main villain using a KillSat 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.
* Nigel from ''VideoGame/TheLostCrown'' 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.
* ''VideoGame/LiveALive'' avoids specifying dates at which chapters occur (although the timeframes are much clearer). Logs in the ScienceFiction 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).
* The kids at Whispering Rock Summer Camp in ''VideoGame/{{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, [[WritersCannotDoMath 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.
* The [[Platform/NintendoEntertainmentSystem Famicom]] in Madotsuki's room suggests that ''VideoGame/YumeNikki'' could take place as far back as The80s (though one of the {{dream land}}s is a clear {{homage}} to ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'', which was released in Japan in 1989), but it could otherwise be set anywhere between then and the TurnOfTheMillennium (when the game was made). [[AmbiguousSituation Just one of the many ambiguous details this setting has to offer.]]

* As a possible reference to ''[=EarthBound=]'', ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' takes place in 201X. [[spoiler: 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.

* The ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' series in general refuse 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 2000's 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 moreso 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.

* ''VideoGame/ProfessorLayton'' likes to do this alot: 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.
* ''VideoGame/PaperChase'': The intro text for the BASIC version describes the time period as "the not so unreal future. (It might even be today)"
* ''VideoGame/Strikers1945'' 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.
* It's never mentioned when ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' takes place. Is it set in the 1990s, [[ComicBookTime contemporary]] times, TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, 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 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, far beyond early 21st century standards.
* Narrowly averted in ''Franchise/AceAttorney''. While it's made abundantly clear that the series is set NextSundayAD to justify the odd legal system, there is only one explicit mention of what year an event takes place. [[ThatOneCase 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 ''VisualNovel/TheGreatAceAttorney'': although the year is never explicitly addressed, the inclusion of the HistoricalDomainCharacter 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 UsefulNotes/TheSecondBoerWar.)
* ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}'' is likewise pretty unclear about what year the games take place in, due to a mix of NextSundayAD[=/=]TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, the story's general lack of scope or reference to real-world issues [[spoiler:outside of [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt 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 [[spoiler:before everything going to shit]] being Class 78), which at the very least puts Hope's Peak Academy's founding within the 1940s, [[spoiler:[[UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan which probably goes out of its way]] to explain the human experimentation and sheer corruption/inequality of the school]].
* The ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot'' 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 ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot4ItsAboutTime'', a direct sequel to ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot3Warped'', which specifically dates the game in 1998 (the same year ''Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped'' released). [[spoiler: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 ''VideoGame/CrashTeamRacing''.]]
* ''VideoGame/Blood1997'' 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 AerosolFlamethrower (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 [[ShoutOut the constant pop-culture references to horror movies]], most of which are well inside of the decade the game was made.
* ''VideoGame/DeathLoop'' 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. [[spoiler: WordOfGod says it NeverWasThisUniverse and is instead a later time period in the world of ''VideoGame/{{Dishonored}}''.]]
* ''VideoGame/ZanZarahTheHiddenPortal'': 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 television and she herself runs around with a Walkman on her waist.
* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}:''

* ''Webcomic/AliceAndTheNightmare'' 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.

* It isn't really clear at what time ''Webcomic/{{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 [[TheSlowPath return to the present]], albeit as an old woman. WordOfGod says the comic was designed as a throwback to the old [[TheEdwardianEra early 1900s]] newspaper strips, and so the setting could be anywhere between then and the late 2000s, when the comic was made.

* ''WebVideo/CrossedLines'': 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.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{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 [[spoiler:Amphibia was far more advanced because they used magic to steal technology from other worlds.]] No one uses firearms, but that's justified by it [[FantasyGunControl being a kids' show]].

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' has technology and aesthetics from a wide range of era and the few dates shown [[SeriesContinuityError 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.

* ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' was created with this in mind so it can appeal to a varying amount of age groups. The series could take place in TheNoughties just as easily as it could take place in The70s. 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 ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'' further imply it taking place in the 2000s.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' achieves this largely by virtue of being a {{Long Runner|s}} where the characters are NotAllowedToGrowUp -- the earlier seasons in particular had deliberate elements of RetroUniverse, 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 The70s (except for one widely-disliked episode that had them as college students in The90s and another episode set in the 2000s) but flashbacks with Bart and Lisa as little kids are generally set in the PresentDayPast -- 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 The60s, The70s, or even The50s, as he puts it.
* ''WesternAnimation/SummerCampIsland'' 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.
* ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'' 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.
* When ''WesternAnimation/OverTheGardenWall'' finally has a WholeEpisodeFlashback to our world, we don't see any modern technology; also, Wirt owns a tape recorder and a tape of "3 Non-Blondes," referencing [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Non_Blondes a band]] most popular in the 1990s. WordOfGod says that the aesthetic was meant to be anywhere from the 1970s to 1990s. The Unknown, for that matter, is an AnachronismStew, featuring Americana from the Puritan days to the early 1900s. {{Justified|Trope}}, however, in being an AnotherDimension ([[spoiler:and possibly the afterlife]]).

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLifeAsATeenageRobot'' has a look that blends [[{{Zeerust}} retro-futurism]] inspired by The50s with [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture technology similar to the 2000s]]. In the episode [[Recap/MyLifeAsATeenageRobotS1E8 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.
* The flashbacks in the ''[[WesternAnimation/AvengersAssemble 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 it 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 la Fey (which sets it during or after the Arthurian Era).
* ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiRabbitTheUsagiChronicles'' is set a thousand years after ''Comicbook/UsagiYojimbo'', 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.
* Given the choice of vehicles, ''WesternAnimation/DastardlyAndMuttleyInTheirFlyingMachines'' 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 ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'' car the Mean Machine) makes the timeline a variable. Sister show ''WesternAnimation/ThePerilsOfPenelopePitstop'' is more settled on its setting of Mack Sennett silent comedies.
* ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'' 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 [[spoiler: Bob's mom, Lily]] died about "30-somethin' years ago". Other than that, the show seems to be running on ComicBookTime.

An Ambiguous Time Period is where the series takes place at a certain time in the past or future and in [[LikeRealityUnlessNoted 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 WordOfGod state that the fiction uses [[AlternateCalendar 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 [[YearX 199X and 20XX]] in fictional settings.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles1'' 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 [[WesternAnimation/Incredibles2 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 says 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 AlternateHistory may justify this.
* ''WesternAnimation/ThePeanutsMovie'' 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 UsefulNotes/WorldWarI as "The Great War", [[TheWestern Westerns still being popular]] (''Series/TheLoneRanger'' is evoked), and interest in [[UsefulNotes/TheSpaceRace the 1960s space program]]. Accompanying those are more modern or contemporary tropes, such as [[IKnowKarate karate]] and 21st-century dance pop [[LeftTheBackgroundMusicOn (which may or may not be perceptible to the characters)]].

* The exact time ([[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield and place]]) in which WesternAnimation/WallaceAndGromit 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 [[TrademarkFavoriteFood Wensleydale Cheese]] was producing very little cheese in the 1950s and struggled financially throughout much of the latter half of the 20th century[[note]]In fact, the company nearly went bankrupt in the 1990s until [[TheRedStapler it received a massive boost in publicity]] from being mentioned in ''Wallace and Gromit''[[/note]]. There are also no computers, except that some of the technology appears far too advanced for the 1950s (albeit with a distinctly old-fashioned DieselPunk 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 LaserHallway in ''The Wrong Trousers'', the moon robot in ''A Grand Day Out''. The overall setting appears to be something of a minor RetroUniverse, but the WorldLimitedToThePlot and the absence of [[MinimalistCast any other humans]] until ''A Close Shave'' doesn't make things any more clear.

* The Australian animated film ''WesternAnimation/Epic1984'' 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 TheGreatFlood which the narrator on the original version implies it to be ''the'' Biblical Flood.
* ''Anime/WhenMarnieWasThere'' 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 [[OutdatedName name]] are old-fashioned, though it's justified [[spoiler:as she's DeadAllAlong and from the mid-20th century]]. An easily missed scene shows a character with a smartphone, implying the movie takes place in the 2010s.
* 2019's ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory4'' takes place nine years after an indeterminate point between the [[WesternAnimation/ToyStory2 second]] and [[WesternAnimation/ToyStory3 third]] films. It's not clarified if ComicBookTime is in place or not. Everything looks fairly timeless and there's nothing more modern than a car GPS.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' 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]] ''Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops,'' and ''Saurolophus'' are all from the Maastrichtian stage of the Cretaceous, while ''Apatosaurus'' and ''Stegosaurus'' are from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic. ''Pteranodon'' is from the Campanian stage of the Cretaceous. [[/note]], what time period the movie is set in is anyone's guess. The sequels make it even more ambiguous.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{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.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSuperMarioBrosMovie'': 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, [[https://preview.redd.it/x6ytb7ur7m4b1.jpg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=f94fd455fcbfb5274dadd441e8a406a16f74518d 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.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Frankenweenie}}'': At first glance, the setting seems to be somewhere between The50s and The60s. You can tell it from the look of the cars, clothes, or domestic electrical. Plus Mrs Frankenstein is an {{Housewife}}, there is (save for Toshiaki and Nassor) a MonochromeCasting as if the segregation was still in effect, there are no cell phones (but there are phone booths), people film in super 8... It make sense if you consider that Victor is an AuthorAvatar, and Tim Burton was a kid in The60s. And yet, Pluto demoted from its planet title is evoked (it happened in 2006). Also, Bob suggest to use a computer simulation rather than him as a guinea pig for the scientific experience of Toshiaki. And the Barbie doll Weird girl is seen playing with have a contemporary look.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Ratatouille}}'': Once again the setting seems to be somewhere between The50s and The60s due to vehicles and clothes look, the cell phones absence, or the black and white TV sets. Until DNA tests, in use for paternity tests since The90s, are mentionned.

* ''Film/Batman1989'': Reporters use very old fashioned cameras and a lot of the film's elements seem to be from The40s, 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 [[WordOfGod admitted]] that, as least as far as the costumes are concerned, the second film, ''Film/BatmanReturns'', is set in an alternate 1947 with modern/futuristic technology.
* ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' could take place in 1899 (when its [[Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz 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 [[NothingExcitingEverHappensHere 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 turn-of-the-20th-century.

* Most of the time, ''The New Adventures of Literature/PippiLongstocking'' 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.
* ''Film/{{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 {{Zeerust}}y 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.

* ''Film/AGirlWalksHomeAloneAtNight'': 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.
* The 1993 film adaptation of ''Film/TheFugitive'' 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 [[UnintentionalPeriodPiece 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 TheDragon of the evil plot being made up to look like a grotesque FilmNoir 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.
* ''Film/ShakesTheClown'': 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 Music/{{Madonna}} and the Watergate scandal, and cocaine being a recreational drug.
* ''Film/ItFollows'' 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.
* ''Film/{{Noah}}'' is set at some time in the remote past [[AfterTheEnd (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 ''Literature/TheBible'' 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.

* The Creator/RoaldDahl book ''Literature/TheBFG'' was released and set in the 1980s, as shown by [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethII the Queen]] being fairly young and brown-haired then. In [[Film/TheBFG the film]] by Creator/StevenSpielberg, 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 "UsefulNotes/{{Ronald|Reagan}}" is there.

* ''Film/BabylonAD'' 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.
* ''Film/TheRiver1951'' has a very ambiguous setting. It is set in India, apparently during UsefulNotes/TheRaj -- 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).
* ''Film/ThisBeautifulFantastic'' apparently takes place in present-day London, but all the technology is pre-digital and the costumes look vaguely period.

* ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' 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 [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries live-action]] and [[WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries 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".

* ''Film/{{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''.
* ''Film/TheRoom2003'': 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.

* ''Film/StrangeBehavior'': 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.

* ''Literature/TheBlueLagoon'', written in 1907 by Creator/HenryDeVereStacpoole, 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.

* ''Literature/HardaHorda'' anthology has three different examples across its stories:

* ''Series/PryorsPlace'' 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.

* ''Series/{{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 AmbiguouslyJewish 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]] Most sources agree that Bruce's parents were murdered when he was eight years old, it took him 16 years or so to evolve into Batman, and whenever we read or watch a story about him he has been Batman for about 10 years. So a date sometime in the late '80s would sound about right ... except Bruce is twelve when his parents die in ''this'' continuity, and some of the period-specific things shown on ''Gotham'' were pretty old-fashioned even then. [[/note]]
* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': 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 "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E22SpaceSeed Space Seed]]" (which involved a group of HumanPopsicle superhuman exiles from 1996) it's established the show takes place in the mid-23rd century.

* ''Series/PushingDaisies'' 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.
* ''Series/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'', which, like the above, had Creator/BarrySonnenfeld 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).
* ''Series/TheGoodPlace'', in Season 2, after [[spoiler:''many'' years spent rebooting[[note]]to the tune of three hundred or so years, if Michael's graphs are to be believed[[/note]]]], 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.
* ''Series/ChillingAdventuresOfSabrina'' has modern attitudes mixed with technology, cars, and fashions of The60s. 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.

* ''TabletopGame/{{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.

* ''Theatre/{{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.
* ''[[Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow 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.
* ''Theatre/LittleShopOfHorrors'' is similar. The OpeningNarration 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". [[Film/LittleShopOfHorrors The movie]] says the same in its OpeningScroll but a radio report later mentions President Kennedy, meaning it must be set between 1961 and '63.
** The original ending of the movie features a movie theater showing ''Film/JasonAndTheArgonauts'', firmly dating it to 1963.
* ''Theatre/TheMerryWivesOfWindsor'': 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.

'''Archer:''' I... yeah. Exactly. Good question.

An ambiguous time period is where the series takes place at a certain time in the past or future and in the same [[LikeRealityUnlessNoted 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 WordOfGod state that the fiction uses a [[AlternateCalendar different calendar than ours]].

When the ambiguous time period is obviously not long ago, it's an example of PresentDayPast. Could also be an unofficial form of a RetroUniverse. This trope is the temporal version of WhereTheHellIsSpringfield Contrast PeriodPiece and UnintentionalPeriodPiece. See also LikeRealityUnlessNoted.

* In ''Manga/FrierenBeyondJourneysEnd'', 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.

* ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' takes place in the future, but thanks to their excessive use of AlternateCalendar (several, in fact) how far in the future is impossible to pinpoint.
** Although we do get a few clues. In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam0080WarInThePocket'' it's mentioned January 14th, U.C. 0080 falls on a Monday, while ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamZZ'' 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).

* ''Manga/HeavensDesignTeam'' 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.

* ''VideoGame/InazumaEleven'' 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.

* ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'': 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 TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, 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 the quirks have come to existence, but even that gives a rather vague idea of time.

* ''Anime/NiNoKuni'': Regarding the setting of the Ni No Kuni world. [[spoiler: The movie begins showing an old man heavily implied to be [[VideoGame/NiNoKuni Oliver]]. In the otherworld, Yu and Haru arrive in a kingdom called [[VideoGame/NiNoKuniIIRevenantKingdom 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/NiNoKuni WMG]] suggests it's NarniaTime.

* ''Manga/RecordOfRagnarok'': 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 ago[[note]]With anatomically correct humans only coming into existence 300,000 years ago[[/note]] 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.

* ''Manga/SleepyPrincessInTheDemonCastle'' seems to take place in a medieval StandardJapaneseFantasySetting, with a Hero going on a quest to rescue the captive Princess from the EvilOverlord. 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, {{IdolSinger}}s, 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 HighFantasy elements and the more modern SliceOfLife aspects depending on RuleOfFunny.
* Professor Gerald's diary in ''Anime/SonicX'' is signed "20XX". The diary is around 50 years old.

* The setting of ''ComicBook/DaisyKutter'' is meant to evoke the Old West, or at least a SteamPunk/ CattlePunk version of it, but anachronistic technologies like radio sets, personal telephones, autonomous androids, [[spoiler: a steam powered MiniMecha]] and holograms intermingle with more period-appropriate set pieces like steam powered trains, saloons, horse barns, a "cat house," and one-on-one ShowdownAtHighNoon gun battles. Said radio set even provides an AnachronisticSoundtrack in the form of a Brazilian Jazz station that plays "Girl from Ipanema" -- a song the wasn't written until 1962.

* ''ComicStrip/{{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".

-->'''A/N''': I'd like to remind you that this is a pastiche of (mostly) fake early 1800s/late 1800s/1900-1925ish
* ''Fanfic/DontHazeMe'' : ''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.
* ''Fanfic/LoveWorthWaitingFor'' combines three films from vastly different time periods: ''Mulan'' (206 BC–220 AD), ''Frozen'' (1840s), and [[spoiler:''Peter Pan'']] (1900-1919). This makes it impossible to tell the time period. To make it more confusing, Mulan refers to [[spoiler:Captain Hook's crew]] as "vikings".

** ''Franchise/TheLionKing'' gives no indication of what time the story takes place. There are references that hint it is set in present day and the ''WesternAnimation/TimonAndPumbaa'' cartoon series confirms this (however, 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.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles1'' 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 [[WesternAnimation/Incredibles2 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 says 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 AlternateHistory may justify this.

* 2019's ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory4'' takes place 9 years after an indeterminate point between the second and third films. It's not clarified if ComicBookTime 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 ''WesternAnimation/RiseOfTheGuardians'' - 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.

* ''Film/{{Noah}}'' is set at some time in the remote past [[AfterTheEnd (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 ''Literature/TheBible'' 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.

* ''Film/TheRiver1951'' has a very ambiguous setting. It is set in India, apparently during UsefulNotes/TheRaj -- 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).

* On ''Series/{{Riverdale}}'', an adaptation of ComicBook/ArchieComics, 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 The90s. 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 The50s and the 2010s. {{Lampshaded}} when the drive-in is torn down because the times have changed.

* ''Series/TheGoodPlace'', in season 2, after [[spoiler:''many'' years spent rebooting[[note]]to the tune of three hundred or so years, if Michael's graphs are to be believed[[/note]]]], 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.

* The [[UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem Famicom]] in Madotsuki's room suggests that ''VideoGame/YumeNikki'' could take place as far back as The80s (though one of the {{dream land}}s is a clear {{homage}} to ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'', which was released in Japan in 1989), but it could otherwise be set anywhere between then and the TurnOfTheMillennium (when the game was made). [[AmbiguousSituation Just one of the many ambiguous details this setting has to offer]].

* ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}'' is likewise pretty unclear about what year the games take place in, due to a mix of NextSundayAD[=/=]TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, the story's general lack of scope or reference to real-world issues [[spoiler:outside of [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt 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 [[spoiler:before everything going to shit]] being Class 78), which at the very least puts Hope's Peak Academy's founding within the 1940s, [[spoiler:[[UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan which probably goes out of its way]] to explain the human experimentation and sheer corruption[=/=]inequality of the school]].

** The SequelSeries ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' is set either 40 or 50 years after the end of ''[[{{WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague}} Justice League Unlimited]]''. Evidently, nobody involved with either show can agree on this.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' could easily be mistaken for perpetually taking place in the early 1990s - especially since the successor series, ''WesternAnimation/AllGrownUp'', takes place ten years later and was created after the TurnOfTheMillennium - 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.

* When ''WesternAnimation/OverTheGardenWall'' finally has a WholeEpisodeFlashback to our world, we don't see any modern technology; also, Wirt owns a tape recorder and a tape of "3 Non-Blondes," referencing [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Non_Blondes a band]] most popular in the 1990s. WordOfGod says that the aesthetic was meant to be anywhere from the 1970s to 1990s. The Unknown, for that matter, is an AnachronismStew, featuring Americana from the Puritan days to the early 1900s. {{Justified}}, however, in being an AnotherDimension ([[spoiler:and possibly the afterlife]]).
* ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'': Both Jack's home time period and the BadFuture 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.

* ''{{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 [[spoiler:Amphibia was far more advanced because they used magic to steal technology from other worlds.]] No one uses firearms, but that's justified by it [[FantasyGunControl being a kids' show]].

* ''Fanfic/MeetingOfMinds'': 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 (''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'' and ''Literature/{{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 timespans due to the Decepticons becoming public knowledge years before the first Yeerks arrived on the planet. There's also the matter of Rumble referencing ''Series/HannahMontana'', 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 ''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 WorldOfFunnyAnimals) makes it even harder. Most of the time it seems to be vaguely at the end of TheGildedAge, 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 TheWildWest. But [=1950s=] style diner uniforms appear, [[EternalSexualFreedom modern romantic mores]], and offhand references to modern books complicate it.

* ''Anime/Belle2021'': The anime does not give an exact time period beyond basic 20MinutesIntoTheFuture though it cannot be earlier than the 2020s judging by the tech needed for the U simulation.

* ''Fanfic/MeetingOfMinds'': 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 (''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'' and ''Literature/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 timespans due to the Decepticons becoming public knowledge years before the first Yeerks arrived on the planet. There's also the matter of Rumble referencing ''Series/HannahMontana'', 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.

* ''Fanfic/FlyMeToTheMoon'' is ambiguously dated between 2000 and 2018 due to the past being implied as the 1950s.

* ''Manga/CaptainTsubasa'' has this with AnachronismStew and ComicBookTime. 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 pretty much 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.

* It's hard to tell when exactly ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' takes place, other than it being in the future. Though the level of technological advancement shown seems to place the setting TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, 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 the quirks have come to existence, but even that gives a rather vague idea of time.
* You'd think ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' takes place in the past with it's 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...

* ''ComicStrip/{{Crabgrass}}'': The comic 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 ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'' fanfic ''Fanfic/TheJoyousOne.''

* Considering the technology and vehicles, it would be easy to assume that ''WesternAnimation/{{Ratatouille}}'' 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.
* It's a bit iffy as to when ''WesternAnimation/TheSuperMarioBrosMovie'' takes place. At Brooklyn, people are seen at arcade machines and playing classic Nintendo games, both of which were prominent in The80s, 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, [[https://preview.redd.it/x6ytb7ur7m4b1.jpg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=f94fd455fcbfb5274dadd441e8a406a16f74518d 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.

* ''Film/Batman1989'' loves this trope. Reporters use very old fashioned cameras and a lot of the film's elements seem to be from The40s, 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 [[WordOfGod admitted]] that, as least as far as the costumes are concerned, the second film, ''Film/BatmanReturns'', is set in an alternate 1947 with modern/futuristic technology.

* ''Film/DodgeballATrueUnderdogStory'': WordOfGod has it that the movie was supposed to take place in the early 1990s, but a number of thing (including Peter renting ''Film/MonaLisaSmile'' on DVD, as well as the existence of digital cable) would suggest [[PresentDayPast it's just in the present day]]; it pretty much looks as if it could have been set in the present day.

* The early scenes of ''Film/Halloween2007'' 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.
* The London scenes of the [[Film/{{HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone}} earlier]] [[Film/{{HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets}} Harry Potter]] [[Film/{{HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban}} 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.

* ''Film/BabylonAD'': The movie 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.

* It's hard to pinpoint exactly when the stories featuring ''Literature/TheBerenstainBears'' are taking place. The action never leaves Bear Country, which features very few technologies aside from (early-to-mid-century) cars [[note]] Grizzly Gramps drives what looks like a 1940s pickup [[/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.

** ''Dear Mr. M.'': The action takes place somewhere in the tail end of the 19th century[[note]]O. mentions reading Tennyson's "newest poem" when she was 16, while he died in 1892, and the plot takes place when she's 23[[/note]], and [[FramingDevice the letter itself is written]] somewhere later, probably after [=WW1=], given a "modern" societal upheaval is mentioned

* Franchise/{{Riordanverse}}: The books do not mention birth years for most of the characters. This is deliberate; [[https://rickriordan.com/2022/08/happy-birthday-percy/ according to]] author Creator/RickRiordan, 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 ''[[Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians 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.

* ''Literature/WarriorCats'' ''appears'' to take place in the present day. However, nobody knows how long in the "past" the background lore goes back -- WordOfGod has [[FlipFlopOfGod 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.

* The U.N.I.T. stories in classic ''Series/DoctorWho'' take place sometime in The70s, or Is it The80s? Not even The Doctor knows for sure. ''Not even UNIT itself knows for sure.''
* Similar to the above-mentioned ''Film/{{Batman|1989}}'' and the below-mentioned ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', ''Series/{{Gotham}}''[='=]s version of its title city has tons of AnachronismStew 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 AmbiguouslyJewish 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 ThePresentDay, 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]] Most sources agree that Bruce's parents were murdered when he was eight years old, it took him 16 years or so to evolve into Batman, and whenever we read or watch a story about him he has been Batman for about 10 years. So a date sometime in the late '80s would sound about right ... except Bruce is twelve when his parents die in ''this'' continuity, and some of the period-specific things shown on ''Gotham'' were pretty old-fashioned even then. [[/note]]
* In the early episodes of ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'', 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 "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E22SpaceSeed Space Seed]]" (which involved a group of HumanPopsicle superhuman exiles from 1996) it's established the show takes place in the mid-23rd century.

* ''Series/ChillingAdventuresOfSabrina'', like its sister show ''Riverdale'', has modern attitudes mixed with technology, cars, and fashions of The60s. 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.

* Literature/TheBible:
** Most stories in the [[Literature/TheBible Old Testament]] are set during the reign of unnamed kings and pharaohs, making this trope in effect. 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 for the New Testament, which is explicitly set during the reign of Emperor Tiberius of Rome (14-37 CE).

* A RunningGag in ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'' is the AnachronismStew, which is lampshaded often. "No Good Deed" shows a gravestone that states the series takes place in the [[The20thCentury 1900s]], but flowers cover up the last two digits. WordOfGod has stated that it is pretty much a mix between 1960s decor, 1970s cars, and early 1980s computers alongside modern cell phones, the Internet and morals.

* ''Anime/Belle2021'': The anime does not give an exact time period beyond basic 20 \MinutesIntoTheFuture though it cannot be earlier than the 2020s judging by the tech needed for the U simulation.

* ''Manga/DungeonMeshi'': PlayedForLaughs in a ChristmasEpisode 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 ''VideoGame/RingFitAdventure'' 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.

* It's hard to pin when ''Anime/MichikoAndHatchin'' 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.
* It's not made clear when most of the ''Anime/AngelBeats'' 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). [[spoiler:Kanade]] received [[spoiler: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 TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture. 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.
* Professor Gerald's diary in ''Anime/SonicX'' is signed "20XX". The diary is around 50 years old.

* It's hard to tell when exactly ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' takes place, other than it being in the future. Though the level of technological advancement shown seems to place the setting TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, 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 the quirks have come to existence, but even that gives a rather vague idea of time.
* ''Manga/HeavensDesignTeam'' 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.

* ''VideoGame/DeathLoop'' has a visual style most reminiscent of the 1960s. That said it, contains technology like desktop [=PCs=] called "minicoms," with a function 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.

* ''VideoGame/NewLegends'' is set allegedly in the UsefulNotes/MingDynasty, but there are firearms and helicopters being used in the game, as well as enemies resembling GasMaskMooks (gasmasks being invented in the 1930s) and the main villain using a KillSat 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.