There are many wondrous worlds to explore in the world of fiction, from the magical and fantastical, to the futuristic and technological. We can fight zombies and vampires with a time-traveling wizard. Hang out with pirates in Atlantis! Arm wrestle with cowboys on the moon. So why bother with the real world when all the fun stuff is the make believe one?
The Short Screentime for Reality trope is when works that feature fantastical worlds show as little of the real world as possible. It's primarily used as a way to get to the story quicker, and show more of the world the creators came up with. After all, most of us already live in the real world. Do you really need to know more about it?
This trope is often used in Alternate Universe and Trapped in Another World stories that involve crapsack worlds where the main character seeks an escape to a better life.
This is related to World Limited to the Plot, which uses Conservation of Detail in a similar matter. For this trope, however, there is a clear divide between the fantastical world the story is focused on and the mundane world that's not very consequential to the story as a whole, and it at least acknowledges the existence of the latter.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In most of the Digimon anime, the Real World gets far less focus than the Digital World, and consequently less of it is explored. Digimon Tamers is the exception, since much of the story revolves around the Digital World's relationship with the Real World.
- Fushigi Yuugi: Most of the plot and story beats takes place in the book Miaka finds herself sucked into, The Book of the Four Gods of Heaven and Earth. When she does manage to find her way back out, it's never for too long. The story in the beginning does focus on the real world a bit and the actions of Yui, Miaka's best friend, who tries her best to cover for Miaka and explain her absences. However, that's until Yui herself gets sucked into the book, at which point the story focuses almost exclusively on that world until the finale.
- Inuyasha: Subverted. Kagome gets sent back to her world quite a few times over the course of the story and both the manga and anime spend some time following her daily school life, from hanging out with her friends who think she suffers from a series of embarrassing illnesses, to crushing on a male student. Moreover, Kagome's grandfather, who is the only one who actually knows where Kagome goes, sometimes offers her advice and insight (not always helpful) into the problems she faces on her journey. Inuyasha himself travels to her world on a couple of occasions to bring her back after she's been gone for a while.
- The real world makes a few brief appearances in Magic Knight Rayearth, mostly to establish the characters of the main Power Trio. Once they get transported to Rayearth, the girls are stuck and the story focuses almost exclusively on this new world.
- Monster Rancher: The first episode spends only a few minutes on Earth, showcasing the tournament in which Genki wins the advance copy of Monster 200X, along with him racing home on the day it arrives and settling down in his room to start playing. He's then promptly transported to the world of Pangaea. After this, Earth is shown only briefly when he has an unsettling nightmare about being stranded back there, and when he's forcibly transported back at the end of the second season, before he finds a way back for the third.
- Overlord: We never see anything more than a glimpse of the main character's apartment in the real world of 2138. Almost all of the series takes place in the "New World" which the Great Tomb of Nazarick was transported into. However, we learn through description and supplemental materials that the real world in 2138 is a ruined, post-apocalyptic hellscape where the sky, oceans and land were all destroyed by pollution and corporations have taken control, working what's left of humanity like slaves. Even if we ever did get to see the main character's world, it would only be the few places he could go while wearing an oxygen mask.
Films — Animation
- Most of The LEGO Movie takes place in a world almost entirely made out of LEGO with any real world items being treated as otherworldly artifacts. When the real world is revealed to the audience, it only takes up about a twelfth of the movie's runtime and The Man Upstairs' basement is the only location shown.
- Inverted in Luca. The fantastical world of sea monsters is very minimal, only made up of Luca's family cove, and a few reefs that are used as sheep-fish herding fields. On the other hand, Portorosso is a vibrant, densely populated Italian village.
- Monstropolis of Monsters, Inc. is a massive, sprawling city populated with monsters, while the most we see of our world consists of several children's bedrooms, a single beach, and a snowy mountain.
- Inverted in Turning Red. The astral realm is only seen a couple times briefly near the end of the film and most of the film takes place in the physical world within Toronto.
- The worlds of Wreck-It Ralph comprise a bustling, interconnected hub of video game worlds and characters, but we don't see anything beyond Litwick's Arcade in terms of the real world.
Films — Live-Action
- The Adventures Of Shark Boy And Lava Girl: The heroes adventure all around Planet Drool, a planet literally made of things created in the film's protagonist Max's head, in order to save it from Minus and Mr. Electric. The real world is limited to Max's school and home, which are close enough for him to walk between.
- The Wizard of Oz: Real life in Kansas is the introduction and epilog and in black and white to boot. The fantasy world of Oz is introduced 19:39 into the movie, takes four times the screen time, and is where the real story happens.
Live-Action TV
- The first season of Westworld focuses much on the park and its facilities but rarely on the outside world. The park on an island and Ford limits communication and internet access from the outside world which poses a problem when the Host rebellion started by the end of the first season. The second season gave a glimpse of what the outside world is via flashbacks until the last episode where Dolores escapes from the park and stays on Arnold's house to rebuild Bernard and prepare for the arrival of the Hosts into the outside world.
Literature
- The Chronicles of Narnia: The protagonists venture into the mythical land of Narnia at the beginning of each book with only a little characterization given to the real world, mostly to show why leaving it would be so attractive (the Blitz, a rotten boarding school, etc). Inverted in The Magician's Nephew, which is largely set in London and features a witch from another world rampaging around the city; the protagonists don't reach Narnia until the final act.
- Most of Impossible Creatures (2023) takes place in the magical Archipelago. The mundane world is only seen at the very beginning and end.
- Phantastes: Anodos gets whisked away to Fairy Land after sleeping to end the first chapter, and only returns in the last chapter.
- In The Phantom Tollbooth, the main character Milo travels to the Kingdom of Wisdom. All we see of the real world in his story is his room.
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: Dorothy's adventures take place in the strange, magical land of Oz, with very little of story focused to her life on a small farm in Kansas.
- The Worm Ouroboros: The real world appears only in the short "Induction", in which the supposed protagonist Lessingham leaves for Mercury, and disappears altogether from the story as early as chapter II.
Video Games
- Persona:
- Subverted. The games not only give equal time to both the real world and the world of shadows that the protagonists explore, but what happens in the real world has important effects and consequences on the shadow world. For example, in order to create stronger personas to use in battle or make party members stronger, players have to spend time in the real world hanging out or otherwise increasing the bond they share with either that party member or with an NPC who shares an affinity with the personas you control. Moreover, players will often be asked to investigate rumors and strange occurrences in the real world in order to locate the next person or place that needs to be dealt with in the shadow world.
- Played straight in the epilogue chapter of Persona 3:FES. Unlike the main story, you are locked into the Dark Hour and cannot leave the tower you need to battle your way through. You can come back to the main floor, which serves as a rest area, to get new items and create new personas, but that's about it.
- Rakenzarn Tales: We get about ten minutes of the world our protagonist lives in before he gets dragged into Rakenzarn, limited to a single restaurant, their neighborhood and house.
- Silent Hill 4: The Room: The protagonist Henry Townsend begins the game trapped in his titular apartment room while the places he can actually explore are in the demonic "Otherworld". The only bits we see of the outside world are glimpses outside Henry's window of South Ashfield (carrying on like normal), small glimpses outside his apartment door, glimpses into the room of his neighbor Eileen in the next apartment, and short scenes set directly outside the building.
- ZanZarah: The Hidden Portal has the protagonist Amy teleport between her native London and Another Dimension of faeries and magic named "Zanzarah". While Zanzarah is a sprawling semi-open world, the only location accessible in London, and thus, in the real world, is Amy's own apartment.
Western Animation
- The Backyardigans revolves around the five-kid cast using their imagination in their shared backyard with most of the episodes taking place in the imaginary world crucial to the theme; that backyard and the rear shots of their houses are all we get to see of the real world in the beginning and end.
- Captain N: The Game Master: All we see of the real world is Kevin's bedroom before he gets sucked into his TV and ends up in Video Land in the first episode. The rest of the series takes place entirely within Video Land, with the real world barely being mentioned.
- Subverted in ChalkZone in which the show spends an equal amount of time fleshing out the Rudy's world and those who inhabit it. Much of the drama in later episodes comes from Rudy doing his best to hide the existence of Chalk Zone from others in his reality and what happens in the real world can impact the Chalk Zone. For example, in "The Quicksand Man", Rudy learns that scratching a chalk board in the real world sounds louder and worse in Chalkzone and uses this to defeat the title character.
- Dragon Land, the primary setting of Dragon Tales is an expansive and magical land of mythical creatures like... Well... Dragons. Whereas the only part of the real world we see is Max and Emmy's playroom (and a few exterior shots of their house).
- The main setting of Gabby’s Dollhouse is within the magnificent dollhouse of the eponymous heroine, with her bedroom being the only thing we see of the real world.
- Muppet Babies:
- Nearly all the action in the original Muppet Babies takes place within the babies' nursery, very rarely going into other rooms in the house. Any other locations appear only within the babies' fantasies.
- The 2018 reboot opens things up by setting most of the action in their spacious backyard, with the nursery a secondary location. A few episodes take place at other locations.
- Over the Garden Wall: The show follows two brothers, Wirt and Greg, who are lost in a mysterious, supernatural forest called the Unknown and trying to get home. In the penultimate episode it's revealed that "home" is the real world and that the boys inexplicably ended up in the Unknown while drowning in a river. So while most of the series is spent exploring the Unknown, Wirt and Greg's hometown only appears in the final two episodes. It's left ambiguous whether the Unknown is a physical location or the afterlife.
- Very little of Earth is shown in The Owl House before Luz comes to the Boiling Isles, while the Boiling Isles itself is far more fleshed out. Even "Yesterday's Lie" and "Thanks to Them", two episodes set almost entirely on Earth, never go anywhere outside of Luz's hometown.
- Rubbadubbers: The show revolves around a septette of bath toys who go on imaginary adventures, with the bathroom where they reside being all we see of the real world.
- The opening of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! establishes that the Mario Brothers ended up in Mushroom Land from being sucked down a drain in Brooklyn. In the animated segments, the only real world location seen is the very bathtub they were working on when it happened. The live action segments take place in Brooklyn, but even then, the Mario Brothers' office is the only location seen. While there are times they head somewhere else, the show either jumps to their return, or only has one head out, and keep the action with the one staying behind.
- Only two episodes showcase properly showcase Brooklyn, those being "Flatbush Koopa" and "Plummer's Academy" (the latter of which is entirely from a flashback)
- Winx Club: Played straight in the first three seasons. Bloom travels to Magix, a magical planet in another dimension, to attend Alfea College for Fairies. She and her friends also have adventures on other magical planets like Solaria, Eraklyon, and Domino. The few episodes that take place on Earth are all set in Bloom's modest hometown, Gardenia. Subverted in Season 4, which is set primarily on Earth. While the characters remain in Gardenia most of the time, they also travel to exotic locations like the Artic Circle and Amazon Rainforest to complete their mission.
