Specific reasons this can happen include:
- If the official order confuses the in-story chronology, expect fans to rearrange the episodes into chronological order. This is especially likely if episodes aired Out of Order due to Executive Meddling or some other external factor, rather than the Anachronic Order being a deliberate artistic choice.
- Inversely, if the series originally releases in Anachronic Order, and the rights holder waits long enough for the fandom to get used to this order before rearranging the entries chronologically, expect fans to insist the release order was better. One might write this off as the fandom simply hating change, but sometimes there are legitimate reasons why the chronological ordering is worse for the story. Jokes from prequel episodes that work as Call Forwards may fall completely flat when they're repurposed as regular Foreshadowing; gradual changes in the creator's writing and art style can become jarring shifts if the chronological order means jumping from early in the creator's career to late in their career and then back again; Retcons slowly introduced over the original release order may suddenly stick out like blatant Plot Holes in the chronological order.
- Some fandoms will insist that newcomers should start with a later entry, from some point after the series Grew the Beard, and wait until the newbie is sufficiently hooked before checking out the beginning of the series. The goal here is ensure potential new fans aren't scared away by a Slow-Paced Beginning or other Early-Installment Weirdness.
Compare Fan Edit, where fans go a step further and alter the content of the individual episodes. See also Fanon Discontinuity, where the fandom insists a series is better if you just pretend certain entries don't exist at all. It can overlap with Fanachronic Order (for example, see the Machete Order from the Star Wars fandom)—but any examples that just involve skipping episodes, without rearranging the remaining episodes, should be listed there instead of here.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The Dragon Ball franchise was first introduced to the US and many international territories through the anime adaptation Dragon Ball Z—skipping the first third of the original manga to focus on the story of adult Goku from Raditz' arrival in the Saiyan Saga through to the defeat of Kid Buu and the "End of Z" flash forward that closes out the Buu Saga. While the complete Dragon Ball series is much more easily available outside Japan now, many Western fans still prefer to start with the events of Dragon Ball Z and treat the Early-Installment Weirdness of the Kid Goku and Teen Goku story arcs as an optional Prequel, or at least the part they won't watch because it's fairly different from Z. note Much of this is because the franchise's light story makes it easy to jump into the start of any given arc, and the beginning of Z was when the anime took a more "intense action" approach in adapting the source material, which is what the franchise is most famous for and is much less present in the original stories.
- The anime adaptation of Horimiya runs into a unique problem. The first season's events all happen in (mostly) the same order they are shown in the manga thus following the chronological progression of the story. However, to fit the story into the 13 episodes they had to work with, the story jumped over a lot of the fluff and Slice of Life chapters to focus on Hori and Miyamura's romance. Then in 2023, a second season —Horimiya: The Missing Pieces— was released as a compilation of most of the chapters that went unadapted. Unlike the first season, The Missing Pieces was utterly uninterested in preserving chronology or release order, instead preferring to lump together storylines that contained a similar cast or followed a general theme. This led many fans to then attempt making a "true" chronological watch order for the series, and some even attempted to incorporate the OVAs into it. Even Crunchyroll has a guide on how to watch the series in chronological order available here
. These chronological orders suffer from an issue that they tend to be even more convoluted than the average chronological watch order for another series. Like many slice of life anime, Horimiya's episodes are seperated into self-contained segments, meaning that more often than not the chronological watch order demands watching only 1 or 2 segments of an episode before switching to another segment of a different episode, or even multiple with no guarantee of them being in order either, before returning to finish the episode you started with, or on occasion having to watch the second half of an episode before the first. Or both at once.
- The anime of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was famous for its unusual episode ordering. The first season was originally aired in Anachronic Order (now known as 2006 Broadcast order). The second season episodes took place during the first season, so when the second season was released, the entire show was re-aired in chronological order with the new episodes slotted in their respective places in the timeline (now known as 2009 Broadcast order). The Bandai DVD releases led to their own "Home Release Order", where the two seasons released separately, but episodes were rearranged chronologically within each seasonnote . Presumably, the original Anachronic Order was done because, chronologically, all of the action, reveals, and twists happen in the first few episodes before rapidly de-escalating almost completely into Slice of Life. After the second season episodes (and especially the movie) were released, the chronological order now had a traditional arc to it, so the anachronic order was no longer necessary to preserve dramatic tension. Nevertheless, disagreement over the proper viewing order persists to this day, with plenty of fans favoring the 2006 or 2009 broadcast order over the home release order; Funimation's Blu-ray arranges all of the episodes in the '09 broadcast order. Notably, one 4chan poster decided to figure out what would be the least number of episodes one needed to watch in order to see the original 14 in every possible order... and ended up accidentally making a major breakthrough in a math problem that stumped experts for decades in the process.
- A significant portion of the Steins;Gate fandom prefers to watch the Steins;Gate 0 adaptation between episodes 22 and 23 of the original anime, as 0 begins with an alternate version of episode 23. Another option is to watch the original and 0, but wait until the end to watch the original's OVA and movie.
- Violet Evergarden's anime adaptation consists of a 13-episode TV series continued by one OVA episode and concluded with two theatrical movies. Fans universally agree the OVA episode needs to be watched in its chronological placement in the timeline between Episodes 4 and 5 since the OVA provides a logical explanation on how Violet can go from barely having completed Auto-Memory Doll training in Episode 4 to suddenly writing full-fledged complex emotional letters in Episode 5. In addition to this, some of the more zealous fans will insist that the first movie's first 45 minutes need to be watched in between Episodes 6 and 7 (since that is when it occurs) and then the second half of that movie is to be watched after the TV series conclusion of Episode 13 (since the 2nd half takes place after a 3 year timeskip).
Film — Animated
- Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch: Even though Disney has established that this film takes place before Lilo and Stitch begin dealing with the other 625 experiments (and there are enough in-universe details supporting this; Nani's employmentnote and the deal with Mertle's absent father, for starters), a small contingent of fans like to believe that this is the “true” Grand Finale of the franchise and it takes place after Leroy & Stitch, pointing out things such as the destruction of Jumba's ship after Stitch crash-lands from his final glitch.note There's at least one fan theory out there that argues for this.
- The Nightmare Before Christmas: Heavy debate has abounded for decades over whether the film, revolving around Jack, leader of Halloween Town, usurping Christmas Town for the holiday, counts as a Halloween or Christmas movie. The film starts with "This is Halloween", one of the most iconic Halloween songs of all time and aside from Jack's visit to Christmas Town, takes place almost entirely in Halloween Town for the first two thirds with many equally iconic scenes of Halloween imagery; the third act then revolves around Jack's disastrous Christmas Eve and ends the film with Christmas being saved by Santa Claus. In response, some fans have recommended a split viewing of the film around the holidays. This entails watching the film up until the end of "Oogie Boogie's Song" and stopping there, since that marks the end of the second act and the start of entirely Christmas-focused third act. Then, the viewer would pick the film back up in December around Christmastime, either watching the remaining third act of the film, or simply finally watching the film the whole way through.
Film — Live-Action
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- A common recommendation for fans watching through "The Infinity Saga" is to watch Thor: Ragnarok directly before Avengers: Infinity War, instead of the actual release order which had Black Panther (2018) in its place. This is because The Stinger for Ragnarok directly leads into Infinity War with the Asgardian refugee ship being found by Thanos's ship and the opening scene to Infinity War picks up only an hour or so afterwards. Fans also feel the stark contrast in tone between the two films makes Infinity War's opening hit even harder when they're watched back-to-back, particularly the deaths of Loki and Heimdall.
- Some fans prefer watching the films (and some add the series) in the chronological order of the events, starting with Eternals (5000 BC), then Captain America: The First Avenger (World War II), Agent Carter (after 1945), Captain Marvel (The '90s) etc.
- Star Wars:
- George Lucas, in conjunction with describing the combined Prequel and Original Trilogies as the saga of Anakin Skywalker's downfall and redemption, has claimed on several occasions that the six films should be watched in chronological order. So one should start with The Phantom Menace and end with Return of the Jedi (and Lucas' Special-Editions with Christensen's Force ghost Anakin connects the two trilogies in any case).
- Fans who dislike the prequels of course vociferously disagree, and recommend following the original release order, insisting that A New Hope does a better job than Phantom Menace of introducing new viewers to the Galaxy Far, Far Away or alternatively solely watching the OT and ignoring the Prequels altogether. Even fans of the prequels are partial to the release order. i.e. watching the films in the years of their release since technologically speaking, the prequels clearly belong to the digital age with its more advanced special effects than the OT does, and the grandeur of the Republic feels more striking and cathartic to see, after seeing the Empire at its brutalist worst.
- However, some fans are unsatisfied with the release order as well, because it means finishing the series on the Downer Ending of Revenge of the Sith, rather than the heroes' triumph in Return of the Jedi. As a compromise between release order and chronological order, these fans settled on the order 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6 — essentially treating the entire Prequel Trilogy as an extended flashback before the finale of the Original Trilogy. The "Machete Order" goes a step further and suggests 4, 5, 2, 3, 6 — following the prequels-as-flashbacks conceit but also skipping Episode I entirely.
- Alternatively, a Tumblr critic of the 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6 order has proposed the "Masochist Order" of 1, 2, [The Clone Wars (Seasons 1–5)], 4, 5, 3, 6 so that the viewers will be left hanging on the Prequel characters' fates, and thus share in Luke's anguish of the identity reveal combined with the maximized emotional devastation of Anakin's Fall.
[…] RotS serves as the missing piece — a flashback explaining how Anakin finally succumbed to the Dark Side — after the new viewer spends ANH and most of ESB wondering how the hell Anakin was killed by some Sith Lord, as well as who exactly Darth Vader is. They'll also probably be hoping that Anakin turns out not to be dead after all, and be kept in the dark as to the fates of Padmé, the Jedi Order, and the clone troopers.
Surprise! Anakin is indeed alive, and he ruined everything. And thus the viewer will share fully in Luke's anguish. - Mike Klimo, one of the earliest writers to pro-actively defend the prequels on artistic grounds, argued that the OT and the PT had a "ring pattern" where the prequels would allude, visually and aurally to the OT in reverse order. "The Phantom Menace" begins with shots similar to "Return of the Jedi" and likewise has a cremation/funeral scene at the end (Vader in ROTJ, Qui-Gonn in TPM) which continues with the middle chapters Attack of the Clones and The Empire Strikes Back both having groups splitting up, and having a love story, while ROTS and ANH show the protagonists finally making a pivotal political choice (Luke joins the Jedi and Rebellion/Anakin joins the Sith and the Empire). So he proposes a new viewing order which is: 1, 6, 2, 5, 3, 4. In this order, the saga begins with The Phantom Menace and ends with A New Hope i.e. starting and ending with the opening film of each trilogy, effectively forming a closed circle and a ring that returns the viewer to the opening film of the entire Star Wars mythos.
Literature
- The final Ian Fleming-written James Bond book, the short story compilation Octopussy and The Living Daylights, ends with the story 007 in New York, a low-stakes Bizarro Episode that most fans consider to be an underwhelming end to Fleming's series. A much more popular suggestion is to read the book in the order of each story's original publicationnote . This results in the series instead ending with Octopussy, a solemn story rife with Reality Subtext regarding Fleming's life that most fans agree works a lot better as a Dénouement for both the Bond series and Fleming's career.
- The Chronicles of Narnia: When a fan wrote to C. S. Lewis, asking if he could read the books according to chronological order rather than the order they were published, Lewis supported the notion, though he also added that the reading matter didn't matter too much as he did not plan the series out ahead of time. His stepson David Gresham also confirmed that Lewis preferred the chronological order, so sometime after Lewis' death in 1963, the British publisher re-numbered the books in accordance with his wishes: the prequel The Magician's Nephew (originally book 6) became book 1, and the interquel The Horse and His Boy (originally book 5) became book 3. (The American publishers didn't follow suit until 1994.) Scholars and fans alike almost universally disagree with C.S. Lewis on this count. Even the official C.S. Lewis website features a blog post by Charlie W. Starr arguing the superiority of publication order over chronological order. Notably, every adaptation of the book seriesnote has always started with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first book written and published, rather than with The Magician's Nephew.
- Encouraged with Discworld, which the official site "Discworld Emporium" listing several different potential reading orders for the books. Since each book works as a standalone story, you can go in any order without too much trouble.
- In general, fans usually encourage newcomers to skip the first book, The Colour of Magic, until they're already invested, since, while it's not bad, it doesn't reach the standards set by later entries. Plus, the first three or so books have some Early-Installment Weirdness.
- Mort, Guards! Guards!, and Going Postal (Discworld) are popular suggestions for where to start, since the former two are each the first book of a sub-series (Mort starts the "Death" sub-series, while Guards! Guards! kicks off the "City Watch" sub-series), and the latter is a very good entry point and from the middle of the series, long after Sir Terry had found his style and established the world.
- The "Death" sub-series in general is often touted as a good starting point for newcomers, since it's a relatively small slice of a massive series (covering five books out of forty-one), and stars Death, one of the most famous and beloved of all the series' characters, who continues to turn up in books where he isn't a major player.
- Dracula is an Epistolary Novel, with every entry possessing a date, some of which are out of order. The most notable of these is that Lucy's three-way courtship happens at the same time over the course of several days as Dracula wiping out the crew of the Demeter. Because of this, some fans enjoy reading the story in chronological order (spurred on by Dracula Daily doing exactly this), since it leads to some interesting storytelling consequences: a heartwarming domestic romance ends up being intercut with possibly the most harrowing and horrifying part of the book, and pushing the Dramatic Irony even further as you know that while Lucy is taking part in fun dates, Dracula is drawing ever closer to Britain.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: The latter half of A Feast for Crows and the first half of A Dance with Dragons overlap chronologically, despite the books releasing seven real-life years apart. The two books are broadly split according to which POV characters are included, meaning popular characters go for long stretches without an update to their stories, which then jump back in time when we do catch up with them. Many fans have made lists sorting chapters into chronological order by jumping back and forth between both books. As this basically fuses them into a single, extra-long book, fans have named such reading orders A Feast With Dragons or "FeastDance ".
Live-Action TV
- Crusade was cancelled before the first episode was broadcast and was aired wildly Out of Order. The official DVD release arranges the episodes in broadcast order, but multiple corrected episode orderings exist, some of which have been endorsed by franchise creator J. Michael Straczynski.
- Kamen Rider Gaim is unique in that the majority of the post show V-Cinemas take place within the show, rather than after it. As such, it's not uncommon for people to watch the series in chronological order rather than release order.
- The Prisoner (1967): The proper viewing order is a never-ending discussion among the fandom, as there are just enough context clues to show the original broadcast order was borked but not enough clues to establish one true episode order that everyone's happy with. Fans looking to watch the show chronologically can agree on few points: "Arrival" is the first episode; "Once Upon a Time" and "Fall Out" are the last two; "Dance of the Dead" and "Checkmate" are both early episodes (as the Prisoner explicitly says he's newly arrived at The Village); and "The General" and "A, B and C" should be viewed together (in that order). Beyond that, it's anyone's guess. Most fan-made chronologies try to organize them into a story arc where the Prisoner gradually gives up on escaping and focuses instead on foiling his captors, and where The Village's interrogation attempts grow increasingly desperate and dangerous. On the other hand, some fans ignore chronology altogether and organize the episodes according to abstract themes like escape and betrayal.
Jonathan Morris: One of the many fascinating things about The Prisoner is that no-one knows what order the episodes should be watched in. There is, however, a consensus on two things. Firstly, they should not be watched in the order they were made, and secondly, they should not be watched in the order they were broadcast.
- Fans of Star Trek: The Original Series prefer to swap the final two episodes. The official final episode, "Turnabout Intruder", is marred by sexist themes and horrible acting, and overall makes for a disappointing finale to the show. Meanwhile, the second-to-last episode, "All Our Yesterdays", has a better plot, better acting, and a stated in-universe date set after "Turnabout Intruder", to boot.
Music
- The Beatles: Their initial plan for Abbey Road put "Her Majesty" in the middle of the Side 2 medley, but they ultimately moved it to the end of the album as a Hidden Track instead. Many Fan Edits have endeavored to restore the original order, putting "Her Majesty" in between "Mean Mr Mustard" and "Polythene Pam".
- Genesis:
- It's well known among fans that Selling England by the Pound was originally meant to have a side-long suite before it got split up (to avoid comparisons to Supper's Ready, the suite from Foxtrot), resulting in "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" becoming the the album opener and "The Cinema Show"/"Aisle of Plenty" the closer. Consequently, a number of fans choose to restore the song suite, sequencing the tracks so "Firth of Fifth" is now the opener and placing "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" between "After the Ordeal" and "The Cinema Show".
- Duke began as the EP-length "Duke Suite", but when Genesis expanded it to full album length, they split the six "Duke Suite" tracks across both sides of the LP (again, to avoid comparison to Supper's Ready). "Behind the Lines", "Duchess", and "Guide Vocal" all follow one after the other on Side 1, while "Turn It On Again" opens Side 2, and "Duke's Travels" and "Duke's End" close out Side 2 and the album. Some fans prefer to re-sequence the tracks so that the "Duke Suite" covers one side of the album and the other songs all on the other side.
- Radiohead: "01 and 10" (aka the Binary Theory) is an alternate track order originally proposed by Kevin Flick on the music blog Puddlegum. The theory is that OK Computer and In Rainbows are actually two halves of a single album released ten years apart—so if you make a single playlist with alternating tracks from each album, they flow together and reveal musical cross-references.
- Taylor Swift:
- Lover is infamous for its many many songs that a lot of fans considered album fillers, as well as the huge amount of Mood Whiplash in the original song orders, leading to many fans to create their own album playlist that rearrange the songs in a more coherent order. These playlists also tend to exclude the fan unfavorite "Me!" and "You Need to Calm Down" while include the fan favorite bonus track "All of the Girls You Loved Before".
- folklore and evermore have songs with stories that were meant to be continuation of each other scattered throughout the albums (the former has "cardigan", "august" and "betty" while the latter has "'tis the damn season" and "dorothea"), prompting fans to sometimes rearrange them together on their own playlist.
- All of the sequels to "Wormsong" tend to only account for the events from the first song, while ignoring anything afterwards, making them slightly confusing when listened to in their release order. As such, fans have come up with an unofficial chronological order that avoids contradictions.
- "Wormsong '98" was written for Worms Armageddon, which Team17 planned to be the last in the Worms series. This was reflected in the song by its sense of finality and protagonist Boggy B's death. But the series continued, and so did Wormsongs, which ignored the events of '98, and Boggy B continued appearing in the songs and games, none the worse. Fans interpret '98 as the last chronologically, for obvious reasons.
- Wormsong 2011, the fourth song, is usually seen as the second in the timeline. This is mostly due to lyrics mentioning that it takes place after three years of training Boggy B had before setting off to the battle, the exact same time the first song took place in, while Wormsong 2003, the third song, states that he's been fighting for years. It's unknown how literally the line was meant to be taken, as the entire first verse of Wormsong 2011 is a throwback to the first verse of the original.
- John Zorn numbered all his compositions for the Masada project as he composed them. But none of them were published in that order—especially in Part II and Part III, where the musical collaborators picked and chose which of Zorn's song's they'd record with zero regard for the original ordering. Since Zorn has publicly shared the numbers for every composition, fans have taken it upon themselves to listen to them all in the order they were composed, believing this will reveal musical secrets. One of those fans, Kees van de Wiel of the Dutch streaming radio station Concertzender, even dedicated five episodes of his show "The Night: Contemporary Music" to playing all of Masada, Book II in composition order. (Check them out here if you dare: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.)
Video Games
- 3-D Dinosaur Adventure: The theater puts its various movie clips in a rather haphazard order. There's no thought given to the real life chronological order of events (the clip showing The Day the Dinosaurs Died is in the upper right, and the last clip listed features the Permian Dimetrodon), and the scenes from Dinosaur! (1985) are out of order (which is most noticeable with the scenes centered around the Edmontosaurus nest getting raided by a Struthiomimus that is itself eaten by a pair of Deinonychus). People who have played the game who are aware of how these scenes should be ordered like to watch it in that order, with the extinction scene saved for second-to-last and "Tyrannosaurus Comes to Life" (which depicts a Fossil Revival of a T. rex and is thus a sort of Distant Epilogue) saved for very last.
- Devil May Cry: The pre-release marketing and recap video of Devil May Cry 5 officially updated the mainline continuity's Anachronic Order into DMC3 -> DMC1 -> TAS -> DMC2 -> DMC4 -> DMC5. However, the fandom has alternative recommendations on how the series should be experienced:
- For newcomers who are interested in the story, the veterans recommend following the updated chronological order but skip DMC2 because of its Loose Canon status that led to Fanon Discontinuity. This is also very common in later Let's Play livestreams or VTuber playthroughs, especially because the release of DMC5 on 2019 brought a lot of newcomers to the series who were either confused at some plot points or missed out on the Continuity Nods. However, this didn't stop those who intentionally played DMC2 to experience all the games anyway, or those who just wanted to see if it's really as bad as the others say.
- For those who are more interested in the gameplay than the story, the recommended order varies depending on the context and argument. Some fans say it's fine to start with the latest entry at that time (DMC5) to experience the "refined" version first, allowing the player to retroactively notice the Early-Installment Weirdness and appreciate how the gameplay gradually evolved. Others suggest playing the games in their release order and typical numbering to experience a more natural appreciation instead of a retroactive one.
- Some Fire Emblem fans recommend playing Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War and Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 in chronological order. Given that the latter is an Interquel, this means playing the first seven chapters of Genealogy of the Holy War, then playing the entirety of Thracia 776, then going back and finishing Genealogy.
- Kingdom Hearts: While the view is divisive amongst the fanbase, some fans believe one should play Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days before playing Kingdom Hearts II, though the usual order places 358/2 Days after KHII.
- The Legend of Zelda: While the canonical order for The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games (as implied by their product ID and confirmed in Hyrule Historia) is Oracle of Seasons then Oracle of Ages, many fans recommend playing in the opposite order, since it gives a proper (if still bittersweet) closure to Queen Ambi's love story.
- While Sonic Battle released several years before Shadow the Hedgehog, many fans believe it takes place afterwards, as Shadow's characterization and arc in Battle make more sense after completing his Quest for Identity in his own game, and it adds more parallels between himself and Emerl.
- Ultimate Doom: Thy Flesh Consumed is known for having a very inconsistent difficulty curve (the first two maps are some of the hardest in the set), so fans have actually released a modified WAD, with the order of the levels rearranged for a more even playing experience.
Visual Novels
- Ace Attorney:
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: The big question of when "Rise from the Ashes" should be played. In-game, the case is placed at the end of Ace Attorney, and chronologically fills the gap between the first game and Justice For All. In terms of development order however, the case was introduced in the 2005 Nintendo DS re-release, after the 2001-2004 original trilogy had already concluded on the Game Boy Advance. There are therefore some fans who feel Rise from the Ashes works better as a Dénouement for the trilogy rather than the finale of the first game, pointing to the case's length and complexity, as well as it introducing many gameplay and story threads that would be picked up by Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.
- Some people also recommend playing the Investigations duology between Trials and Tribulations and Apollo Justice despite said duology being released after the latter game partly because that's where it takes place in the timeline, and also because it takes away some of the awkwardness of playing it while knowing that Phoenix will be disbarred and the Dark Age of Law will begin not too long after the hopeful ending of the second game, and seeing Ema Skye being cheerful as opposed to the cynical person she's become after the time skip due to failing her forensics exam. It helps that the references to Apollo Justice aren't too easy to notice if you're playing Investigations first.
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies: The Downloadable Content episode "Turnabout Reclaimed" released weeks after the base game, but fans insist it should be played in between episodes 2 and 3. This is partly because that's where the DLC fits into the timeline and that Pearl's re-introduction to the game is given more fanfare in this case than her appearance during Case 5, but most significantly avoids the awkwardness of the player already knowing Detective Fulbright is an imposter and the Big Bad of the game, while Phoenix and co. are left clueless. It also makes sense tonally, as it's a very fluffy and lighthearted Breather Episode that doesn't really advance the story or characters, meaning that it can go between Case 2 (the first non-tutorial case) and Case 3 (the first case that seriously gets into the game's darker themes and backstory).
Web Animation
- The Homestar Runner series is mostly episodic and full of enough Surreal Humor that individual cartoons can be enjoyed in any order. However, the series is also dense with self-references and running gags that span all the different sub-series, and the only way to see the evolution of the jokes is to watch everything from the whole website in publication order. That's easier said than done, as the official website just groups the cartoons by format ("Big Toons", Shorts, Holiday Toons, and separate indexes for Strong Bad Email and Teen Girl Squad), and the official YouTube channel has a seemingly random mix of new cartoons and old cartoons reuploaded. So the fandom took it upon themselves to compile a list of every bit of Homestar Runner media in release order.
Western Animation
- Batman: The Animated Series aired without any real concern for continuity, so fans have compiled multiple watching guides attempting to put them in some kind of chronological order. For instance, many suggest watching "P.O.V." (originally 1x07) as the first episode, as it serves as an outside introduction to Batman and to how he operates, while the actual episode 1x01, "On Leather Wings", is shifted to later in the chronology. Similarly, episode 1x55 "The Mechanic" is often suggested as the season finale, because it sees the original Batmobile wrecked, paving the way for its redesign in The Adventures of Batman & Robin.
- Jackie Chan Adventures: Season 2's Demon Portal arc is an interesting example of networks doing this. In the original Kids WB run, Shendu's attempts to free his demonic brothers and sisters spanned the entire season; since there were only seven portals to unlock, this made for a lot of filler, although it was justified given that the villains genuinely didn't know where to look and had to take the time to find the gateways. When other networks began rerunning the show in order, they put all of the Demon Portal episodes together at the beginning of Season 2 repeats instead.
- Miraculous Ladybug is known for releasing episodes Out of Order, and while later seasons generally have the production order of episodes follow the chronological order, this wasn't the case in the first two seasons. Several fans have come up with their own viewing orders based on what they think makes the most sense chronologically, or the best way to establish certain characters and themes of the show.
- The two-part Origins Episode was released around the end of the first season, but its production was around the middle. Some people like to watch those episodes first, while others prefer to watch them either at the end of the season, or just before "Volpina". Fan works that cover canon episodes of the show will usually start with "Origins".
- Some of the Miraculous World specials are also released out of chronological order, so some viewers will insert them into their episode viewing order where they think they will make sense. The Shanghai special, for instance, takes place either between seasons 2 and 3 or during season 3 (although there is a visual continuity error), and the Alternate Universe Paris special was released after the end of season 5, but takes place right after the third episode "Destruction".
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- Several fans believe Season 1 takes place in Anachronic Order, since it aired a winter episode and then a fall episode two episodes later, and the Season 4 premier establishes that only 1 year passed from the start of Season 1 to that point.
- By production order (and on the DVDs), "Just for Sidekicks" is episode 8 of season 3, and "Games Ponies Play" is episode 12 of the same season. However, in the original broadcast order, "Just for Sidekicks" was pushed back to episode 11, immediately preceding "Games Ponies Play". Plenty of fans prefer the broadcast order, since both those episodes take place at the same time and reference each other, so they flow better when watched back-to-back.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars' episodes were deliberately aired out of chronological order to replicate the feeling of being dropped into an ongoing serial (just like the movies starting with "episode 4") and mostly retained that order on home video releases. Many fans suggest rearranging the episodes to group them by story arcs, or outright watching the entire thing in chronological order.
- Steven Universe: "Flood Order," directly inspired by the Star Wars Machete order, rearranges and omits several episodes in the first season in an effort to offset the series' Slow-Paced Beginning and minimize its more grating elements (particularly Steven's less mature personality and moments of plot-mandated idiocy). The name stems from its goal — quickly getting to "Mirror Gem" and "Ocean Gem," a two-part Wham Episode that Word of God has described as the point where the series really begins, while still hitting on everything necessary for a new viewer to understand the plot and characters.
- Some Teen Titans (2003) fans often put "Calling All Titans" and "Titans Together" being after "Things Change" than before it, considering the latter is divisive among the show's fanbase along with the Fan-Disliked Explanation and that the former two episodes wraps up the final season's storyline.
References and Parodies
- The Cracked article "The Best Order To Watch The Star Wars Movies" initially starts off talking about the Machete order for Star Wars, but the article's author, Luis Prada, believed he can do better than that. The main content of the article thus revolves around four additional watch orders he ended up creating, all of which he considers failures:
- Meeting In The Middle, where you alternate watching the prequels in order and the original three movies in reverse order. (Funnily, this is basically Mike Klimo's "Ring Order.") Prada didn't finish watching the movies this way — he believes it's too stupid and uneven.
- Reverse Chronological Order, which just sours Prada's experience with each successive film.
- Attack Of The Clones Six Times, which did not give Prada better appreciation for the film in question — in fact, it just makes it worse for him.
- Making It Up As I Go (Or, The "Whiny Little Ani Gets What's Coming To Him" Order). In trying to create a viewing order just through improvision, Prada ends up with an order that not only paints Darth Vader in an undignified light, but serves as the Machete order's Spiritual Antithesis. Starts with A New Hope, switches to the entirety of The Phantom Menace upon Vader's first appearance, switches to the rest of A New Hope afterwards, and continues with the remaining original movies until Vader's death in Return of the Jedi.
- Man Carrying Thing:
- "FORBIDDEN Narnia Reading Orders" parodies the discussion over the proper reading order for the Chronicles of Narnia series. He briefly touches on the Publication Order vs. the In-Universe Chronological Order, then launches into nonsensical reading orders:
- The Magician's Nephew Order, where you re-read The Magician's Nephew after every book in the series.
- The Prince Caspian Order, where you just read Prince Caspian seven times in a row.
- And the God Order (not recommended for the faint of heart): read the entire series in reverse publication order, then Out of the Silent Planet, The Screwtape Letters, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Silmarillion, then The Magician's Nephew again, twice, This Side of Paradise, Prince Caspian again, and finally The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe again.
- "FORBIDDEN Cosmere Reading Order (don't try at home)" takes a similar approach with The Cosmere as the subject:
- The Warbreaker Order, where you re-read Warbreaker after every section in the series, including Warbreaker itself and Arcanum Unbounded.
- The Forbidden Order: read Elantris twice, then Warbreaker three times, Mistborn: The Original Trilogy, Wax and Wayne, Mistborn: The Original Trilogy again, The Great Gatsby, The Return of the King, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Warbreaker twice more, then watch every Brandon Sanderson lecture at twice the speed, then read The Alloy of Law while listening to the Oathbringer audiobook.
- "FORBIDDEN Narnia Reading Orders"
- The Mother's Basement video "You Should Skip Jojo Parts (If You Want To)" talks about the fact that you could skip around watching the different parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure due to being (mostly) self-contained instead of just watching it in order of release. To prove his point, while mentioning the Machete order for Star Wars, he comes up with his own order for the first six parts dubbed the "Basement Order", which goes Diamond is Unbreakable, Battle Tendency, Golden Wind, the first half of Stardust Crusaders, Phantom Blood, the second half of Stardust Crusaders, and then finally Stone Ocean.
- The Big Bang Theory: In "The Proton Transmogrification," Raj recommends watching the Star Wars films in the Machete order. Howard is all for it, but Sheldon rejects it because he thinks The Phantom Menace contains important backstory.
- The first episode of Unraveled focused on the Zelda timeline as of Breath of the Wild, but since the topic itself is well-trodden, Brian David Gilbert makes things interesting by adding all the non-canon games, crossovers, and tie-in media to it. The end result: Link goes into real estate via Monopoly to consolidate the multiple timelines back into a single space.
Brian: I'm gonna make this timeline much worse, but I'm gonna also explain the convergence.
- Parodied by "Finding the WORST Order to Watch Star Wars," which tries to come up with the most unsatisfying and incoherent viewing order for the various Star Wars movies and shows. It jumps around the timeline randomly, beginning with The Book of Boba Fett and ending with A New Hope.
- LittleKuriboh ran into the dilemma of trying to watch Kamen Rider Gaim for the first time without initially knowing that the chronological order mentioned above was different from the release order, which led to him watching Kamen Rider Gaim Gaiden: Kamen Rider Duke very early on before seeing Duke transform in the show proper. On Twitter, he floated the idea of continuing to watch Gaim in chronological order as his first exposure to it since it would be a unique experience that with it that few had before, highlighting how proponents of the chronological order take for granted the fact that post-series releases don’t mind dropping a Late-Arrival Spoiler for the show.
- SF Debris reviewed the first few episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks out of order, starting with episode 3 ("Temporal Edict") and covering the first two episodes ("Second Contact" and "Envoys") as the fifth and seventh episodes, respectively. This is because, in his view, those two represent the worst episodes of the series by a landslide (he feels that Lower Decks grew the beard quickly, but its starting position was dreadful), and starting with a one-two punch like that would probably put someone off the series altogether.