Uma Musume - Earth but there are no actual horses exists. There are rare women with horse traits. The world building solely exists for the legacy of the actual real horses that existed in our world. My favorite examples is that the Statue of Liberty is a horse lady, their land line phones are giant so they can reach their ears and there is a lane on the highway for them to run, but the speed limit is higher than it is for actual cars. Also one of the horse girls, Fine Motion, is the Princess of Ireland which implies that Ireland was never colonized.
Steven Universe - Earth was basically invaded by aliens 1000s of years ago and they kiiiiiiiinda terraformed it a little but still let humans evolve naturally so there are huge chunks of geography missing. The show takes place in a fictional state called Delmarva which is suppose to be Maryland and (i think) New Jersey combined into one. There is also a huge chunk taken out of a IRL diamond deposit in Russia for spoiler reasons. Humans are kinda over the entre alien thing so its not a big deal when they see them.
Edit: Thanks everyone who added to this! I know now that Delmarva is actually a real place and is also a combination of Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware. I guess I kinda head cannoned it was NJ cuz Greg just reminds me soooooo much of some from Jersey shore where i spent many of my summers lol also empire city
Thought about adding dragon ball since they constantly refer to the planet as "earth" but there are no references of actually things that exist on IRL earth and also dinosaurs exist there even tho they seem to forget about that sometimes. Sooooo to fit this trope there should be mentions on references to real places and/or people.
The world of Warhammer Fantasy, one of the most Earth-like maps I’ve seen in high fantasy. Certain regions such as Nippon are especially on the nose with the similarities
Keep in mind they split fantasy into 2 awhile back. This map covers the old world setting. Age of sigmar takes place after the old world blew up and the setting is completely different.
“Madagascar has been plagued by grotesque humanoid bioweapons for generations and they’re being released on the world by a Madagascan nationalist who wants global genocide” sounds like the plot of an episode of South Park from any other perspective
I just found it hilarious, the entire plot of Attack on Titan which appears to be in middle age European setting actually takes place in Madagascar of all places
Ours is oriented with magnetic north at the top. Why is north our top don’t know but that’s why it’s the basis of our maps. Also the maps are very western centric so they want them to be at the top
Im talking out of my ass here, with no scientific background or evidence but my guess is that it's because in Roman times, you could go north, but South was an inhospitable desert
Chainsaw-Man's world is an Earth ravaged by various creatures representing people's fear, and later it's also reveal that titular Chainsaw-Man can and have erased various things from existence, including WWII and nuclear weapons.
I was more making a cheeky reply towards the Santa joke the other guy made, but...Spoiler for anime only watchers: we dunno if they're actually dead or just completed mindbroken, but alive. At least, I don't remember hearing they were offed
As well, as part of WWII never happening, the Nazis never existed, as Pochita ate Nazi Devil.
And, according to Makima, Pochita also ate the other “afterlife” Devils, with the exception of Death. (Edit: Forgot that Death was recently eaten, so she’s also no longer excluded.)
It's a coming of age story of a traumatized brain damaged teenage boy that keeps getting groomed by people and beings of higher power. While everything should turn him into a monster, his attempts at still trying to do what he understands is good or acts of kindness in the worst situations allows him to persavere.
Abused kid saved a magical dog that became his best friend. The dog died, but lives on in the boy's hearth. The boy, now teenager, is a child soldier that's being groomed by greasy old guy, hot office lady and a soviet spy.He eventually discovers familial love and saves the world from eldritch monster.
A traumatized, hypersexual young man, and the people who regularly exploit and take advantage of his various complexes for their own benefit, despite him trying his best to be good.
Easy to destroy without causing any other major changes- since it’s so deserted compared to other regions plus it doesn’t have much influence historically. It’s similar logic for the Great Plains of the US in US-centric alt histories
Ironically, this reminds me that IRL Spanish explorers intially thought the Californias (which include California and both Bajas) were a whole ass separated island, until it was discovered it was actually a peninsula connected to landmass.
But here, the Californias are, indeed, a whole ass separated island.
I've never seen this map before, that's really cool, I always just thought Lyra's world was basically just Earth but with minor changes to location names, history and obviously the dæmons, didn't know there were all these weird geographical changes as well
just gonna type in strangereal and strange real so this shows up when searching the comments
in terms of real world stuff you have the obvious reuse of some landmasses for the world map, but there are also earth elements on a smaller scale.
for example, farbanti is a mashup of D.C., L.A., and Toronto. Selapatura is just Singapore but with a space elevator. Belka as a whole is basically Germany and Yuktobania is basically the USSR.
I don't know if it counts, but the World on Fire in Project Wingman is basically Earth 400 years after Yellowstone exploded, creating a Mediterranean Sea in the United States.
A friend of mine (while REALLY high) created a headcanon that the Pokemon world was "planet Bob" from the end of Titan AE, where the terraforming and reseeding the world with Earth animals went a little sideways. It's why there's so many weird combos of critters--and the ones that are clearly mixed with humans.
So in Pokémon canon humans and Pokémon have a common ancestor, and it hasn't been that long in-universe that the two are considered different from each other (as in close enough that written records exist)
Personally I view the original Gen 1 and 2 games taking place basically in a version of the real world — after all, Kanto is a real place in Japan. Especially as the series was originally meant to end with Gen 2.
I then view Gen 3 to 5 being in its own, less-realistic Earth, with the Gen 1 and 2 remakes filling in the gaps from the original games. (Some of real world locations are still referenced in and past Gen 3 but this is more of a teething problem.
Then Gen 6 onwards is the alternate timeline version of Gen 3-5, given the lore about Mega Evolution.
Delmarva is literally Delaware Maryland and Virginia, DELaware, MARyland, VirginiA. Its a real world term for the peninsula shared by the three states, that is its own state in SU.
The show really undersells how fundamentally different the planet is with the gem's involvement. The colonization of America happened centuries later, which caused fundamental differences to the layout of the US, with Delmarva, Keystone, and Empire being the only named states. Steven even suggests the nation under the US is called "Aqua-Mexico" (unless he was being naive and confusing the restaurant with the country)
There was also no Christianity, and thus none of the standard holidays we celebrate in the real US exist in SU's America. New Year's is the one exception. Like other differences, this is extremely undersold.
The show occasionally has episodes that seem obviously Halloween, Christmas, or Thanksgiving themed, but in which nobody mentions the names of these holidays at all, or further lampshades the lack with lines of dialogue like the one in which someone struggles to come up with an analogy and settles for "like some...candy-giving holiday," but otherwise it's very easy to miss that most of the big US holidays don't exist at all in SU.
I’m pretty sure it was just the name of the restaurant.
But anyways, I do wonder how much of the geography and history differences are gem made and how many are just alt geography and alt history happening in this version of earth.
Whilst other media have had other taken place on entirely unique planets, the games take place on a very earth-like planet, most notably in unleashed with many locations taking heavy inspiration from their real world counterparts
Gacha games have to sell themselves on characterization more then other games since it is asking you to invest in the personalities of characters you barely know.
Same reason why fighting game characters have such strong characterization.
This is only half true for gachas, since characters in a lot of Gacha games, their characterizations are surface level. They are only written in a way that is deep enough to care, but not deep enough for for you to drop them for the next new thing they want you to pull for. This is apparent when characters don't match their personalities with their gameplay, presentation and their design. A lot of your average gachas fall prey to this, while gachas such as Umamusume and Limbus, and to an extent Arknights. Because their worlds exist more than their gachas.
My favorite tidbit about this is that, in an effort of marketing the game the company behind Umamusume unintentionally became one of the pioneers of Vtubing with their mascot Goldship being one of the firsts of the scene.
I wouldn’t say one of the first but definitely early, Gold Ship debuted at the same time as Hololive Gen 1 in 2018.
There have been vtubers before that like Hololives own Tokino Sora in 2017 and Kizuna Ai who debuted in 2016. There was even a tool review channel called “Den of Tools” who used an on screen 3d avatar before Kizuna Ai debuted, unintentionally being one of the first vtubers.
There’s so much attention to detail. Things like all Umas having an ear ornament that reveals the gender of the real horse. One on the right ear means the horse was male, while the left ear means the horse was female. Then there is at least one with both ears decorated because they were intersex.
Even the smaller ornamentation tells a story. One character (TM Opera O) wears seven rings for the 7 races they won in their year of domination. Another (Agnes Tachyon) has 4 zippers unzipped because of their 4 race winning streak. The colors they use are often based on the colors their jockeys wore too.
There’s mismatched shoes because the horse had uneven patterns on their legs, the swimming training has them use a paddle board if the horse couldn’t swim, their personality being based on the horse/jockey (like one Uma being cosmically aware of the 4th wall because they started down the camera in their stable when they were born), etc.
The double ear decor one is also the Irish royalty Uma, Fine Motion! IRL Fine Motion is a mare but she has a chromosomal irregularity that renders her infertile.
Gotta also note that AFAIK for the gender ear thing it’s not just which ear is decorated but which ear is MORE decorated; Kitasan Black for example decorates both ears but her right ear’s got more decor than her left, as IRL Kitasan is a stallion. (Fine Motion’s ears are equally decorated.)
Love how many of the Umas’ friends and such reflect IRL rivals or relatives, too. Here’s some of my favorites:
Sakura Chiyono O’s design breaks the “Sakura” (and Haru Urara, who still counts because of her name translation) theme of having sakura petal eyes because her blue eyes reflect Maruzensky’s, who’s IRL Chiyono O’s dad.
All of Stay Gold’s kids (Gold Ship, Fenomeno, Nakayama Festa, Orfevre, Dream Journey) respect Uma Stay Gold, and Orfevre and Dream Journey are IIRC one of the few confirmed in game sibling pairs since both were born from the same stallion-mare pairing of Stay Gold and Oriental Art. (Others who share only 1 parent usually aren’t siblings like that.)
Matikanetannhauser’s career features a lot of interactions from Director Akikawa, whom many speculate to be a representation of Northern Taste (based on her hair color w/ the white stripes and the black and white cat she’s always got on her hat, which IRL Northern Taste was photographed with), Mambo’s IRL dad.
Red Desire features heavily in the new Beyond Dreams scenario in JP, and apparently she has different flustered/fangirl/blushing animations if you’re running Vodka. The IRL Red Desire was very nervous when traveling and Vodka was her travel partner, and when Vodka retired the staff had to tape a picture of Vodka in the stall across from Red Desire’s to calm her. And it WORKED.
Manhattan Cafe is always seen talking to/chasing an imaginary friend shrouded in shadow, whom others who’ve seen them say looks VERY similar to Cafe. As such, many theorize this friend is Sunday Silence, an American racehorse, Cafe’s dad and a leading sire in Japan for 13 years. (MANY Umas in-game are related to him IRL.) IRL Manhattan Cafe and Sunday Silence apparently looked so similar that Cafe was casted to play Sunday Silence in a drama!
And of course, well… there’s Aston Machan. (Please treat her well.)
Of course, Disco has the additional tangle of the whole "reality breaks down around the landmasses" and that most of the 'uncharted' mass does not have full adherence to the observed fundamental laws of the universe.
It’s mentioned in-game that there may or may not be literal chunks missing from the planet. Considering the magical realism elements of the world of DE, I wouldn’t worry too much about the practical implications of this
my little pony has a bunch of horse pun cities that are just copies of IRL us cities , the culture in Equestria being somewhat similar to that of the US (celebrating the founding via a frankenstein of thanksgiving and christmas), and stuff like hot dogs with the sausages replaced with carrots or burgers with hay instead of beef existing.
Fluttershy specifically asks Rarity for “French haute couture” in Art of the Dress which implies the existence of France - which is interesting given that everything else they’ve named has been pony-adjacent like Manehattan and Canterlot.
While Warframe largely takes place in the distant future, their recent updates have time-travelled back to the distant year of 1999, and while the planet IS Earth, there are a number of clear differences:
A number of countries are named differently than their real-world counterparts, including Britannia (the UK, not too different but the captial is called Ludston instead of London), Libertatia (the USA), Canata (Canada) Gaule (France) and Atzlán (Mexico).
Instead of the Abrahamic religions, the dominant religion is a dualistic worship of Sol and Lua, a solar god and lunar goddess respectively. Atzlán, meanwhile, continues to venerate Mesoamerican gods like Tlaloc and Xipe Totec, implying that the Spanish colonization of Latin America went differently.
Many pop culture figures and franchises are different, such as JINYMON (Pokémon), Fables & Frontiers (Dungeons & Dragons), Circle of Comrades (Band of Brothers) and Young Loxley (a woman Robin Hood). Even Digital Extremes, Warframe's makers, show up as a game company struggling after the release of their game War Sector (based on their real-life game Dark Sector which, while not being a smash-hit game, laid the groundwork for what would later become Warframe, and which the 1999 update is in homage to). The only thing that ISN'T changed is Half-Life, with a Gordon Freeman cardboard standee appearing in the Höllvania Central Mall.
In the book, It Is actually a different Planet, Soror, which happened to have(french speaking) humans and apes. Seriously, they are different planets, Just in the end the protagonist goes back to Earth and finds out It happened the same thing as with Soror.
When Pokemon started it took place in the real world. Pokemon were monsters that lived alongside normal animals (some of which appeared in the anime). The Space Shuttle in Pewter's museum was specifically the Colombia. Pokedex entries referenced real world locations like Guyana and India.
In Gen 3 (the Game Boy Advance games) the series started to retcon itself into a parallel universe where Pokemon were the only animals. References to real life things and places were replaced with either generic descriptions or in-universe references.
New in-game regions are always based on real world locations but with a new name. Unova is New York, Kalos is France, Alola is Hawaii, etc.
Strike Witches map. Nice and Japan centered, oh, Austria-Hungary has Venice and Styria, good for them. China is balkanized, par for the course for alt-histor- holy hell, what happened to North America?!
It's a bit odd that the horse women are supposed to be rare, but yet they're apparently prevalent enough to change the entire landline phone industry, lol
She’s at a horse girl school, of course they’ll have dedicated horse girl equipment there.
We see in a flashback Special Week at home and she’s talking to her mum on the phone, it’s just a normal human phone because her adoptive mother presumably can’t afford a horse girl one. Special Week has to speak into it and then hold it up high so she can hear the response.
There are lots of things in the world specifically designed for horse girls like seats with holes in the back so they can sit down without squashing their tails and running lanes specially for Umamusume (like cycle lanes)
But the entire story of Umamusume is specifically set in and around a horse girl academy so it makes sense that the local area would have a lot of horse girl infrastructure.
I would imagine the further away you get from any Uma academies the less Umas and Uma infrastructure you’ll see.
They are no so rare though, the important ones carry the names of famous race horses, but as is, they are a proper part of humanity, even if not as prevalent as common humans, some don't race and just take more normal roles on society, not to mention how a normal human couple can procreate a Uma at any given time if the chances are correct
Dragonball had always been set on "Earth", but that earth seemingly has a pretty different layout of the continents, seemingly has different nations, and inexplicably also still has dinosaurs living alongside humans, and a small portion of the population are dog people.
None of these things are ever explained, or even really plot relevant.
Basically just Earth, but with the geography and landmasses completely changed. It has familiar nations, cultures, and organizations, but all given different names and spins from their irl counterparts.
There's also the TTRPG 7th Sea, which is essentially 1600s Earth as a Low Fantasy setting. It has similar cultures and slightly different geography. Here's their equivalent of Europe, called Theah:
Hunter X Hunter human world having irl continents placed completely different from their irl counterparts and countries and cities inspired by irl ones (Yorknew its basically New York, West and East Gorteau being North and South Korea, etc.) and the world being in reality part of a giant lake inside an even bigger planet where lots of creatures who are deadly to humankind as a whole inhabit
It's also implied that the "real world" in E33 has some fictional elements including: months having more than 31 days since Verso died on 33rd December 1905 , and a conflict between painters and writers who also probably have some level of power same as painters.
since the game got hugely popular globally, her lore has been updated/retconned to be a daughter of a high ranking official instead of being a princess, 'cause i guess now that the devs got a lot of eyes on the game, they probably don't want to step on any potential land mines.
part of the community got sad, the other part played into it, how Fine Motion was a fraud, lol.
One of the sad ones here lol. I always imagined it as an intentional thing like "Oh yeah Ireland just never got rid of their monarchy in our world teehee." but now with this retcon it sounds more like someone confused Ireland and England with regards to who has a monarchy lmao.
Cars. They have real countries, religions, and historical events. They have cars WW2 and a car pope and car Japan. The road tracks from cars 2 use the layouts of real roads (in theory you could drive the Japan course if you're willing to trespass on imperial palace grounds). They reference real car brands
9/11 is most definitely canon to the cars universe. I'll let you think about the logistics of that
Earth in cyberpunk is mostly like ours except until ww2, after ww2 arasaka is founded and the world in general starts advamcing way quicker than in real life, to the point where 2020 is already a futuristic distopia
There are also a bunch of changes in history like the fact that the Soviet Union never fell or the corporate war that happened in america
The Soviet Union thing is extra interesting since that wasn't supposed to be an alternate history thing, Cyberpunk 2020 was created before the fall of the Soviet union and the creator just thought that it would last until 2020
Weyard in Golden Sun is basically Earth but flat and with a really large Australia.
Aside from the physical similarities, pretty much the entire Greco-Roman Pantheon is present the cultures have clear real-world counterparts, and the location names are usually references if not dead ringers for real world locations and cultures ("Indra" just being India and Izumo's capital being renamed "Yamata City" in Dark Dawn as a reference to the ancient Yamato State of Japan are some of the more obvious ones). Then there's Babi Lighthouse's icon on the world map just being a pixelated Tower of Babel.
Severance takes place in an alternate Earth, it's never directly addressed but the technology and aesthetics are very anachronistic, for example the characters use 90s cars, modern cell phones, and the architecture is reminiscent of the 50s. Most of the show also takes place in a fictional US state only known by the acronym "PE", which doesn't match any real state.
Up until Warframe 1999, you could make the case that it's our Earth, with our History, some thousands of years in the future. The Orokin basically trashed all of human history for their own reasons.
Hollvania Central Mall at the turn of the Millenia. From the KIM system, we learn that there's a lot of things different about their world.
Canata, the United States of Libertatia [with Amir being from some place called the Furnace Flats] and Hollvania itself being a walled city that was founded during the reign of the Radiant Khan, who we know is female and not much else.
They have a version of Half Life, and a mission voice line from Amir is a reference to the famous "DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS" line from Ace Ventura.
About Steven Universe: In real life the Delmarva Peninsula is the landmass containing the entire state of Delaware, the eastern shore of Maryland, and a tiny piece of Virginia at the bottom.
The SU version of Delmarva probably includes part of Maryland's western shore since a character mentions Charm City, a real-world nickname for Baltimore City. Ocean Town is based on Maryland's Ocean City (not New Jersey's). And the show's main location of Beach City is a combination of Delaware's Rehoboth Beach, Bethany Beach, and Dewey Beach.
Delmarva is actually based off of delaware, maryland, and virginia, which gets referred to as the DelMarVa region irl! theyre beach heavy states(not saying that there isnt any in NJ), and im pretty sure ive seen that beach city is partially based off of ocean city, md.
Trench Crusade - alternate World War I between humans and demons (and their human followers). During the First Crusade, knights opened a portal to Hell and brought demons to Earth. Also Knights Templar (the ones who opened this portal) existed 100 years before they were founded in real life.
the reason that ruby wore the dress during the wedding episode is because Russia made her a man in their localized version lol but there is actually a large diamond deposit there irl
Mobius, specifically from the pre-reboot Archie Sonic run, is a post post-apocalypse Earth tens of thousands of years into the future after aliens bombed the planet back into primordial sludge due to humanity fumbling First Contact.
And by "fumbling First Contact," I mean that the humans killed and disected the peaceful alien ambasador for science, which pissed the aliens off so badly they made bombs designed to specifically target and break down the human genome.
The map of Red Dead Redemption. It takes place in a fictionalised part of the American southwest, with some of northeastern Mexico being included in the first game.
Real places are mentioned, like Texas, Chicago, and New York, but don't appear, and the map seems to "pocket dimension" a little bit within the real area. I've seen people try to fit the RDR map into the real US map, but it never really works.
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u/TheWalkingBag Mar 01 '26
The world of Warhammer Fantasy, one of the most Earth-like maps I’ve seen in high fantasy. Certain regions such as Nippon are especially on the nose with the similarities