A timeskip is a deliberate jump forward in a story's internal timeline, skipping months or years so the narrative resumes with an older cast and a changed world. Long-running series often use one as a dividing line between eras.
A timeskip is an authorial lever with three classic uses. It ages a young cast into the roles the story actually needs. It lets consequences ripen off-screen, so the world the characters re-enter has moved without them. And it resets the power scale, allowing training and history to explain growth that would take years of episodes to show.
The device carries real risk, which is why fans discuss timeskips as turning points. Readers bond with a cast as it is; changing designs, dynamics, and the world's rules asks that bond to transfer, and a series that mishandles the jump can spend its second half in the first half's shadow. Handled well, it is how long series earn a second act instead of a long decline.
For reference purposes a timeskip is a scope boundary of the first order. Pre-skip and post-skip are different states of every fact, and quiz titles on this site mark the side of the line they test. Character redesigns after a timeskip are a merchandise and marketing event in their own right, revealed in magazine spreads before the episode or chapter that explains them arrives.
In use"The story resumes two years later with the cast grown and the world rearranged: a timeskip."