History Main / PhotographicMemory

* ComicBook/LexLuthor on ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited'', as revealed in the episode "Panic in the Sky".

-->'''Luthor:''' [[BlatantLies I'm too modest to boast.]]

* Brother Blood from ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'', implied to be a side-effect of his PsychicPowers. After looking at Cyborg's blueprints, he was able to, months later, not only copy the technology, but adapt it to various weapons ({{BFG}}s, robot armies, [[BodyHorror himself]]).
* An old Russian cartoon involves a man visited at night by an alien, who grants him certain abilities, including telepathy, eidetic memory, X-ray vision, the ability to read a closed book in a second, and mad math skills. One interesting scene involves him walking by a book seller, who is advertising a brand-new novel. He glances at it and says he has read better. When the people complain that he couldn't possibly have read the book, he has them pick a page at random and have him recall it from memory. He recites the words verbatim, including a a line-wrapped word from the previous page. He ends up losing these powers by accident at the end when he tells a couple of thieves "Game over", which is actually the code phrase implanted by the alien in case the man doesn't like his gift.

* ''Anime/AstraLostInSpace'': Aries has clear photographic memory, able to recall whatever she's seen. [[spoiler:Kanata realizes she has the clue that would reveal the traitor in the group]].

* ''Series/BronBroen'': Henrik appears to have this; in one episode, he scans a crime scene, and, when questioned, says he is making a mental map. He can spontaneously recall details from files he has read, from crime scenes, and license plates he has seen briefly. He is visibly frustrated when a colleague cannot instantly recall a license plate number like he can.

* Officer Nick Brick of VideoGame/LegoIsland has one.

* People of the Mute tribe in ''Webcomic/GiftsOfWanderingIce'' have photograpic memories. They also draw wery well and reproduce images of ancient objects and places in perfect detail which therefore do not fade in their collective memory over generations.

* From M. A. Foster's ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._A._Foster#.22Ler.22_books The Book of the Ler]]'', all of the ler (a forced evolution of humans) have this type of memory. They can also 'auto-forget', delete some or all of their memories.

* Mashiro in ''LightNovel/ThePetGirlOfSakurasou'' has a photographic memory that is closer to textbook definitions.

[[folder:Film]]

** Charles Augustus Magnussen, the villain of series three, might just have Sherlock beat. He's a professional {{blackmail}}er who can recall the "pressure point" of anyone important in a few seconds. [[spoiler:Rather than using hard copies, he simply has all of his leverage memorized and tucked away in his own mind palace.]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

** The Crypter Daybit Sem Void has this, claiming the best memory out of the team and has the names and faces of everyone he's ever met memorized perfectly. [[spoiler:This goes to the point he has a [[TheOmniscient cosmic insight to nearly anything]] and can commit anything to memory perfectly. However, as part of the PowerAtAPrice deal that gave him this memory, he can only remember a particular in intervals of five minutes ''[[BlessedWithSuck per day]]'', so he has to always consider what and when he can make the most of this ability.]]

** He begins to understand eventually, although he only gets snippets of random information, like remembering that "cuttlefish have an internal cartilaginous structure", without actually knowing what cartilaginous means.

** Ambassador Kosh hires Abbut, a cyber-organic living recorder, to record thoughts and images from the mind of Talia Winters.

* ''Anime/OddTaxi'': Odokawa has a form of eidetic memory, after seeing a person's face once, he never forgets them and can recognize their appearance even in a mask, from behind, or in a large crowd.

* [[TallDarkAndSnarky Naoki Irie]] from ''Manga/ItazuraNaKiss''. He doesn't study because he remembers everything he sees. He comes across the love letter Kotoko wrote to him (that he had refused reading initially) while she is [[InnocentCohabitation asleep]] and then later proceeds to [[JerkAss recite it verbatim in front of their families to tease her]] earning him a well deserved slap.

* The titular Index from ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'' has photographic memory. It was used to remember a library worth of magic books. The side effect was the danger of Index's brain overflowing from too much memories, mandating wiping her memories every year. [[spoiler: Said danger was in fact a lie to prevent her from rebelling - someone with a library worth of magic books is extremely dangerous.]]

* Yasuri Nanami from ''LightNovel/{{Katanagatari}}'' uses a Photographic Memory to learn Kyoto Ryu, as well as to copy the moves of the Maniwa Insect Squad who attack her.

* Odokawa from ''Anime/OddTaxi'' has a form of eidetic memory, after seeing a person's face once, he never forgets them and can recognize their appearance even in a mask, from behind, or in a large crowd.

* Mihoshi in the OAV continuity ''Anime/TenchiMuyoRyoOhki''. Shown in 'Washu' Volume 3 of the True Tenchi Muyo Novels. She goes in to Washu's lab to cal her to lunch and a weather control device malfunctions causing a very localized blizzard soon after. Washu asks Mihoshi to tell her what happened while she was looking. Two hours latter the detail Washu needs to solve the problem surfaces.

* Breo from ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds''. It helps him greatly, because he uses a Deck Destruction deck, and it is very important for him to keep track of the cards in his opponent's deck, hand, field, and graveyard.

* Unusually for a comic book robot, ComicBook/AtomicRobo ''lacks'' this ability. It seems his memory works like an ordinary human's, not like a computer's. He can forget things, has to study for college exams, doesn't automatically learn foreign languages (e.g., he's never bothered to learn Japanese), etc.
* The deaf heroine Echo, an [[ComicBook/TheAvengers Avenger]] and former lover of Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}, has this ability. Whether it's a mutant power or natural aptitude is never clearly defined.

** A minor called Savant, who is mostly associated with the Bat-family, likewise has photographic memory. His character also experiences problems coming with it to downright {{deconstruct|edTrope}}ive levels of the trope. Because his memories do not become vaguer with time, he has to rely on contextual information to sort out whether something he remembers happened last week or a year ago. Worse, when he experiences something traumatic, his memory of it is ''always'' as vivid as if it happened yesterday.

%%* Grunge from ''ComicBook/Gen13''.%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample
* The [[InsectoidAliens blue bug]] Thraxan people (and by extension [[spoiler:Oliver Grayson and Grand Regent Thragg's offspring]]) in ''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'' have eidetic memory as a racial trait, due to the fact that they have a life span of less than a year and need to learn everything quickly.
* A relatively minor villain in the Franchise/MarvelUniverse, the [[Characters/MarvelComicsTaskmaster Taskmaster]], takes this trope a step further with his "photographic reflexes" -- if he sees something done, even on TV, he can easily replicate it regardless of complexity. He can pass as a master chef, use any fighting style, and even catch a bullet. The 2010 ''Taskmaster'' miniseries reveals that this comes at a cost. Copying so many moves has made him forget a lot of ''other'' memories -- including those about his personal life, like the fact that [[spoiler:he used to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, the true origin of his photographic ability and that he has a hot SpicyLatina as a wife]].

** During ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis'', Superman loses his powers. One year later, he regains them and picks up a couple of new ones, including true photographic memory and super-fast calculative processes (which he immediately uses in battle). When the photographic memory first hits him, he can suddenly retroactively recall his entire life this way. UsefulNotes/{{The Silver Age|OfComicBooks}} and UsefulNotes/{{the Bronze Age|OfComicBooks}} Superman also had this power (Creator/AlanMoore once described his memory as being "vast enough to have every conceivable shape of snowflake precisely filed"), but the ComicBook/PostCrisis Superman did not until this point.
** ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis'' includes perhaps Superman's most impressive display of this power, when he's able to construct a replica of the fantastically complex Miracle Machine after only glimpsing it (using XRayVision and such to see its insides, of course) for a second.
* {{Averted|Trope}} in ''ComicBook/{{Transmetropolitan}}'' -- Spider doesn't need a photographic memory, because this is TheFuture, and a camera is built into ''[[GogglesDoSomethingUnusual his glasses]]''. (Although there are pharmaceuticals that wire your nervous system up like a cellphone or grant you genetic traits like resistance to cancer, so maybe there is an eidetic memory pill...)

** Sage has a photographic memory as well as other powers. {{Justified|Trope}}, as this is a {{mutant|s}} ability.
** X-Men founder and former headmaster Professor X has one as well, but an extremely weird one. He can transfer parts of his short-term memory to his long-term memory, getting a similar effect. At times, it's indicated that {{telepath|y}}s have perfect memories because they can ''read their own minds''.[[note]]This is less efficient than Sage's power, because they have to actively ''look'' for any memories that've been forgotten or buried in a mental block (either self-constructed or by another telepath), but sometimes that's a good thing since you don't usually ''want'' to relieve your most traumatic memories.[[/note]]

* The Terminators in ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'', notably [[RobotGirl Cameron]], who can even go so far as to re-enact a person's tone of voice and [[UncannyValley body language]].

Sometimes paired with LaserGuidedAmnesia for ironic effect. If the narrator has this, he is an InfallibleNarrator. Occasionally this is a setup for a gag where they've [[SelfServingMemory grossly overestimated]] [[CrazyMemory what they do remember about an event]]. Supetrope to ElephantsNeverForget.

* It's implied that Hiruma from ''Manga/Eyeshield21'' has this kind of memory. It's particularly noticeable when he's playing Black Jack in a casino and memorized every single card that was taken from the deck and winning that way, or when Mamori creates review sheets for hand signals. Before she gives it out to the team, Hiruma snatches it away, flips through it, and then burns it. When Mamori says that Hiruma didn't even read it, Hiruma demonstrates that he did memorize it by sending her a message that "the team manager secretly ate all the cream puffs."

* All of the Uchiha from ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' have this ability, thanks to the [[MagicalEye Sharingan]]. Allows them to learn any technique (that does not involve genetic inheritance, and that the user can physically perform) without fail, and even to forge handwriting.

* ''Manga/SevenSeeds'' has Sakuya from Team Autumn. He is capable of retaining a lot of information easily simply by looking at or reading through something. It's well known in his team, to the point that Ran and Akio know they don't have to write any information down that might come in helpful, since they know Sakuya will remember it.
** Another example comes with Shigeru. He gets easily flustered and doesn't have a whole lot of self-confidence, but when he remains calm, Shigeru is shown to have a really good memory, like remembering where Ango put scissors that he last used a week ago. Shigeru was also once so slow in finding words he couldn't remember in the dictionary, he simply learned every word in the dictionary by heart.

%%* "Lord Nikon" from the movie ''Film/{{Hackers}}''.%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample

* ''Franchise/KagerouProject'': [[spoiler:Shintaro Kisaragi]]'s eye-power is "Retaining-eyes", which basically means that they remember every single thing they've ever seen and experienced - even across the ''multiple timelines and adaptations'' of the series thus far. [[spoiler:Even when it lies dormant, he uses it subconsciously, hence his TeenGenius status. In at least one route, seeing all of the [[KillEmAll gruesome ends met by his friends and little sister]] [[DrivenToSuicide drives him to suicide]].]]

* [[CuteBookworm Sheska]] from ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' is the trope UpToEleven. When the library containing Dr. Marcoh's notes burns down, Sheska, a former employee, manages to write them all down from memory, and is subsequently hired to rewrite possibly the ''entire library''- this being the main branch and containing legal documents as well. In her case, her perfect recall seems to be limited to only what she has read, stemming from her obsession with books and reading.

* ''Franchise/KagerouProject'' takes this one UpToEleven with [[spoiler:Shintaro Kisaragi]], whose eye-power is "Retaining-eyes", which basically means that they remember every single thing they've ever seen and experienced - even across the ''multiple timelines and adaptations'' of the series thus far. [[spoiler:Even when it lies dormant, he uses it subconsciously, hence his TeenGenius status. In at least one route, seeing all of the [[KillEmAll gruesome ends met by his friends and little sister]] [[DrivenToSuicide drives him to suicide]].]]

* Brother Blood from ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'', implied to be a side-effect of his PsychicPowers. After looking at Cyborg's blueprints, he was able to months later not only copy the technology, but adapt it to various weapons ({{BFG}}s, robot armies, [[BodyHorror himself]].)