[[quoteright:350:[[TokimekiMemorial http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tokimekifailsinvariety.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Thank goodness for [[YouGottaHaveBlueHair different]] HairColors.]]
-->'''Eddy:''' You idiot! Does Rolf look like Double-Dee?\\
'''Ed:''' ...Maybe with a hat.
-->-''EdEddNEddy'', "Mission Ed-Possible"

In RealLife, different people have different faces -- barring identical twins or rare look-alikes.

[[http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/10/thesamefaces3.jpg Not so in cartoons]].

ImpossiblyCoolClothes or [[HairColors unusual hairstyles]] can create an extremely powerful framing effect, meaning the rest of the character's design may be quite simple as a shortcut. The unfortunate result may be a fundamentally homogenized artstyle, further exacerbated if the designs are simplified further for characters who must be easy to animate [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters in large groups]]. Naturally this runs the risk of looking somewhat cheap, especially if the cast gets very large. This can be compensated with [[PaletteSwap color redesigns]], or [[LimitedWardrobe sticking a character habitually into one outfit]]. Theoretically, the chance of a character's outfit being unique should seemingly go up with this trope as another means of distinction. Likewise totally homogeneous outfits would seem to encourage other variation.

This ignores the typical cause: a lazy (or just inexperienced) artist. A character's 'unique' appearance is still not actually allowed to vary in a realistic manner, unless that is a specific "mode" or tonal shift for them. At that point, it also may cause a shift to empathizing a different aspect. As Asians culturally focus on eye and face shape to identify faces to a larger degree than those in other places and eye shapes are extremely easy to change on the fly, anime typically uses a large amount of [[EyeTropes variation on eyes]] rather than faces.

Female characters seem especially susceptible to this, due the emphasis on the character's [[{{Moe}} stylised and stereotyped attractiveness/cuteness]] further limiting any unusual variation.

It should be noted that [[http://madameevangelista.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/wilton_diptych.jpg this is not]] [[{{Older Than They Think}} a modern phenomenon]].

When applied in excess to secondary characters, it can become FacelessMasses. The Videogame version of this trope is YouALLLookFamiliar.

The opposite of this trope is a CastOfSnowflakes, where even the most incidental characters designs tend to be unique and well-defined. Sounds like but is unrelated to SameFaceDifferentName, which is about creators going by different monikers.

----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''GundamSeed'' and its sequels/spinoffs have about four basic body and face types - and character designer Hisashi Hirai's every work after Gundam Seed (''HeroicAge'', ''FafnerInTheAzureDeadAggressor'') features the exact same character designs, arguably due to ''Gundam Seed's'' great success. (Which is a shame because he was quite versatile in his earlier works.) It gets a little absurd when you notice that the only difference between Kazuki from ''Fafner'' and Shinn from ''SEED Destiny'' is eye color.
** Lampshaded in ''[[GundamAbridged G Gundam Abridged]]'' where Domon points out that his brother Kyoji looks a lot like American Chibodee Crockett, for which he blames the animators.
* KenAkamatsu's extensive cast of females feature about less than a dozen actual body types, and most recent chapters of Negima keep everyone in unusual costumes to de-emphasize this.
** In the most extreme example, MasterOfDisguise Kanako seems almost a LampshadeHanging, easily dressing up as any of the ''LoveHina'' characters and even passing off Keitaro as Mutsumi big-breasted doppleganger.
** The first ''MahouSenseiNegima'' animated series also received flak for changing the hairstyles of the girls to more bold/garish colors. Creator Akamatsu did [[SureWhyNot admit not all of his own choices were static]] and in fact began using Ako's coloring because it was rather cute.
** In an interesting case of is-this-an-example-or-not, Princess Arika shares a lot of traits with Evangeline A.K. [=McDowell=].
** Apparently even the characters have trouble telling them apart; in Ch. 34 of the manga Asakura puts on a wig and fools Negi into believing she is in fact Shizuna-sensei. Although she was mostly naked at the time, so his attention might have been [[IfYouKnowWhatIMean elsewhere]].
* ''PaniPoniDash'' parodies this by just having two generic characters (one male and one female) that look out of place compared to the main characters taking up often dozens of seats in a classroom in one shot. Sometimes these characters are randomly replaced with other objects, including, but not limited to animals.
* ''HayateNoGotoku'' is a pretty standard example.
* In ''{{Bleach}}'', simply make Rukia's hair spiky, change the hair color from black to white, then change her eye color from purple to green, and you have Hitsugaya.
** There was a increasing level of homogenisation in Kubo's artwork as the manga (and by extension the anime) has progressed, where previously only a few characters shared similar features it seems he's working off a single face-shape template now (as of the Battle for Karakura/later Hueco Mundo arc) for every character only changing eye colour, skin-tone and hair-style to differentiate between them, which is a pity. For a quick example compare Byakuya and Ichigo from the Soul Society arc to the current arc and two characters who looked very dissimilar now look almost identical.
** Just look at Ichigo. Change the hair color from orange to black and add a couple of tattoos, you get Hisagi.
** Now take Hisagi, remove his tattoos and lengthen his hair a bit, and you get Kaien Shiba. While we're at it, GenderFlip him and you have Tatsuki.
*** Ichigo reminds a large part of the cast of Kaien, so I think the similarity here isn't that much of a deal.
*** Or Give him a red pineapple 'do and tribal tattos and you've got Renji. Shave him bald, and you've got Ikkaku.
**** They all have the same face-- we get it.
* ''DragonBall'' uses this often, with about five or six major body types copied over and over again due to the large amount of alien and monstrous races; this results in bizarre circumstances when characters like Vegeta and Jeiice meet up, especially when they wear the same uniform. In contrast, Bulma is one of the series's only reoccurring females, so she's often given a different design.
*** To be fair, you'd have to be completely blind to mix up Jeice and Vegeta, uniforms or no.
** When Goku went to Namek to [[spoiler:find a new Kami]], he said that there were a lot of Piccolos in the village.
** Android 18 is distinctive from ''all'' other female designs, while even Bulma has some resemblance to the generic female. 18 has a very different nose and eyes, probably because she was one of the only serious female fighters in the series.
*** However, jet black her hair and you have Android 17. Okay, they are meant to be twins, but come on, must they have enem the same 'do, color difference apart?
** Many of the main character's faces look very similar, with only small changes; Tienshinhan, Yamucha, Vegeta, and the adult versions of Goku, Gohan and Trunks all share several major features (thick eyebrows, pointy nose, large eyes). All of the above characters except Trunks also have the same eye color/design (plain black pupil, color indistinguishable). The only characters from the Cell-era group that really stick out physically are Chaotzu (who is barely a speaking part at this point), Piccolo and Krillin.
** Oddly, the villains seem immune - even bit players like Zarbon are given more distinct looks. And barring genetic resemblances, the main villains do not have look-alikes anywhere else in the series, while the heroes all resemble eachother. The unique-villains, generic-heroes pattern is rigid enough that Vegeta, who was eventually destined for the heroes' side, already looked familiar on his first appearance; and Piccolo, who looked unique as a villain in dragonball, only had his species (90% carbon-copies) introduced ''shortly after his HeelFaceTurn''.
** It is often said of DBZ that the only way to tell the character apart is to count the number of spikes in their hair.
* One chapter of Toriyama's manga ''DoctorSlump'' indulged in a little self-parody. It involved Arale's friend Akane disguising herself as Midori and messing with Senbei, which the author described (through narration) as "A fiendish scheme that takes advantage of my inability to draw more than one female face!"
** In a later story, Akane [[PrinceAndPauper switches places]] with a foreign princess, wacky hijinks ensue, and then one character points out that Akane has yellow hair while the princess has green hair; they just didn't notice it because the manga was in black-and-white.
** To follow these two examples, the ''ChronoTrigger'' and ''DragonQuest'' games have character designs by Toriyama. Some characters look suspiciously similar to some Dragonball characters, and even some of the monsters/animals looks familiar. In particular, ''Dragon Quest's'' giant apes look a lot like Saiyans on a moonlit night.
*** And to drive ''that'' point home, check the Hero of ''DragonQuestVIII'' at full Tension. Remind you of a certain Super-Sayian?
**** To be fair, that was added for the overseas release, to pander to the fans here. In the Japanese version, his hair stays normal.
* Tachikawa Megumi's works seem to have only ''one'' face, leaving the reader constantly looking back to the character index. This was [[{{LampshadeHanging}} lampshaded]] in ''KaitouSaintTail'', where Seira, who has different coloured hair and eyes from Meimi, dresses up as her seamlessly and needs to be pointed out with an arrow and note to the audience.
* OsamuTezuka deliberately chose to embrace this trope, LampshadeHanging it by calling it the "StarSystem" as though his manga universe were a movie studio using actors; he came up with about forty recognizable character designs and recycled them -- even the instantly-recognizable ones like BlackJack and [[AstroBoy Atom]] -- in multiple series.
** This was continued by the creators of the movie version of Tezuka's ''[[OsamuTezukasMetropolis Metropolis]]'' with the character Rock.
*** He took it up a notch in the ''{{Phoenix}}'' series. Not only did he use his major star system, but the primary theme of the series was reincarnation and the eternal struggle in attempting to catch the Phoenix. In the case of one soul, he was always doomed to have a large misshapen nose by the end of the story arc. Arguably the entire star system is these same people reincarnating again and again.
** It should be noted that legendary animator HayaoMiyazaki also has his own "Star System" of sorts - while, in each movie, the characters are very distinguishable from one another, watching several of his films in a row brings the audience to a realization that Miyazaki has many, effectively unnamed, "actors": most of his female leads bear a striking resemblance to [[NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind Nausicaa]], though at different ages - [[KikisDeliveryService Kiki]], [[CastleInTheSky Sheeta]], and [[PrincessMononoke San]], being the most prominent examples; most male leads, in turn, look similar to [[CastleInTheSky Pazu]] at different ages - [[PrincessMononoke Ashitaka]], [[SpiritedAway Kohaku]], and [[HowlsMovingCastle Howl]] being the most obvious, though his look is altered from softer to harsher, depending on the character's personality. Other characters include [[SpiritedAway Yubaba]], who also appeared in HowlsMovingCastle, and even bit characters like the soot spirits (appearing in both MyNeighborTotoro and SpiritedAway). Watch closely next time for your favorite "actor."
* LeijiMatsumoto tends to use the same faces over and over again. Sometimes it's explained (Mamoru Kodai was supposed to be Captain Harlock, for example), and sometimes it's not.
** Justified by the fact that Matsumoto is the most prominent example of romanticism in anime, and as such has a well-developed set of aesthetical and ideological rules applied throughout his works, and his character designs reflect these rules.
* ''{{Claymore}}'' can be weird about this. While all of the titular characters have fairly distinct facial features (impressive, given their identical coloration and uniformly unblemished skin), the human characters share maybe four or five faces between them.
* It's easy to think that Shinichi, Heiji, and Kaito Kid from ''DetectiveConan'' and the Kaito Kid manga are actually the same person, along with ''every other guy'' who's the same age, and possibly ''every other girl,'' considering [[spoiler:how well Kaito is able to disguise himself as Ran]].
** Heiji is actually pretty easy to distinguish from the others, due to his slightly different face shape and his noticable tan. Shinichi and Kid however, are deliberately drawn alike, and have [[SheIsNotMyGirlfriend not-girlfriends]] who could be identical twins as well. Where the series really runs headlong into this trope is in the many, many [[VictimOfTheWeek random people]] around the cast who drop dead of various murder schemes, and their friends and family who may or may not have done it. As of this edit there are more than 500 episodes in the anime and over 700 chapters in the manga... and the typical one or two episode case introduces a minimum of 4 to 6 one-shot characters. That is a ''lot'' of people to make up, so it's no wonder they all start to look the same.
** Fans have noted that Akai and Kir (who are of different genders) look confusingly similar in the manga. Though, again, for all we know at this point there could be a reason for that.
*** Considering how many plots have been constructing in recent years using the fact that two characters look alike, either it was all planned from the beginning (every single lookalike? It's Aoyama Gosho)... or Aoyama realised this over time and has been finding quite epic ways to [[LampshadeHanging lampshade]] it since. A recent plot, for example, focused on how much Satou-keiji and [[spoiler:Kobayashi-sensei without her glasses]] look alike, and how that disrupts Shiratori's search for a little girl he fell in love with.
* ''{{Gantz}}'' does this with Kurono and Inaba; both are similar enough in the black-and-white manga that it would be hard to tell the two apart...That is, if Kurono wasn't a great "everyone comes home alive, leave no man behind" hero type, and Inaba wasn't a [[DirtyCoward cowardly wuss]].
* RumikoTakahashi gets accused of this a lot with the rounded style of her characters' faces. This is especially noticeable in anthologies of her early work, where the heroes of different stories tend to look almost identical.
** ''{{Inuyasha}}''. It's funny when everyone says how much Kagome looks just like Kikyo when both look equally similar to Sango, and almost every other woman. In fact, the difference between Kagome's and Kikyo's hairstyles makes them one of the more distinct comparisons. And while the resemblance between Kagome and Kikyo is a plot point (due to reincarnation), there is no excuse for why every ''other'' young woman looks the same.
*** Kagome used to look more like Kikyo, but how she was drawn changed over time. And Kagome is always drawn this way in the anime.
**** Honestly, even if the anime doesn't really use Takahashi's art style, everyone is identical in a ''different'' way. That said, Sango looks much more like Kikyo than Kagome ever did.
*** Besides the hair, Kagome is also younger and has a different body shape, and a different attitude that means she tends to wear very different kinds of expressions. There really aren't a lot of ways she can look like Kikyo without other characters actually having unique facial features.
** InuYasha is essentially [[RanmaOneHalf Ranma Saotome]] with a wig, contacts, and fangs, and [[{{RIN-NE}} Rinne Rokudo]] is Ranma in a track suit and red hair.
*** That could make for decent WildMassGuessing.
** Little kids (or characters who look like them) tend to suffer from this in her work too: Jariten (''UruseiYatsura''), Shippo (''Inuyasha''), and Rokumon (''RIN-NE'') might as well be triplets.
* ''{{Mushishi}}'': Realistic hair and clothing, combined with simplified faces, means great difficulty telling most of the characters apart.
* From manga to manga, Mishima Kazuhiko's characters tend to look the same.
* The characters, especially the lead females, in Mitsuru Adachi's dozen or so manga series look very, very similar. In the art books, the only way to tell when one series stops and another begins is by the chapter headings. Each character within a series looks different, but each series has character designs similar to the previous one.
** With the exception of "Nine" and "Cross Game," there's are only two heroine types in terms of appearances. I call them the Haruka and Hikari type since both of these characters appear in the same manga. They are both heroines since that manga had two heroes and two heroines.
* Spoofed In ''{{Fruits Basket}}''. Hanajima and her younger brother Megumi are drawn with pretty much the same face, and everyone thinks they look alike...but Hana always protests that they look completely different.
** One could argue, though, that the spoof stops there, and that the rest of the cast in the manga really do only share a limited variety of faces, which in turn form a small range of expressions. Eyes are either wide and excitable, tiny-irised to indicate manic anger, or, most often: half-lidded, melancholic, tortured-soul-within angst pools.
* Manga artist Sho-U Tajima tends to recycle a small handful of not just faces, but complete character designs over and over again for all of his different projects, resulting in characters that reside in completely different games and comics that wind up looking identical to one another in every way. For example, Rion Steiner of the PS1 video game ''{{Galerians}}'' seems to be a clone of Hisashi Shimazu, a villain from the manga ''MPDPsycho,'' right down to the single hoop earring.
* Taka Tony is well known for being able to draw exactly one sort of face. It is off-set somewhat by the sheer detail put into the rest of his drawings but becomes disturbing when he has more than one character is a picture.
* ''MarmaladeBoy''. With a bit of luck you might be able to distinguish a boy from a girl, but that's as far as you'll get with only the face to go by. Hair colors and -styles make all the difference.
* {{Yaoi}} mangaka Minami Haruka is well-known for having many of her characters look rather similar, compounded by the fact that she also tends to stick to one body type.
** Minami Haruka's pictures in her artbooks include [[{{Shotacon}} boys]], [[{{Yaoi Guys}} men]], and [[{{Yuri}} girls]]. Guess what? They all look the same.
* ''AxisPowersHetalia'' is very amusing and lots of fun, but reading the webcomic, with its often sketchy style, leads to much confusion between characters. Watching the anime is a bit easier on one's brain. Thank God for different hair colors!
** Some characters do have unique faces that can't be mistaken for anyone else's, Russia being the most prominent example. On the other hand, many characters are given distinctive appearance traits like [[{{Meganekko}} glasses]] or [[IdiotHair ahoge]] to counter the GenericCuteness -- take away England's characteristic BigOlEyebrows, and he could be mistaken for Iceland or a calm Prussia. Likewise, smooth down America's ahoge and you get Estonia.
* Whilst ''OnePiece'' has always had a brilliant record for differentiating male characters from one another (perhaps more so than any other manga out there, considering just how outlandish and distinctive each of those characters tends to be), the ''female'' characters have traditionally come from a far, far more limited palette, thus evoking the "female characters are more susceptible" aspect of this trope in spades. There was a time when it wouldn't have been a stretch to describe the vast majority of ''OnePiece'' females as "Nami clones" (the few exception mostly being the woman who [[{{Gonk}} barely look human at all]] like Miss Merry Christmas). Perhaps inevitably, considering just how large his cast has grown, Oda recently seems to have overcome this limitation, even to the point of coming up with an entire [[LadyLand island of nothing but female characters]], [[http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/onepiece/images/e/e0/Kujatribewomen.png with a crapload of differentiation]], in the largest part because he quit "holding back" and let the female characters have faces as wild and outlandish as any male character.
** Not to worry, though, because Hiro Mashima has inherited the legacy! ...Okay, so the rumors that he has been directly associated with Oda have always been denied, but when the first thing ''anybody'' taking a glance at his art in ''FairyTail'' says is something along the lines of "Is this the guy who did ''OnePiece''?" you know there's got to be a connection ''somewhere''. And yes, the most obvious aspect is that his lead female (and most of his other females, to an extent) have inherited Oda's classic Single Female Character Design.
*** Granted, the male characters who aren't elderly or outright inhuman tend to suffer from this as well, it's just that [[CuteMonsterGirl the inhuman female characters are always cute]].
* Although ''{{Blade of the Immortal}}'' is notable for its more realistic style and lack of the usual visual gags, the female characters (except for Doa) have pretty much the same face. If Rin didn't have those hair rings, she would be practically indistinguishable from the other female characters.
* Most girls of ''ZombiePowder'' tend to have the exact same face, but with a different haircut.
* YuuWatase is particularly bad about this - she appears to have two teenager/young adult faces, male and female, with different hairstyles and the occasional {{Gonk}} thrown in for good measure (and other age groups aren't exactly bursting with variety). In ''Imadoki!,'' she actually had to ''change a character's hair color'' in order to make him distinguishable from another after he shaved his goatee. This is made even worse because of the two short stories shoehorned into the last volume of ''Imadoki!,'' both starring male and female protagonists who are 100% identical to the ones from the story that just finished...and equally indistinguishable from the lead couples of ''FushigiYugi'', ''AbsoluteBoyfriend'', and ''{{Alice 19th}}''.
* With some occasional exceptions, ''FullMetalPanic'' seems to be populated with face-clones.
* The older Thor from ''{{Jyu-Oh-Sei}}'' looks startlingly similar to Kiba from ''[=~Wolf's Rain~=]'', both from Bones.
*The female students in ''SayonaraZetsubouSensei'' are basically the same design except for hair and eye style or props, making it difficult for the uninitiated to tell them apart.
**Arguably this is part of the visual appeal of the series.
**Exception: The foreign exchange student, Kimura, is very easy to tell apart from the other girls, being the only blonde/blue-eyed girl in the show. She also wears a different uniform.
**Maria also averts the trope to some degree, although it may be due to her different skin tone rather than her actual facial features. And then, of course, we have the {{Gonk}} Kotokon...
**Naturally, Kiri is the easiest one to tell apart, since the times when she's not wrapped up in her blanket is when she's being MsFanservice.
* Ignoring the expy nature of most of the side characters from SailorMoon--imported from Codename wa Sailor V--Takeuchi really only has about six faces for all her series: The deep male, the innocent male, the mature female, the innocent female, the cheery female, and the nondescript either.
** This is slightly subverted in that the main characters tend to have unique faces from the rest of their cast, but identical faces to main characters in other series.
* The two leads in ''{{Pieta}}'' can be distinguished only by their hair.
* Lampshaded in a ''{{Gintama}}'' omake, where Ginpachi-sensei explains how to draw the characters.
--> "Next I'll teach you how to draw Shinpachi and Kagura. Draw a normal guy; make him as bland as possible. Then give him glasses. You're done! Next, how to draw Kagura. Take off Shinpachi's glasses and change the hair to white. Then give her dumplings. You're done!"
* Masami Kurumada of ''SaintSeiya'' fame is ''very'' famous for this act. He has two faces for men (normal men and muscle-bound men), one face for little boys and one face for girls. That's all. The fact that many of his characters share similar hairstyles don't really help; it was for that reason that the anime adaptation gave them tons of different hair colors.
* FistOfTheNorthStar might be a literal example, even with just the male examples. The important female characters all looking alike actually becomes a plot point.
* ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' is not normally susceptible to this, but the (male) protagonist Shinji looks so infamously similar to the (female) minor character Maya that the production crew got them confused at times.
** The character designer admitted to have [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/HowToDrawShinji.jpg designed Shinji from Nadia]], the protagonist of ''[[NadiaTheSecretOfBlueWater Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water]]''.
** Also, [[http://img3.ak.crunchyroll.com/i/spire2/6f0db1bd75239129ac4ec16854ead0cd1227083412_full.jpg Shinji's class]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ArchieComics'' is relatively well-known for this, as a common story involves Betty or Veronica merely placing on a wig to imitate the other, leaving every other character completely fooled. In fact, the only female characters in Archie Comics not to have the same body and face type are either older women, the rare 'super-attractive' types such as Cheryl Blossom or Melody, who possess larger busts and more curves, or the {{Gonk}}s like Big Ethel.
* Much of the cast of ''ScottPilgrim'' restyle or dye their hair throughout the series -- a very bad move considering Bryan Lee O'Malley can draw approximately 2 faces ('standard' and 'long', with optional female characteristics for the latter if you're lucky), and uses the same one for all recurring characters. Freckles are employed twice... and fail to distinguish the two identical blondes to which they're applied. This leads to interminable stretches of "Aren't those two together anymore? Who is that? Isn't she in America? I thought he was with them"...
* JackKirby's women are famous for being only distinguishable by their hairstyles. His ''other'' characters, on the other hand, are so varied and diverse that it almost makes up for it.
** This is an improvement on how he drew people in the early ''FantasticFour'' (and other comics of the time)--one letters column admitted his eight basic types bore an unofficial nickname, "Kirby's Kast of Kharacters."
* "Finder" by Carla Speed MacNeil does this on purpose, in a civilization composed almost entirely of clans that intentionally inbreed to look like each other.
* John Byrne (of ''FantasticFour'', ''The Man of Steel'') is known for having his male faces look pretty much the same, while his female characters all have the same face. This is especially noticeable when his Batman and Superman are on the same page: the two of them are twins who happen to wear different costumes.
* The semi-internet-famous meme 'Tony Stark Is Everyone' is basically the masterpiece of this trope. Turns out that without his distinctive mustache, Tony Stark becomes Bruce Wayne. Adding glasses made him Clark Kent. From there, the permutations are endless.
* Female characters in general seem to suffer the most from this trope in comic books. The older the comic, the more likely it is that all female characters have the same face, just with different hairstyles, and sometimes, with a little luck, a slightly different body type.
* During the SilverAge of comics, Superman would run into lookalikes often - from his Kandorian cousin to a movie actor- who were ''so'' similar to him that they could (and did) pass for him. Of course this was an intentional plot point. I guess Supes is supposed to have "one of those faces" which helps to explain his ClarkKenting - somewhat.
* Tom Grummett's characters tend to all have the same face. This makes it awkward when drawing characters who are romantically involved, such as Superboy and Wonder Girl, or Mach-IV and Songbird.
* Mark Bagley is a major offender, especially in ''UltimateSpiderMan.'' He is often forgiven for this because he is an inhumanly fast penciller - in an era where comic fans are used to delays, Bagley has a habit of getting issues out early.
*ElfQuest was a rare subversion. Wendy Pini kept a concordance of the shapes of eyes, facial structure, etc., so that her elves definitely weren't the same faces with different (extremely elaborate) hairdos. Although elves are all slender and have bodies that are considered attractive in this culture, there was a lot of variation in that shapeliness, on the men and especially the women.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in the DVD commentary of ''TheIncredibles'', in which all of the background and minor characters are "played" by the same, slightly-altered CGI model (dubbed "Universal Man"). Yes, even the female characters.
* Disney used [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihS970ymuC0&feature=channel_page several]] ''iconic'' dance scenes, from at least three different movies, over again in "Robin Hood". Along with some other [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOIrXGd51jE&feature=channel_page scenes]]. Deja vu, much?
**How is that even possible? Wouldn't you have to redraw the whole scenes anyway? Why even bother copying if you have to do that much work in the first place.
* Done to some extent in the live-action ViewAskewniverse movies, as the same actor can play two or three characters in the series. Ben Affleck appeared in two roles in JayAndSilentBobStrikeBack, first as Holden McNeil and then later as ''himself''.
* Live-action war movies can be like this, since often everyone is a young man with a crew cut wearing fatigues, a helmet and a lot of obscuring mud. If the army in question is integrated, there might at least be a TokenBlack guy.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* All young, attractive women in ''BeetleBailey'' over the decades, varying only by hair style and clothing. They're also drawn in a very different style from the men and older women, with sensuously flowing lines (which is of course only an exaggeration of reality). The style has shifted somewhat over the years, but the theme hasn't. Two recurring examples are Ms. Buxley and Beetle's previous girlfriend, who look about as different as they can within this technique, but mostly it applies to the hundreds of usually nameless extras Killer and the other soldiers are typically drooling after. If a young woman is drawn any other way, she's almost without exception meant to be plain or ugly.
* All the younger men in ''Apartment 3-G'' look like each other.
* Scott Adams, author of ''{{Dilbert}}'', isn't ''quite'' as bad as certain other examples on this page, but has admitted that he can't draw ''that'' many faces. This resulted in two main things:
** Ted the Generic Guy, and
** The PointyHairedBoss being related to Phil, Prince of Insufficient Light.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* Perhaps somewhat understandably, ''FinalFantasyXI'' does this, with most races having only 8 faces per race/gender combination, and a [[PaletteSwap palette-swapped]] version of each face to give an alternate hair-color (the Tarutaru race has only 4 faces per gender, offering 4 sets of coloration per face instead of two). This is only a strict limitation on [=PCs=] and the quested NPC fellows (who were further limited to a subset of these), but even some story-important [=NPCs=] showed very little differentiation from these models (most egregious example from off the top of this editor's head is Doctor Shantotto, who is Tarutaru Female face 4-A in relatively common mage gear, with some custom animations), and most general NPCs who are neither very young nor very old use the same faces as [=PCs=]. Also, each race/gender combination is identical from the neck down, with both sexes of Tarutaru being thus identical to each other as well.
** This is a complaint with quite a few [=MMOs=]. Most [=MMOs=] without extensive character generators tend to have very few facial choices per sex/race combination. WorldOfWarcraft, for example, tends to average somewhere around eight faces per sex/race combo, and usually only two of each of them look good enough to use most of the time. True, you can change hair color and shape, and facial hair, but that's really barely anything, and most of those favor heavily towards one style. Even one of the rare examples that shouldn't be, CityOfHeroes, tends to lean towards this; while they have a lot, lot, LOT of options, only a few are really, honestly usable for "normal" looking characters. The rest are a bit too close to UncannyValley half the time to be tolerable.
* It's an awfully common thing for the awfully generic products that fill 90% of the DatingSim market. This is visible in almost everything, stock character designs, stock plots, stock character types, stock Photoshop glowing pink, etc. [[http://japanisnotoriginalatanime.ytmnd.com/ This YTMND animation]] gives a really good example.
** Note that the characters featured in that animation are all designed by Naru Nanao; a couple of them even come from the same game. Her later designs vary a bit more.
** This also follows with anime based on h-games (''{{AIR}}'', ''{{Kanon}}'', ''{{CLANNAD}}'', etc.) which tend to have only ''one'' face -- well, maybe two, one for boys and one for girls.
** Possibly the worst offender is Aoi Nishimata, possibly best known as one of the character designers for {{SHUFFLE}}. [[http://konachan.com/post/show/33094/lovely_idol-nishimata_aoi Some]] [[http://konachan.com/post/show/37719/nishimata_aoi-oretachi_ni_tsubasa_wa_nai examples]].
** Forget stock 'designs', the game OtomeWaBokuNiKoishiteru ''literally'' uses the same three character pictures for any random students who aren't part of the main cast. This includes several named characters who are part of the Student Council during Takako's plot.
* AkiraToriyama, maker of ''DragonBall ''(see above), has been the character designer for a number of games, including ''ChronoTrigger'' and every single ''DragonQuest''. And, true to form, nearly ''every single character'' in those games has a visual counterpart to be found in ''DragonBall''.
** In a couple of rare examples (such as ''Dragon Quest Swords'', where none of the characters have spiky hair/Goku eyes, and a few are wearing decidedly Baroque-era or gothic outfits) he breaks out of the six faces mold, but when he phones it in (such as with ''Tobal No. 1'' and ''BlueDragon''), it's really obvious that he is.
* In ''Backyard Baseball'' and other BackyardSports games, all characters, besides the 30 main ones, are based off of a few models.
*Tetsuya Nomura is often accused of succumbing to this trope. At least there's an in game excuse for all the characters that resemble each other in the ''KingdomHearts'' games.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''Achewood'' falls into this trope at times. Since the introduction of Ray, Pat, and Roast Beef, it has been revealed that the majority of the animal population are cats (dogs have been established as typically non-anthropomorphic and excluded from the animal underground.) In keeping with Onstad's generally minimalist art style, most of the cats are interchangeable in terms of facial features. There are three or four body types, and a couple of heads to go with them, and generally the eyes, muzzle and ears of the cats are exactly the same (exceptions being Ray and his family, as well as his ex-current-ex-business partner-ex-girlfriend Tina, who have been identified as American Curls.)
* ''RealLifeComics'' does something similar.
* Everyone in ''DominicDeegan'' would be almost indistinguishable from one another if they all shaved their heads if not for the eyelashes and occasional orc fangs.
**Mookie is not above [[LampshadeHanging lampshading]] it on occasion. One such example can be seen [[http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2009-05-01 here.]]
* Parodied in [[http://www.shortpacked.com/d/20070418.html this]] ''Shortpacked!'' strip.
* Kristofer Straub's ''CheckerboardNightmare'' and its successor, ''StarslipCrisis'', have identical-looking humans except for hair and costuming. The strips don't suffer for this, though.
** Lampshaded in [[http://www.starslip.com/archive/20060309.shtml this]] ''Starslip Crisis'' strip.
* A common criticism of ''[[CtrlAltDel Ctrl+Alt+Del]]'' is that the art style involves most characters having nearly identical facial features. [[http://xs217.xs.to/xs217/07312/5Xj3_1184799633_CAD2.gif This image]] is provided for examination. MemeticMutation has branded this expression B^U because it looks like said digits turned sideways, and by extension its author is often called Tim B^Uckley.
** If his personal artwork site is anything to judge by, Buckley ''can'' draw fairly well.
*** WordOfGod states that he keeps a photoshop database of stock expressions and gestures in order to get the comic out in a timely manner. When Buckley actually gives a shit and hand draws a comic (usually used when he's doing TakeThat-style gags or working with very specific subject matter), the results are pretty stunning.
* Though he has no meme associated with him, Scott Ramsoomair of ''VGCats'' is often criticized of the same thing. Ironically, it used to be praised for ''not'' falling into this trope, before people started really paying attention and notice that most characters have the same insane look on their faces.
** The reason that the criticisms only came more recently is that the problem really did get worse as the [[ArtEvolution art evolved.]] It could be related to the fact that he is obviously relying on his computer a lot more. While Leo and Aeris did always look like essentially {{palette swap}}ped versions of each other, it can be pointed out that the different facial expressions often look very similar now, I.E. pissed off character A looks like pissed off characters B, C, and D, or at least a lot more than before. It doesn't help that yes, they do tend to look pretty weird.
** [[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=286 I think Scott heard us.]]
* ''{{Megatokyo}}'': Many readers can barely differentiate between the female characters that didn't wear insane outfits - even Piro is androgynous enough to be confused for one of the girls in a few scenes!
** The fans find endless amusement in pointing out that Piro could very well be his girlfriend's twin sister, especially as his bangs grow ever longer.
** Kimiko gets a bit of it right back due to her small bust and non-existent hips, though it’s mostly Piro’s fault for looking like her.
** This is more so with the male characters Dom, Matsui and Inspector Masimichi Sonoda. As can be seen in [[http://www.megatokyo.com/strip/1119 this strip]] where Matsui has to be captioned to identify who he is. The other similar-looking man present is Dom (obviously).
* The tendency for all {{bishonen}} in any given anime series to have the same generically pretty face is parodied in [[http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/anime-news-nina/2008-11-19 this strip]] at the Anime News Network website.
* In some ''really'' early [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/1999/2/3/ strips]] of PennyArcade, Gabe and Tycho looked very similar, but by late 2000 Tycho had started to develop his trademark baldness while Gabe had started to get his current pig-like face. [[ArtEvolution It got better,]] so [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/9/3/ now]] [[CastOfSnowflakes they look very different]].
* Played with in ''OrderOfTheStick'', which has Only Two Faces. The faces are male and female, differentiated by the position of the eyes and mouth (women have both positioned lower on the face, suggesting more delicate features and smaller chins; the difference is showcased by the storyline in which Roy uses the [[GenderBender Belt of Gender Changing]] and his features shift accordingly). However, in this case the [[JustifiedTrope trope is justified]] because they're, well... stick figures. [[BigBad Xykon]] is the only member of the cast who completely stands out, as he is a skeleton.
** Even that variation gets [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] when Redcloak creates some Xykon decoys by getting some skeleton monsters and dressing them up like him.
** Vaarsuvius, whose sex is deliberately ambiguous, is a hybrid, with features higher on his/her face than a woman's but lower than a man's.
* ''CollegeRoomiesFromHell'' has often been accused of this, particularly the gigantic noses of all the characters.
* Many of the characters in ''{{Jack}}'' are essentially the same model with different markings. It's very hard to tell what species some of them are meant to be without being told (Arloest is a panda; Farrago is a ferret; it's hard enough to tell them apart, let alone discern their respective species).
* ''Concession'' only has ''one'' face for all it's characters. In fact, one of them is a ''pangolin'' but the only hint that he's not a cat or a wolf or some shit is the tail, which looks like that of a pangolin, if you're really looking hard for one. There's a FAQ, and one question addresses this; the artist's answer is that his characters, for example the pangolin fellow, would be pretty fuck ugly if they looked like their right animals. This begs the question why he bothered at all.
** The author likes pangolins.
* ''{{xkcd}}'', with the exception of a handful of early pieces, tends to have ''zero'' faces.
* ''SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal'' has ''one'' face. Luckily, it's a gag-a-day comic with zero recurring characters.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* Lampshaded in ''SouthPark'' ("The Super Best Friends"). Stan and Kyle get buzz cuts and identical clothes as part of joining a cult, and don't even wear their trademark winter hats. Stan, Kyle, and Butters (who also joined the cult) look identical now, and it becomes impossible to tell them apart. Then, when Stan decides to leave, he and Kyle get confused as to which one is Stan and which is Kyle:
--->'''Stan:''' Let's go!\\
'''Kyle:''' I'm not going anywhere!\\
'''Stan:''' [[DuckSeasonRabbitSeason Goddamnit, I'm not going with you! I wanna stay here!]]\\
'''Kyle:''' Huh? I thought you wanted to leave!\\
'''Stan:''' Oh wait, who am I again?
** Also, in the [[{{showwithinashow}} Terrance and Phillip]] episode, ''Not Without My Anus'', the character "Ugly Bob" wears a paper bag over his head. When he takes it off, he looks exactly like all the other characters, but they react as if he's [[HollywoodHomely traumatically hideous]].
** Similarly done in the episode "The Coon", where there is a mystery as to the identity of the new masked hero Mysterion. Butters has a board of suspects with only Token (the black one), Jimmy and Timmy (the handicapped-faced ones), and Cartman (the fat one) crossed off. At the end of the episode, Cartman gets Mysterion to reveal his identity, which he does by pulling his mask up to his forehead - the crowd can tell who it is, but of course without the hair and clothes to identify him, the audience cannot. Then the episode ends, [[TheUnreveal never revealing who it is]] (though we can eliminate Kyle and Butters).
* The {{DCAU}}'s simplified art style post-BTAS has shades of this, especially the generic 'male' body shape used for otherwise very different characters.
** Very apparent in ''JusticeLeague'' in the few rare instances when Batman takes off his mask and looks nearly identical to Superman.
** And [[LampshadeHanging Lampshade Hung]] (we hope) in the Superman episode "Knight Time", where Superman is able to 'be' Batman by putting on his costume and disguising his voice. Several characters do wonder, though, whether Batman seems taller all of a sudden.
** Also lampshaded in this dialog:
--->'''Superman''' Do I look like Batman to you?\\
'''Flash''' Yeah, you kinda do, especially when you get all [[BuffySpeak scowl-y]] like that.
** Even more evident with the female characters. ''JusticeLeague'' eventually broke out of this, with broad-shouldered WonderWoman and realistically-built [[MagnificentBastard Amanda Waller]], but earlier efforts had "Bruce Timm Generic Female #2" for almost every distaff character.
**Let's not ignore the fact that nearly every male character has exactly the same build. Even characters like the Atom, who's powers do not require any inherent strength, looks like he could take on Superman.
* ''[[SpiderMan Spider-Man]]: The New Animated Series'' had six background characters that were continuously reused in different contexts. Sometimes they even played different "roles" in the same episode.
* Nearly parodied in ''TheSimpsons'' when Bart thought that {{Casper}} the Friendly Ghost was in fact the ghost of RichieRich.
** And used for effect within the show itself, where Krusty is just Homer with hair and a different voice. [[WordOfGod Matt Groening said]] the idea was the irony that Bart had no respect for his father but worshipped a clown that looks just like him.
* The Powerpuff Girls, Rowdyruff Boys, and Powerpunk Girls all have the same basic body. However, no one else in Townsville looks the same.
* In ''MeetTheRobinsons'', a few generic character models are used for minor roles and even a few major characters are recycled. Art's model is used as a college student in the Another Believer montage and Franny's model is used for Lewis' mother.
* In the ''WinxClub'', pretty much every girl has the exact same body, head, and face shapes. If it weren't for the vastly different hairstyles, clothes, and colors you wouldn't be able to tell any of them apart.
** And it's only gotten worse. In the first seasons there were some differences at least, e.g. eye shapes and sizes, but with the new 4th season even that seems to be fading and the girls look even more alike than ever.
* ''{{Transformers}}'' sometimes averts this trope ([[MerchandiseDriven as it wants to sell Hasbro's toys, not generic robots]]) and sometimes falls right into it ([[PaletteSwap as many of these toys are just repainted]]). Good voice acting and radically different personalities for each robot (even if they are effectively the same model) makes it easier to tell who's who. Background characters, though, are frequently different combinations of the three or so heads, torsos, etc. and really do run together. They didn't even go ''that'' far in TheOriginalSeries, with most background Decepticons being otherwise-identical repaints of Starscream.
** Sometimes the animation model is also altered, even if the characters use the same toy mold, further averting this trope. This was especially prevalent in the original series, as can be seen [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:Character_models.png here]].
* ''FairlyOddParents'' uses this relentlessly, with most child or teenage characters having the exact same face, with the possible variations only extending to two different types of eyebrows, two different types of noses and two different types of eyebrows. Timmy, Cosmo, Wanda, Vicky, Chip Skylark, Chester, Trixie, Veronica and many more suffer.
** ''DannyPhantom'', which uses the same visual style, avoids it a little better.
* The Debbies in TheOblongs. Hilariously lampshaded by Pickles:
-->"Am I severely smashed, or do you all look exactly alike?"
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Can be TruthInTelevision: a brain disorder known as prosopagnosia or face blindness results in a person being unable to recognize faces. Hairstyles, clothing styles, and distinctive features such as scars still work for distinguishing individuals.
** To clarify a little, it's not that the disorder takes away a person's ability to see or understand faces - they know what a face is, they can identify an eye, an nose, or what not, and faces look normal to them. However, the ability to put it all together into a unique face is lost. They're 'just faces'; even when looking at one's own face.
* In some Drug Rehab centers part of the process is shaving your head because it eliminates vanity and encourages camaraderie among those trying to get clean. The first thing you'll notice is that when everyone is bald, everyone starts to look the same. This is part of the reason why some people go for extreme hair and clothing styles because they want to stand out in a crowd.
** Done for the same reasons in many armed forces and some cults.
* Autistic individuals may have trouble recognizing faces due to impaired brain development; autistic children who are shown pictures of their mothers show the same lack of recognition as when they're shown pictures of strangers.
** In fact, the prevalence of this trope in anime likely has something to do with the fact that studies show that Autism & similar conditions are abnormally common in Japan.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature Illustration]]
* After the wonderful contrast of HughLaurie's near-bishounen Bertie and crooked-nosed StephenFry's round-faced Jeeves in ''JeevesAndWooster'', not to mention [[http://axxc.nl/pgw/boe/inim.htm the gajillion different artist's interpretations of the two over the years]], it's a more than a little disappointing to read the manga ''Please, Jeeves'' and find that pretty much ALL the men have the same face-shape, just with different eyes and hair.
[[/folder]]
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