All Encompassing Mantle - Television Tropes & Idioms

Ghaleon, equipped with his +5 Mantle of Awesomeness.

A cloak that goes all the way around the body like a tube, with only a single slit down the front to permit mobility. It will sometimes exceed the wearer's height and have a significant portion dragging on the floor, although it usually cuts off at precisely floor level.

Often worn by characters of great power and authority, this particular garment tends to make the wearer seem more mysterious because others cannot tell what his or her body looks like under all the cloth when it is closed. Normal capes may sometimes be drawn as mantles for dramatic effect.

Occasionally, two-bit characters may wear such mantles in order to "feel big", but Rule of Funny dictates that they will suffer from all the disadvantages that such an item would have in Real Life (such as tripping, catching on stuff, sheer weight etc). Bonus points if they actually "borrow" one from someone who deserves to wear it.

This type of mantle sometimes comes with an attached hood in order to cover the head as well as the body. Females wearing a mantle and nothing else are an uncommon form of Fanservice. Compare with the less encompassing Badass Longrobe.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

Il Palazzo from Excel Saga was initially drawn like this, but as time went on his mantle stopped being tubed-shaped and became more like a traditional cape.
The scientists from Fantastic Children wore these at one point.
Syaoran has/had a rather over-long ragged-edged one◊ as part of his clothes when he started out on that insane journey.
- Kuro-pii's got one too◊
Seen here in Mahou Sensei Negima!.
Rather common among members of the Guild in Last Exile.
Boogiepop wears one of these, with matching Nice Hat.
Fakir wears one of these (complete with hood and a mask) in episode 8 of Princess Tutu.
Rezo the Red Priest wears this complete with Shoulders of Doom.
Folken sports this in Vision of Escaflowne
- Also, Zaibach Guymelefs have cloaks that can be wrapped around the body like this to serve as a literal Invisibility Cloak.
The standard outfit for most characters in Silent Möbius.
The Torumekians/Tolmekians in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind have this sort of cape, with a rather nifty-looking metal shoulderpiece.
- In the case of the princess, this also helps cover up her missing limbs.
Occured in Dragon Ball Z, first with Piccolo, then with Gohan, who was imitating Piccolo.
Zero in Code Geass has one. Of course, since he is a ham, it was probably chosen purely for dramatic effect.
- The Knights of Rounds in R2 hav something between a cape and one of these.
Happened a lot with the Juraians in Tenchi Muyo!.
Both Raoh and Souther in Fist of the North Star wear this, being conquerors and all.
Guts from Berserk uses this, along with a hood.
Grand Convoy of Beast Wars Neo IS one of these. Seriously. His body is NEVER shown, just the mantle.
Kenshin's master wears such a mantle—it doubles as an identifying feature of a legitimate heir of the Hiten Mitsuryuu sword style and its weighted springs helps the wearer develop the physique necessary to pull off the style's high-flying moves without undue harm to the body.
In Mobile Fighter G Gundam, more than half the time Domon Kasshu is outside of his Gundam, he's wearing his red mantle. In the finale, it's even shown that he keeps it in his cockpit during battle when he catches Rain as she shoots through the air naked and wraps her up in it. It then magically turns into a dress.
- Again in G Gundam, Master Gundam can turn its wings into a large imposing cloak. However, it seems to only use it during dramatic moments, as it looks like it could not move properly with it on.
- In Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, Sandrock Custom has an armored mantle that attaches to the shoulders via extra armor; we only see it used as a re-entry shield, Quatre ejecting it shortly after he arrives on Earth (presumably to keep it from hampering Sandrock's movement).
- Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam's eponymous Caped Mecha justifies this: they have mantles that are specially treated to resist damage from Energy Weapons, giving them a cheap and energy-efficient form of defense.
In Getter Robo Armageddon, Getter-1 and Black Getter's Getter Wing doubles as this as it will tend to wrap it around itself.
The Cure Mantles of Heartcatch Pretty Cure certainly count - long, flowing capes that enable the heroines of the series to fly (even into outer space!). And with one exception, they're all the Weasel Mascot partners.

Comic Books

Batman is often drawn with his cape going all the way around his body, although he normally has a narrower, more traditional cape.
- Batman's cape is always like this, except for the movies. He just pulls it back over his shoulders for fights and lets it cloak him when he's at rest.
  - They had to give Bats a shoulder-fastened cape in the movies to accommodate the fight choreography; it's easy to make an All Encompassing Mantle stay where you want it to if it's drawn on paper, but it gets in the way during live-action fighting.
Cloak of Cloak and Dagger, complete with hood. When it wasn't encompassing people whole into a pocket dimension of darkness, it wafted around him looking menacing and dramatic.
Bron and Mai Shen wear them in Scion.

Film — Live Action

Star Wars:
- The Empire gives these to higher ups such as Imperial Guards and of course, Darth Vader himself.
- Jedi occasionally do this as well.
- One Imperial Guard who got his own set of comics, Kir Kanos, tended to throw his overrobe back so it was more of a cape, showing off his armor.
- General Grievous has it in his culture to wear these. He makes his bodyguards wear them. too.

Literature

The Cloak Of Invisibility from the Harry Potter series could cover the wearer's entire body and was also rather large.

Live-Action TV

In the Sci-Fi channel's version of Dune, the Spacing Guild representatives wear purple velvet-ish capes. However, these just keep going up and up into giant purple-velvetish cones.
In Charmed Cole wears one of these for his reluctant ascension to The Source. When the demon priest asks him how it feels he simply comments "Heavy".

Professional Wrestling

Sheamus' outfit in the WWE after he became King of the Ring in 2010 and proclaimed himself King Sheamus.

Web Comics

Used to terrifying effect in The Adventures of Dr. McNinja.
Worn by The Speaker in Harkovast.

Web Original

In the League of Intergalactic Cosmic Champions Soyburger Patricia wears a cloak like this.
In the Global Guardians PBEM Universe, the supervillain Tachyon wears one of these, and looks damned impressive doing it.

Video Games

Lucia and Ghaleon wear them in Lunar: Eternal Blue. Lucia's is so distinctive that the other characters insist that she pick out a different outfit in order to blend in better. And Ghaleon's is +5 to Awesomeness.
- Ghaleon gets another All Encompassing Mantle added to his wardrobe in Lunar: Silver Star Story...giving him twice as many costumes as any other character in the game.
Vincent Valentine of Final Fantasy VII is known for his tattered red cloak.
- Taken Up to Eleven in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, where he is shown in one sequence as only being a cloak, which was apparently a new ability he picked up.
The wizard Rune wears one of these in Phantasy Star IV.
In Yo-Jin-Bo, Bo's cape covers most of his body, except for that strip of bare chest that his kimono can't seem to cover, either.
Glukkons in the Oddworld games have all encompassing suit jackets, in order to conceal the fact that their bodies and legs are largely vestigal, and they walk on their over sized hands and arms.
Zealots, special agents of the Church of the New Epoch wear massive white mantles with brown shoulderpieces and hoods. Justified in how all they possibly hide an inhumanly robotic body - the running animation reveals hoverjets of some sort.
Jackle from NiGHTS Into Dreams. His battle music is even titled "The Mantle". Of course, he is pretty much all mantle, along with disembodied hands, feet and a horned hat-thing with floating eyes and Cheshire Cat-like grin.
Galcian of Skies Of Arcadia.
All the members of Troupe Gramarye.
Male Sages in Dragon Quest III have one, which reappears in Dragon Quest IX as the Cape of Good Karma.
Before his appearance Magister's Terrace, Kael'thas Sunstrider had an epic mantled cloak◊.
Amon in the Lufia series wears a absurdly massive mantle, usually gold. In the DS remake his character portrait takes up damn near the entire screen because of it!
In Alpha Protocol, the Big Bad of the Taipei mission wears one, until your boss fight with him, at which point The Coat Comes Off.
Concept art for City of Villains had Mu Adepts and Guardians enveloped in these. Technical limitations mean that ingame, they wear a back-and-front pair of capes.
General Baal in Grandia wears one, which hides his Combat Tentacles.

Western Animation

Raven from Teen Titans has one of these.
The title characters in Gargoyles sometimes achieve the same effect by wrapping their wings around their shoulders.
Like in the comics, Batman usually has his cape fully cloaking his body, looking really creepy when he pops out of the shadows in his own way. The artists even had pencil drawings to specifically show how the cape should look and how Batman should move like this.
Big Chill's wings turn into one of these.
In Thundercats 2011 Jaga's Clerics wear these as part of their Full Body Disguises
Master Cyclonis from Storm Hawks wears one, but it has slits down the sides instead, allowing her to use her arms.