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Fun in the sun.
Often combined with or immediately following a Recap Episode, the Beach Episode exists solely for the purpose of getting the female cast into highly-abbreviated bathing suits. Sadly for the fanboys, beach episodes are usually extreme examples of Filler and treated accordingly.
Naturally, it also acts as a Breather Episode in arc-heavy stories.
Cousin to the Hot Springs Episode, which usually takes place in highlands.
Examples:
- Love Hina did this twice, extending the second into a miniarc.
- Ranma 1/2 did almost an entire movie as a Beach Episode as well as a regular one. An interesting note is the transition from manga to anime actually removes one as the setting was changed from a beach to a ski resort (though it also adds one as filler).
- Genshiken had fun with this type of episode, as most of the cast were otaku and thus not the sort to go to the beach on a regular basis. ("What the hell am I doing in a place like this... Isn't it embarassing to go to ComiFes with a tan?".
- Also notable was Cosplay Otaku Girl Ohno, who wears some fairly risque things, being shy enough to cover most of her outfit with a long shirt.
- Even the shojo Sailor Moon had at least one Beach Episode every season, although the second one had such a stupid plot the animation company would rather ignore it.
- Suzumiya Haruhi No Yuutsu also had a Beach Episode with a twist, a parody of a Locked Room Mystery that had been set up, Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre-style, to keep Haruhi from getting bored.
- Practically every episode of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch had the beach in it, though as expected for the demographic a lot of fanservice was male. There were more traditional Beach Episodes, though, such as the "Mermaid Contest" episode, where the girls try to show off talents and compete with the Dark Lovers in a beachside beauty contest. In the manga, Lucia even wins by inadvertently flashing the audience when her bikini top comes undone.
- Ichigo Mashimaro has Nobue take the girls to the beach one summer break; slightly parodies the trope, as Miu comments that her friends should have "sexy" swimsuits like hers.
- Pokemon had an episode named "Beauty and the Beach" that was -- you guessed it -- a beach episode with a swimsuit contest. It was originally cut from airing outside of Japan, but later aired as a lost episode with the most questionable part cut out: James entering the contest in a skimpy bikini with inflatable breasts.
- Macross 7, never accused of being the most plot heavy of series early on in its run, had one as well...only an emergency related to an attack by the Varuta caused Basara and Mylene to get trapped in between two emergency bulkheads and nearly freeze to death in a rather ironic subversion.
- Lucky Star also features a beach episode, complete with characters bemoaning the lack of interest from guys, the protagonist's attempts to be more appealing with an inner tube, and a scene picking apart the trope of vacation food actually being pretty terrible.
- Western example: One Season 3 episode of Avatar The Last Airbender is entitled, "The Beach." ...If you hadn't already guessed, yes, it is indeed a Beach Episode, featuring Ozai's Angels (+Zuko) in swimsuits. The preview images, particularly Ty Lee's
 ◊, erupted into quite a scandal in the fandom.
- Subverted in RahXephon: episode 8 is set up as a Beach Episode, with everyone wearing swimsuits, but... it's Christmas, it begins to snow, and the rest of it is played more or less like a typical Christmas episode.
- Once a year in Keroro Gunsou. The anime tries to balance the fanservice by throwing in a comedy contest, whereas the original manga was a straight-up swimsuit contest. Involves at least one girl losing her top in front of many geeks, who are there for the Gundam models as much as the swimsuit models. Inverted in the manga with a women's skiing contest during a trip to the mountains, and in an episode of the anime featuring a man-only beefcake contest.
- Inverted in The Prince of Tennis, where the main characters take a break to play in an unofficial beach volleyball tournament. Male ass is revealed, and the only woman in a swimsuit is pushing 50, resulting in severe nausea when she tries to be seductive.
- Astonishingly, a textbook example can be seen in the Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode "Let He Who Is Without Sin...". Played straight as an arrow, the episode takes place square in the middle of a story arc involving the emergence of the Jem'Hadar from the Gamma Quadrant and the threat of imminent war. A full review detailing point by point its awfulness can be found here. Even the writer admitted the idea was one of the worst ideas he ever had, and said that what was on his mind when writing it was "Please don't let this suck. Please don't let this suck."
- Commonly seen in the first few seasons of Power Rangers, though it got both the males and females into fanservice outfits. Which explains one of the reasons why older fans of either gender may have loved the show so much. While these episodes were almost always filler as usual with the trope, it must be noted that 85% of any given early season of PR was filler anyways.
- Dead Or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball and its sequel are the video game equivalent of this.
- Ai Yori Aoshi had a two-episode beach arc, which also included a Furo Scene and a festival scene.
- Due to location, as many as half of all CSI Miami episodes qualify.
- This troper remembers an episode where they not only had a beach volleyball match (women's, naturally), but they managed to get a camera angle where the brand of bathing suit was clearly visible. That Jerry Bruckheimer! Always thinking!
- Fanservice and plot advancement in a Beach Episode? Yep. Episode 9 of Mai-HiME managed to get (most of) the girls in bathing suits, but also included a B-story that delved into Natsuki's past (and there was the whole Laser Hallway subversion, too).
- Western live action example: lonelygirl15, "At the Beach". Subverted in an earlier episode, "The Perfect Beach", which has an innocuous sounding description and starts cheerfully enough, only to pull a shock twist ending so severe that some fans accused the show of Jumping The Shark.
- Azumanga Daioh had several, though as a Slice Of Life series, they weren't filler. One even provided the infamous scene of Osaka waking Yukari up with a knife.
- This Ugly Yet Beautiful World had one right after a Hot Springs Episode
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann plays with this. When the crew arrive at the sea for the first time and the the girls demonstrate the connection between beaches and skimpy outfits, almost everyone turns expectantly to Yoko. After "voicing" her dissatisfaction, she appears in a beach outfit that is rather more conservative than her usual attire.
- To be fair, considering what she normally wears, if it got any skimpier she would just be naked.
- In Ouran High School Host Club, there is a beach episode that features guys in bathing suits, but the one main female character is of course in a tshirt and shorts, as she cannot reveal her gender. Hilarity Ensues? Well, not really. Instead, Kyouya acts like a creepy sexual offender, and Tamaki teaches Haruhi a vaguely sexist lesson.
- The post-Zero Hour Legion Of Super Heroes comic had a Beach Issue with Legionnaires #77, when most of the Legion takes a vacation on the resort planet Summer World.
- There is a set of "vacation" missions set in Costa Del Sol in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, with fanservice for both the girls (Zack in swimming trunks) and the boys (Cissnei in a bikini).
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