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alt title(s): Half Identical Twin 
Genetically, brother-sister twins are always fraternal, coming from different ova; they are no more likely to strongly resemble each other than any other non-twin siblings.
However, in fiction (especially Sequential Art), brother-sister twins more often than not are mirror images of each other, differing only in their sex. They often display identical twin tropes, such as Twin Telepathy or Synchronization, especially if they are Creepy Twins. This probably ties into the fact there are no great visual cues to evoking fraternal twins versus regular siblings, both can be suggested by a skin tone or hair color unique to them.
'Semi-identical' twins (from the same single ovum) are exceedingly rare but likewise, not that much more similar to each other than normal fraternal twins. This trope occurs because twins of any type should be immediately identifiable as such if it's relevant to their characters.
However, so rarely that it shouldn't come up even in any fantasy setting, monozygotic (one egg) fertilization can permit even opposite-gender twins to be almost as close, genetically, as true identical twins. This is an inexpressibly unlikely occurence, however, with two possible means of occuring.
1. For a brother and sister (or other non-identical twins) to be nearly as similar as identical twins, one fertilized egg must split to make them. The female half must reject the previously shared Y, leaving the siblings with identically activated X's that determine most characteristics.
2. Or else an egg must split into two identical halves before a Y and an X (for example) enter separate parts of its genetically identical halves. This is less likely than method 1 to result in nearly-identical twins, as the girl ovum must activate the same X chromosome parts as the male possesses, but she has a whole other X to choose from.
Either way means the twins must have the exact same parts of their shared X chromosome activated. Then, they must both develop within the same protective embryonic sac in the womb, and gain equivalent nourishment from a shared placenta.
All of these steps being met is the only way for two technically fraternal twins to be so genetically close as to almost be identical twins. And even after all of this implausibly occurs together, the "semi-identical" twins will likely be quite different due to things like chemical actions based on gender, or they will generally become so as they grow up. Current genetics technology, though, have made making such twins possible, although no experiments so far have taken place.
See also Strong Family Resemblance for a broader if less logical usage. Compare Opposite Sex Clone.
Examples:
Anime
- Sumeragi Subaru and his sister Hokuto (page image) from the anime and manga Tokyo Babylon and X.
- Possibly Hansel and Gretel from Black Lagoon. They appear to be brother and sister, but it's never revealed whether they are different sexes or not.
- Confusing things further, they have switched roles on-screen at least once, by having "Gretel" remove "her" long-haired wig (revealing a haircut to identical to the one "Hansel",s down to the color and style) and hand it to "him" to put on. As their highly stylized school uniforms are effectively unisex, the switch is flawless.
- It gets weirder in the end when
Hansel? Gretel talks with both Hansel and Gretels personality by him? herself.
- Likely, Kozue and Miki in Revolutionary Girl Utena, who we are told are twins, but have different hair colors. The Movie uses a cameo that simplifies the twinness by giving them the same hair color.
- Johan and Anna/Nina from Monster, who were dressed identically when children and were almost indistinguishable. It remains when they grow up, to the point that Johan disguises himself as a woman to hide, and when Nina arrives to the same town she's confused for her brother's female identity.
- Aya and Aki Mikage from Ceres, Celestial Legend, who are not only Half Identical Twins, they are also Reincarnations of ancestors of theirs, a husband and wife, adding a touch of Twincest.
- In Shugo Chara!, Nadeshiko's identical twin brother Nagihiko shows up when Amu visits her house. Immediately subverted in the exact same chapter, where it's revealed after she leaves that they're the exact same person.
- Yuki and Jun Kanzato from Persona -Trinity Soul- would fit this trope to the letter if Yuki's soul wasn't in Jun's body after her death.
- Jun also manages to keep a transplanted piece of his sister's brain in his head without any need for anti-rejection medications.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds, the twins Rua and Ruka look so similar that at one point Rua successfully disguises himself as his sister by wearing her clothes and changing his hairstyle.
- In the Italian dub of Sailor Moon Stars the gender bending Sailor Starlights were turned into this, making them separate characters to the Three Lights due to the complaints from Moral Guardians.
- Terriermon and Lopmon in the Digimon franchise. In Digimon Tamers, they aren't related (Lopmon's a Heel Face Turned Deva who's introduced right before things heat up), but they still manage to get an accidental Twin Switch in the second movie.
- Mariya (a Villainous Crossdresser) and Shizu (a Sweet Polly Oliver) in Maria Holic resemble each other exactly except for gender. Which is probably part of why they can crossdress so easily.
- Kurt and Chloe Klik from Genesis Of Aquarion, complete with Twin Telepathy.
- Suou and Shion from the second season of Darker Than Black.
- Yukino and Kanade from Candy Boy. Well..They look similar if you ignore their hair colors.
- Thunder and Fire from Soul Eater were recently revealed to be this.
Comic Books
- From the Marvel Universe: Andrea & Andreas von Strucker (a.k.a. Fenris), and Jeanne-Marie (Aurora) & Jean-Paul (Northstar) Beaubier. Both have superpowers that are activated by touching each other, though the latter pair also have powers on their own.
- In the original continuity of Legion Of Super Heroes, Lightning Lass easily posed as her dead brother for one story, but was revealed because she didn't have an Adam's Apple. Much later, it was shown that her planet is almost all twins, but the twins were generally depicted as identical.
- An interesting case was a story arc in the Buffy The Vampire Slayer comic where she goes to Las Vegas. The villains are a pair of conjoined twins: the woman a mortal and the man a vampire. They didn't look alike, but the fact that they were conjoined twins of the opposite sex fails biology forever.
Film
- Prince Nuada and Princess Nuala from Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.
Literature
- In Wolves of Calla, the fifth book of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, almost all births in the village where the story is set are Half Identical Twins; this is an explicitly unnatural (and evil) effect, however.
- Jaime and Cersei Lannister of A Song Of Ice And Fire.
- In Kathryn Lasky's Starbuck Twins Mystery Series of books for children, fraternal twins Liberty and July Starbuck are described as indistinguishable from one another save for the fact that Liberty's hair is long, and her brother July's is short. They also display Twin Telepathy.
- In A Series of Unfortunate Events triplets Duncan and Quigley Quagmire both look identical to their sister, Isadora.
- Thom and Alanna from Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness series
- The protagonists of Les Messagers Du Temps.
- Continuing from the example of Star Wars above, Leia and Han's first two children, Jaina and Jacen Solo. Timothy Zahn, who wrote the novels in which they first appear, deliberately modeled them after the Luke/Leia duo. In this case though, it makes a little bit more sense, since they are raised together.
- In Donna Hart's a Secret History the twins are similar, but in the end turn out to be two different people because one of them has a breakdown and the other turns into a Shrinking Violet.
- Heinlein's Time Enough for Love involves a couple of female genetic scientists creating a pair of Half Identical Twins for Lazarus Long: two redheaded women named Lazuli and Lorelei, or Laz-Lor. Lazarus calls them his "identicals" even though they're not exactly, being girls. And then they engage in a threesome that is either Twincest, BrotherSisterIncest, or father-daughters incest, depending on how you interpret the relationship. Please keep in mind that Lazarus himself is a pretty blatant Author Avatar. So Yeah.
- P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles Of The Kencyrath has heroine Jame and her Half Identical Twin brother Torisen. Jame is frequently mistaken for her brother, and Word Of God has it that he'll be mistaken for her too, once she's better known. Their resemblance is restricted only because her time in a Time Dilation Field has made her an apparent ten years younger than he.
Live Action TV
- Power Rangers RPM has the peppy twin geniuses Gem and Gemma.
- Gem and Gemma are far from identical, they're just both asian.
- They are so single-minded, however, that it pretty much makes up for it. They are, for all intents and purposes, a single character.
Theatre
Video Games
- Vent and Alie in Mega Man ZX seem to be like this... That, or they're just two versions of the same person. It depends on where you look.
- Similarly, Raul and Fiona Gureden, who were male and female versions of the same character in Super Robot Wars Reversal, were made into twins for Original Generations.
- On a similiar note, Viletta Badim and Ingram Plisken have the same deal in Super Hero Operations, and were later made into clones.
- Adelheid & Rose Bernstein from The King of Fighters, who both have blonde hair and red eyes. However, Adel gets his father's fighting skills and Rose gets Rugal's personality.
- Palom and Porom from Final Fantasy IV may qualify for this: While the artwork, particularly the sprites, lack sufficient detail to be certain whether they were meant to be identical or simply share a number of similar traits and style of dress, there is a distinct theme of similarity coupled with reversal; not only the sexes, but elements of personality (Palom is boastful and rude, Porom reserved and polite (when not berating her brother)), their style of dress (both are pictured wearing red and green outfits, but one's is red where the other's is green, and vice versa), their use of magic (Palom uses the destructive Black Magic, Porom uses the healing/supportive White Magic), and hairstyle (the sprites show a right/left reversal between the two, otherwise being identical; the portraits show Porom's hair looking well-groomed and Palom's hair looking rather messy).
- However, by Final Fantasy IV The After Years, puberty and years of different lifestyles have taken their toll, making them look very noticeably different from one another.
- In Last Blade 2, a woman impersonates her dead twin brother, Kojiroh, a member of the Shinsengumi, in order to bring his killer to justice. She ends up living the rest of her life under the charade, taking on her brother's identity as a tribute to him.
- Alfred and Alexia in Resident Evil: Code Veronica. In fact, the resemblance is so good that Alfred is able to convincingly pretend to be Alexia for several years after she was frozen in order to make people think she was still alive.
- Kind of explained in that they are really clones. This should only make them semi-identical, as they would share an X-chromosome but, while Albert would have his father's Y chromosome, Alexia whould have a second copy of the X. But maybe I'm putting a little too much thought into a game where a chick who was cryogenically frozen for 15 years turns into a giant ant monster with fire blood.
- Well, an in-game document mentions that the egg Veronica was being cloned as split into the two offspring. Seeing as all fertilization had been done in vitro, the twins would have to be of the same gender - either the standard binary options, or something inbetween.
- Actually, if it was merely the cloned egg (ova) that was split, and not an actual fertilized embryo, then that would mean that they share an identical set of maternal genes, but they would still have a different set of chromosomes from the paternal side. However, even if they are fully male and female, respectively it's still probably messed up considering that their father may have essentially impregnated his own grandmother's egg via the magic of genetic engineering. Also, there's the whole twincest thing.
- Vocaloid has Rin and Len Kagamine.
- Nox and Matin Catorce are identical brother and sister twins from Blind Justice ~Torn souls, Hurt Faiths~ by Zektbach in the Beatmania series. Both twins also have special swords that are identical, although one represents Hope and the other Despair.
- Averted with Eirika and Ephraim of Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, who appear clearly related but don't resemble each other in any significant way.
- Tate and Liza, twin Gym Leaders in the Pokemon series. They look so similar that it's a common mistake to think Tate is also a girl, thus making them fully identical.
Webcomics
Western Animation
- Phil and Lil on Rugrats. (Although it could be argued that most babies look alike anyway. However, in the spinoff, where the kids are 10-13, Phil and Lil can still pass for each other with a simple change of clothes and a wig).
- This troper remembers an episode where this was played upon with the twins managing to distract a robber just by removing Lil's bow to make her look exactly like Phil.
- Robbie and Rosie in the 1980s UK stop-motion kids' series Cockleshell Bay.
- The Wonder Twins from Super Friends, Zan and Jayna.
- In Justice League Unlimited, the Ultimen are based on the Super Friends team members who were created for the show instead of the comics. Their versions of the Wonder Twins, Downpour and Shifter, are so similar it's very difficult to tell them apart. Shifter doesn't have much in the way of the Most Common Superpower, so even examination of the chest area only works if they're standing side by side to compare. They even share a voice actor.
- She-Ra and He-Man. Both have super-special-sword powers, and blond hair, and extensive muscling in super-form.
- Though to be fair, it's hard to mistake Adam for Adora, or the other way 'round.
- Scooter and Skeeter from Muppet Babies.
- Ben 10 episode "Camp Fear" features brother-sister twins who fit this trope to a T.
- Lem and Ada from the 1980's Strawberry Shortcake series. Supposedly only their dog, Sugar Woofer, could tell them apart, despite Ada wearing a bow and Lem wearing a hat at all times.
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