In Asian mythology and religion, Buddhist deities or saints, celestial maidens or any other form of graceful beings associated with Heaven are commonly portrayed with a thin shawl or stole fluttering around them, often circling their heads in a shape reminiscent of a Holy Halo. In many instances, it was said the cloth gave them the ability to fly, explaining why Asian deities and celestial beings were often illustrated flying through the sky with a floating stole around their shoulders.
The celestial raiment is based on the Chinese pibo (披帛), pei (帔), or pizi (帔子), a shawl-like adornment that may have originated in Persia and became popular in the Sui and Tang dynasties. In Japan, the raiment is called a hagoromo (羽衣, translated to "feather robe"), or tenne
(天衣 or 纏衣), and in both cultures it is usually worn by supernatural beings such as youkai, demons, gods, ascended humans, angels, etc.
Sub-Trope of Anti-Gravity Clothing. Compare Holy Halo.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Ceres, Celestial Legend: Aya Mikage learns that she is the genetic duplicate of her ancestor Ceres, a celestial maiden descended supposedly from heaven that was forced into marriage to Mikage family progenitor Mikagi after he stole her hagoromo, which prevented her from returning back to heaven. The story takes an A Mythology Is True interpretation by making celestial maidens a Superior Species of only women from Another Dimension, who reproduce by mating with exceptional human men, preferably willingly, and for only a short time. The hagoromo itself is Organic Technology that enables them to not only shapeshift but change their genetics at will, without which they cannot survive for more than ten years.
- Digimon:
- Angewomon wears a long pink stole that floats around her hagoromo-style.
- Digimon Frontier: The team's final form, Susanoomon (named after a Japanese hero-god of storms), is composed of weapons and armour from both KaiserGreymon and MagnaGarurumon put together and rearranged into a new shape. This includes the hilts of their weapons connecting together into a golden ring-like structure on the warrior's back while MagnaGarurumon's golden "scarf" attaches to the base, creating the shape of a hagoromo.
- Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai: When Kigiro absorbs a massive amount of Dark Aura in chapter 19, his resulting One-Winged Angel form includes one of these formed from darkness. It dissipates after a good chunk of his Aura is destroyed by Avan's newly-completed Sky Slash technique.
- Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic: Humans who conquer a dungeon and make a contract with a Djinn can channel its powers through a Djinn Equip. Most characters have a floating stole circling their bodies when wearing Djinn Equip.
- The Mystical Laws: The spirit Konohana-no-Sakuya-bime wears a golden floating hagoromo and she controls Yamata-no-Orochi to protect Japan from the advances of the Godom Empire.
- One Piece:
- Enel's One-Winged Angel form adds a shawl on top of the Raijin-esque ring of Thunder Drums already in his back.
- The members of Ryuugu royal family of merfolk all have floating stoles. In particular, for Princess Shirahoshi, it's merged with her halter top.
- All of Luffy's Gear Fourth forms have shawls made of vapor hanging around him.
- It's revealed that when Zoan type Devil Fruit users achieve an Awakening, they gain a brand-new form known as an Awakened form that looks similar to the Hybrid form with the addition of shawls floating around their bodies. Both Lucci and Kaku displayed these forms in the Egghead arc as well as Luffy when he unlocked Gear Fifth at the end of the Wano Country arc. Interestingly, Luffy's form is unique in that the shawls around Gear Fifth are white in color, whereas Lucci and Kaku both have black shawls. Whether this is a common difference for Mythical Zoans or is something unique to Luffy is not yet known.
- Ratman: Teenaged superheroine Mikoto Kujo — aka Ame-No-Uzume-No-Mikoto — wears a hagoromo as part of her goddess-themed costume, which she can freely control and even use to augment her sword-fighting skills.
- Rumble Garanndoll has Yakumo Kamizuru who excels in both magical and scientific fields by being a talented mechanic descended from onmyoji. She dresses like a miko with a pink hagoromo levitating around her.
- Sekirei: Uzume's weapon is a white veil that she can manipulate at will. During battle, the veil usually hovers over her and circles her body.
- Sengoku Youko: The living cloud Banshou'ou is revealed to own one of these in the final arc. It manifests around him when he compacts his entire country-sized normal form down into a human-sized storm elemental, revealing his status as the most powerful being in the story.
- Tactics: Sugino, a white tengu and the "god" of Sugino Village, wears a hagoromo that floats over his shoulders.
- Trinity Seven: Levi Kazama wears a new outfit with a stained, fluttering hagoromo after she becomes the Great Divine Soul-Seer Leviathan.
- The World God Only Knows: Demon girls wear a hagoromo with multiple magical properties, such as giving the ability to fly in the air, reproduce the user's magic, change the appearance of certain objects, and much more.
- YuYu Hakusho: Suzaku of the Four Saint Beasts wears a floating sash to both display his power and beauty and to visually differentiate him as a Bishōnen from the other three. During the anime version, he loses it early in his fight.
Films — Animation
- In Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie, the Sorceress is a ghost from three hundred years ago. She appears as a woman wearing a Chinese dress with a flowing stole that floats around her, can be manipulated at will to bind her enemies and be transformed into a pair of silver birds.
- Child of Kamiari Month: At the end of the film, when Kanna Hayama successfully delivers the offerings to Izumo-taisha Shrine, Ōkuninushi bestows her with a hagoromo and other godly clothing befitting her status as an avatar of Idaten; though it disappears when she returns to Earth.
- Inuyasha The Movie The Castle Beyond The Looking Glass: The villain is a youkai who absorbed Princess Kaguya. Her most powerful item is the hagoromo that originally belonged to the real celestial maiden and acts as a source of infinite power for her.
- Ne Zha: In his fully unleashed demon-god form, Ne Zha gains a red sash-like raiment that floats around his shoulders, emphasizing his divine nature.
- The Tale of the Princess Kaguya: As an adaptation of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, the Buddha's retinue of celestial beings are decked out in hagoromo. When they finish dressing Kaguya in the layers of heavenly clothing she regains her divinity and loses her attachments to the mortal world, a hagoromo appearing around her shoulders.
- Turning Red: Mei's ancestor Sun Yee received a divine blessing allowing her to turn into a giant red panda to protect her daughters in wartime, and she has passed that ability down the line to her female descendants. Mei and her family still worship Sun Yee, and she still watches over them. She is portrayed with a red stole floating around her, both in an etching in the family temple and in the astral plane, in both her human and red panda forms. On the astral plane, she uses the stole to form the mirror-gate that separates a person from their red panda spirit and returns them to the normal world.
Films — Live-Action
- Dark Phoenix: The Chinese poster for the movie depicts Jean Grey in the style of a Chinese deity, floating amidst clouds and accompanied by a phoenix (in Chinese, fenghuang). Jean is also wearing a long pinkish-red floating stole.
Literature
- By the Grace of the Gods: Lulutia, the Goddess of Love and Healing, wears a translucent blue hagoromo that hovers over her head and takes the shape of a heart.
- KonoSuba: Aqua is a water goddess who can summon a translucent pink hagoromo to enhance her divine image. She grew hysterical when Kazuma tried to sell it off.
- The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter: When the Buddha and his retinue of celestial beings return Kaguya's hagoromo to her, she regains her divinity and loses her attachments to the mortal world.
Mythology & Religion
- Chinese Mythology: Some deities and immortals sport floating sash-like garments as a symbol of their divinity or immense spiritual power, a motif that was carried over into Japanese Mythology and Korean Mythology.
- Japanese Mythology:
- There is a legend of a fisherman who finds a discarded hagoromo and hides it. The celestial maiden to whom it belongs soon shows up and demands it back. He agrees to return it in exchange for her dancing in the sky for him. In another version, he forces her to marry him instead. Whatever the case, the celestial maiden does recover her hagoromo and returns to Heaven.
- Some Japanese narratives like The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter hold that the hagoromo grants the person who wears it supernatural powers, and if removed they will be reduced to a mortal existence.
- Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam" in the Sistine Chapel has God and His angels hovering over a giant sheet of cloth that mimics the shape of the brain, as He creates Adam.
Video Games
- Asura's Wrath: Olga, one of the Seven Deities, has this as part of her Holy Halo's design, wrapping around the halo itself, for double the holiness.
- BlazBlue: The leader of the Dance troupe Amane wears a translucent pink hagoromo that floats above his head when he isn't using it to smack and drill opponents.
- Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade: The dancer Ninian's combat sprite has a shawl that hovers over her as she stands. She and her brother are both noted to have mysterious powers, and they are eventually revealed to be ice dragons.
- Grimms Notes: One of the healers is Hagoromo Tennyo, who as the name indicates, is the celestial maiden whose hagoromo got stolen in the legend. In the game, she appears as a white-haired woman with a translucent, pink hagoromo circling her head.
- The Legend of Dark Witch: Riva from the first game wears a hagoromo as part of her minstrel disguise, even though she isn't really a godly figure (unlike our protagonist Zizou, who is a god, but doesn't wear one). When she takes on her One-Winged Angel form at the end, she ends up losing her hagoromo in the process.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: Madame Aroma wears a transparents hagoromo despite showing neither divine status or magical power, though it may symbolize her status as a mother figure for the town and the literal mother to Kafei.
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: Mineru, befitting her Semi-Divine nature as one of the Zonai, sports a floating hagoromo shawl as part of her attire.
- Love Nikki - Dress Up Queen: This Virtual Paper Doll game includes dozens of suits inspired by historical Eastern fashion meant to depict mystical or otherworldly figures (like goddesses, ghosts, magic users, and nature spirits) graced with floating shawls.
- Ōkami: The tree spirit Sakuya's stole floats above her head like a Japanese mystical figure's would.
- Paper Mario 64: Each of the Seven Star Spirits qualifies as a Physical God, but Misstar wears a hagoromo to show off her divine beauty and sensuality.
- Persona 5: Futaba's Shadow takes the appearance of an Ancient Egyptian princess who has incongruous hagoromo attached to her arms (because Futaba is Japanese). It's a reference to how pharaonic bloodlines was considered semi-divine.
- Sakuna Of Rice And Ruin: Sakuna is a spoiled goddess who inherited a "divine raiment" (depicted as a shawl that floats around her shoulders in official art) from her mother. After Sakuna is exiled to Earth, the raiment's magic proves useful in combat.
- Samurai Warriors: Koshosho can manipulate her floating shawl to make it move at high speeds and hit her opponents with it, and she can even make it float above her so she can swing around with it, slamming herself into her foes.
- Touhou Project:
- Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red: One of Aya's news stories is a Fractured Fairy Tale about celestial maidens "accidentally" losing their shawls on Earth as a way of hunting for boyfriends.
- Touhou Bougetsushou introduces the tsuki no hagoromo (usually translated as "Lunar Veil") as a floating shawl which denizens of the Lunar Capital use to fly between Earth and the Moon. It has the side effect of causing one's memories of Earth to become dim and dreamlike, so aside from its usage to retrieve Princess Kaguya it's mostly a tool of the Lunarians' Moon Rabbit servants. Eirin also discreetly attaches part of Reisen's old Veil to Remilia's moon rocket to ensure that it will arrive at the Lunar Capital's Pocket Dimension safely.
- In Eirin's perspective chapter of Cage of Lunatic Runagate she narrates that lunar hagoromo are woven from moonbeams and have a highly distinctive silver gleam, whereas the type worn by celestial maidens are composed of antimatter instead (and presumably don't do the "forget your attachments to Earth" thing).
- Touhou Hisouten ~ Scarlet Weather Rhapsody: Iku Nagae is an oarfish youkai and messenger of the Dragon Palace, whose job is to observe the daily mood of the atmosphere. She has a frilly white mantle that resembles a hagoromo and floats around her body. Rumor says that if a human wears this clothing, they will be able to fly through the sky.
- Touhou Seirensen ~ Undefined Fantastic Object: Shou Toramaru, as a disciple and avatar of Bishamonten, wears a costume similar to the god's traditional depictions; this includes a giant cloth circle attached to her back.
- Touhou Shinreibyou ~ Ten Desires: Seiga Kaku is a "wicked" hermit (i.e. sennin) and wears a flowing, translucent white cloth, which is presumably some sort of hagoromo as it appears to float around her. Whether it allows her to fly is unclear; while Seiga isn't above reliance on tools,note most major characters already know how to fly without any apparent aid.
Visual Novels
- Ace Attorney:
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations: Dahlia Hawthorne has a translucent pink stole floating around her shoulders, signifying that there is something otherworldly about her.
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice: Nahyuta Sahdmadhi has a white stole levitating around him. Besides being an international prosecutor, he is also a respected monk in Khura'in, with a devout belief in the country's religious tenets.
Webcomics
- Kill Six Billion Demons draws a lot of inspiration from Asian mythology, so unsurprisingly these appear occasionally on characters of great power. It's most often seen on the demiurge Mottom, whose fluttering wardrobe flares out when she acts up (such as here), but Allicio's elaborately braided hair also replicates the effect (here).
Web Animation
- Bravest Warriors: During the second Season Finale, the Aeon Worm shows Beth a vision of her future as the mother-goddess of his apocalyptic brood to tempt her to stop resisting him. During the vision, she wears an opaque hagoromo and nothing else. The circumstances and implications severely taint the image.
Western Animation
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: After Princess Yue transforms into the Moon Spirit, she appears in the air with an Ethereal White Dress and a long white stole fluttering around her.
