Naked on Revival

From stiff to... hopefully not.

"Naked I was sent back — for a brief time, until my task is done."

— Gandalf, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

To be alive, you basically need two things: a living spirit/mind, and a fully functioning body. Note that clothing is not included in there. When people are born as babies, they're naturally Naked on Arrival, and the same often goes for resurrections, unless the force that brings people back to life is feeling extra generous to give them a spare set of clothing on top of that. When it's not, expect Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing to precede this trope in some manner.

This trope can be symbolic of the character's rebirth into the living world, of course, or serve to show how fragile life is by having them be vulnerable upon being thrust back into the world. Fanservice is also a contributing factor, but it can turn into Fan Disservice if the character is unattractive and/or wounded. Or it can just be funny.

Expect this to happen when someone Wakes Up At The Morgue.

May often involve a Fetal Position Rebirth. The super trope to this is Naked on Arrival.

Note that there may be spoilers ahead: we're going to have to talk about death if we talk about resurrection.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Battle Angel Alita: In the final book of the pre-Last Order series, Alita is destroyed saving the Earth, and is effectively "regrown" out of the resulting "tree's" nanomachine system. In the last frames, Figure pulls her out of a cocoon and she falls out, nude.
• Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust gave us the Vampire Carmilla, reviving herself out of pure blood, naked in a casket.
• TerraforMARS: While Eva Frost can grow a new body from a small portion of her body such as when she gets blown up, she cannot regrow her previous outfit.
• Not immediately apparent, but the hero of Guyver is killed when his control metal is ripped out of his head and his body consumes itself. A new body later forms from the control metal itself, but when the Guyver armor recedes, he's naturally without clothing.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: Yami Yugi's Fetal Position Rebirth during the Doma saga. Of course, it got cut by the 4Kids dub.
• Fullmetal Alchemist. Alphonse Elric at the end of the manga. They were nice enough to throw a blanket over the severely-malnourished body though.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, Polnareff encounters a Jerkass Genie (actually the Villain of the Week) and wishes for the resurrection of both his dead sister and his fallen comrade, Avdol who's not even dead, incidentally. Cameo creates flesh-eating clones made of earth; while Avdol's is fully clothed, the sister is naked, which is neither questioned nor explained.
• The Misfit of Demon King Academy: When Anos kills and reincarnates Emilia Ludowell, she comes back naked. Given Anos is perfectly capable of bringing people back with their clothes, he likely did that to further humiliate her. He then leaves her without giving her any clothes, leaving it unknown how she managed to get home.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion:
  • Shinji gets absorbed into his Eva which leaves his plugsuit behind, which can be seen floating in the plug (even though he was wearing his school uniform when he was absorbed). Later on, the Eva's core spits him back out naked. Makes sense when you consider that he's literally coming out of his mom a second time.
  • Surprisingly averted in End of Evangelion where both Shinji and Asuka come out of Instrumentality with their respective clothes: Shinji with his trademark white shirt and black pants, Asuka with her plugsuit and lots of bandages. Doesn't make sense since their physical bodies were destroyed (when Instrumentality begins, we see piles of clothing soaking in pools of LCL that's actually the wearer's physical body broken down into primordial soup) and Shinji's clothes should be in Unit-01's entry plug which is currently floating in outer space.
• Fushigi Yuugi After summoning the spirit of Suzaku, Miaka's first wish was to return Yui, who had been absorbed by Seriyuu a few episodes ago. As her brother and his friend were headed to her location, they see a light and from there was Yui, who was without clothes.
• Inuyasha: This happens to Kikyō for her resurrection, since her bones had been used to essentially create a golem. By the time they track down her Reincarnation Kagome to put her soul into the new body, she's acquired a set of traditional Miko clothing.
• Dragon Ball Z: Defied by Polunga, who revives Krillin and throws some clothes on him "as a bonus."
• Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl: In the anime, the now-female Hazumu is revived after being crushed by Jan-Puu's spaceship form without clothes. In the manga, her clothes were reconstructed along with the rest of her body.
• Soul Eater: Asura was imprisoned by being wrapped up in his own stretched skin. Upon returning to life, he is naked, then makes Improvised Clothes out of his still-loose skin.
• Happened to Clare from Claymore when she was brought back from her fusion with the Destroyer (where she existed as a consciousness only while her original body was dissolved), when she was brought back to perfectly recreated original body she was not only missing her clothes but also the stitches that were keeping shut the wound across the entire front of her body.
• In Dog Days, when Valério Calvados and Adelaide Grand Marnier are revived from their tombs, they emerge naked. The witnesses to both revivals freak out, but they just nonchalantly create new outfits with their magic.
• Shadow Star: After getting blown up by some missiles, Shiina is reborn, completely naked, on the shore of her grandparents' island.
• Kagerou Project: When Takane is killed, she awakens in the digital world completely naked. She then undergoes a Transformation Sequence when she becomes Ene.
• A non-fatal version: in Dr. STONE, an unknown force causes everyone on Earth to turn to stone, but excludes their clothing. 3,700 years pass before people begin to turn back, by which point their clothes have realistically dissolved. Taiju specifically waits to revive his crush, Yuzuriha, until after he's dressed her stone form.
• The Seven Deadly Sins: When Elaine was killed, the Fairies preserved her body in a crystal naked. When she comes back to life, she wanders around kicking ass until she uses her magic to make a Garden Garment for herself. Averted in the anime, where she was preserved in the crystal with her clothes, but she still replaces her clothes with a Garden Garment shortly after being revived.
• In Seven Mortal Sins, Maria Totsuka does a Heroic Sacrifice and she disintegrates. When Lucifer manages to bring her back to life, she materializes in Lucifer's arms naked.
• In FLCL Progressive, this happens to Aiko (complete with Fetal Position Rebirth) and apparently Iide, though we only see him from the waist up. (Also, he's technically not completely naked — he still has his glasses, for some reason.)
• In Overlord (2012), after Shalltear was killed to undo her being Brainwashed and Crazy, Ains gathers the remaining Floor Guardians and, at the cost of much of his valuable YGGDRASIL gold, resurrects her. It starts out as a heartwarming scene as they welcome her back, but quickly becomes hilarious when she realizes she's naked and her real size is on display.
• Megumi from Majinden gets completely regenerated in human form by Riki after being possessed, mutated and killed, and her nakedness proves a bit of a trouble for him afterwards.
• In the third and final OVA of Re: Cutie Honey, all of the women who had been turned into flower petals reform completely naked, much to their collective embarrassment.
• The final issues of the initial run of Trigun depict Knives regenerating himself after he was very badly wounded. Specifically, he's messily "birthed" from another Plant — adult-sized, long-haired and without a stitch of clothing. He doesn't bother to dress before confronting his twin brother, Vash.
• Kingdoms of Ruin: When Adonis resurrects Doroka, she materializes naked, causing her to have a Naked Freak-Out until he hands her some clothes.

Comic Books

• Superman:
  • In Supergirl (2011) #23, Supergirl's body is dissolved by a machine, leaving her clothes lying in a pile. In Supergirl #24, her body is restored by the same machine, but she has to manually put on her clothes. Also in issue #23, when Cyborg Superman becomes fully biological, his cybernetic parts fall off and he is left naked. He stays naked for the duration until he makes himself a cyborg again in issue #24.
  • Death & the Family: Lucy Lane, who had been killed off in Who is Superwoman?, is fully naked when she is revived. Justified, since her suit exploded after being torn to shreds.
  • Superman: Space Age: Lois Lane is the first of humanity to be revived from Superman's archive of DNA samples, and she happens to be naked in the process.
• Subverted in Death Vigil. Bernie allows Sam to think this is going to happen, and his reaction when he snaps back into existence fully clothed causes her to double over laughing.
• In Watchmen, Doctor Manhattan is naked when he first fully reconstitutes himself after being disintegrated in a Freak Lab Accident. By the story's present day, he's grown so detached from human society that he no longer bothers with clothes as a general rule.
• Back when Wolverine's Healing Factor was powerful enough that he could regenerate from being reduced to an adamantium skeleton in minutes, he would inevitably be naked after healing.
• Justice (DC Comics) has Wonder Woman die in the end, but she is resurrected, albeit nude, after her mother Hippolyta prays to the gods to let her live again.
• The fourth issue of the Bravest Warriors comic book tie-in by Boom Studios has the heroes' consciousnesses revive themselves in new bodies after being decapitated by the fear goddess Sadness. When resurrected, their bodies are shown putting on towels after stepping out of the vat. Ever the gentleman, Chris chooses to avert his eyes and avoid looking at Beth's nude body even though everyone else treats seeing one another in their birthday suits as a non-issue.
• X-Men:
  • When Rogue falls into the Siege Perilous, she's wearing Ms. Marvel's costume. When she is reborn in Uncanny X-Men #269, she is naked (in the sequence of panels, she first appears as a skeleton, then grows muscles, then skin).
  • During the X-Men: The Krakoan Age, writer Jonathan Hickman introduced the idea of "mutant circuits" and the Five, a group of five mutants who join their powers to resurrect fallen mutants: the dead mutant's DNA is inserted into an egg-like cocoon, a Time Master ages the individual's body to their preferred age, the mutant cracks open the egg and leaves the coccon as a memoryless naked body, until a telepath "downloads" the dead person's memories into the mind of the new body.

Comic Strips

• In Dilbert, when the title character is brought Back from the Dead with the help of a brilliant garbage man, he reappears naked in a garbage can with no memory of what happened to him.
  Garbage Man: AAAGH! Run for your life!!! It's a hideous, disgusting creature!!!

Fan Works

• The Parselmouth of Gryffindor: Realizing this would be the case with the Resurrection Ritual, its use on Hermione has Dumbledore cast a preemptive Modesty Charm above the Cauldron before they go through with it.
• Empath: The Luckiest Smurf: In "Who's That Smurfette?", retelling Smurfette's origin, Papa Smurf reverted the original "un-Smurfy" Smurfette into a pile of blue clay, separating her spirit from her body while using his magic spells to change Smurfette into a real Smurf. When the spirit reenters the blue clay, it reforms into the blond-haired physical form of Smurfette. However, she finds out that the spells caused her to appear naked in her new form, so Papa Smurf cast another spell to put some clothes on Smurfette.
• In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Legends of Tomorrow fic "Two for the Price of One", Willow is able to bring Leonard Snart back to life after travelling to the Vanishing Point, using a ritual that draws his dispersed cells back together due to the timeless nature of Vanishing Point meaning that Snart's cells are basically frozen in the moment just before death. However, she makes it clear that the spell will only bring Snart back and will do nothing about the clothes he was wearing, requiring Mick Rory to bring a blanket to cover Snart once enough of his body has regrown.
• Dungeon Keeper Ami: How Mukrezar appears when he revives, in "Backfire - Part 2":
  The creature was an elf, Ami realised, or at least it looked like one. Despite the smooth, snow-white skin and the long pink hair, the wild-eyed new arrival was clearly male. She was sure about that, since he had not been summoned with any clothes.

Films — Live-Action

• The Fifth Element: Leeloo is reconstructed From a Single Cell, and naturally clothing doesn't come with that, though the machine puts bandage-clothing on her shortly afterward.
• Jackie Chan's character in The Medallion is brought back to life by said magic medallion when he was already at the morgue, his clothes removed from the autopsy. Averted a while later in the movie, when he does the same thing to bring back his love interest shortly after she died (still clothed), his partner even protests saying right away: "But when he came back, he was NAKED!"
• In The Passion of the Christ, the final shot of the film shows Jesus resurrected, and while we obviously don't see anything, he's clearly naked. (Which fits, since historically he would have been buried in nothing but a shroud.)
• Cowboys & Aliens: Ella, because her corpse had been set on fire and her clothes burned away as she revived.
• In Terror of Mechagodzilla, Katsura is briefly shown nude when the aliens resurrect her. The English dub cut this scene out.
• In The 6th Day, humans are resurrected through cloning and come out of it sans clothes, of course.
• When Gurerro is returned to life in Dead in Tombstone, he wakes up naked in his grave. He later finds his clothes in a cupboard in Ramos' barn, implying that the gang buried him naked.
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), an alien pod that managed to capture a human host (Elizabeth) arises in a new body that perfectly mimics Elizabeth's, only naked.
• In The Mummy (2017) after Nick Morton is killed in a plane crash, he suddenly revives...in a morgue. Since his body is prepared for examination, all he's wearing is a body bag.
• The Prophecy II opens with Gabriel being returned (without clothes) to Earth from the pit of Hell where he was banished at the end of the first film.
• The Naked Witch: Perhaps unsurprisingly, the witch is naked when she rises from her grave.

Literature

• In Roger Zelazny's Jack of Shadows, if anyone gets killed before exhausting his finite supply of lives, he is resurrected naked in the Dung Pits of Glyve at the east pole (It Makes Sense in Context) of the planet.
• Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings. Word of God clarified that when Gandalf said, "Naked I was sent back," he wasn't speaking figuratively. In the film, we briefly glimpse this scene, shot with Gandalf shown from the bare shoulders up—so, at the very least, shirtless he was sent back.
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Voldemort's first words upon stepping out of the cauldron he was resurrected in were, "Robe me." (In the film version, a fresh set of suitably-black robes materialized out of the mist-like remains of the Cauldron… which makes little logical sense, unless Voldemort was Transfiguring the cauldron with wandless magic even as the Resurrection was going on, but undeniably looks awesome.)
• In book 10 of The Saga of Darren Shan, Darren and his undead sidekick Harkat go on a mission to find out who Harkat was before he died. Once they reach the titular Lake of Souls, Harkat has to fish for the correct spirit with a net. When he finally finds that "impossibly familiar" ghost and pulls him out, the spirit comes up in a solid body, naked, causing Mr. Des Tiny to pun, "Cover the poor soul," as he hands Harkat a cloak to give to him...self...
• In Philip José Farmer's Riverworld series, the entire population of Planet Earth from all times and eras is resurected for a surprise Afterlife on the Riverworld. On the Day of Awakening, everyone is reborn naked. This causes a lot of Angst for those from the Victorian and other prudish eras.
• In Firefight when Megan revives at the end she comes back sans all clothes which is standard for her method of resurrection. It doesn't faze her at all and David embarrassingly enjoys it for a few moments before she gets some clothes.
• Ghost Roads: Ghosts that come back to life for the Halloween rites emerge from the field completely naked.
• Touchstone in the Old Kingdom trilogy is first encountered transformed into a wooden figurehead for a ship. To his rescuer's embarrassment and distraction, that transformation didn't include his clothing.

Live-Action TV

• Angel: When Wolfram & Hart resurrected Angel's dam, Darla, she came back nude.
• Cylon Resurrection works this way in Battlestar Galactica, since the Cylons are basically Artificial Human clones.
• As did Angel himself in the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Technically, he came back from a hell dimension, not actual death, but it was used in the same way.
• Doctor Who: In "The End of Time", when the Master is being resurrected by a cult using his ring, he is shown from the top up without a shirt.
• This is part of how Henry Morgan's immortality works in Forever. Whenever he dies, he wakes up naked in a nearby large body of water. As the show is set in New York City, this usually means the East River. This makes for some rather awkward situations as he's been arrested for Skinny Dipping more than once. He tells Lieutenant Reece that he's a somnambulist and he Sleeps in the Nude.
• Game of Thrones: Jon Snow comes back to life this way, but only because his body had been stripped and washed, although there's a Modesty Towel placed on his private parts.
• Claire in Heroes, because her clothes had been removed for autopsy. When the branch lodged in the "no Healing Factor if this gets screwed with" part of her brain was removed, she woke up and gave everyone a good scare. However, she's still covered with a cloth at the time — sorry, no Fanservice.
• This is what happened to the title character of John Doe, after PHOENIX successfully yo-yoed him into Heaven and back again.
• Desmond in the Lost season 3 premiere is an arguable example. Arguable because we still have no freaking clue as to what really happened there. He probably didn't die, but he did have a near-death experience that should have resulted in his death, and he woke up without his clothes anyway.
• In the So Weird episode "Shelter", Fi gets turned into a dog by a psychotic veterinarian and spends most of the episode as one. At the end, Fi triumphantly gets restored as human, though naked as she had all her clothes removed as a dog.
• Stargate SG-1:
  • When Daniel comes back from Ascending to a Higher Plane of Existence, this trope is in full force. When Daniel later gets the chance to discuss this with another ascended being, she mentions being brought back to life was entirely his idea, but when he protests she admits that the naked part wasn't, so apparently that's just how it works.
  • He does it twice, and the second time it's played for laughs, with O'Neill lampshading that he always comes back that way.
• In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Lifesigns", when the Doctor is building a holographic body for the (female) Vidiian doctor, the reconstruction shows the skeleton being constructed, then travels up the body as the musculature is added (looking like a text-book diagram), to finally settle on her face as the skin layer is finally added.
• Supernatural:
  • In the episode "The Born Again Identity", after having his vessel break down and being presumed dead, an amnesiac Castiel describes having been found naked by the river with no memory of who he was.
  • In the episode "Devil May Care", Abaddon returns in the restored naked body of her former vessel.
  • In "Golden Time", Sam works one of Rowena's spells to restore hunter Eileen Leahy to life. Eileen returns, but her ghost clothes do not.

Myths & Religion

• In Islamic eschatology, the resurrection of the dead will result in everyone being naked, i.e., without any sort of status symbol, showing that are all equal before God. It's specifically stated that people will be too distracted by their upcoming divine judgement to leer at each other.
• Inverted in The Talmud (Ketubot 111b): Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Yosef claims that the righteous dead will be resurrected fully clothed, using the metaphor of a wheat seed that is planted "naked" but comes up "clothed" in straw and chaff. Since people are buried in some kind of clothes, clearly they'll be dressed too.

Video Games

• In Chrono Cross, Serge is very much naked after the Dragon's tear grows a new body for him. He somehow gains a full set of clothes by the time he walks out to greet his companions.
• In the early years of EverQuest, this was a game mechanic. Retrieving your body and all the gear on it from deep inside a dangerous dungeon or getting slaughtered by a god on his home turf was all too common.
• In Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-, Jack O' Valentine merges with Justice to recreate Aria, the woman that both were created from. They succeed, and Aria returns to this world - and logically, she's naked as her still-living boyfriend Frederick/Sol holds her to him.
• In the Hitman games, the Anti-Villain protagonist Agent 47 can strip most male NPCs of clothing down to their underwear after he sedates or kills them. While they cannot be fully naked, it's amusing to see them waking up (if they were sedated) in a dark alley in underwear and running around covering their crotch.
• In Lunar: Silver Star Story, when the Goddess Althena chooses to reincarnate as a human infant and be born as Luna, she lands nude in Dyne's arms.
• In Mortal Kombat 9, Sindel is revived from a skeleton; we see the muscles and blood vessels forming on her bones, but the camera sticks above the chestline once she has skin.
• Resident Evil 6: In the Campaign Mode, Leon and Helena come across a videotape labeled as "Happy Birthday, Ada Wong", showing how Carla Radames was "reborn" as a physical clone of Ada. The video shows her popping out of a C-Virus cocoon, completely naked and dripping in fluids.
• Shantae and the Seven Sirens: Rag and Bones-es can be resurrected with the Refresh Dance, without their clothes, only "wearing" a few wrappings, and are revived in a Hand-or-Object Underwear stance, before they pop off in a Defeat by Modesty.
• Sodina from Thousand Arms commits Heroic Sacrifice in the final battle. In the ending, she's revived and naked.
• Happens whenever you revive someone in Zanki Zero, which is often.

Webcomics

• In Narbonic, when Caliban and Mell are kicked out of the afterlife onto Earth, they're both starkers.
• The Order of the Stick: When Roy, the leader of the Order of the Stick, is brought back to life, he's totally nude and covered only by a blurry section near his crotch. Roy seems a little annoyed that the others aren't expecting it, considering his body was regenerated using only his cracked skull.
  • Averted in Durkon's case who comes back wearing their robes, presumably to avoid them the embarrassment of making a marriage proposal naked. Then again their robes were also inexplicably destroyed when they died so it checks out.
• This trope was fully exploited in Crushed: The Doomed Kitty, a now-defunct webcomic by the Supermegatopia brothers. Crushed was a female adventurer, and every time she died (which was often), she'd resurrect at the Temple of Infinite Lives, without all her equipment and clothing. She'd have to go back to her previous body to get it all back, just like in Diablo. This also applied to every other adventurer in the comic, and total party wipes were quite common, resulting in a small horde of naked people popping into existence at the temple.
• Tanica, Rina and, in the backstory, Sarin in The Dragon Doctors. Especially Tanica, who had no clothes on revival despite her transformation appearing as bark growing over her, clothes and all.
• In Tales Of Gnosis College, Professor Corwin's human-reconstitution technology just happens to work this way.
• Dhur of MeatShield is brought Back from the Dead this way too, in a Terminator shout out. He also has lost all body hair, which seems to distress him more than the nakedness.
• In Dungeons & Denizens, whenever Min gets killed by whatever means, he wakes up naked in Seidistica's office (much to his horror). This has also happened to Gazdar at least once.
• In Our Little Adventure, this happens to Bella when she's resurrected from her vampiric condition. Unusually for the trope, the resurrection begins with a Revive Kills Zombie effect that shatters her clothes along with her undead body.
  Lenny: ...Was that supposed to happen?
• Whenever Oasis or Kusari is killed in Sluggy Freelance, her latest clone body is decanted naked. Their revival chambers are thoughtfully provided with a shower and plenty of spare clothes.
• Common occurrence for Selenis Zea from Supermassive Black Hole A*, which her Respawn Point involved her vat-grown clones being activated upon her death(s).

Western Animation

• The final scene of Castlevania (2017) has Dracula and Lisa mention that they came Back from the Dead naked in a field, and had to steal clothes from some nearby villagers.
• In the episode "Resurrection" of Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm Shang Tsung is nude after being resurrected by Shao Kahn and the Shadow Priests, indicated by the Between My Legs view from the back, and a Shadow Priest approaching him with a folded robe, which is then draped over Shang Tsung's body.
• In the episode "Haunted House" of Ren & Stimpy the ghost who's been attempting to scare Ren and Stimpy but keeps on failing, falls into a depression and "commits suicide," only to come back to life as a fat naked black man.
• Smiling Friends: When Charlie gets resurrected in the first season finale, he arrives entirely naked... which makes Pim's utterly relieved hug a little awkward.
  Charlie: I'm completely naked, be careful where your hand goes, dude...!
• In Steven Universe: Future, when Steven reaches his meltdown point believing himself to be a monster, the outcome transforms him into one, which ends up destroying his clothes. After receiving a Cooldown Hug that restores him, he awakens while covered in a blanket.
• The SuperMansion episode has Titanium Lex sacrifice herself to prevent her insect side from taking over. Her father Titanium Rex touches her remains and revives her. Lex is naked when resurrected.
• On Sym-Bionic Titan, Ilana is turned into a monster and when she turns back to normal, she wakes up naked. When Lance realizes this, he gives her his sweater to wear.
• On Young Justice, Neutro/Nathaniel's Power Incontinence gets so bad that it obliterates his armor and body; the latter quickly reforms from a skeleton, but leaves a confused, naked teenager on a destroyed street. (To make matters worse, he was Brainwashed and Crazy in this version, so he had no idea what was happening.) Luckily the Flash Family, whom he'd been fighting, are able to provide a blanket before leading him away.
• In the episode "Goal Keeper" of Creep School, Elliot ends up unwittingly robbing his friends of their dreams while trying out the different dreams he finds in the Chamber of Goals, which eventually leads to them fading out of existence, leaving their clothes behind. After Elliot sets things right by sacrificing his own dream to save the others, the other characters find themselves naked upon being restored to existence.

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