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Wouldn't I make a great ventriloquist? My lips never move.
A character whose mouth is not depicted because they lack one or it is otherwise obscured. When used in same vein as obscured eyes, it can create an expressionless and enigmatic character. This can be compensated by fleshing out other aspects of the character, such as giving the character unique vocal inflections (i.e., a really good voice actor) or subtle physical animations other characters would not get. Sometimes this is done for artistic reasons to call attention to something in the background that would otherwise not pull attention.
More economically, it makes animation (and especially dubbing) much easier. Lately seen as a cheap and dated trick.
This is even occasionally a role with animal mascots where the more 'realistic' Intelligent Pet doesn't move their mouth when speaking; dialogue is hard to sync when your talker can't actually make proper faces.
Does not always count in Super Hero shows, as obscuring masks are canonically common accesories from comic book. Not to be confused with Wipe That Smile Off Your Face, which is much more Nightmare Fuel-y.
Examples:
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- Hotaru from Gakuen Alice tends to lose her mouth whenever she does her half lidded eyes stare at Mikan.
- Samurai Deeper Kyo has the anime-only White Haired Pretty Boy Migeira, who wears a no-mouth mask all the time. Nobody knows why.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha's character Arf, (a slightly goofy dog girl familar), talked in dog form without moving her lips. When a similar but more serious familiar was introduced in the second season, they stopped doing this.
- Kakashi in Naruto kept his mouth concealed behind a bandanna at all times, although being a ninja it wasn't too odd.
- No, he actually has no mouth. THAT MASK IS HIS FACE, DAMMIT!
- A lighter version of this is Shino, whose mouth is generally hidden behind the upturned collar of his jacket, save for one episode, "Shino Laughs".
- Dororo in Keroro Gunsou is similar, which unfortunately gives him very little facial expression, given the simplistic look of the alien frogs. Maybe that's why he's not popular...
- Nova from Bleach does the same with a zippable mask which allows him to also conceal his eyes if he gets shy enough.
- Don't forget Tsubaki. He always wears a little Kakashiesque mask over the bottom half of his face, which makes him look very badass despite being six inches tall and having wings coming out of his butt.
- Sun-sun, one of Harribel's Fraccion, always hides her mouth behind one of her arms.
- Gendo Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion seems bound and determined to keep as much of his face obscured as possible — not only does he wear Scary Shiny Glasses, he's in the habit of folding his hands in front of his face whenever he sits at a table. Other characters have a strange compulsion to put clipboards or pieces of paper in front of their mouths whenever they speak.
- Don't forget about unnaturally long sips from beer cans.
- Noir usually obscure characters with whatever firearms they were using.
- Gali from Monster Rancher has a mouth, but is a part of the mask that represents the face (monsters that are maintype gali are basicly a floating mask and cape that use magic and psychic projections of limbs to attack) and does not actualy move when he talks.
- Satotsu, a minor character in Hunter X Hunter, has no mouth, even in the manga. He does, however, have a very nice moustache.
- In Fullmetal Alchemist Major Alex Louis Armstrong's mustache is so big that it covers his mouth.
- Renamon's mouth was rarely visable, due to the angle of her head
- Almost everyone in Desert Punk who fights has No Mouth because they're always wearing helmets. Lampshaded once when Kosuna told Rain Spider to watch his mouth and he replies "... my mouth's not shown."
Comic Books
- DC Comics' The Question deliberately invokes this, going so far as to wear a mask so that he doesn't even have a face.
- In some comic strips, artists will usually only draw the mouth when a character is speaking or making a funny expression, such as Dilbert (who until very recently never had a mouth) and Peanuts.
- In the animated version of Dilbert he disconcertingly acquires a mouth whenever he needs to speak.
- Likewise, Calvin from Calvin And Hobbes does lose his mouth, but only when lost in thought or confused.
- Rorschach, from Alan Moore's Watchmen, has his entire face obscured when in costume, under normal circumstances.
- Mainly because he's a Captain Ersatz of The Question.
- No you've got it all wrong. He usually has his face on, sometime he has to take it off in order to hide his identity.
- The mutant Jonothon Starsmore/Chamber communicates telepathically and has the lower part of his face covered because his mutant power, on manifestation, obliterated his body from below the nose to about the ribcage.
- The eponymous star of the old Henry comic strip. That he didn't talk implied he couldn't. Long-time Nightmare Fuel for this troper.
- This is a distinguishing feature of Ax and the other Andalites from Animorphs. Also a major source of comic relief, given their natural inability to taste.
- Nom in the Second Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant has no mouth.
- Which is hilarious, given the name.
Live Action TV
- If not for this, Power Rangers would have been nearly impossible to
make use stock footage..
- The neighbor, Wilson, from Home Improvement almost always had the lower half of his face hidden behind the fence. When, on rare occasions, his mouth was visible, the upper half of his face was always obscured.
- Should be noted that his mouth is obscured when not at the fence, best example is by examining a saw (when he appeared in the hardware store). This is a good example of a Running Gag taken to its limit.
- In one Halloween episode Wilson's face was "obscured" by the fake beard and mustache he was wearing as part of a Captain Hook costume. Doesn't really count, I feel.
- The worst one was when he was wearing a skeleton costume, and his face was only obscured by black and white paint.
Table Top Games
- The mind flayers in Dungeons And Dragons appear to lack a mouth, instead absorbing living brains through their acid-secreting tentacles.
Video Games
- Much of the time in Final Fantasy X, Auron's mouth is hidden behind his collar. It does, however, appear on occasion.
- Medabots didn't have mouths for the titular machines either.
- The Pyro class in Team Fortress 2 is the only class whose mouth is not visible, obscured as it is by his(?) full-body flamesuit. This also muffles all of his speech beyond recognition
- The Protoss of Starcraft have no mouth, speaking by telepathy instead. It makes it somewhat weird as their back story mentions that they evolved from a hunter-gatherer culture who was already telepathic - meaning they lost the mouth pretty damn fast, probably due to Xel'Naga intervention.
- For some reason, at the end of Sonic Adventure 2, everyone starts obscuring their mouths(it's pretty clear that they no longer have any).
- Raziel of the Legacy Of Kain series wears what's left of his cape over the lower half of his face, mostly because his jaw burned off when he was tossed into the Abyss. When asked how he manages to talk despite this, Amy Hennig variously joked, "It's all in the uvula," and "Supple throat muscles."
- Most characters in Okami have no mouths, due to the distinctive art style.
- Mephiles from Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 has no mouth. He also loses his nose in his crystaline form. Also in this form, his muzzle will 'flex' when he is talking. This gets absolutely rediculous considering one of his cutscenes is titled "Mephiles' Smile". All he really does is leer at the camera.
- Everyone else's mouths seem to disappear until they actually need them.
Web Animation
- Coach Z and Pom Pom (as well as their 1936 and "20X6" counterparts) from Homestar Runner literally don't have mouths (they don't have noses or ears either). However, they wouldn't raise eyebrows in their universe, as the title character (and several others) don't even have arms.
- There's another good reason they wouldn't raise eyebrows...
- All the squirrels in Neurotically Yours.
Web Comics
- Reynardine from Gunnerkrigg Court loses his mouth in his full-sized wolf form. This contributes to him being far more majestic and dignified in this form.
- Except when he's angry, or trying to be threatening.
- For a good portion of El Goonish Shive, Tedd was drawn without a mouth unless yeling or grinning or something, only gaining a mouth shortly before the second major Story Arc. This was lampshaded in this comic.
- A lot of the characters from 1/0 do not have mouths, such as Manny/Ghanny, Max, Marcus. They comment on this (as is their nature to)
- Several of the characters in General Protection Fault, including protagonist Nick. When Dwayne buys everyone pupils (another feature some of them lack) for an April Fools strip, Nick points out that he has them underneath his glasses, and requests a mouth instead.
- None of the main characters in Rice Boy have mouths, although they can eat, drink, talk, and smoke cigarettes as if they did. This makes it slightly disturbing when the Tree Keeper has full, red lips and the White Formless have tiny human faces.
- For nearly twelve years, readers of Sluggy Freelance never once saw Bun-Bun's mouth - until a certain Wham Episode.
Western Animation
- Gromit the Dog from the Aardman Wallace and Gromit films is the mouthless and voiceless hero.
- Gromit was originally designed with a mouth, but the first scene in which he was animated just showed him reacting mouthlessly to a situation and the animators realized he worked better that way.
- Many of the original Transformers lacked mouths, but as robots this doesn't seem to pose a problem. All those that don't have mouths would have some substitute speech animation, like a moving faceplate, or flashing lights.
- Spoofed in, of all places, Takara's Masterpiece Convoy (aka 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime) while the face plate isn't meant to be removed (and doing so may damage the toy) removing it will reveal WHY Optimus keeps his mouth covered.
- Looney Tunes character Marvin the Martian.
- Duck Dodgers reveals that while all the males of his species look like that, the females (such as the Queen) are somewhat more anthropomorphic, possessing noses, chins, eyebrows...but still no mouths.
- One episode of Super Mario Bros Super Show featured an Indiana Jones parody named Indiana Joe, who had no face at all, though his head did move when he talked.
- Kenny from South Park.
- In a Peanuts Mayflower story William Bradford was drawn with a huge handlebar mustache that covered his mouth and it moved when he talked.
- Spydra, the villain from Gadget Boy and Heather had no obvious nose or mouth. This didn't seem to cause her any problems when it came to speech, though- her loud voice was one of her trademark features.
- Ferb from Phineas And Ferb is often mouthless. But then, he doesn't talk much. When he does talk, sometimes his mouth will be obscured, sometimes not.
- The title character of Johnny Bravo is often drawn without a mouth.
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