Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains

Come winter, neither's going to feel that sensible...

Kabal: Whaddaya think? Friend or foe?
Stryker: Foe.
Kabal: Dressed like that?
Stryker: Definitely foe.

— Upon sighting Mileena, Mortal Kombat 9

Just as good and evil can be Colour-Coded for Your Convenience, you can also tell them apart as heroes dress sensibly (more or less), and villains dress in more skimpy outfits. The details of the skimpier outfits can vary: anything from tight and form-fitting to revealing to outright Stripperiffic.

This trope does not require the good guys to dress like prudes, nor to never put on revealing clothing (for the sake of Fanservice). Only that their regular outfits are significantly less skimpy than what the villains usually wear, or what the heroes are sure to wear with an Evil Costume Switch. While less common now, this likely started as a form of Getting Crap Past the Radar from periods like The Hays Code which were stricter on sexual content and preserving modesty. "It's okay if they dress immorally. They're the bad guys! [wink]"

This often overlaps with Sexy Villains, Chaste Heroes, except this doesn't require the villain to actually be sexy, just dressed skimpily (there can be a difference). Furthermore, that trope often has the villains dress just as sensibly as the heroes.

As this trope is mostly applied to female characters, it can overlap with Slut-Shaming and Madonna-Whore Complex: the bad women are immodest and promiscuous, and their clothes show it. Also compare Dressed Like a Dominatrix: an outfit can suggest a villain is kinky, with the implication that Bondage Is Bad and sexual deviance is evil.

A Sub-Trope of Dress-Coded for Your Convenience. A Sister Trope to Makeup Is Evil.

Compare Good Eyes, Evil Eyes; Obviously Evil; Good Colors, Evil Colors. Compare Fashion-Victim Villain, whose ludicrous wardrobe is anything but sensible.

Contrast Minidress of Power, Stripperiffic (since good girls can wear both). Also contrast Straight Edge Evil for villains. Another contrast is Armored Villains, Unarmored Heroes (with the inversion of the hero being in fewer clothes or less armored, while the villains are in full armor covering most of their skin). Also contrast Shabby Heroes, Well-Dressed Villains, although that trope is usually used for males, while this trope is usually used for females.

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Examples:

Advertising

• The Dark Magical Girl in this Shu Uemura's 6 Heart Princess ad wears an "outfit" that shows off a lot of skin compared to the heroic pink Magical Girl.

Anime & Manga

• Inverted in Black★Rock Shooter, where the eponymous hero is dressed in the skimpy outfit (likely due to the author's tastes), and the villain wears something more sensible. And played straight when she becomes Insane Black★Rock Shooter.
• Zigzagged in Bleach. Although shinigami wear far more conservative outfits than the arrancar, the most standout stripperiffic baddies (Halibel, Mila Rose, Grimmjow, and Lilinette) are some of the most sympathetic ones. By contrast, Loly Aivirrne, who has a schoolgirl-like skirt, thigh-high boots, and a shirt that reveals her midriff and half of her breasts, remains one of the most unpleasant characters in the series' run (in the manga at least; the anime actually gave her a good measure of redemption). However, Neliel wore a pantsuit as an Aizen-affiliated Espada, only to wear torn-apart rags upon regaining her memories as an Espada. The others, like Szayel Aporro, Nnoitra, Aaroniero, and even the Shinigami-born Aizen wear more clothing than any of the others ever do. Although Matsumoto may be presented with more overt sexuality, other than a low-cut top, she's still wearing much more than the others mentioned.
• Captain Earth: Moco usually wears a revealing bra-like top, hot pants, and not much else. Her battle uniform is even skimpier, and her male counterpart's version shows a lot of skin, too. The heroic women and men have relatively normal clothes, though Hana often plays the Innocent Fanservice Girl.
• Cross Ange: Inverted. All the main characters pilot suits cover about as much as a bikini, complete with a Cleavage Window and Thong of Shielding, with the prison outfits not covering up much more, while the antagonists cover about as much as regular clothing. When some of the heroes get brainwashed by Embryo they cover a lot of skin in their outfits.
• Inverted with Goku and Goku Black in Dragon Ball Super, Goku's outfit has no sleeves and shows his neck in contrast to Goku Black's outfit having a turtleneck with sleeves covering his arms.
• Played with in various ways in Fate/stay night. This is first played straight with Saber and Rider, one of whom who wears a fully-covered Battle Ballgown, and the other a Stripperiffic mini-dress, and then averted with Saber and Caster, both of whom are fully and totally covered. However, later on, Rider turns out to be actually good, and when Saber becomes corrupted and turns into The Dragon, her clothes cover her even more. During the final fight between Servants, this trope is actually inverted with Saber Alter and Rider, who have their roles reversed.
• In the first half of Fresh Pretty Cure!, Eas, the sole female in the evil Labyrinth organization, wears a Stripperiffic black outfit complete with a bared midriff and short shorts, while the heroines wear comparatively modest frilly dresses when transformed. When Eas makes her High-Heel–Face Turn and becomes Cure Passion, she gets a modest frilly dress of her own.
• In Genzo, we have Princess Kiku, who dresses like a Samurai, and Genzo as sensible heroes, while the Evil Redhead Maria Kurusu wears only a black corset, a long skirt, and boots.
• Very much apparent in the Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics episode "The Iron Stove". The princess wears a long green dress with long sleeves and does not have any cleavage showing. The witch, on the other hand, wears a very short blue dress with virtually nonexistent sleeves, and visible cleavage.
• Gushing Over Magical Girls: Tres Magia have a decently modest uniform consisting of a bubble skirt, short-sleeve blouse, and long gloves and boots. In contrast, the majority of the villainous girls are in fetishistic, hyper-Stripperific costumes that leave their tits or ass completely hanging out.
• Zig-Zagging Trope in Heat Guy J: Daisuke wears a sensible and breezy-looking white outfit that covers most of his body, and his android partner J wears a long trench coat. Meanwhile, their long-time enemy Clair wears tight-fitting leather pants and a shirt that opens all the way down his chest. However, Clair isn't the real Big Bad of the series—the real one is Shun, Daisuke's Knight Templar Big Brother, who mostly wears a sensible business suit.
  • The manga gives us a somewhat straighter example: Motherly Scientist Antonia, who works for Daisuke and J, always wears a full-body (if sexy) dress, while Mad Scientist Trinity, who works for Clair, wears nothing but skimpy underwear under her lab coat.
• Played with in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, since there's a lot of protagonists and villains to compare, but heroes wearing actual clothes vs villains wearing stripper outfits is not uncommon.
  • Part 2's protagonist Joseph shows off his midriff, but he's downright modest compared to the Pillar Men.
  • Jotaro from Part 3 wears a normal school uniform the entire trip (he even has a tailor fix it up when it gets damaged in a fight), and is up against DIO, who's decided to wear crotchless pants (he dressed more conservatively in Part 1).
  • Giorno's group sans Trish and Fugo wear what would be sensible clothing if not for the chest windows, but Diavolo's the one with no shirt.
  • Parts 4, 6, and 7 avert this, as they're the only ones where the villains dress conservatively. Part 6 outright inverts it, as Jolyne wears fairly skimpy clothing while Enrico Pucci wears a full priest outfit.
• Inverted in Kill la Kill, wherein uniforms are used as a tool for subjugating the "clothes-wearing pigs" of the populace. Thus La Résistance that combats the (reasonably dressed) fascist regime is known as Nudist Beach, and its members care very little for indecent exposure laws. It turns out to be extremely justified, after The Reveal that clothing is an alien conspiracy to subjugate and eventually devour humanity. As almost all clothing on earth contains traces of alien Life Fibers, going skimpier means less direct skin contact and weaker mind control.
  • The inversion is also apparent in the Life Fiber-powered Goku Uniforms and the vastly more powerful Kamui, which are pure Life Fibers. Protagonist Ryuko's Kamui, Senketsu, is downright Stripperiffic, while Satsuki's Elite Four wear Goku Uniforms that almost completely cover their bodies. Satsuki herself, meanwhile, plays this trope straight with her own Kamui, Junketsu, which is just as skimpy as Senketsu. Well, it would have been played straight, were it not for the fact that Satsuki was Good All Along.
  • Particularly inverted in episodes 20-21, when Satsuki and Ryuko fight while Ryuko is Brainwashed and Crazy and they have exchanged Kamui. The villain's outfit is comparably less skimpy than the hero's, which makes sense given both because more clothes equals more Mind Control, and Ryuko is not entirely human.
• The girls in Lime-iro Senkitan and Lime-iro Ryukitan X, while their casual and military outfits are form-fitting and on the short-skirted side, compared to the villains, who dress in barely-covering-anything black leather, they look positively modest.
• The first season of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. The Hero wears a long-skirted uniform for her combat outfit, and her allies are either dressed casually or garbed in full military uniform. Meanwhile, The Dragon is wearing what's basically a black swimsuit with a short skirt and interestingly placed red belts, her Familiar wears even less, and the Big Bad has a Navel-Deep Neckline. This trope stops applying in later seasons, once Nanoha starts befriending people.
  • The Numbers Cyborgs, the Big Bad's all-female minions from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS wear Latex Space Suits save for 2 members and Agito, whose outfit shows a lot of skin. Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force has Arnage, who wears a bikini top and short shorts and Curren, who wears some revealing outfits from time to time.
• While the females in Naruto all dress modestly no matter their alignment, the male villains tend to reveal their torso far more often than the heroes. The best examples are Zabuza, who only wears pants and Sasuke's infamous long-sleeved shirt which reveals most of his torso.
• One Piece demonstrates a rare example of this trope demonstrated for both sides on the same character. Kalifa from the CP9 arc initially has a short skirt and shows a little cleavage, but when she drops her cover she adds some fishnet stockings and additional cleavage.
• Project A-Ko has the initial villain, B-Ko, wearing a plate bikini power armor when she finally faces A-Ko directly (instead of just using one of her numerous combat robots). She continues to wear it for the attempts they both make to recover C-Ko from the aliens (including D, who comes at them both with a sword, after ditching her trenchcoat to reveal a plate bikini). They also land in a laundry storage room at one point that contains nothing but panties. That seriously needs to be washed. B-Ko, meanwhile, spends the entire film wearing her school uniform (albeit slightly worse for wear after a while).
• Present to some degree in Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Kyouko's non-magical outfit is basically just short shorts and a sweater—everyone else wears school uniforms when not in costume—and she's by far the most belligerent character. Homura appears to be the antagonist, yet has the most conservative magical outfit. This is a clue that she's Not Evil, Just Misunderstood. The Movie gets considerably less subtle when Homura goes full villain and gets a borderline-Stripperiffic outfit to match.
• In Saber Marionette R, the heroes dress more modestly than the Stripperiffic Sexadolls. This and the sexually aggressive nature of the Sexadolls also serves to mark a contrast on how Junior and his marionettes are children while Star-Face and the Sexadolls are adults.
• Downplayed in Sailor Moon where the Sailor Guardians show quite a bit of leg thanks to their short fukus, but their designs aren’t inherently sexualized compared to some of the villains who wear pretty Stripperiffic clothing that’s much more provocative looking.
• In Saint Seiya: Saintia Sho it's emphasized the dichotomy between the Saintia - chaste, pure and virginal - and the Eris's follower, depicted in attitudes and poses sexy along with her servants.
• Silent Möbius, where the AMP wears police uniforms (and one Miko outfit) or suits and the villains wear very little leather. When Katsumi gets possessed by a demonic weapon, she also adopts the leather.
• Star Driver. Almost all evil characters have openly Stripperiffic uniforms, while good guys usually dress modestly.
• Kinda inverted in Symphogear. Chris is introduced as a mostly clothed villain with a visor (she still has underboob showing, though.) In the episode where she begins her heel/face turn, she switches it out for a cleavage, shoulder, and thigh exposing costume.
• Generally in all the Time Bokan series the heroines wear more modest outfit compared to villainesses. In Yatterman for examples, the heroes wear jumpsuits while the main female villain wears a revealing leather outfit. Her ugly cronies also have their midriffs bared at all times.
• Yaiba, where the moon empress Kaguya dresses like a Playboy Bunny (she's apparently an anthropomorphic rabbit, actually an Eldritch Abomination, possessing a human), while the heroes dress sensibly.

Arts

• Alexandre Cabanel's The Fallen Angel: The recently fallen Lucifer is naked (with only his crossed legs covering his crotch) whilst the angels still in Heaven are fully clothed with robes.

Comic Books

• The comparison shows up when a DC or Marvel good gal gets brainwashed or possessed or simply chooses to be bad. Some examples from Marvel comics: The Phoenix (Jean Grey?) as the Hellfire Club's Black Queen in The Dark Phoenix Saga, the Invisible Girl (as she then was known) turning into skimpily and spikily dressed Malice in Fantastic Four #280, and Madelyne Pryor when she became the Goblyn Queen. Meanwhile, when Emma Frost became a good guy, she started wearing a slightly less skimpy costume in Generation X... although the trope was then subverted in New X-Men when she stayed a good guy while wearing one of her most outrageously sexualised costumes ever.
• The issues of this trope are lampshaded in an issue of Avengers Academy where the Avengers confront Cyclops' post-Schism X-Men team. Hawkeye (IIRC) says of Emma Frost, "I knew someone who dresses like that couldn't stay a good guy!", to which Tigra responds, "What does that make me? Doctor Doom?"
• Parodied, along with most of The Dark Age of Comic Books, in Grant Morrison's one-shot Doom Force. The villainess first shows up dressed fairly sexily, which her brother finds disgusting - because she's wearing too much clothing. She obligingly switches to exotic lingerie. The brother, meanwhile, later shows up in a speedo and pasties. The parody comes in that her brother basically tells her to wear more revealing clothing because it's supposed to make her more empowered as a woman. Her response:
  Una: But I'm freezing cold!
• Rat Queens: Hannah Vizari's usual dress sense isn't prudish, but only shows off her shoulders and her upper chest and back. Her evil Alternate Self, however, has some costumes that cross the line into straight-up fetish lingerie.
• In Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose, the dark witch's outfits are even skimpier than those of her good sister, and that's really saying something.
• Teen Titans: Inverted with Starfire, whose costume is essentially a skimpy swimsuit, and her sister/dark counterpart Blackfire, who wears a full bodysuit.
• Marvel's Hellfire Club, (most associated with the X-Men sub-franchise, although they occasionally tangle with non-mutant heroes) a gentlemen's club (in both senses of the phrase) for old-money evil mutants, where the ladies dress in fetish gear and Sebastian Shaw likes to bare his chest for action.
• In DC's Young Justice, Arrowette lampshades this when she fears she's turned evil. "I'll have to get a tight, skimpy black leather outfit that shows off my cleavage. Oh God, I'll have to get cleavage!" Turns out to be a Brick Joke: the payoff comes in a later story, World Without Young Justice, in which Bedlam has managed to Make Wrong What Once Went Right so the three YJ founders don't exist. This universe's "Dark Arrowette" is indeed wearing a skimpy black leather outfit. And has cleavage.

Fan Works

• Lampshaded in Amazing Fantasy. While giving Izuku dating advice, Peter mutters about how female supervillains always wear outfits that are way too skimpy or have way too much leather. He goes onto to tell Izuku to specifically avoid morally ambiguous cat burglars, referencing his old flame, Black Cat.
• In the Marvel Cinematic Universe fanfic The Artist's Garden at Madripoor, Steve and Natasha go to Madripoor in order to acquire the component they need for the Quantum Tunnel from the Power Broker, who Steve is shocked to discover is Sharon, who meets with them wearing a form-fitting sequined white dress with a long slit on the right side that Steve notes is much more low-cut than anything he had seen her wear before.
• Attempted in Forbiden Fruit: The Tempation of Edward Cullen, where Lauren and her evil cheerleader friends are repeatedly insulted in the narrative for dressing like sluts. On the other hand, Atlantiana's goth outfits are described as pretty skimpy, themselves.
• This trope is evident, in The Hunger Games fanfiction Some Semblance of Meaning, in the outfits that Vale and Amber wear in their interviews (an elegant knee-length white dress and a "barely there", strapless crimson dress, respectively).
• Once he gets his body back in A Very Potter Musical, Voldemort wears nothing but a cape, tight pants, and tap shoes for the rest of the play. His outfit is actually far more revealing than Bellatrix's (who dresses modestly except for a pretty high slit in her skirt).

Film — Animation

• Inverted in Fire & Ice with the two most prominent female characters: while the heroine Princess Teegra is clad in a tiny bikini all the time, Queen Juliana wears a long purple dress that is far more modest than Teegra's outfit. The same goes to the heroic male characters like Larn, Darkwolf, and Taro having more skin exposed in contrast to the fully clothed Nakron, but gets subverted by the time Nekron removes his robes to battle Larn and later Darkwolf.
• Inverted or played straight, depending on how you look at it, in The Little Mermaid. The protagonist Princess Ariel wears just a Seashell Bra, while Big Bad Ursula wears an evening dress that bares her back but covers her much more. However, Ursula's clothes are part of her body so she's technically not wearing anything.

Film — Live-Action

• In Art of the Dead, the Envy-affected Donna wears much skimpier clothing than she did as her normal, Shrinking Violet self.
• The Babysitter: Killer Queen has its villain Melanie hit both ends of this trope before and after The Reveal. Beforehand, she's wearing a fairly modest dress, while afterwards, she gets a Hotter and Sexier Evil Makeover with a cleavage-baring brown leather vest and tiny jean shorts.
• The Faculty: Before she gets infected by the alien Puppeteer Parasite, Miss Burke is a frumpy wallflower wearing Nerd Glasses and an ugly cardigan who reacts uncomfortably when Zeke hits on her. Afterwards, she's a sexpot in a red camisole who's the one hitting on Zeke.
• Princess Aura's metal bikini with shoulders and cape from the 1980 film of Flash Gordon, although some of the heroes were wearing pretty immodest outfits too. Flash himself gets a pretty long Shirtless Scene, and every other villain is clothed from head to toe at all times (Aura, meanwhile, doesn't stay evil for long).
• Bellatrix Lestrange from the Harry Potter films counts, at least in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
• In Labyrinth, the protagonist Sarah dresses like an ordinary teenager◊ except when she's◊ LARPing and during her◊ Dream Ballet sequence. Most of the goblins who wear clothes are also dressed modestly, and the ones who don't are subject to Nonhumans Lack Attributes (and considering that the goblins are virtually all Ugly Cute Muppets, they wouldn't provide much fanservice anyway). Jareth, on the other hand, is portrayed by David Bowie in a pair of Painted-On Pants that serve to emphasise his...ahem... Area.
• In The Lair of the White Worm, the entire cast is dressed in a manner fitting people living in the English countryside. That is, except for Lady Marsh, who wears very little and happens to be an evil vampire worshiping an Eldritch Abomination.
• Inverted for Scarlet Witch in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, who when she's a heroic protagonist in Avengers: Infinity War has a corset showing cleavage (that her actress wasn't too wild about). When she's the villain of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, she's actually more covered up.
• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie reverses it; Dulcea dresses like your average Jungle Princess but Rita as always wears a big dress that leaves her face and hands as all that's uncovered.
• Return to Sleepaway Camp In the post credits scene, Angela is in a very small red skirt and half shirt for no apparent reason, as it does not help the plot in any way. It is also especially strange, as Angela is a man, but Felissa Rose is a woman, meaning that Anglea has a woman body but is a man, leading to the scene being very uncomfortable as the camera focuses on her skirt fluttering in the wind and having her bend over slightly multiple times.All this means only one thing: this scene must have been very uncomfortable to film (as it is almost certainly Fanservice).
• InThe Rocky Horror Picture Show, Dr. Frank N. Furter often dresses in nothing more than a corset, fishnets, heels, and short shorts (or panties...). When others "succumb" to his power, they start dressing this way.
• The Marine: Triton's down-to-earth wife Kate wears a denim jacket, white tank top, and jeans. Bad Girl Angela wears a leather getup with a leopard top. And, if memory serves, heels. In a swamp chase. Compare.
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Starfleet personnel wear fairly sensible uniforms. Khan, meanwhile, is wearing something with an open front that just screams "I'm 62 and my pecs are still better than yours will ever be", set off with a stolen Starfleet uniform draped casually over his shoulders like a cape.
• Star Wars usually inverts this, with Jedi and rebels sticking with light clothing and the occasional bit of outright Stripperiffic costume, while the villains are bundled up like it's winter in Seattle or wear all-enveloping robes or suits of armor they never remove. A villain removing clothing is a sign of redemption or hidden virtue on several occasions, and Luke's clothing adds layers and becomes more all-concealing as he slips toward The Dark Side. This is likely related to what engaging in villainy does to your physical appearance underneath the clothes.
• In X-Men: First Class, Emma Frost reveals a lot more skin than, say, Moira and Raven. Angel, the stripper/prostitute, is the only one to defect to Shaw's side. (Mystique herself, after defecting to Magneto's side, goes into the nude version seen in the other films.)
• This trope is the reason Jessica Rabbit of Who Framed Roger Rabbit is assumed to be a Femme Fatale, because of her revealing lounge-singer dress. She's actually a heroic, faithful wife.

Literature

• Awoken takes this almost to the point of Slut-Shaming. Miss Epistola is described as being dressed in skimpy clothing in nearly every scene — even when working as a substitute science teacher, she's wearing a slinky dress under her lab coat. She is, of course, the Big Bad of the story, and during the climax, her outfit gets downright stripperiffic, such that the protagonist Andi compares her to a video game character. Andi herself, meanwhile, often expresses shame when caught with little clothing on. Given that the book is a Stealth Parody of The Twilight Saga and other YA Paranormal Romance novels, it's more a mockery of this trope than anything else.

Live-Action TV

• Compare Colonel Deering (good) with Princess Ardala (bad) in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • A controlled example with vampire/human Willow, while Impersonating the Evil Twin. Upon discovering how tight her vampire self's corset is, human Willow comments, "I guess vampires really don't have to breathe." She later delivers the gem: "I'm a bloodsucking fiend! Look at my outfit!"
  • This is also beautifully phrased in this iconic, Foreshadowing line:
    Willow: That's me as a vampire? I'm so evil, and skanky... and I think I'm kinda gay.
  • Subverted with Dark Willow, who sports an outfit far more conservative than the saddest shirt in the history of television.
  • Vampire Xander is also a Rare Male Example. He sports a sleeveless wife-beater tank, while human Xander (at least at this point of the series) was never shown in a sleeveless shirt (save his single Fanservice moment on "Go Fish", which was explicitly out of character).
  • There was also Faith, who, while not exactly Stripperiffic, tended to show a lot more cleavage than Buffy (and wear generally tighter outfits).
    • Averted in later seasons. After she became good, she wore the exact same clothes she normally did.
  • Human Drusilla, who was very religious, was a lot more chaste (as Angel puts it) than her vampire self, or say, the outfit Darla wore at the same time.
• Charmed (1998):
  • The show was trying to use this trope, only the female lead characters often wore plenty of sexy clothes themselves; therefore, the Charmed Sisters are only marginally less sexy than the female demons. Male demons would seem to be a straighter example of this trope, at least in the later seasons, when you had fellows like Zankou using leather outfits as a symbol for their status as evil demons.
  • Downplayed in "Is There a Woogy in the House?", where Phoebe gets possessed by the Woogyman and dons a sexy red dress for the dinner party that evening, as well as adopting a Femme Fatale persona.
  • The episode "Bride & Gloom" has the sisters being turned evil because of a spell cast by a dark priestess. Phoebe wants to change out of her ruffled sweater into something more revealing. Prue's dark wedding dress is also skimpier than her outfit beforehand, complete with a bare midriff.
  • The evil Stillman sisters from "The Power of Three Blondes" wear much skimpier dresses than the Charmed Ones, and the difference is noticeable in the first scene where they're disguised as them.
  • Phoebe's evil past life has a particularly revealing flapper dress, with the shoulder straps regularly slipping down. In the episode itself, she is wearing a fairly modest blouse in her good self.
  • In "Morality Bites", the sisters visit a Bad Future where Prue is a Corrupt Corporate Executive and wears a tight black strapless dress that's more revealing than what she had on in the present. Piper seems to be the least corrupt of the future sisters, and she's the most modestly dressed.
  • When evil Mirror Universe counterparts of the main characters appear in the two-part Season 6 finale "It's a Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad World", they are dressed ridiculously grungy, with bad bad hair, and some have piercings. Phoebe's evil self wears a see-through tank top over a tight black bra with Cleavage Window, while Paige's has one sleeve and shows a little bit of cleavage. The good versions of the sisters are wearing form-fitting tank tops in "bright happy colours". Evil Piper averts this in the same episode, since both she and her actress were pregnant.
  • Zig-zagged with the demonic seers vs Phoebe. The Oracle in Season 4 is an outright Ms. Fanservice in a nude-coloured Stripperiffic outfit, and she's the Perky Female Minion to the Source. The Seer the same season is far more evil and powerful, but she wears a long red cloak that covers more. Kyra the seer in Season 7 who wants to pull a Heel–Face Turn wears a bikini top, but when she's about to become human, she's changed into a pink sundress.
  • After Phoebe becomes Queen of the Underworld, she's seen wearing a skimpier black top and very obviously Going Commando. When she starts working with her sisters again and turning back good, her clothes are more modest.
  • Piper turning into a Fury is coded by her modest sweater and jeans being swapped for a midriff baring outfit that's one of the skimpiest things she wears in the series.
  • Phoebe turning into a banshee downplays this. She was wearing a baggy grey hoodie before, and exchanges it for a form-fitting gown that shows a bit of cleavage. She later describes the banshee as "kinda trampy".
  • In "Coyote Piper", when Piper is possessed by Terra, she changes out of the modest business suit into a halter top and tight leather pants, and then does a sexy dance on the bar at P-3.
  • Averted however with benevolent Cute Monster Girls who show plenty of skin, such as the woodnymphs and mermaids.
  • Inverted for Jinny the genie. When she's pretending to be a good genie, her outfit is a Bedlah Babe style showing off her midriff. When she's revealed as a demon, she's actually more covered up.
  • Isis possessing Phoebe sees her swapping her clothes out for a very revealing belly dancer outfit. And when she possesses Paige, she only wears a Modesty Bedsheet.
  • When Prue goes undercover to impersonate the hitwoman Ms Hellfire, she goes for a sexy black dress and fur coat, and later a black bra and tight leather pants.
  • Paige going undercover to the demonic market involves her putting on a tight blue dress with Cleavage Window and a blonde wig.
  • Phoebe getting possessed and thinking she's Mata Hari sees her changing into a skimpy outfit that's just a red bra and very short skirt. Once she's de-possessed, Jason gives her his suit jacket to cover up.
  • Invoked by Prue in "Ms Hellfire". While she wasn't exactly in a conservative outfit beforehand (a tank top where her bra was showing), she dons a sexy Little Black Dress when she has to impersonate the eponymous Ms Hellfire (an assassin sent to kill the Charmed Ones). Later on, she's wearing a leather bra and tight pants, showing off her midriff.
• Dark Matter (2015): Not so much with the actual villains of the show (except Alicia Reynaud), but when contrasting our heroes with their evil counterparts. While ruthless murderers Portia Lin (during flashbacks to the pre-mindwipe days on the Raza) and Alt Portia from the Alternate Universe, and newly-ethical Two, all generally wear tight black outfits, the Portias still manage to dress considerably more revealingly (very low-cut shirts, boob windows, bared midriffs), to the point where you can easily tell who's who during fake-outs by the amount of cleavage shown by the actress. Corso (and Alt Corso) wear guyliner and more black leather, while One dresses in a range of black, white and earth tones with an aesthetic that's more "space cowboy" while Corso's could be described as "vampire wannabe". Of course, the male version of this doesn't have the Unfortunate Implications that come with visual allusions to the Madonna-Whore Complex...
• A male example in Good Omens (2019): the angel Aziraphale is always primly and properly dressed, in contrast to the demon Crowley, who walks around with his shirt open in virtually every scene (outside of flashbacks). Not that Crowley is all that evil, other than by virtue of working for Hell.
• Once Upon a Time plays this trope straight to the point of hilarity.
  • As the Evil Queen, most of Regina's outfits were skimpy and showed cleavage. In fact, it's a visual indicator when a flashback takes place how far into her journey to evil has gone depending on how much cleavage she's showing. On pretending to be the Saviour in Camelot, she's asked to put on a more feminine dress that's just off the shoulders. In the finale, when she's crowned the Good Queen of all the realms, her dress is in pastel colours and seems more reminiscent of Snow.
  • Snow White in a mirror universe where she's evil has a black dress with plunging neckline, showing more cleavage than her good counterpart ever did.
  • Most villainesses from the Enchanted Forest - Ingrid, Zelena, Ursula, Maleficent, the Black Fairy - wear corsets and gowns that show cleavage compared to the outfits of the heroic females.
  • Belle who is good has a modest sense of dress. When she's bewitched into becoming an evil counterpart called Lacey, she's wearing halter tops, short skirts and behaving much more flirtatiously.
• This happens in some seasons of Power Rangers: compare the suited heroes and heroines to villainesses such as Divatox and Vypra. Slightly inverted in Power Rangers Lost Galaxy. Maya (who in the source material is a male) spends the majority of her scenes in a midriff-baring tank top, while Trakeena (who in the source material wears what amounts to a Chainmail Bikini with exposed cleavage, in which even the previously-mentioned Maya didn't wore) spends the majority of her scenes in a full insectoid suit with few openings.
• As with the anime, in the live-action series of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, it's hard to miss Queen Beryl's generous chest. It's especially noticeable compared to the scouts' modest street clothes and Sailor Fuku.
• Stargate SG-1 played with this trope a bit. While Carter and Dr. Frasier were always well covered up, the female Goa'uld were generally pretty Stripperiffic.
  • Although the same was true of the allied female Tok'ra - notably Anise, who's rubber top barely avoided bat-nipples.
  • In the episode "The Warrior", a lot of the males wore similarly skimpy outfits when not in the uniforms they were made to wear by their former masters.
• The Mirror Universe in Star Trek did this right from the start:
  • In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Mirror, Mirror", the Terran Empire has female uniforms that bare the midriff and male uniforms with no sleeves and slightly more chest.
  • Varied in the Mirror episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine with the two Kiras; while Mirror Kira's black leather catsuit shows even less skin than normal Kira's red uniform it's still a lot more openly sexual.
  • Played to the full in Star Trek: Enterprise, where the female Terran Empire uniforms consist of cropped jackets and low-waisted trousers that leave absolutely nothing between the bust and upper pelvis, reminiscent of contemporary Three Minutes of Writhing pop video looks.
  • Averted in Star Trek: Discovery, in which the Mirror Universe costumes are not particularly revealing. According to Word of God, the showrunners were deliberately trying to avoid Sex Is Evil.
• In the Tin Man Sci-Fi Channel original film with Neal McDonough and Zooey Deschanel, the evil sis had some costumes. Let's just say there was a reason why the flying monkeys in this version were nicknamed "boobmonkeys".

Music Videos

• In "Miserable", all the members of Lit are fully clothed, with the only real skin showing coming from Allen (the drummer) in his blood red shorts. Meanwhile, Pam/Vallery, the woman making them miserable, is only wearing a bikini and platform stripper pumps.
• In the video for "You Belong with Me" by Taylor Swift when the nerdy girl takes off her glasses and reveals that she was Beautiful All Along at the High-School Dance, she is wearing a modest white dress. The Alpha Bitch character, also played by her, is in a skimpy red dress.

Professional Wrestling

• Back when she first debuted in 1999, Stephanie McMahon wore tasteful formal and semi-formal outfits. When she first turned heel to join up with Triple H and DeGeneration X, she switched that look for tank tops and leather hot pants. Exemplified with her 2002 Heel–Face Turn and she was wearing business suits and modest clothing.
• Sable may have had skimpy outfits occasionally as a face (The Slammys, her infamous hand-print bikini) but in the ring, she almost always wore fairly modest gear. However, after her Face–Heel Turn, she frequently wrestled in just short-shorts and a very revealing bra. Her trademark Spy Catsuit also made a lot more appearances when she was a heel.
• Inverted with Ivory when she joined the Moral Guardians Heel Power Stable Right To Censor.^note A Take That! to the Real Life Parents' Television Council, who had been making trouble for WWE. Ivory wrestled in a non-flattering blouse and bow tie and a very impractical ankle-length black skirt. Thus her opponents would always be more exposed than her. At Survivor Series 2000, announcer Jim Ross compared her to Lillith from Cheers.
• Downplayed with Kana vs her arch nemesis Syuri Kondo. While Kana does dress "sexier", she also wears face paint, sometimes to the point of clown makeup, so while not as sensible Syuri's karate, kickboxing, shoot boxing or mixed martial arts style gear, doesn't necessarily come off as sexier. On the other hand, Syuri's non-athletic Apple Tale sell music albums, and sing and dance at concerts while Kana's Evil Counterpart alternative The Triple Tails make their non-wrestling money as Fan Service Models.
• Alexa Bliss as a face was presented as a Cute Bruiser who wore a tutu to the ring, blew glitter everywhere and had mostly modest gear. A heel turn saw her clothes becoming sexier, and more attention drawn to her abs.
• Lita was a tomboy who wasn't exactly 'modest' as a face - wearing a thong pulled up high out of her pants, but her style was more punk than sexual. Upon a heel turn to become Edge's 'ravishing redhead', she was seen with outfits bearing a Navel-Deep Neckline and showing more cleavage than she had ever shown before.
• The Bella Twins in their initial run in WWE only provided mild Fanservice as faces (Nikki saying "we were like the G girls") - their gear being more cutely feminine, with ruffles and flowers in their hair. Their 2011 heel turn saw them wearing catsuits.
• Trish Stratus debuted as a heel seductress who wore mini dresses outside of the ring and hot pants inside it. After a 2001 face turn, eventually becoming the top female face of the company, she opted for long tights and dropped any overt sexuality of her character.
• Inverted with Molly Holly. While she did debut as a Token Wholesome amongst the other more sexualised Divas, she did still wrestle in a tank top that showed a bit of cleavage, appeared in the odd Sexy Santa Dress, and had an entrance video showing several Fanservice shots of her in swimsuits. Her 2002 heel turn saw her becoming a self-righteous prude who wanted the women's division to be more serious, targeting Divas who flaunted their bodies.
• Aksana's face character was a Funny Foreigner who only had the odd Fanservice moment. When she turned heel, she changed character to be a Femme Fatale who wrestled in catsuits and would do a seductive crawl around the ring to taunt her opponents.

Tabletop Games

• 13th Age: Of the female Icons, the good and neutral ones — the Elf Queen, High Druid and Priestess — have at most a low neckline or bit of midriff on display, but the evil Diabolist is clad in a sort of bikini thing to show off her runic tattoos, and two of the Three — the Blue and the Black — wear nothing at all, but then, they are dragons.
• Dungeons & Dragons gets in on it sometimes, especially with the more humanoid Always Chaotic Evil races and monsters. Heroic characters get depicted on the more-or-less sensible side of things (with exceptions, of course), while evil ones like the succubus or especially the drow are downright Stripperiffic bondage fantasies. Justified for succubi since being sexy seductress is their entire shtick. Drow are given a cultural justification- since most powerful drow will use magic instead of armor for protection, wearing some basically meant announcing "I can't even cast Mage Armor", and this mutated into wearing clothes being overcompensation for one's flaws.
• Magic: The Gathering: A justified example on the plane of Innistrad, which is basically Gothic Horror Plane. The human heroes wear lots of clothes and high collars, both to keep out the perpetually chilly weather and to provide an extra layer of protection for their tender flesh and blood. The werewolf villains wear next to nothing because their clothes rip up every time they transform, while vampires deliberately wear skimpy costumes as a way of showing off their immunity to cold and their lack of fear of other vampires.
• Pathfinder: As a demon lord, Nocticula's wardrobe consisted less of Chainmail Bikinis as it did of strategically place triangles of metal. As a Chaotic Neutral goddess, she covers herself much more thoroughly — her typical outfit isn't prudish by any metric, but it's still a lot more modest than what she used to favor.
• Sentinels of the Multiverse: Fanatic dresses in full armour (most of the time, anyway; technically the swimsuit-clad Xtreme variant is from a different universe) while her Fallen Angel Arch-Enemy Apostate is a Walking Shirtless Scene, Setback wears a full spandex suit while his villainous ex Kismet prefers a bare midriff, and Bunker wears a mech suit while Fright Train goes shirtless. Averted with Ra and the Ennead, however, since neither Ra nor his archfoes reliably wear much (in Ra's defence, shirts are flammable), and with Tachyon and Friction, who wear basically the same suit (although Tachyon has at least one more sensible variant). Inverted with Expatriette and Citizen Dawn, though, since the former has at least one outfit with a bare midriff while Dawn is generally shown in a full top
• Warhammer 40,000: The Eldar. The good-ish Craftworld Eldar tend to wear long robes and full body armour. Their evil cousins, the Dark Eldar, wear comparatively little to show off their lithe bodies and combat prowess: this is especially true for the Wyches (who are gladiatrices). Notably, Armor is not useless here- the Dark Eldar are renowned for having the durability of wet kleenex.
• Warhammer Fantasy: The Elves exhibit some degree of this. The noble and good High Elves tend to wear long robes, cloaks, silk trousers, and ornate armour, and while most of their evil Dark Elf cousins often wear just as much (albeit darker, and with more spikes, blades, and chains), many Dark Elf Sorceresses and the frenzied Witch-Elf cultists tend to wear very little indeed. The Wood Elves tend to fall in the middle, as their morality is mercurial, shifting and occupying a middle space between their High and Dark cousins, and, while their leaders and rank-and-file soldiers are fairly well covered up, many of their wilder warriors — especially the Wardancers — wear just as little as the Witch Elves.

Video Games

• Action Taimanin: Downplayed, as the Taimanin tend to have revealing and form-fitting clothes but the female villains tend to dress far more provocatively.
• Baldur's Gate II: Definitely the case for Bodhi, who is Dressed Like a Dominatrix, and Irenicus, who even as a mage shows his muscles and nipples. Even more evident considering that female protagonists got a paperdoll avatar that was more sober in clothing compared to the first game, e.g. female warriors didn't have anymore the light cloths with exposed legs and low neckline.
• Bayonetta is an inversion: The titular heroine wears a skin-tight outfit made of her hair, the same material she uses to channel her spells/powers, which means she tends to flash much skin, if not going all out naked, in combat. Her oppositions, meanwhile, are usually fully-covered from the neck down (And in fact, moments before her Heel–Face Turn, Jeanne strips down to the same hair outfit that Bayonetta wears). The same holds true for the sequel, where her main enemy, the Masked Lumen, shows absolutely no skin until he finally gets unmasked.
• BlazBlue zig-zags this trope a lot with the girls in varying states of dress while the guys are more covered up most of the time, but a few concrete examples exist.
  • For the guys, there's Tager vs Azrael. While Tager tends to cover his chest (his arms are too thick for sleeves), Azrael's jacket is never closed, leaving his chest bare for all to see.
  • For the girls, there's Noel and Rachel vs Izanami. Noel is somewhat reasonable in both her outfits and Rachel is quite well dressed, whereas Izanami's choice of attire makes you wonder what Relius Clover does in his spare time. In Continuum Shift, Noel vs Mu is played straight for the same reasons.
  • There's an inversion with the Intelligence Division, though. Hazama is quite snazzy in his suit, slacks and fedora despite being a total troll at best. This contrasts with Makoto, who is described in-universe as being "one strong breeze or sudden cough away from a massive wardrobe malfunction".
• While every female in BloodRayne is some degree of Stripperiffic, Rayne's costume is somewhat protective compared to Ephemera's skin exposure and Feral's animated tattoos. In the first, Rayne's mentor, Mynce, shows more leg, and later is revealed to be a traitor. Subverted, however, at the end of the game as Mynce is not actually a traitor but reveals herself as a Double Agent just before she's killed by the Big Bad.
• In Brain Dead 13, this is played straight in Vivi's Funeral Salon in that Lance, the bumbling hero, is fully clothed, while Vivi is a big-breasted villainess in a black, skimpy, midriff-baring outfit.
• Brown Dust II: Inverted in regard to Morpheah and three of the main protagonists in the Nightmare Winter story, the former is modestly endowed and reasonably dressed, but said protagonists are more buxom and revealing in regard to clothes. For Celia, she mostly plays the Playboy Bunny trope mostly straight, Eclipse; who has the biggest bust size of the story's protagonists, takes the Playboy Bunny trope and does a near-topless take on it with a thin cloth barely being enough to cover her breasts, and Dianna who wears a backless dress that not only bares her back and Sideboobs but also featured a gap in the back to show off her panties.
• Downplayed with the player characters in Champions of Norrath. While they're all technically good guys, you can play as a Dark Elf Shadow-Night, and the female version of that class is one of the two most covered female characters. The most skimpily dressed one is the Desert Mage, who is the only one with a Navel-Deep Neckline.
• Chrono Trigger: Inverted, as the female villain dresses quite conservatively, while Ayla wears the furs of some unlucky mammal and nothing else (and if you bring her to meet Crono's mom, she gets called out on wearing such unladylike attire). Marle and Lucca dress normally, with Marle ditching her princess clothes at the first opportunity.
• Dragon Age:
  • Played with in Dragon Age: Origins with Morrigan's. Her Navel-Deep Neckline outfit contrasts with the nice modest Chantry robes Leliana shows up wearing. While Morrigan is kind of a bitch, she is entirely loyal to the player character and helps them save the world. While one of your clues that Ser Cauthrien can be reasoned with is that she wears perfectly ordinary heavy armor, almost everybody is dressed sensibly if you ignore the pure fanservice-y skintight robes that every woman not in armor wears.
• Elden Ring: Malenia plays both sides of this trope by herself in the two phases of her boss fight:
  • Malenia, Blade of Miquella is a noble knight who wholeheartedly supports her twin brother Miquella's ideals over gaining power for herself (hence her title) and inspired such loyalty that her knights swore to serve her even knowing that she would inevitably (if unwillingly) infect them with Scarlet Rot. She wears simple light armor (well, as light as you can get when it's made of Unalloyed Gold) underneath a modest robe.
  • Malenia, Goddess of Rot is a Walking Wasteland and the Empyrean vessel of the Scarlet Rot who has lost most of Malenia's noble qualities. In this phase she's completely naked, with her modesty only preserved because the rot has spread far enough through her body that her naughty bits are covered with mold and scars.
• In Fallout: New Vegas, female members of the Fiends gang dress like pole dancers. Your companions Veronica and Cass dress like they might have to work outdoors in a harsh climate.
• The Final Fantasy series is a fan of this.
  • Final Fantasy III gave us the Cloud of Darkness, a woman wearing a cape, paint...and that's it. All other female characters in the game are significantly more dressed up.
  • Final Fantasy IV plays with this as most female bosses can't be bothered to wear more than a bikini (especially Barbariccia), with the exceptions of Cindy and Mindy (Sandy only does this in their shared official artwork), while the female leads are wearing actual clothes. Adult Rydia pushes this though.
  • In Final Fantasy VII, both Cloud and Sephiroth are supposed to be wearing uniforms from the same military organisation. Cloud's outfit is cloth trousers, a tank top, and short combat boots. Sephiroth wears leather pants, tall leg-hugging boots and a leather coat open to show off the kinky studded body harness under it. Then there's the ultimate evil, Jenova, who is first witnessed as a headless pair of breasts...
  • In the Remake, Tifa is dressed with a sports bra and top, and had her bust reduced. However, Scarlet became even more buxom, balancing the scales.
  • Final Fantasy VIII:
    • Rinoa, the hero's girlfriend and good girl, versus Sorceress Ultimecia, the game's ultimate villain. Rinoa may be prettier, but evil gets a dress where the neckline ends at the crotch. And then it's slit up a little further for good measure.
    • Also, Edea's dress shows a fair bit of cleavage while she is the villain, but when she turns good, her dress changes to something that covers her chest. Then again, she's possessed by Ultimecia when wearing the black dress, so she's probably been borrowing her fashion sense.
    • Sorceress Adel wears nothing but a skirt. This is Fan Disservice, however, as Sorceress Adel has the build of a man.
  • Final Fantasy IX gives us Kuja, a man with an effeminate appearance who wears a thong and a midriff-baring top.
  • Final Fantasy X has Yuna dressed up modestly. The other heroes are a bit more revealing, but it's nothing compared to Yunalesca in that stripperiffic outfit.
  • Mostly inverted in Final Fantasy XII. Vaan is a skimpy little vest away from Walking Shirtless Scene, Basch's outfit shows a generous Navel Window, buff arms, and plenty of chest, and Ashe and Fran are Stripperiffic (especially Fran, who runs around in a thong). Even most of the random minor characters on the street are not wearing much. Meanwhile, Vayne and Cid are quite covered up, and the Judge Magisters walk around in plate armor.
  • Inverted in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII: The human enemies show very little skin, but there are some Stripperiffic outfits available for Lightning.
• This also carries over into the spin-off Dissidia Final Fantasy. Just compare the Cosmos and Chaos female characters. Terra wears a fairly normal outfit, albeit with a miniskirt, though she is wearing tights underneath. Shantotto, as someone (marginally) on Cosmos's side, wears a full uniform. Cosmos herself is wearing a long white gown. Meanwhile, the Chaos side only has two women - and they're Ultimecia and the Cloud of Darkness.
  • It gets a little amusing in the Prequel game, Dissidia 012, where we see that several heroes were on Chaos's side in the previous war. Terra loses the leggings and skirt in favor of a white leotard and a hip scarf, and Tidus seems to have developed an allergy to shirts. Cloud actually gains more clothing with much fancier armour, but also adds more jewellery, and Jecht is exactly the same despite being a good guy.
• Fire Emblem:
  • In Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword, all of the female villains with the exception of Limstella show some amount of cleavage in their artwork. On the heroes' side, all of the player's female units are modestly clothes and aren't (with the exception of Lyn) too well-endowed with the potential exception of Vaida, who starts off as an enemy anyway.
  • Would seem to be the case in Fire Emblem Fates: Princess Hinoka of Hoshido wears a modest dress with practical armor and only shows a small amount of leg as a Pegasus Warrior, while Princess Camilla of Nohr wears black lingerie to display her ample assets. Then it's subverted twice: Hoshido has Orochi, Rinkah, and Rhajat (the former two show quite a bit of skin while the latter wears Sensual Spandex), while Nohr has the modestly-dressed Flora, Selena, and Beruka. Secondly, either side can be hero or villain depending on which path you take and neither in the Revelation path.
  • In later games, dark mages (who are mostly villainous and tend to be played for Heroic Comedic Sociopathy if they end up on the heroes' side) have very skimpy outfits consisting mainly of underwear worn over sheer bodysuits. This is mostly gender neutral (behold, Fates' generic dark mage portrait), but it's worth noting that most of the named dark mages are women and the sole "sensible" dark mage (Henry) is a man.
• Golden Sun:
  • The original has Mia, Jenna, and Sheba all dress modestly, with nary a hint of cleavage to be seen (Mia's a justified case, as she comes from a snowy mountain region). The villainous Karst, on the other hand, runs around in a midriff-baring top, mini-skirt, and thigh-high boots. Her big sister, Menardi, however, wears a dress that's every bit as modest as the heroines'.
  • Dark Dawn continues the tradition with Karis, Sveta, and Himi all wearing practical, modest outfits while still managing to look good. And then there's Chalis, who... well, see for yourself.◊
• Guilty Gear
  • I-No is...improperly dressed. Works for "That Man", who appears to be The Man Behind the Man. Although the heroine, Dizzy, is wearing even less, Dizzy doesn't have a win pose where she takes her clothes off.
  • Once Asuka's true motives become clear, his modesty becomes one of the many contrasts he has with Happy Chaos, the other spellcaster in the franchise who can match Asuka. Namely, Asuka wears a full wizard-like regalia that completely covers him from the neck down, while Happy Chaos just wears an unbuttoned shirt and black pants.
• In Immortal Souls, Isis Corporation Agents wear Badass Suits, John and Raven wear skintight but fully concealing clothes, and the Templars wear full-body Powered Armor. Meanwhile, the Black Witch and Juliet are Stripperiffic via Clothing Damage for the former and Of Corsets Sexy for the latter, as well as Juliet's female gang members also dressing equally sexy.
• Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords: Inverted, as your Light Sider female party members (Mira and the Handmaiden if the player is male) expose a lot more skin over the course of the game than the Dark Side pair (Visas and Kreia). The Twin Suns, two female Twi'leks that are minor bosses on Nar Shadda, play this trope straight by wearing less than any female party member, except for the Handmaiden in her underwear.
• League of Legends plays around with the trope:
  • While quite a few of the females are Stripperiffic on both ends of the spectrum, all the well-dressed female champions are good. Compare the morally good, armored from head-to-toe Kayle and sensibly dressed Riven, to the evil, battle bra touting Morgana and Elise. However, this is inverted as of Kayle and Morgana's rework; while neither character is fully good or evil,Kayle is much darker morally than Morgana. It is also inverted by Ruined Shyvana, who gains a more modest outfit than her normal heroic counterpart.
  • Inverted with the male characters. Good male champions can range from armored-like-a-tank Garen to pleasing to female gaze Yasuo and Varus. Nearly all of the amoral male champions such as Darius and Viktor are almost fully covered.
• In The Legend of Zelda spin-off game Hyrule Warriors, the majority of the female heroes of the Hyrulean Forces are sensibly dressed. The sole exceptions are Midna and Ruto, who are technically naked but get a pass since both lack certain human attributes and the latter's Ocarina of Time 3DS design makes her look like she's wearing a dress of sorts, and potentially Lana's Bare Your Midriff outfit depending on one's values. On the dark forces' side, though, Cia is dressed in a very Stripperiffic outfit. The Lana/Cia contrast is particularly interesting since Lana is Cia's Enemy Without.
• In Luminous Arc series, the first stripperiffic female antagonist character you meet WILL Heel–Face Turn. Subverted with the second female antagonist that appears will have a much less revealing outfit e.g. Priel, Elicia and Yorg. Valerie will switch to a much more revealing outfit when she reveals her true identity.
• Lunar: The Silver Star.
  • Luna wears a peasant dress at first, then practically nothing after her (apparent) Face–Heel Turn.
  • While all the women of the Vile Tribe shown in Silver Star Story Complete and beyond wear skimpy clothes, it should not be a shock which one of them chooses to make a Face–Heel Turn later in the game considering that she's the most conservatively dressed of the three.
• Mass Effect:
  • In the original, the player's teammate Liara wears a perfectly ordinary tunic of the sort many female NPCs are comfortable wandering around in public wearing. Her mother Benezia, suffering from a case of More than Mind Control, has an Impossibly-Low Neckline to show off her huge... tracts of land.
  • Mass Effect 2 plays with this. Amongst Shepard's crew, their nicest female allies (Tali, Kasumi, and Liara) run around in sensible clothes, the more morally questionable ones (Miranda and Samara) have extremely close-fitting outfits (with Navel-Deep Neckline in Samara's case), and the only thing the psychotic Jack wears from the waist up is tattoos and a leather strap that's only just wide enough to cover her nipples. Further, when Jack mellows in the next game, she shows considerably less skin.
  • Male crewmembers show shades of this. Thane shows off a strip of bare chest (for medical reasons), Grunt has bare arms, and Zaeed has one bare arm to show off his tattooos. The three of them are amongst the most Renegade members of Shepard's team.
• In Metal Gear Solid, Solid Snake wears a skintight Spy Catsuit. His Evil Twin, Liquid Snake, walks around only in tight trousers and a coat undone at the front. He has no shirt. The game takes place in Alaska.
• While the Mortal Kombat franchise as a whole tends to have all females wear skimpy clothing regardless of alignment, Mortal Kombat 9 has Stryker invoke the trope by immediately assuming Mileena is a foe thanks to her very Stripperiffic outfit. Note that while Mileena is, indeed, evil, her outfit seems to be standard attire for female warriors of the Outland, and a few of them like Kitana are decent.
• Overwatch:
  • The very first trailer and the "Alive" animated short featured rivalry between fully dressed, heroic Tracer against cleavage-baring evil sniper Widowmaker.
  • Normally, Mercy is fully covered and definitely on the heroic side. However, in the Junkenstein's Revenge mode, where she was the Greater-Scope Villain, she wore a Hot Witch costume with exposed cleavage and thighs.
• Persona 5:
  • Shadow Sae, who represents the more "villainous" side of their counterpart Sae Niijima, due to their distorted desires and thoughts corrupting their mind.
  • Inverted with Shadow Futaba, who's actually the hidden good side of Futaba but dresses in a skimpy pharoh garb due to the level's Ancient Egyptian themes.
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice actually manages to make this into a plot point. The heroes dress sensibly and professionally for court, and the main villain wears a fancy dress that exposes her bare chest. Ga'ran occasionally made her sister Amara pose as her because Amara had spiritual powers while she did not. Amara also had a scar on her chest from a fire she was caught in- and Ga'ran's prosecutor dress makes it obvious that she doesn't have a scar there.
• Inverted in Pokémon Sun and Moon, Kukui is one of the main characters and sports a Walking Shirtless Scene, the main protagonist as a Male can have a Shirtless Scene when surfing and the female can show off her stomach with custom outfits. Lusamine, on the other hand, is completely covered up. Plumeria at first play this trope straight but then it's revealed that she was Good All Along due to her actually being really friendly and only followed orders from Guzma because she had to as she never wanted to do any kidnapping. Wicke is played straight as she's actually one of the kindest characters in the game and while her outfit is slightly aimed for Fanservice it covers up a lot of skin.
• Played with a bit in La Pucelle. Princess Eclair normally wears a Battle Ballgown, while her Superpowered Evil Side wears revealing black lingerie. However, the circumstances where Dark Eclair first shows up seems to suggest that that's just Eclair's normal sleepwear.
• Sea of Stars: Downplayed: Erlina and Brugraves aren't Stripperiffic, but they still show more skin than our heroes Valere and Zale.
• Shantae plays with this. While no female main character wears completely sensible clothing, they tend to cover more skin then the villainous Risky Boots.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog, Rouge, the vain, selfish Anti-Hero, dresses in clothes that show off everything she's got to maximum effect, and Harmless Villain Wave has a bared midriff and may not even wear a shirt; while Amy, Cream, and Blaze dress up modestly, and Tikal, being undead, doesn't even have anything to show off. Shade is evil but is fully clad in armor.
• Splatoon:
  • The playable Inklings in the first two games (both male and female) wear a mix of shorts and whatever top they are equipped with, all of which are sensible for both genders. The Octolings you fight in the single-player Hero Modes, on the other hand, are only female and wear shorts along with tank top armor that shows quite a bit of navel. To drive this point home, the unlockable Octoling Armor doesn't show nearly as much skin when worn by an Inkling of either gender. Octarian soldiers showing off their navels appears to be mandatory too, as Splatoon 2 has the final battle being DJ Octavio and a brainwashed Calli vs. Agent 4 and Marie. Callie in this form wears a revealing black and purple outfit that shows a lot of skin, while Marie and The Protagonist are covered up.
  • Averted with Marina, the first heroic Octoling in the series, who wears an outfit even more revealing than the villainous members of her species, showing off her navel and ample cleavage. Likewise Agent 8 in the Octo Expansion DLC campaign, who spends the entire story mode still wearing their leather soldier gear (sans armor plating).
• Inverted in Star Fox Adventures. Resident Action Girl Krystal is the Stripperiffic Ms. Fanservice in Chainmail Bikini, while Big Bad General Scales normally dresses in full uniform or armour.
• Mostly inverted in Tomb Raider: Anniversary. Lara Croft's default outfit consists of a tank top and short shorts, while Natla's clothing is much more conservative and does not show her legs. That is, until the final boss battle, where it is played straight.
• Total War: Warhammer II: As with the source material in Warhammer, the noble High Elves tend to wear a lot more than their cruel Dark Elf cousins. This is especially visible in The Queen and the Crone DLC, focusing on Alarielle the Everqueen, Crone Hellebron and a number of units associated with them. Alarielle wears flowing robes that only leave her arms bare, while her Handmaidens and the Sisters of Avelorn wear full-body leather-and-metal armor as would be expected from dedicated soldiers. Hellebron, High Sorceresses and the Sisters of Slaughter, on the other hand, stride into battle with little beyond greaves and Chainmail Bikinis, and the all-male Doomfire Warlocks aren't wearing a whole lot more. This is best shown with a contrast between the Dark Elf Sorceress, who runs around half-naked with little more than a loincloth, and the High Elf Mage, who wear flowing robes that cover their bodies entirely.
• Trials of Mana is an inversion in that the one major villainous female character, Belladonna, might be showing a lot of cleavage, but it's still far and away less skimpy than the default outfits of playable characters Angela and Riesz. But it's played with a bit in the remake's class changes. While they don't actually make the characters evil, the girls' Dark-aligned classes have the general look of an Evil Costume Switch, and yes, they're quite a bit skimpier than their Light-aligned classes.
• Valkyria Chronicles: Villain Selvaria's outfit has a high neckline, but it shows enough of her back for us to see that she can't be wearing a bra. Heroine Alicia wears a jacket that gives full coverage in the front and back.

Webcomics

• At Arm's Length: The main characters wear reasonable shirt and pants combos into battle (save for Kiley, who wears a tube top), but their arch-nemesis Temujin looks like she bought her outfit from the barbarian section of Victoria's Secret.
• Pointedly averted in El Goonish Shive which has explicitly stated in text that there is nothing evil about skimpy clothes. When Diane has a Heel–Face Turn, she does start dressing more sensibly, but that's a personal decision, and even her kid-self who's pushing her to self-realisation says that part isn't a morality issue. When Nanase gets a Good Angel, Bad Angel scene, the bad angel is wearing a corset, because that's traditional, but to make up for this, the good angel is wearing a toga which reveals considerably more.
• In Ensign Sue Must Die, Ensign Sue wears the normal Enterprise uniform for a medical officer, which is pretty all-covering (of her top half, at least — it still has only a miniskirt for the bottom part), and her mirror universe counterpart Empress Sue wears a navel-exposing tank top and short skirt.
• Homestuck: compare White Queen and Black Queen's harlequin outfits: White◊, Black◊
• In Misfile, Ash's good angel wears a toga, while her bad angel...
  Ash: W... What the hell are you wearing?
  Bad angel: This is the traditional evil conscience female uniform. It's supposed to represent your feminine sexual inhibitions unleashed...
• The Order of the Stick: While the main female character, Haley, usually gets by with nothing sexier than a bare midriff, her Evil Counterpart Sabine is prone to do things like engaging in battle wearing a schoolgirl outfit (granted, Sabine is a succubus). Other female antagonists, notably Tsukiko, also dress skimpily.
• In Sluggy Freelance, whenever the cast's angels and devils appear to discuss moral dilemmas, the angels wear conservative robes while the devils wear more revealing clothing.

Web Original

• Protectors of the Plot Continuum Agents wear bulky black military fatigues. Compare this with the skimpy or overly ornate clothing of the average target...

Web Videos

• In Atop the Fourth Wall‘s Top 15 list of the worst examples of heroes becoming villains, Linkara notes that while men gain more clothes from a Face–Heel Turn, women always become skimpier, using Sue Storm becoming Malice as a prime example. This is according to their body heat rising with their evilness, as he demonstrates with the following mathematical formula:

E: Evil as measured in MegaVaders
T: Temperature in Degrees Celsius
R: Revealingness Level (1 is baseline - t-shirt and jeans)
R = T x E (1 Evil = Stilt Man)

Western Animation

• Inverted in the Justice League episode "A Better World": Justice Lord Wonder Woman has short hair and wears a full-body suit, in contrast to normal Wonder Woman's luscious locks and leotard.
• Inverted in Kim Possible as the main female baddie Shego is clothed entirely from the neck down, while the heroic Kim Possible bares her midriff every episode (until a costume change during the final season).
• Parodied in a Robot Chicken sketch that introduced Wonder Woman's Evil Knockoff Negative Wonder Woman. While The Reverse-Flash's costume is The Flash's with the colors reversed, Negative Wonder Woman's is Wonder Woman's covering the opposite parts of her body.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks: In "Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus", Boimler's holonovel has three hot Romulan women with very revealing outfits as the main villains. Every woman on the good side is wearing a regular Starfleet uniform.
• Strangely enough, Teen Titans (2003) is an inversion. The female villains are usually dressed more conservatively than Starfire, who flies around in a midriff-baring shirt and a short skirt, and Raven, who wears a ridiculously tight looking leotard underneath her cloak. Starfire's appearance, funnily enough, is actually more modest than her original comic counterpart, where she'd even appeared naked on occasion.
• Total Drama:
  • Played with in the first generation.
    • Gwen and Heather are a downplayed example. While Gwen does wear a short skirt and corset top, Heather shows off a lot more skin with her short shorts and cropped halter top. Heather's other Arch-Enemy Leshawna also wears more modest clothes, and Leshawna even calls out Heather on her skimpy outfit in "3:10 to Crazy Town".
    • In Action, Lindsay and Courtney are an inverted example. The uptight perfectionist Courtney wears a modest preppy outfit while the bubbly Lindsay wears a tight tank top with a short skirt.
  • Among the third generation, Sky and Sugar. The athlete Sky dresses more conservatively than the pageant brat Sugar, whose outfit has a frilly crop top.
  • From the reboot series, the main antagonists are represented by Julia and Bowie. Both of them wear a midriff-baring top, and Julia also wears short shorts. Other contestants from the season dress more modestly.
• Transformers:
  • Transformers: Animated: Compare Arcee and Blackarachnia's designs and see which parts of their bodies resemble exposed skin.
  • Applies to Blackarachnia all by herself in Beast Wars. Compare her original body to her post-Heel–Face Turn Evil Costume Switch and try to spot the "skin". And then there's Airazor, who seems to be a fairly modest Maximal from the get-go.
• Winx Club actually inverts this with the Winx Girls and the Trix, though in the first season, it was played straight with the girls' civilian clothes. Come the third season, a one-off power-up for the witches essentially gave them sparkling bikinis, while the power of the season for the Winx gave them frilly outfits, playing it straight for a change.

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