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alt title(s): Stripperific
Left = Dressing for combat in Real Life. Right = Dressing for combat in fiction. "And her special ability is somehow not dying while only wearing half the armour of the other guys"
Clothing for female characters will often be impractically sexy for its chosen application. Especially common in fantastic or exotic settings, where wardrobe rules are made up on the spot.
Spies will dress in sexy outfits, even when the mission explicitly calls for them to not be noticed. Female warriors will charge into battle wearing armor that doesn't protect the vital organs. Bridge officers on a military starship will be issued go-go boots with their uniforms.
In the same manner as the Breast Plate, Powered Armor suits used by women have sexual characteristics added to them. Sometimes, even the Humongous Mecha will have its own set of dome-like tin cans in the chestal region and feet shaped like high-heeled boots.
Common in any genre where men represent a major core of the audience. This can be self-fulfilling, because exploitative wardrobe choices can be a turn-off to potential female fans. Super Hero comic books are especially guilty in this regard.
It's worth pointing out that this practice seems to be (veeeery slowly) on its way to becoming a Discredited Trope, especially among the sub-30 crowd who have grown up with comics and other forms of modern mass media. At this point there have been so many Stripperific heroines that they are perceived as the norm and are therefore, ironically, dull and uninteresting. If anything, competent female characters who are well dressed and don't need to rely on sex appeal are themselves becoming more appealing and preferable (both to viewers and to producers), as they tend to be more interesting characters; it becomes impossible for the production to simply hide behind sex appeal. (The fact that we've all seen those characters naked probably helps too.) The trope isn't completely discredited however, as plenty of productions across many mediums still abandon conservative clothing in order to appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator. Tropes Are Not Bad, remember, and that includes this one, although it's overdone in most media. So long as people have hormones, it'll probably never completely die off.
As more criticism of this trope in comics has started to come up, male fans have been quick to point out that most of the male superheroes aren't exactly modestly clad, either. It's typical for them to go into battle wearing what amounts to a single coat of primary-colored paint over their ridiculously defined bodies. Superman and Spider-Man are often singled out as the ones who fight supervillains while wearing outfits so tight that in real life, you'd be able to tell what religion they were. The counterargument to this is that the male characters (and, by extension, their outfits) are still considered less sexualised than the female ones; most female fans would be very happy to see Wonder Woman, or many of the other heroines making this list, covered up as much as Superman or Spider-Man, It's far less common to see male superheroes wearing costumes that directly (and in many cases solely) emphasise their, shall we say, attributes. Outside of the superhero genre, however, this trope can be inverted, by inserting exceptionally flattering uniforms for police, firemen or gardeners into traditionally female-oriented fare, like soaps and prime-time dramas.
Rule Of Sexy is the Super Trope.
Sub Tropes:
In Real Life, many teenage girls, when practicality isn't an issue, will pick a skimpier outfit over one more comfortable.This trope only applies to situations where a female character wears an especially revealing outfit where it would not be practical, such as in combat.
Sometimes, all that's left for the modest female adventurer is hope that she will be rewarded with clothes in a New Game Plus.
See also Theiss Titillation Theory, Most Common Superpower, Stylish Protection Gear, Sensible Heroes Skimpy Villains (when the villains are more stripperific than the heroes). When the character is forced to dress this way, it's Go Go Enslavement. Can lead to Exposed To The Elements on the part of the wearer, and Fetish Fuel on the part of the viewer.
Examples
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Anime
Comic Books
- Let's face it; if we had to list all the female superheroes and villains to whom this trope applied, we'd be here for most of the year. It's probably easier to list aversions and particularly notable examples.
- Mostly averted in the case of the Batfamily:
- Stephanie Brown/Spoiler. The first iteration of her costume (relatively loose-fitting catsuit, cloak, hood, gloves, and full face mask) had nothing exposed anywhere, not even her hair. Later on she loosened up to the extent of allowing her ponytail and the lower half of her face to be seen. This is more notable in that she was a teenaged girl, and one who spent considerable time in her early appearances trying to catch the attention of a teenaged boy. Apparently she felt that showing skin was for amateurs, and since she did eventually catch him, one can admit she had a point.
- Also applied when out of costume, given that her most common outfit was jeans and long-sleeved sweaters.
- Even her outfit as Robin averts it. There have been two iterations of her suit; one if pretty much the same as Tim's, only with a miniskirt added over her leggings, and the second, while looking a little different and possibly more unisex, still covers her from neck to toe.
- Cassandra Cain/Batgirl II. Her costume is more scary than sexy: head-to-toe black leather, a stitched up mouth opening, and black-tinted eyelenses (this combined with the black suit gives the appearance that she doesn't have eyes). In essence, Batgirl's costume looks more like something you'd expect a male villain to wear.
- Barbara Gordon. As the original Batgirl, she wore a sensible costume that covered everything except for the lower part of her face and a cowl that kept her hair out of her face; the high heels weren't present in every version of her costume. As Oracle, she sits behind her computers in a wheelchair and dresses in comfortable, often casual clothes.
- Male example: the original Robin costume, with its green panties/short shorts, was for a long time the most stripperiffic costume of the Batfamily.
- Huntress' costumes either offer good protection and cover her from the neck down, or has been designed by Jim Lee. Especially jarring since Huntress is a Badass Normal and very much the Combat Pragmatist you can expect a Batfamily member to be, and showing her midriff when she once took four bullets in the stomach seems like a very, very bad idea.
- Lampshaded twice, in two different arcs.
Black Canary: By the way, what's with the new outfit?
Huntress: Seven-hundred sit-ups a day.
Black Canary: Say no more.
- The pre-Crisis Huntress - the Earth-2 Batman's daughter - wore a much better example of this trope, particularly for its time - essentially a one piece bathing suit with a very low neck, almost down to her navel sometimes (and when her cape wasn't in the way, no back to speak of), with thigh-high boots, long before such things were anywhere near as common as they are now.
- Catwoman wears a Spy Catsuit. The amount of skin showing is very, very little.
- Kate Kane as Batwoman goes on the list too, with a full-body suit that leaves just the lower half of her face uncovered. It looks like her hair is exposed, but that's actually part of the costume - it's a wig that pulls away with minimal effort, perfect for throwing off a villain who tries to grab it.
- An odd Lampshade Hanging occurs in the graphic novel Watchmen, in which a character uses it as a warped justification for Attempted Rape. It's also noticeable that the costume was only very Stripperiffic by 1940 standards, as it's basically a very short backless gown with stockings.
- Further lampshade hanging when her daughter/successor complains about how ridiculous her own costume was. Unlampshaded when she puts the costume on for her new boyfriend and doesn't stop wearing it for the rest of the series (though there wasn't time to get a new one).
- And let's not forget Dr. Manhattan, whose progressively-diminished costume provides a Stripperific clue as to how far back in his personal timeline each of his flashback appearances lies. The fact that he's first seen buck-naked, and is only later seen in skin-tight bodysuits or Speedos, may be a bit of a joke on this trope.
- The Invisible Woman of Fantastic Four fame is notable for being one of the relatively few comic book super-women who manages to avoid this trope, wearing for the most-part the same largely practical (if skintight nonetheless) blue jumpsuit also worn by the male members of the team; however, Tom Defalco's run on the strip was notable for reverting to trope and putting Sue in something like this
 .
- Tarot's 'armour' in Tarot Witch Of The Black Rose is
pretty extremely stripperiffic (her usual outfit is made of floss and hope!), as are most of the clothes that the other (equally well-endowed — very well) women wear in that book. When they're actually wearing clothes, that is.
- Unlike most of the women in Y The Last Man, the supermodel Yorrick meets is wearing a halter top, not really practical for her new job: disposing of bodies left by the Gendercide. Much later, she wears the same thing while walking though a sewer.
- Inverted for the Sub-Mariner, a male superhero whose most common "uniform" consists of basically a speedo and wristbands.
- Empowered has no shame about this. It is not the titular D-List Superheroine's fault that she has to wear the costume voted the most "Skanktastic"/"Do-Me-Riffic" of all the Superhomies' in a (fictional) webpoll, but neither Sistah Spooky nor Ninjette have such an excuse.
- One of the few genuinely Stripperiffic male outfits in comics is the costume Cosmic Boy wore in the Legion Of Super Heroes back in the '70s. His costume was actually held on by his magnetic powers. There are reasons that period of the comic is referred to as the Naked Legion.
- Yet another rare male example is Frank Miller's 300. In the comic, the Spartan warriors are as often as not buck naked, except for helmet, greaves, shield, and long red cape. This does highlight, however, how Stripperiffic outfits are actually Older Than Dirt: Miller is imitating the "heroic nude" of classical Greek art, where warriors, heroes, and gods are commonly shown parading around (and even fighting) largely naked. The film version gives all of the Spartans little leather panties, which only amplifies the Stripperiffic and homoerotic nature of the costume.
- In this case, homoeroticism would seem to be in the eye of the beholder.
- In actuality, the Spartans wore practical armor and helmets in battle, though their armor was shaped like a perfectly chiseled torso (with nipples).
- That's because the armor was molded from their perfectly chiseled torsos.
- And also their large, pointy nipples?
- Channon Yarrow often wore very Stripperiffic outfits throughout Transmetropolitan's run, both in casual and professional situations. Then again, she was introduced as a stripper working her way through journalism school.
- It was also made more and more apparent how progressive The City was. Keep in mind, there were people having sex on the street, in broad daylight, in the background every now and then.
- There is one example of a (parody) female superhero from Marvel's setup that doesn't go for the skimpy outfits while on the job, despite her day job being a supermodel: Ashley Crawford. Then again, as a hero she's Big Bertha. Seeing her in the skimpier Emma Frost uniform (see the final splash panel in the 'Misassembled' 4-parter) is likely not what the average comic fan is looking for. (Deadpool, on the other hand, probably has that image blown up on his wall.) Of the remaining girls on the team, Squirrel Girl has a more modest costume setup (she's still a minor), while Tippy-Toe wears just a ribbon. And is a true squirrel, so it doesn't count.
- Power Girl's infamous "boob window" was actually deconstructed (or Hand Waved) once; she wanted to put a symbol there, like Superman, but could never figure out what to add. This effectively turns fanservice into a heartwarming moment. That, or it make her look like an idiot, when you keep reading and she asks for Superman to fill her hole.... It's a variable-mileage thing.
- By contrast, the rest of her team wears far more than the average super-heroine. Liberty Belle has "Mountie pants" on, Stargirl just has a bare midriff and knees, and Cyclone has an outfit that blocks the view to her breasts (though still features a bit of Zettai Ryouiki).
- Nobody, male or female, wears much in the way of the clothing in The Warlord. Somewhat justified given the tropical climate of most of Skartaris but, even so, you'd think the warriors would go for something a little more protective. Particular mention must be made of Mariah whose outfit, my female friends assure me, could only work if it was glued on.
- The main female character in The Maxx wears buttock-baring denim cutoffs to her job as a social worker. Really.
- Starfire of Teen Titans is sort of justified by the fact she thinks clothing is pointless and would be just fine without it, and that's sort of justified by being an alien who can survive the extremes of space. Her skimpy Breast Plate "uniform" is apparently Tamaranean ceremonial armor, not intended for real protection.
- As the "SF chainmail strapini" first appears when she is breaking rocks as a slave, and her native people seem to wear robes and jewels when they wear anything, perhaps she is "superheroing" wearing clothes that mark her a slave. After thirty (or seven) years free. Turning the insult into a badge of honor, maybe?
- She Hulk sometimes plays with this in her comics, especially the series where she spends more time on the Fourth Wall. In one memorable scene Venom randomly breaks in to the courtroom (she's a lawyer) and webs her up, and in ripping the webbing, she rips her suit. Someone notes the readers have just gotten more interested, wondering if it's a popular villain or the ripped clothing that excited them.
- Lampshaded and subverted in the beginning of her second series, where she discovers that while her clothes may rip, her underwear is indestructible because it's "protected by the comics code".
- Despite constantly fighting superpowerful and psychotic undead monsters badass normal (and goth-styled) Cassie Hack of Hack/Slash only ever seems to wear tank tops, badass longcoats, miniskirts, stockings (or fishnets) and occasionally other things, like really long leather gloves and boots. Lampshaded at one point in a one-shot set in a Comic Con where a character thinks she's wearing some kind of costume.
- Zatanna's and Black Canary's costumes both consist of fishnets and something with all the covering of a swimsuit (generally with a jacket on top). Zatanna is, admittedly, a Squishy Wizard (with more squish than average) so it doesn't much matter what she puts on, but Black Canary is a martial artist.
- Brazilian Animesque comic Holy Avenger is stacked with these. The most stackering example is Niele, that wears a clothing composed of...leather strips.
- Lady Rawhide from Topps Zorro comic series. Especially blatant as the series in Colonial Spanish California. Lampshaded as various characters wonder how she can leap about in that outfit without anything popping out. (And, eventually, something did [for a single panel]).
- Phantom Lady as drawn by Matt Baker in the late 1940's wore an outfit that barely covered her impressive assets and looked like it would come off in a strong wind. One famous cover was featured in "Seduction of the Innocent" (the even more famous book by Fredric Wertham condemning comic books) as an example of 'headlights'.
- Red Sonja, the She-Devil with a Sword, whose standard outfit is little more than a scale mail bikini.
- TBF, Conan doesn't wear much either. Say what you will about the Chainmail Bikini, at least Sonja has something on her chest.
- A more subtle form of Stripperificness can be seen in female cape choices. Look at superheroes who wear capes, vs superheroines who wear capes. The heroines have a marked tendency to have capes that end about at the waist, as opposed to heroes who usually wear it to the knee or ankle. While this is more practical, it can't be ignored that it also makes it much easier to show off the legs and butt.
- Even Superwoman, the female version of Superman from the gender-reversed Earth-11, has a short cape, despite her costume being exactly like Superman's otherwise. Batwoman from the same universe gets a long cape though.
- Space Suits with Show Some Leg feature! Try to top this. On the second thought, better don't.
- To be fair, the man is wearing the same outfit.
- While most of the female X-Men fall victim here (even Jean Grey bares her midriff in the X-Men Legends games), Rogue averts this out of necessity. Which somehow doesn't stop her from dressing like Daisy Duke when she's out of uniform.
- Darth Talon from Star Wars Legacy wears little more than a few stragetgically-placed strips of leather. Not unexpected, considering that most females of her race seem to be dancers or slave girls.
- Considering that she's gone through well over a hundred costumes since she was created, Wasp has surprisingly few of these, sticking mostly to bodysuits (albeit usually very form-fitting ones) that cover most of her from the neck down. The low-neckline ones or sleeveless ones are actually notable.
- Ravager of the Teen Titans is an inversion; she dresses like total jailbait as Rose Wilson, but her Ravager costume is neck-to-ankles chainmail.
- In the short-lived Beatrix comic, the eponymous heroine is given an armless, strapless, backless super suit in order to make her invulnerable — even to things like fatigue, hunger, strong flavors, and more than small amounts of friction. Of course, the trope is mooted a bit in that the suit cannot be removed, since if that were possible, it would defeat the purpose of being invulnerable.
- Considering her stature (in both the comic book and real worlds), it can be a little jarring to really look at Wonder Woman and realize that her costume uses less actual cloth than practically every other superheroine's out there.
- Entirely averted in The 99, a comic book for Muslim audiences. The heroes channel power from the 99 Names of Allah; their female contingent are likewise practicing Muslims, and would rather be caught dead than in a Stripperiffic outfit. Covering is full-body and often includes anything from a head scarf to a full-face veil.
Film
- Alicia Silverstone as "Batgirl" in Batman and Robin. Uncle Alfred was a lecherous old man to have had a suit made for her that had her exact cup size built in. For shame, Uncle Alfred, for shame. The gratuitous ass shot didn't hurt, either.
- The male costumes in that film were no better, and for many viewers worse. George Clooney even got a lingering closeup of his zippered Bat-Ass during the suiting up sequence.
- The female ninjas in the movie Lady Ninja: Reflections in Darkness dress in highly abbreviated ninja outfits (when they're wearing anything at all).
- There do seem to be a few ... subtle differences in what's enhanced in Edna Mode's work on The Incredibles ... Of course, Edna is a fashion designer.
- Jane's jungle oufit in the second Weismuller Tarzan film ('Man and His Mate') is unlike any that came later, split to the hip, and sometimes absent.
- Almost everybody in 300, male or female.
Literature
- Domi in James Axler's Outlanders series. Her outfit is continually described as "A pair of red high heels, and nothing else." Brigid Baptiste's clothing on the covers falls under this, as well.
- Any Barsoomian (Martian) or Amtorian (Venusian) in Edgar Rice Burrough's novels of same, male or female, will wear a belt and weapons harness (male), jewelry (female) and that's pretty much it. And I mean even when they're going into battle.
Live Action TV
- Super Sentai has several.
- Zonnette costume show a lot of cleavage.
- Shibolena though lesser, has many panty shot!
- Subvert with Denus, as it dosen't show any cleavage!
- Wendinu
- Her power ranger counterpart Kapri doesn't show it.
- Peri.
- Seven Of Nine.
- Handwaved as a "dermaplastic bodysuit" to cover and heal the injuries from her Borgification. Must have taken her skin a long time to heal, as she never stopped wearing it, though she did occasionally get ones in different colors. It was noted by Voyager costume designers and makeup specialists that Seven's costume is as much a piece of engineering magic in reality as it was in Trek continuity, as the female form simply doesn't fill out clothing that way naturally.
- Seven of Nine actress Jeri Ryan reportedly hated the costume due to how tight and uncomfortable it was. When the series ended she was asked in an interview what ever happened to her So N costume. Her answer was something to the effect of "I'm hoping for a bonfire".
- And Seven Lite, T'Pol, who wears tights even though all other Vulcan characters wear robes. Not to mention the blatant Fanservice "decontamiation" scenes with braless tank tops that show the Borg are not the only ones with implants.
- The women's uniforms in Star Trek TOS were distinctly skimpy. This was lampshaded in TNG season 1, where both male and female extras were seen in miniskirt uniforms.
- Lampshaded, too, in Jadzia Dax's famous "And women wore less" comment in "Trials and Tribblations".
- In the commentary for the Star Trek Enterprise episode "In A Mirror, Darkly" it's mentioned that they had to keep telling the actress playing a dead Original Series yeoman: "Yes, the skirt really IS supposed to be that short".
- Why do people constantly reference 7 of 9's spandex bodysuit but not the one Troi wore for several seasons?
- In Mortal Kombat Conquest, pretty much every evil female (and a few good or neutral ones) wears clothing so negligent that you wonder how they fight in it without falling out. Given some crowd scenes, it makes you wonder if the laws of permissible visible flesh for each gender are somehow inverted.
- The CSI Verse has female characters investigating crime scenes in low-cut tops, high heels and tight trousers. All at the same time on some occasions. (And leather trenchcoats in midday Vegas heat, but that's another trope)
- Anise/Freya on Stargate: SG-1. Particularly egregious when you compare her outfit to the nondescript, functional clothes usually worn by male Tok'ra, and to those worn by female Tok'ra who aren't conventionally attractive.
- She could just be particularly vain. Most of the Tok'ra seem to have some sort of overriding personality flaw.
- Mostly averted with Buffy, who prefers to go into battle wearing long pants and a leather jacket. She does wear platform heels a lot though. Now if she could keep her balance, spike heels would be understandable and almost-practical combat gear, but platforms?
- The one time she wore an inappropriate outfit into battle, it was an evening gown - and not even a strapless or backless one. To boot, just about everyone (even the villain) thought it was beautiful.
- Other Slayers (e.g. Kendra and Faith) wear more revealing outfits, but at least they're practical. And in Faith's case, the Stripperiffic factor was intentional.
Willow: Don't worry, we're sure to spot Faith first. She's like this cleavagy slut-bomb walking around.
- Lampshaded in the Angel episode where Cordelia became a princess in another dimension. She says that when she was an actress in the original world, the director made her wear a bikini that was tiny, skimpy and exploitative. She then looks at her current attire which wasn't any better.
- NCIS's Abby Sciuto, Perky Goth and resident Hot Scientist, wears shorter skirts than everyone else in the cast and outfits that border on the fetishistic at times. When Jenny Shepard takes over as director, she hands her a copy of the dress code. When a clearly very unhappy Abby then totters into work in a suit, Gibbs tears up the dress code in front of her- because he's not having an unhappy Goth as his lab tech.
- In a DVD extra, the actress Pauley Perrette claims a TV exec told her the shorter her skirts, the better the ratings.
- 90%+ of the dancer's costumes on both So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With The Stars, especially the women.
- Ahh, Xena...how impractical was that outfit? And how little it protected. And that's not even bringing up Gabrielle, at least Xena's stripperiffic outfit was armoured.
Tabletop Games
- Justified in WhiteWolf's Scarred Lands d20 System Tabletop RPG: using arcane magic releases heat within the spellcaster's body. Some cultures embrace the skimpy garb this situation tends to require.
- Female Twi'leks are almost all slender and attractive...and given to wearing next to nothing when out in the galaxy even though they're from a world that's hotter than Tatooine. Even the ones who aren't slave girls.
- The Dark Sun setting for D&D is made of this trope. Designers who'd worked on its initial development have openly admitted choosing a desert setting (as opposed to, for instance, an arctic one) because of the ample beef-and-cheesecake opportunities afforded by the artwork.
- In warhammer fantasy battles there are those that use it. Witchelfs and sorceresses of the darkelfs wear stripperific "cloths". Chaos marauders wear nothing but leather pants and possibly helmets. Slayers wear either nothing or just pants or loincloth, this is however justified as they try to get themselves killed and the less protection they wear the easier it is.
Videogames
- Ohatsu in Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams begins the game conservatively dressed. After her outfit is supposedly destroyed in a battle, however, she changes into a sexier, stripperific outfit that she pieced together out of the remains of the old one.
- Yuki is pretty stripperific in Enchanted Arms, although the first rule in a desert is to cover ALL your skin. Sunburns require more water than sweat waste.
- This might be the main point of the Valis series. Yuko's armor has consistently been illogically skimpy, being pretty much a bikini and (if it counts as armor) a skirt. Cham/Char in the third game has slightly less impractical armor.
- Strangely, the third game's magic user is dressed in a full robe. Tellingly, though, she's also the only one who wears sandals rather than boots.
- Also strangely, in the fourth game, Lena starts off with more modest clothing, even if it's still impractical as battle armor. However, when she gets special armor that grants her temporary invincibility (until it takes enough damage), that special armor turns out to be as skimpy as (or possibly skimpier than) Yuko's.
- Jessica Cannon in SiN: Episodes wears an outfit with a bare midriff, and her pants appear designed specifically to draw the player's attention to her butt.
- Averted in Half-Life 2, where female characters (including Alyx Vance, most prominent woman of the series) are dressed in appropriate, non-revealing clothing. Likewise, the resistance's female members are dressed much like their male counterparts, and Judith Mossman is dressed in jeans and a turtleneck. Well, it is a pretty ''tight'' turtleneck...
- Valve games in general tend to avoid this trope. Chell in Portal wears an orange jumpsuit the entire game and Zoey in Left 4 Dead is appropriately dressed for the Zombie Apocalypse.
- The demoness Shannon in God Hand wears a very tight and close-cut one-piece outfit. As if in acknowledgment of this trope, just before the first fight with her, she actually mounts a stripper's pole for a moment...
- Samus Aran from Metroid avoided this trope entirely, to the point where her being a female was the Tomato Surprise of the first game. However, pictures of her wearing more revealing clothes are sometimes unlockables.
- In Zero Mission, she also spends a section of the game with just the suit she apparently wears under the armor (also seen in Super Smash Bros Brawl). While not Stripperific, it is skin-tight. However, it does serve several practical purposes considering she wears it inside that massive suit.
- The Soul Series has Ivy and Taki; the latter in particular has a notorious red body stocking outfit, in which her breasts are several cup sizes larger than her other outfits, reaching Gag Boobs status. EGM summed it up: "Seriously, they're like balloon animals." Ivy, meanwhile, wears a dominatrix outfit. And wields a sword that can turn into a whip. If you think that's suggestive already, just look at her "throws" (and compare the North American version of her outfit to the Japanese).
- Even the loli and a holy fighter is not safe from this. Talim is mostly known for clothes that reveal her shoulders, midriffs (especially in Soul Calibur 2); in Soul Calibur 4, she gets see-through pants and a thong. And in Soul Calibur 4, Sophitia gets a SEE-THROUGH piece of clothes that lets you actually see her breasts, and even the side parts are not covered.
- Combine these with SC4's system of armor removal mid-battle, and, well...
- Soul Calibur 3 started it! Only Talim was inmune (the only shots of her underwear steaming from careful manipulation of the camera in her exhibition theater in 2/3)
- What about Tira? She probably had one of the most revealing outfits◊ in Soul Calibur 3.
- Subverted by Nicole in Dead Or Alive 4, quite possibly the last place you would expect such a subversion to occur. As a female version of Master Chief in a game that otherwise uses this trope with pride, it is nearly impossible to tell her gender just from looking at her.
- Mai Shiranui of Fatal Fury and The King Of Fighters. Perhaps the quintessential example of the impractically dressed warrior. Her Garou counterpart B. Jenet wears a cocktail dress into battle and flirts with the guys quite a bit.
- Lampshaded in Fatal Fury 3: when Terry Bogard defeats her, he tells her, "First, don't call me goldilocks! And second, cover up that cleavage!"
- She's hardly the only example in the series. Angel from 2001 quite possibly tops her in this regard, and in Mai's victory quote against her Mai says something about her "trying too hard".
- Subverted by the Tarutaru race in Final Fantasy XI while followed by other races: While most races have differences in gear appearance based on gender, with Race Specific Equipment (RSE) and Harnesses tending to be more revealing for females than males (though Subligaria were equally revealing for both), Tarutaru models are unisex below the neck (possibly to save on storage space) and their versions of the most Stripperiffic outfits in the game are less revealing than even the male versions from other races, rarely exposing much of the chest or the shoulders, and almost always covering the neck with a high collar, as well as making the flesh-toned material covering the legs in most subligaria pale enough to contrast very obviously with the Tarutaru's actual skin color.
- In fact, the use of unisex bodies combined with the tendencies of most headgear to cover hair means that it becomes almost impossible to tell males and females apart when wearing a cap, hat, or helmet; only minor facial features like the shape of the hairline and angle of the eyebrows, combined with the limited number of available faces, makes this discernible.
- This may well owe something to the difficulty some people have distinguishing adult Tarutaru from children, given the race's diminutive proportions.
- And played completely straight by the Mithra, who are a mostly One Gender Race that seem to have an aversion to pants. Even when equipping a Mithra with an item called "trousers" that normally would be trousers on the other female races, it often turns into a pair of panties for Mithra.
- Almost every Final Fantasy game has an example. Some stand out more than others (looking at you, X-2), but every game will feature at least one person like this. Final Fantasy, however, is notable for its equal opportunity - even the men are prone to this trope (Kuja can even put most of the girls to shame). Seriously, we could try and list every single instance of this, but it would take up most of the page.
- Speaking of X-2, Rikku's bikini, that she wears during the Hot Spring scene, is less revealing than her default costume during the game!
- Summoner/Black Magician Girl Rydia, from Final Fantasy IV, was already skirting the line with her post-adolescence Leotard Of Power. Her outfit for the sequel, The After Years, doesn't resemble clothes so much as strategically-applied, gravity-defying green paint. Rosa is even worse, and is arguably the worst female example in all of Final Fantasy. Apparently underwear is effective enough armor & she never knew it goes under a dress or skirt instead of the other way around...
- Ashley Riot of Vagrant Story has his butt hanging out of his manly pants.
- And Sydney. You see enough to be pretty confident he has no body hair.
- The armour you get in World Of Warcraft is often much more revealing on women than on men.
- Armor sets in Guild Wars also have the tendency to be slightly more revealing for women than men, but it's not glaring except for the Elementalists... the men wear full suits and long coats, while the women basically look like belly dancers. This may have been subverted with Paragons, who wear short skirts... men and women alike.
- Although it is actually possible to get male Paragon armour that doesn't show a bare midriff. Not so for the women.
- Female mesmers favor Gorgeous Period Dress, but there are a couple that come across more as evening dresses, so to speak. Female warriors generally avert the trope... except for the Gladiator and Elite Gladiator sets (and in their defense, the male versions are just as fanservice-y), monks and necromancers both have armor sets that consist of tattoos and scar patterns, respectively, with only the most vital bits preserved for modesty, male and female alike. Female rangers get avert this trope... except for the Elite Druid armor, which consists of little more than a leather bikini...
- Let us not forget the Kurzick and Elite Kurzick armor for female Ritualists, which is apparently held on with spirit gum (admittedly, the male armor is fairly revealing as well). Some nonscar Necromancer armors are serious offenders, too - lace/gauze-is-not-a-substitute-for-clothing Elite Cabal and Obsidian, let's-protect-everything-except-the-vulnerable spots Elite Kurzick, and a-leather-strap-does-not-a-bra-make Sunspear - while the male Necros almost always get full-body leather suits.
- In War Craft 3, most of the Night Elf female units wear little more than bikinis and capes. Lampeshaded by the Archer, where if you click her enough times, she grumbles, "I said a bowstring, not a G—ugh, never mind." The Blood Elf Sorceresses wear a low-cut outfit that reveals much of their considerable cleavage. The character Jaina Proudmoore wears just a sports bra, tight pants and hooded cape. Subverted with the Night Elf Wardens from WC3's The Frozen Throne expansion, who wear concealing great cloaks and what visible areas are armoured properly. Played disturbingly straight with The Frozen Throne's Dark Ranger, an undead elf in a stripperific outfit.
- On the other hand, the orc units, all male, tend not to wear much: Thrall wears black plate, the witch doctor black robes, the shaman thick gray furs, the Farseer a hooded cloak, and the Tauren Chieftain a lot of bits. Every other orc, tauren, and troll unit is at the very least shirtless. Both male night elf heroes are shirtless, too.
- Finally, it must be admitted that as of Burning Crusade and especially as of Wrath of the Lich King, with its heavy emphasis on Nordic-style cold weather armor, Blizzard has gotten much better about this for the players (although a few chestpieces still show a little stomach if you're not wearing an undershirt). Some of the new designs for major lore characters are... questionable, however.
- Alexstrasza◊ the Life-Binder, Queen of the Red Dragonflight, benevolent guardian of all living things, and part-time stripper(?).
- Well, she wears even less in her natural dragon form.
- Velvet from Odin Sphere. There's a bit of Lampshade Hanging in the Winterhorn Ridge stage when a shopkeeper NPC remarks "A half-naked maiden on this mountain? I hope I'm not hallucinating..."
- Fire Emblem plays this straight with every dancer except FE 7's Ninian (but they are dancers, so that is kind of the point). Some of the other female combat classes come close but tend to be justified (pegasus knights need light armor so as not to slow them down in flight, archers shouldn't be exposed to direct combat anyway, mages and healers aren't normally expected to fight).
- There are a few males that also wear stripperiffic outfits. In the tenth game Sothe wears the same outfit as in the ninth, but since he's gone from 15 to 18 the shirt no longer covers his midriff and in general is a tight fit.
- Nephenee is a weird example, her armor cover's everything that should be covered by armor, but the clothing she wears under it covers barely anything (especially with her tier 3 outfit in Radient Dawn)
- Male example: Largo. Shorts and a bear-cloak head thing?
- Calill and Lucia's outfits looked suspiciously like lingerie.
- The Super Robot Wars introduced the stripperiffic outfit in form of the swimsuit-like DFC suit, worn by Aqua Centolm, heroine of Super Robot Wars MX. Not that she has the personality of a Ms Fanservice, so she's obviously embarrassed with it. Justified with the fact that that kind of outfit is required on piloting her mech. And even the male hero Hugo Medio wore a similar stuff.
- Ironically, in Aqua's cameo appearance in OG Gaiden, she said Lamia Loveless' outfit was of Stripperiffic quality. God knows how she will react when she learns that the DFC suit is way more Stripperiffic than that.
2. To make it even worse, in the OVA, she gets Stripped Off For Real.
- Then this kicks off again in Super Robot Wars Z in form of the female rival Xine Espio... who seems to be taking some clothing tips from the DFC.
- Kaguya Nanbu. Good god almighty Kaguya Nanbu.
Web Comics
- Pinky, the titular girl from Pinky TA, wears nothing but a short tank top, a belt, and a black thong.
- Parodied in Schlock Mercenary, where the field commander alters the order for the (female) owner's body armor from a modest design to a rather more buxom one; she responds by testing its strength-magnification features on his ribcage.
- Also satired in the adult webcomic Supermegatopia, in which a group of former superheroes and superheroines with names like 'Topless Lass', 'The Tease', and 'Long Tom' form the All-Stripper Squadron and use their powers in a more profitable manner than fighting crime.
- Lampshaded very nicely in this RPG World strip.
- Completely averted in Chasing the Sunset. All the female characters wear practical everyday clothing which generally bares just the arms and lower legs. Clothing for special events is slightly more revealing; clothing for combat is heavier.
- Freya in Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki wears clothing into combat that must be glued on.
- And of course, the title character wears clothes that look like they're painted on... because they're alive. Sort of.
- Parodied in the Sluggy Freelance story arc "Years of Yarncraft," where Zoe is upset that every single female character design in an MMORPG is petite, well-endowed, and wears a Stripperiffic outfit ... even the slime monsters.
- Dungeon Damage has Cat, a rich Spoiled Brat and part-time thrillseeking thief who dresses outrageously (by Medieval Venician standards) but finds that what looks good isn't very practical, as when she winds up on a mountaintop in a blizzard in a midriff-and-cleavage baring vest.
- The Inexplicable Adventures Of Bob has Princess Voluptua. 'Nuff said.
- No longer active but there's a webcomic out there named: Chainmail Bikini.
- Huang Gai in San Three Kingdoms Comic... always appear completely butt naked. When Art Evolution kicks in and he is changed into his Dynasty Warriors 6 attire, he still have time to make his lower part completely stripperiffic too.
- Terinu's females are sensibly dressed most of the time. Then there's Ninetta, a six-foot tall alien who likes to walk around in daisy dukes, crop tops and bare foot whenever she can get away with it. Also there's Gwen, who favors tight jeans and crop tops as well, though she is fifteen and a stereotypical fashion obsessed teenager. Even she draws the line when she's made a slave girl and forced to wear an "Exotic Dancer Barbie" outfit though.
- Freakangels has Arkady...a character that is bald, and wears a white loose as hell tank top, is barefoot, and for a bottom, wears a see thru long patchwork skirt with no underwear. However, her vagina isn't drawn in, but one of the other characters does finally comment on it saying, "I wish you'd put something on under that..." In volume 2 and onward, Arkady now wears a tighter tank top and panties under her see thru patchwork skirt. It was actually a bunch of fans that requested the change, as it made them uneasy.
- Engie-tan of Nerf NOW has some major wardrobe malfunctions. Actually, that goes for any of the female characters.
- Kagerou: "Quick topic change, but do you own any pants that actually cover your ass?"
- ''Too Much Information'': The protagonist's shoulder devil, Cleo, is a sexy demoness covered only by long tresses of flaming hair. His shoulder angel, Spooky, "copes" by switching to a feather bikini.
- The title character of The Challenges of Zona's usual outfit is a leather version of Red Sonja's chainmail bikini plus a gold torc. Her sister Tula dresses comparitavely modestly in a halter top and tight pants with cutouts but still qualifies IMHGO.
- Golden Jane and Iron Jane from Everyday Heroes. Lampshaded in this strip.
- Parodied in this Order of the Stick comic.
- When Sam and Jan of Day By Day aren't wearing really tight and short dresses they're in spandex excercise outfits, bikinis or their undies.
Western Animation
- Stan Lee's Stripperella. What can be more Stripperiffic than an actual stripper who dresses like a stripper to fight crime?
- Inverted with Futurama's Zapp Brannigan. His shirt (what else can I call it?) just barely covers his genitals... from the front. If he bends over or climbs a ladder, you're out of luck.
- You could call it a tunic.
- A pair of random pedestrians in the first episode, as Fry goes flying out of the transport tube and hits a building. The couple in question are both wearing what looks to be laminated plastic, fully clear except for the black stripes covering their inappropriate parts.
- Speaking of which, there are apparently black bar generators that create... floating black bars so that blurnsball players don't have to cover up while in the locker room.
- Considering it was a kids' cartoon, the early '90s X Men series allowed some characters to get pretty darn Stripperiffic.
- It didn't help that the coloring of Jean Grey's outfit made it sometimes hard to know which part were skin and which part were from the outfit.
- Neither did the coloring for Sabertooth's outfit. Half the time it looked like he was plain moonlighting us.
- In the recent Wolverine And The X-Men series, Emma Frost surprisingly survives Adaption Decay in almost every possible way.. including her extremely revealing outfit. Plus, she has a sexy British Accent to boot. God bless them.
- Dr. Mrs. The Monarch's prototype outfit in The Venture Brothers.
- Lampshaded twice by The Monarch, who even points out Theiss Titillation Theory, and her Murderous Moppets who exclaim how they love hugging her in her new costume.
- When asked if she's afraid of, ahem, "spilling out" of her costume, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch notes that her breasts are taped to the costume.
- Compared to her old Queen Etherea costume◊, it's almost modest.
- Let's not forget the aptly-named Molotov Cocktease (and how could you, with a name like that?), whose outfit has a breast-baring and ass-baring slit up the front AND back. Then again, her "off-duty" fashion sense doesn't scream subtle either.
- Who cares that they're robots a minimum of 10 feet tall? With Transformers like Elita One, Arcee and Blackarachnia, you can still see exactly where their clothes would be. Even though, being robots, they don't actually wear clothes. Hell, G1 Arcee has more armour on her shoulders than she has on her legs. This gets taken to disturbing extents in the comics—Chromia at one point has a molded thong on her body.
- The title character of Aeon Flux. The most she wears in the cartoons is a black vinyl sports bra, a matching
thong chastity belt, and thigh-high stripper boots. And there's ample evidence that all Monicans dress this way.
- In the climax of Rock And Rule, Angel is chained up and made to summon an evil demon with her singing. She wears a dress - can I even call it that? - which is basically a long strip of material with a halter neck and no back, gathered at the waist with a belt, that is only wide enough to cover her nipples and cleavage, and wide/long enough to cover her nether regions. A good portion of her breasts and all of her legs are uncovered. And it gets visibly torn up during the finale. At one point, we see her from behind, with wind whipping at her hair and outfit, and the material blows up, exposing most of her rear end; she doesn't even seem to be wearing any kind of underwear. Don't forget that this movie is rated PG (to be fair, this was before PG-13).
- All the girls in Total Drama Island, except Beth, Eva, Bridgette, Courtney and LaShawna. The only reason Beth and Eva aren't is because they aren't supposed to be appealing to men(Beth's a loser, Eva is a jock). LaShawna is supposed to be more sensible than the rest of the girls, so she probably would not wear a close fitting outfit. Lindsay may be justified for looking like this in that she's a Brainless Beauty, who probably would not care if she was bleeding to death, as long as she looked good.
- Have you seen what La Shawna sleeps in? Granted, it's sleepwear, but compared to what the rest of the chicks wear to bed, it's pretty scandalous.
Web Original
- Sarah references this in the lonelygirl15 video "Am I A Criminal?": "If you're gonna B&E, you wanna bring the T&A!"
- Now here's a motivational poster if I ever saw one: [1]◊
- In The Guild Codex and Tinkerballa dress quite normally. their avatars on the other hand...
- In the Whateley Universe, Mega-Girl wears a teeny Supergirl/Power Girl kind of costume that shows off a ton of skin. And she wears it almost all the time. Phase has seen her studying in her dorm room, in her costume. There's a reason why.
- Parodied in Picnicface's NFL Crunchtime video. "Choose your cheerleaders' outfits on a sliding scale of lewdness!"
Other
Fan Fic
- Rare male example: In Suzumiya Haruhi No Seitenkan, Haruki and Mitsuru both wear Chippendale dancer outfits while passing out flyers advertising the SOS Brigade.
- Justfied in the Evangelion/Wonder Woman crossover Amazing Amazon, in which it is explained that the Wonder Woman outfit looks like that because Hephaestus' wife (Aphrodite) prefers the company of Ares, so he's a little... lonely'', which tends to show when he makes something relating to women.
Real Life
- Truth In Television: Ballroom dance. What you see on Dancing With The Stars or Strictly Come Dancing is a pretty good example, but you can find the backless dresses with plunging necklines at professional and even collegiate competitions. Males don't get away scot free either: the two acceptable shirts for Latin and Rhythm are either a tight black shirt or a ruffly white one that's open in front. The clothing for Standard and Smooth styles are much more conservative.
- The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey (founder of the Church of Satan) lays out the rules for clothes worn during a Satanic magical ritual. LaVey had some lingering 1960's sexism in his lines of thinking, regardless of his radical ideas. His writings often seem to give the impression that only men have a sex drive, and he reportedly expressed envy to a beautiful woman's ability to wrap men around her little finger. Put another way, he didn't quite realize that women like to stare at the Estrogen Brigade Bait every bit as much as men like to stare at Ms Fanservice:
Black robes are worn by male participants. [...] Female participants wear garments which are sexually suggestive, or all black clothing for older women. [...] Sexually appealing clothing is worn by women for the purpose of stimulating the emotions of the male participants, and thereby intensifying the outpouring of adrenal or bio-electrical energy which will insure a more powerful working.
- Celtic Warriors, at least according to Roman accounts often went into battle naked and painted with woad.
- Tactical Corsets.
- Female tennis dresses have gotten pretty close to this, with much media commentary on the matter. Pretty much the only road they won't go down is showing their stomach. Otherwise, micro-skirts and tops that leave zero to the imagination are pretty standard for a sport where you can hit what is essentially concrete going for a tough shot. Serena's "catsuit"◊ at the US Open is the biggest offender so far.
- Ancient Minoan dresses were topless by default.
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