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Shoes, usually boots, which rise knee-length or higher, often giving them Zettai Ryouiki appeal, and qualifying under its grades. These kinds of shoes have a certain Impossibly Cool Clothes factor because it is pretty uncommon, and usually pretty impractical and expensive, for shoes to reach any higher than calf length. These shoes may have straps, buckles, zippers or laces that may go all the way up, to emphasize their length and the fact that the character wearing them has some sexy legs.
Nicknamed Go-Go Boots (though the term is more usually, and more properly, used to refer to Sixties-style knee-high boots (which may or may not have stiletto heels), Thigh-High Boots tend to double as Combat Stilettos on Action Girls, though Dominatrices and Real Life prostitutes wear these rather liberally, qualifying the latter as the Ur Example, and the former as the Trope Codifier.
Compare Zettai Ryouiki and Nice Shoes — this is a subtrope of both. See Opera Gloves for the upper-limb equivalent.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Loly Aivirrne
 ◊ and Riruka Dokugamine◊ from Bleach, both of whom have Girlish Pigtails.
- In Code Geass R2, Kallen sports thigh-high boots as part of her Custom Uniform with the Black Knights.
- Suzaku also has a pair of these in his Knight of Zero outfit, though it's hard to tell because the costume also includes a cloak that hides most of his body.
- D.Gray-man has Lenalee Lee with her Dark Boots; they're her Empathic Weapon. No, really.
- Jun the Swan from Science Ninja Team Gatchaman.
- All the team members and the Big Bad.
- Usami Masamune in Mayo Chiki!.
- Every Pretty Cure series has at least one Cure wearing them, with the exception of the the first two continuities, which instead used leg warmers for a similar effect.
- Jessie from Pokémon.
- Robin from One Piece, prior to the Time Skip.
- Mew Zakuro from Tokyo Mew Mew.
- Practically almost every male character in Axis Powers Hetalia, especially the Power Trio Italy, Germany, and Japan.
- Yoko of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann sports a pair post-timeskip.
- Mai Valentine wore these while she was Brainwashed by Dartz during the Doma arc of Yu-Gi-Oh!.
- Blue of Wolf's Rain with a Mini Dress Of Power and Scarf of Asskicking.
- Male example: Mukuro from Katekyo Hitman Reborn! has worn these as part of certain outfits of his.
- Casca from Berserk.
- Momose from Bloody Cross wears thigh high boots in the first few chapters. Tsukimiya also wears them once or twice.
Comic Books
- Supergirl, in her New 52 costume.
- Starfire of the Teen Titans. She even wears a different pair in her street clothes in Red Hood and the Outlaws.
- Green Lantern: Jade when she was a member of the Darkstars◊.
- X-Men
- Storm.
- Jean Grey wore a pair of yellow thigh-highs with one of her older costumes.
- Also, Phoenix costumes go right into the spandex this way.
- Psylocke (but not before Magic Plastic Surgery*
that involved acutal magic had made her Asian).
- Mary Marvel, during Final Crisis, wore boots like these◊.
- Alexandra in Dungeon The Early Years. Used as an Aww, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other moment: During Hyacinthe's Heroic BSOD following Alexandra (his mistress) killing his wife, he's shown to be paying prostitutes to put on the same kinds of boots she wears, and yells her name when orgasming. Her response on learning this is to start crying.
- Whatever Love Means play this trope for dark comedy, joking about how some filmmakers seem to be obsessed with having prostitutes wear such boots, incorrectly believing themselves to be radical when they put screentime focus on the boots.
- Umbra of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
- Scarlet Witch, during her first couple of decades.
- Funnily enough, it appears on the cover of Children's Crusade that her son is wearing these (minus the heel). It's really not surprising.
- Zatanna occasionally.
- Power Woman in Kingdom Come.
- Sue Richards has worn them as part of a couple of her uniform changes over the years.
- Catwoman, when she was in her Purple Suit era, combining this with Opera Gloves. Ditched when Ed Brubaker and Darwyn Cooke took over the title in favor of considerably more sensible boots.
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
Live-Action TV
- Avon from Blake's 7 occasionally wore a pair of leather boots that went up past mid-thigh, combined with a silver lamé top that made him look like some kind of disco space hooker.
- Kalinda from The Good Wife pretty much lives in them.
Music
Video Games
- AdventureQuest Worlds has plenty of this combined with leotards.
- Luxa and the Twi'lek dancers, from Knights of the Old Republic.
- Bloody Roar: Primal Fury: The secret boss character, Uranus, sports a sleek pair of thigh highs as part of her body armor.◊
- Soul Series
- As of Soul Calibur IV, Cassandra now sports a pair as part of her default attire.◊ Interesting side note: it's actually her player 2 costume, from part 2, with a different color scheme.
- Ivy as well, at least in the fifth game.
- Also June, from Capcom's little known Star Gladiator. Not only does her outfit include thigh-highs, but killer knee pads as well!◊
- Cammy's alternate outfit in Street Fighter IV, which counts as a Gendered Outfit that copies M. Bison's uniform.
- It's practically the dominant fashion in Mortal Kombat: Kitana, Mileena, Jade, Khameleon, Skarlet, Sindel, Tanya, Sareena, Nitara, and Li Mei all wear them at some point.
- Valkyria Chronicles III has Riela Marcellis.
- Fire Emblem
- Most of the Pegasus Knights wear those.
- Eirika from Fire Emblem The Sacred Stones as well. In fact, looking at character artworks reveals that these are relatively common on characters in the Fire Emblem world.
- It also seems to be the footwear of choice of Cavaliers from Lenster in Fire Emblem Jugdral like Fin, Carrion, Robert, Glade, etc.
- Guilty Gear has Dizzy, I-No and Valentine.
- Isabela◊ from Dragon Age II wears leather boots that go all the way up. Presumably, this has something to do in her being a Pirate Girl. When Isabela suggests Merrill get a similar pair, Merrill remarks that she feels like she'd get lost in those boots since they're so big.
Merrill: I've dropped marbles in them. They take an eternity to reach the bottom!
Isabela: That's the reason I've been finding marbles in my boots?
Merrill: Um. No. I'm just rambling. Look, a rock!
- Ultima Online has them as one of the standard footwear you can use. For some reason, it's compatible with plate armor leggings — the plate simply lose its graphic in favor of the boots, but still give full protection. The boots are unisex, but the female characters can combine it with corset-like torso armors and leather armor miniskirts. Oh, and you can dye the boots and the leather armor in any color you please.
- The Succubus boss in Mabinogi.
- Male example: Isa Jo from Sin And Punishment Star Successor.
- Connor Kenway of Assassins Creed III also sports these, though it's a little hard to see under his longcoat.
Web Original
- Used quite a lot in Soundscape, where Thigh-High Boots often overlap with Combat Stilettos. Half of the girls wear them, while the other half goes for actual Zettai Ryouiki or Stocking Filler. Although it's far from the Trope Namer, Amylase brutally lampshades the entire thing while explaining that she went with Thigh-High Boots as a substitute to actual stockings. Word-for-word, she describes the expensive nature in getting any boots above calf-length; the (near-)impracticality in using them for anything other than modeling; the exoticism in having laces, straps, zippers or belts to emphasize the design; their uncommon usage; the question of their origins, either from prostitutes or dominatrices; and the advantage to using them as weapons for kicking.
Western Animation
- Evangelyne from Wakfu.
- Starfire from the animated Teen Titans show.
- Him from The Powerpuff Girls wears the high-heeled version of these. They do a marvelous job of adding to his creep factor.
- From Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Asajj Ventress's Nightsister attire includes these.
- Also, Ahsoka's vision of her future self.
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