Thong of Shielding

Ro-butt not in disguise.

The Ranger: It's... It's original those elfin huuuu... panties. With some kind of... string behind...
The Barbarian: Yeah, yeah.
The Ranger: Must be nice... to get a tan...

— Le Donjon de Naheulbeuk, episode 17

Nipple and Dimed for the backside. Provided that the gluteal cleft (that's the crevasse between the buttocks, a.k.a. "butt crack") is covered, you can show most of the buttocks and get away with it.

So, you could say that it's the bare minimum?... We'll get our coats...

Often a feature of the Barely-There Swimwear. Not to be confused with a Chainmail Bikini that provides literal shielding against damage, though a chainmail bikini may incorporate this kind of skimpy thong.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Naga from the Slayers prequels is never told to put some pants on, even though she runs around in a purple leather thong.
• Shirow Masamune seems to have a deep love of this trope. The Major in the original Ghost in the Shell manga frequently shows her rear off, although she's far more modestly dressed most of the time than in any of the adaptations. Motoko Aramaki in the sequel manga Man-Machine Interface, on the other hand, seems to be lacking pants more often than not. Shirow Masamune's other heroine, Deunan Knute, has this whenever she is piloting a landmate in Appleseed.
• Two of the over-the-top super-fanservice outfits in Daphne in the Brilliant Blue (Rena's and Shizuka's, to be specific) are either C-Strings (just picture a snap-bracelet for your crotch) or Maebari. Maebari deserves special mention, as it's a Japanese "clothing" fetish that revolves around bikini bottoms made out of tape. So pick your poison — strapless thong made out of a snap-bracelet, or strapless thong made out of tape.
• Fairy Tail:
  • The manga generally used this trope a lot in its early days, but the series and its creator has become more bold in later chapters, showing the girls' stark-naked butts several times and thus averting the trope.
  • Mirajane has this in her demon form.
  • Kyouka from the Tartarus Arc has a combination of this and a Leotard of Power.
• Lampshaded in Gintama, when Gintoki is revealed to be wearing a Fundoshi under his boxers during the Popularity Poll arc to prevent his rating from being lowered by the same underwear removal tactic that was initially used against Yamazaki. He gloats about Kondo's failed attempt to expose him, which prompts Shinpachi to point out that it's covering so little of his butt that it's barely any different from not wearing anything at all.
• Kill la Kill:
  • Nonon Jakuzure wears a C-string thong as part of her final Goku uniform, leaving her backside completely exposed and covering only her crotch.
  • Satsuki Kiryūin when inside Kamui Junkestu.
• Don't Meddle with My Daughter!: Athena and her daughter, Clara, both wear the same leotard styled superhero costume, which includes a high-cut thong. It also come with a reasonably long cape, but you'll still see their ass cheeks pretty often.
• In Armitage III, we see a Sex Bot (called a "second" In-Universe) re-purposed as a flight attendant on a shuttle to Mars. She (it?) wears thong panties for the benefit of the all-male passengers (something to do with female arpatheid), and "her" being groped is enough of a problem that she's given a tattoo on her left buttcheek reading "DO NOT TOUCH."

Arts

• Most female characters painted by Boris Vallejo; he has said in commentary that the lower body is the part he enjoys painting the most.
• Male example: The Sinagua, a bronze statue by Susan Kliewer,^note In Sedona, Arizona depicting an almost-nude male tribesman and a more modestly-dressed woman.

Comic Books

• Black Canary: At some point, Dinah's leotard became so skimpy she was almost always fighting crime with her backside out. A team-up with Wonder Woman, Dinah explains that her costume just always rides up, and she's often too embarrassed to fix it in front of other heroes.
• Black Moon Chronicles: Feydriva wears a Chainmail Bikini which exposes a fair amount of her glutes, getting her attention from quite a number of men (and dwarfs).
• Druuna: Druuna is often dressed in just a red thong and a white tank top while navigating the post-apocalyptic world around her.
• The Flash: Jesse Quick is prone to this, particularly with her leotard outfit from the 90s and 2000s. This was especially prominent when she was on the Titans (1999).
• Guardians of the Galaxy: Gamora's costume is depicted this way in the early issues of Nova (2007).
• Lady Death: Lady Death's Stripperiffic outfit includes a thong which shows off her rather shapely behind when her cape doesn't get in the way. Which happens very often given the type of comic this is.
• Mockingbird: Mockingbird's second "gymnastics" outfit.
• Ms. Marvel: Carol Danvers's leotard was sometimes depicted as a thong below the waist. Moonstone, when she was taking Carol's name during Dark Reign, actually lampshaded this by complaining about the costume, even questioning the oddity of an outspoken feminist wearing something so revealing. Kamala Khan also lampshades it in Ms. Marvel (2014) when her powers first manifest and she tries to disguise herself by appearing in Carol's old costume, noting that it's giving her a huge wedgie.
• Shakara: Eva Procorpio rarely has anything more than a minuscule thong between her belly and mid-thigh.
• Transformers: Despite being a robot (and functionally naked), Arcee has occasionally been depicted with one of these.
• Vampirella: How Vampirella's costume's backside was drawn from Harris to the 2016 series when she received a pair of hot pants (for a while). It's basically a slingshot bikini, so you also have a Navel-Deep Neckline from the front.
• The Warlord: The assassin Y'Smalla wears one of these to compliment her Chainmail Bikini.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Some modern comic book artists depict Wonder Woman's shorts ^note often referred to as "star-spangled panties" by fans as this, most notably Ed Benes and Mike Deodato◊ (who drew Wonder Woman between 1994-1995).
  • Mike Deodato's art in Wonder Woman (1987) managed to shrink Wonder Woman's spangled shorts into a thong, especially noticable once Artemis took on the role following The Contest. Quite the downgrade in coverage considering Diana started out in flowing athletic culottes back in Sensation Comics.
• X-Men: Psylocke. Sometimes her costume covers her behind completely and just shows off her thighs. Other times, it could generously be called a g-string. It doesn't help that almost every panel she's in has her striking a pose like something out of a Hip-Hop video.

Films — Animation

• In Ralph Bakshi's Fire & Ice, all of the men's Loin Cloths bare a fair amount of buttock, but the most guilty (unsurprisingly) is Princess Teegra. Not only is her thong very narrow, but it's partly see-through, and a bit of buttcrack sticks out over the top. Plus she spends a lot of time with said ass pointed at the camera. And since this film came before the PG-13 rating, it's only PG. Rather creepy considering she is only 15.
• In the egregiously stripperiffic Danish CGI movie Ronal the Barbarian, more characters wear thongs than not, even the female barbarians who aren't shown that often. The General wears a lot more than the barbarians, but even he prefers his buttocks bare so he can whip them. Unfortunately, Zandra keeps her butt covered.

Films — Live-Action

• In the 1999 A Midsummer Night's Dream, which features topless fairies and a mud-slinging Hermia and Helena, when the nude lovers are awoken in a field by Theseus, a strategically placed blade of grass hovers perfectly between the camera and Christian Bale's bare derriere. That could not have been accidental.
• Anck-Su-Namun in the opening flashback of The Mummy sports this as we get a rear shot of her walking into Imhotep's chambers. PG-13 movies seem to be able to get away with this, though the shot can't really linger.
• Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen (featuring Megan Fox) shows one of the actors in a thong. It's John Turturro.
• In My Father the Hero, there's a scene where the father meets up with his daughter poolside with her in a white one-piece swimsuit. Imagine his surprise when she gets up and it's revealed to be a thong bottom.... In one version, a much more modest suit is digitally superimposed, which makes the entire scene farcical as the father character overreacts to a perfectly normal swimsuit. To put things in perspective, Katherine Heigl, who played the daughter, was only 16 at the time of filming.
• Early on in Attack of the Clones Obi-Wan and Anakin investigate a nightclub and one of the female patrons in the background is wearing a thong, with her butt clearly visible. This is especially jarring for a Star Wars film, but the film still managed to get a PG rating with no mention of the partial nudity.

Literature

• In the 1980's action series SOBS, two members of the Heroes "R" Us unit strip off to follow the villains into the water. When the chase ends up back on land, one of them realises his colleague is effectively "bottomless" as he's just wearing a thong. When the embarrassed colleague asks for help covering up, he replies, "And deprive all these tourists of a chance to see the Eighth and Ninth Wonders of the World?"
• Barbarian hero Grignr from The Eye of Argon is a Conan the Barbarian expy, however, unlike most characters of this type, Grignr does not wear a fur loincloth- he is described as wearing a g-string.

Live-Action TV

• Two examples from Britain's Got Talent. The first was "The Deans of Magic", described by Simon Cowell as "a bit Readers' Wives'' (that's a UK porn mag).
• Three or four recurring competitors on Ninja Warrior. All male.
  • Trans female competitor Igano Hibari made a point of always competing in a thong.
• Pants Off Dance Off would censor out the backside of any nude dancers; but not if they had a thong, and sometimes the dancers could get away with showing even more than that uncensored by intentionally covering only the smallest possible amount of skin.
• The Man Show was once told by the Comedy Central censors that they were allowed to show three-quarters of someone's backside. So, naturally, they featured one of the Juggys in "three-quarter ass pants" which were cut so low that only the very bottom of her buttocks were covered. Adam Carolla later reported that he himself also had to wear the pants in question, and that it was disgusting.
• The X-Files: In "First Person Shooter", the virtual killer Maitreya wears a VERY skimpy black latex leotard with a thong, over fishnet stockings. It fits her character, a Ms. Fanservice video game character.

Music Video

• The music video for Eric Prydz's "Call on Me" (which samples Steve Winwood's "Valerie") shows one very lucky fellow who's somehow joined an all-female excersize group, who work out to the song. The instructor is a blonde woman wearing a thong leotard.

Pinballs

• The women in Stern's Iron Maiden are shown wearing this.

Pro Wrestling

• This is, of course, often standard career-attire for some divas.
• Crossed with Toplessness from the Back: On the August 26, 1999 episode of WWE SmackDown, Tori (Terri Poch) was scheduled to face Ivory in an Evening Gown Match. Michael Cole, still a neutral character, attempted to interview Tori backstage before the match as she walked away from the camera. Tori pulled down her evening gown, saying that there was no way Ivory was going to humiliate her, and, with her back to the camera, walked around backstage wearing only a thong and shoes until she was stopped by a group of referees and Road Agent Tony Garea, who gave her his shirt to wear. Tori won, of course, in 57 seconds.
• Chyna started her career in fairly modest ring gear meant to emphasize her musculature; as she presented more feminine, she changed to biker-inspired black leather, including chaps and a thong.
• Pretty common in GLOW, given its focus on fanservice. Ashley's rap even ended with an ass-shot.
• At the WWE Divas Undressed competition, commentator Jerry "The King" Lawler had set up a "King Cam" backstage to capture Diva nudity on camera. After the first round, "Tiny Teddy", there was a scene of Dawn Marie, with her back to the camera, taking off her robe so she was only wearing a thong. Then Rico walked in and stood between Dawn and the camera. Dawn took off her thong and put it on Rico's shoulder. They then walked out of the room, with Rico blocking any view of a nude Dawn Marie, and saying, "Now let's go put on some panties"^note The second round was "Bra and panties", and Dawn sounded like she was thinking "Do I have to?"

Video Games

• Ayla in Chrono Trigger. How her skimpy Cat Girl outfit provides any protection against, say, a magic lightning bolt or a machine gun is the same principle that lets her beat giant dinosaurs and robots to death with her fists.
• Sira from Albion. 100% catgirl-mage who can't even be equipped with decent armor. If it weren't for her serious Magikarp Power and magical items, she'd be little more than furry eyecandy. At least the rest of the party can shield her (and other mages) from direct physical attacks, unlike in many other RPGs.
• The Amazon from Dragon's Crown has butt floss between her cheeks, leaving very little to the imagination.
• Promo material for StarCraft: Ghost.
• Then there's Ashley Riot's infamous "assless chaps" in Vagrant Story — basically a huge set of trunks (or even bermuda shorts) that are missing a vital square of fabric precisely over the gluteal area.
• Prince of Persia: Warrior Within has one worn by Shahdee in combination with a serious case of Chainmail Bikini. Shown most prominently in her introduction with a six-second close-up of her ass while she simply walks up a set of stairs.
• Lara's ridiculous legless wetsuit in Tomb Raider: Underworld. Which is more of a leotard than anything.
• Final Fantasy:
  • The final boss from Final Fantasy Tactics features this in its first form. Thankfully it doesn't have it for its One-Winged Angel form, a massive flying skeleton.
  • A rare male example is Kuja from Final Fantasy IX, he wears a thong for his flamboyant peacock motif, it's also among the few designs drawn by Amano which carried to the full game and remained intact.
  • Nearly every single Viera in Final Fantasy XII, but Fran is the most noticeable due to more screentime. Some of the Viera in the village were even less covered.
• Mai Shiranui from Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters wears a revealing thong, isn't afraid to show it off.
• Ivy's costumes seem to show more and more of her buttocks with every new game in the Soul Series. And her boobs. Don't be surprised if by Soul Calibur V her costume is simply drawn on with a purple Sharpie.
  • Oddly enough, her default costume in SCV is surprisingly more modest, with her wearing a tight little jacket with short tails over her usual leather getup (so she now only has about 85% of her butt on display).
  • Ivy’s skimpy thong is back in full swing again in SCVI.
  • Voldo in certain games also has one and being an old individual. It's not as flattering.
• Cammy White from the Street Fighter series. Depending on the game will involve an ass-shot whether it's part of her entrance or win pose.
  • Rainbow Mika's wrestling costume also exposes her backside. She also doesn't hesitate throw her backside in your face with her flying peach.
• Felicia from the Darkstalkers series fights other denizens of the dark in barely anything at all. Her fur bikini doesn't cover much, there isn't any fur covering her butt, and it barely even qualifies an outfit. The kicker is, her fur bikini is part of her natural form. She's technically fighting naked. The Darkstalkers series itself averts this by showing her whole ass in some attacks, but animations in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 have her carefully censoring her butt whenever she kicks with one leg, and the model as a whole covers her backside a little more.
• Black Orchid's leotard in Killer Instinct 2 is much tighter in the crack region than it was in the first game, leaving her butt cheeks exposed. Same goes for the new fighter Kim Wu with her thong.
• The Papillon Suit in P.N.03 features a thong and assless chaps. Also a subversion as it provides exactly as much protection as one would expect it to, turning Vanessa into a One Hitpoint Wonder.
• World of Warcraft
  • Early on, this trope was played straight with many of the early plate armor sets gave female characters a metal bikini. There were so many comics pointing this out that where Blizzard forbade any more on the subject. Partially due to the controversy, modern day generic armor downplays the trope, but it's still not completely averted. However, the endgame "sets" that people get at level 70 and 80 do avert it — they mostly look the exact same regardless of gender.
  • Alexstrasza, the Red Dragon queen, wears the most prominent example of this trope in her high elf form.
  • The Shivarra are large, six-armed, demon women, with bared midriffs, and a g-string covering the rear. It's no wonder that Warlocks who upgrade their summons get one to replace their Succubus.
• A curious case are the succubi in Diablo, because they seem to wear only a "low-cut" thong when you look at them from the front, but are clearly butt-naked when you look at them when they turn around.
• Promotional art for Dragon Quest IX shows a female warrior in one, and brandishing a sword.
• Tales of Symphonia: Sheena's unlockable bathing suit costume is dangerously close to this.
• Female Malkavians in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Their range of armor seems to be stolen from a porn set. The "heavy clothing" armor is a cowboy hat, vest, buttless chaps and a thong. And combat scenes are shown in third person from behind, so...
• A few of the women in the Timesplitters series have this, Example characters being Jungle Queen, Cyberfairy, Lola Varuska and Arial Da Vinci (Which in her case her thong is part of the flying contraption she has on her back).
• Buki's armor upgrades in Sudeki get progressively skimpier. In the end, she's wearing a thong leotard made from scales of steel.
  • Ailish is a princess, but her first outfit looks like an odd combination of a one-piece bikini and a pair of short shorts with the sides cut out. Her final outfit puts her in a purple full bodysuit, but she still wears a white leotard over it.
• Mortal Kombat
  • Kitana, Jade, Mileena, And Skarlet all wear a similar thong outfit in Mortal Kombat 9. An odd clothing choice, considering these ladies often fight fully-armored opponents who have no qualms about breaking bones and crushing body parts. Sindel's non-fatality victory pose is a Boobs-and-Butt Pose, where she turns her back to the viewer (the thong costume showing much of her cheeks), and makes a suggestive gesture with her hips before doing a levitation spin.
  • Serena has an interesting variation in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, as the thong is covered by a skirt with crossing leather straps forming the seat, sort of a thong version of a Cleavage Window.
• Haydee's titular gynoid heroine has a thong leotard which leaves little to hide. It's especially revealing if Haydee crouches, Filling the players screen with her buttocks.
• Played straight or averted, depending on the armor in question, in Vindictus. There are a few female-only outfits that seem to focus on sexuality, but these are nearly always cloth armor, which are meant for mages and not really focused around defense power in the first place. In general, the actual heavy and plate armors cover you completely and look the same on either gender.
• Infested Kerrigan/The Queen of Blades/The Primal Queen from Starcraft II. Depending on which parts of her alien body count as clothes and which as skin, she's either covered neck to toes in a skintight bodysuit, wearing a corset with open breast holes and a thong (with high heeled boots and pasties), or walking around a battlefield completely naked like all the other Zerg.
• Ayumi from X-Blades has this. Her unlockable alternate armors actually do cover her rather properly, Cleavage Window notwithstanding. Amusingly, the Japanese PS3 version censors her thong and replaces it with a bikini bottom instead,◊ which ends up making her subjectively sexier, in a Theiss Titillation Theory sort of way.
• Dragon's Lair:
  • Daphne wears a teensy thong teddy and a silk robe. Why everyone insists on calling this a "dress" escapes us.
  • Eve in the sequel — the Biblical Eve — wears nothing but a bra and thong made out of pink flowers. Almost all of her butt can be seen hanging out in certain frames and on her design sheet.
• The trailer for the Android system's War 1937 has a character who manages to do this with Powered Armor. (Rather shamelessly.)
• All costumes of Smashing the Battle have a minimal thong with Sarah's having a small window exposing the top of her butt crack, including one outfit of Sarah's where the thong is on over a yellow suit for whatever reason. Both her and Mary's rears are otherwise only covered by small cloths on top of the garment, which can be removed by going in Overdrive Mode in-game or by simply unchecking "show armor" in the menu. This all adds up to the player seeing most of their asses most of the time during gameplay. The iOS/Android port tones this down by making their costumes in to full-body black suits.
• Going bottomless in the Saints Row series makes Pixellation appear over the player character's entire rear area. Wearing even the tiniest thong gives no censorship, even though many options cover less ass than the pixellation would if bare. A similar standard is seen with breasts, where pasties cover less than the pixellation of a bare-chested female character. This means that without the censorship glitching away, it is possible to "expose" more skin by going around in skimpy underwear than it would to go nude.

Web Comics

• The Noob features a literal version with "G-string of protection". While it's never shown, as character wears skintight pantaloons, HE frequently offers to show it to people.
• Penny Arcade parodies Prince of Persia: Warrior Within's version in a particular strip that is Not Safe for Work:
  Shahdee: I'll tell you what. This steel thong? I'm having second thoughts. It'll take a team of spelunkers a week to get this thing out of my ass. Do you hear what I'm telling you? It will be an ordeal. Canaries will go in first. Accidents will happen, and men will die.
• Pixie Trix Comix: When modelling for her artist brother Felix, Tracy is depicted from behind in a very minimal thong — presumably for maximum Fanservice (and she is a bit of an exhibitionist) while preserving the comic's official if much-stretched "no nudity" policy.
• Sequential Art has Kat ask Art what he thinks she would look like as a World of Warcraft character. He immediately envisions a hyper-sexualized Kat wearing the "Thong of Stealth".

Western Animation

• Brenda from Perfect Hair Forever, whose Sailor Fuku skirt begins and ends up at her waist, displaying her tiny thong at all times.

Real Life

• Bikini bottoms usually expose some or most of the buttocks, including the gluteal folds, and that's all fine and normal on a beach. However, this trope can sometimes come into play, either as a Wardrobe Malfunction of a normal bikini bottom or as the intent behind some of the skimpier thongs. The latter especially is a Fanservice option used by women who are proud enough to show off their assets and attract some Male Gaze (because of course).
  • Many TV shows, particularly American ones, will for this reason play safe^note  or prudish, depending on your point of view and visually censor womens' arses if the bikini bottoms/panties are thought of as too skimpy. Which makes this the buttock version of Nipple and Dimed.
• Coco Austin tends to have this happen a lot, since she's a swimsuit model with quite a lot of junk in the trunk. One particular picture (taken by her husband, Ice-T) was shot from an angle where it really did look like she was naked and, according to Conan O'Brien, the censors would only allow him to show the picture on TV for three seconds.

---