Too Many Belts - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Belts And Zippers

Lulu doesn't wear belts with her dress. She wears belts as her dress.

Wanna spruce up the look of your fantasy/RPG character? Just add an extra belt, preferably one with a nice, big buckle. What? Your character already has one? Just add another, draped casually across their hips! While you're at it, wrap two or three of them around their shin, and another four over their sleeves. Oh, and we can't forget two more making a big X on their chest... So what if they're not attached to anything? Decorate the belts with Power Crystals or Spikes Of Villainy, and now even the skimpiest Spy Catsuit can be stronger than plate mail! Maybe they keep your guts from spilling out or something.

You're done! Well... maybe just ONE more...

Many characters in fantasy, steampunk, anime and even a few sci-fi settings will sport more belts than they really need. Either they were having a clearance sale at JC Penney or they have some weird obsession with belts that borders on the fetishistic, especially when they don't even NEED a belt where it is, or even use it to carry things, and wear one anyway. One of the last places you will often see these people wearing a belt is tight around their waist.

This also goes well for zippers - zippers on your shirt, on your sleeves, on your pants, on your coat, on your hat...

This is extremely common in Japan in real life, hence its appearance in so many works of fiction that come out of there. This is also a trend in certain fashion subcultures in the West, though not as prominent.

Compare Goggles Do Nothing, Rummage Sale Reject, and Impossibly Cool Clothes. Contrast Chained By Fashion.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

Digimon tends toward this.
- Some of them don't wear anything else... and not always as clothes...
Under his overcoat, Trigun's Vash the Stampede's outfit is 100% belts. There actually might be a decent reason for it though, considering how tore up Vash tends to get in fights, if it helps keep wounds closed...
Yugi from Yu-Gi-Oh wore a multi-belted shirt during Duelist Kingdom. After that arc, he changed to a black sleeveless shirt, but still wore a belt around his neck. Kaiba donned eight belts, two on each of his arms and legs, from the second season on, in addition to the normal belt on his pants.
Liru the werewolf in Magical Pokaan has but a single belt across her chest that services as a top.
Maka from Soul Eater wears belts quite often. On her shoes.
Hiei has four thin white belts underneath his cloak on his standard outfit. Not as many as some others, but just enough to let you know he's a Noble Demon Badass.
Compared to others, the Barrier Jacket of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha's Fate didn't have too many belts when she was a kid. After all, it only had one red belt slung on her hips, another two around her chest, another one on her arm, and another one around her neck.
- The first Reinforce, on the other hand, had red belts all over her legs and one arm.
Mizore in Rosario To Vampire has a couple of extra belts connecting her waist to her Zettai Ryouiki for no discernible reason.
Kira Yamato always was partial to a snappy outfit, so even his SEED suit had some gratuitous belts, but when the things moved to Gundam SEED Destiny...
Lady Emmaniel's outfit in MyBalls is all belts, including one big one with a hook clasp occasionally managing to stay fastened across her chest. Strategically placed shadows manage to provide whatever modesty she feels she needs to keep; AnimeAnatomy and censorship take care of the rest.

Comic Books

Rob Liefeld loves belts. He loves putting pouches on those belts even more.
- I present to thee Bloodpouch◊
Superboy used to love belts. He wore a couple of them over his skin-tight one-piece outfit. They didn't hold anything up, they didn't even have pouches on them. They were just there because otherwise the outfit wouldn't be belty enough.
- He also had a belt round one leg, for some reason.
A hallucination sequence in X Men had Cyclops wearing a variant of his 90s costume. Only with even more belts than it had originally. Oh, and a tutu.

Film

From Pirates Of The Caribbean, Jack Sparrow, Barbossa, and Elizabeth as she gets more badass.
Edward Scissorhands and pretty much everything else in his maker's cookie factory.

Professional Wrestling

The J-Crown, the union of 8 different light-heavyweight Professional Wrestling championships from eight different companies MPW, NJPW, WDF, CMLL, UWA, WAR, WWA and WWF, which was represented by the champ wearing all eight belts. At once.◊ As if this wasn't enough to lose the average wrestler in a sea of leather and gold, Ultimo Dragon (pictured above) was already the NWA World Middleweight Champion and won both the WAR World Six-Man Tag Team Championship and the WCW Cruiserweight Championship while also holding the J-Crown, giving him 11 championship belts to schlep around. Interestingly, one of the belts in the J-Crown was the WWF Light-Heavyweight Championship, making Ultimo Dragon the only man to hold both a WWF and WCW championship simultaneously until the latter was bought out by the former in 2001, although the WWF did not acknowledge the Light-Heavyweight Championship at the time.

Literature Thin, brightly-colored loop belts are a staple of Adumari fashion, along with more, sturdier belts to hold their knives, blasters, and blastswords.

Music

Michael Jackson's suit for the cover of the Bad album, also worn in the video for the song. Poked fun of by Weird Al Yankovic at the start of Fat, as his fattening form breaks every last belt on the suit.

Tabletop Games

Any and all artwork for Dungeons And Dragons 3rd edition (previous editions had the Chainmail Bikini instead).
- Especially the Player's Handbook example Sorcerer, Hennet. His clothing appears to be nothing but leather belts.

Live Action TV

Cameron likes◊ her belts and her zippers - not to mention leather.

Video Games

Anything Tetsuya Nomura has worked on is likely to invoke this. His work on Final Fantasy has the most belts, particularly Lulu who has a skirt composed entirely of them as you can see in the above picture. In an interview, Nomura explained Lulu's design by saying that he wanted to provide "a challenge" to the character model and CG departments: namely, having to reproduce the exact layer order of every belt worn. Of course, there's probably more to it than that, but who can really say? Oh, and the animators got around the problem by showing Lulu from the waist-up in most of the CG scenes.
- Meanwhile, Kingdom Hearts has a disturbing number of zippers.
  - And some insane belts. Just as an example, DiZ wears belts on his head; one as a headband, and one as an eyepatch.
- Also lampshaded and parodied beautifully in The World Ends With You, another Tetsuya Nomura-designed game. The modern setting of The World Ends With You was partially an attempt to satirize the youth culture that generated this in the first place.
- The non-Nomura made Marche Radiuju◊ of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance has what appears to be two belts in perfect orbit around his thighs without actually coming into contact with his pants.
- In an EGM interview, Nomura stated that even he doesn't know how Paine keeps all her buckles on.
- Lightning◊ wears a lot of belts as accessories◊ in Final Fantasy XIII.
- Squall, in Final Fantasy VIII, deserves special notice. Because while he already had a few excess belts around the time of Final Fantasy VIII, when he was the star, every subsequent game that features him seems to add more. Compare his first◊ design, to his later re-design in Kingdom Hearts as Leon◊, and finally his Dissidia Final Fantasy update◊, which goes back to his original design and still finds room to throw some more belts on. One can only wonder how many more belts he could get if they do a sequel...
  - A partial justification, a gun belt and a regular belt have very different purposes - the regular belt holds up your pants, and generally sits at the waist, while a gun belt sits much lower, over your hips, so your hand naturally falls level with the butt of a gun. Both would be worn at the same time. Also, the holster would have some sort of tie-down, usually a simple leather string but conceivably a small belt in it's own right, to keep the holster in the correct position. However, with the weight of a gunblade, you'd figure there would be some other easier method of carrying it around than on your hip. And none of this excuses later iterations of the art.
- Nomura's touch is out in force in the characters of Final Fantasy Agito XIII, who seem to need 6 belt buckles to keep their shirts fashioned. The male uniform takes this a step further, with an actual belt and shoulder strap added.
Haseo from .hack//GU has 52 belts spread across his body. Of course, this is the self-created Player Character in a MMORPG of a standard Japanese teenage male who wanted it to look "cool", so it might be (relatively) justified.
- That's right. 52 Belts. More than any other character in anime/video game history. He's actually More Belt than Outfit◊
- Utilizing some Fridge Brilliance, note Haseo's wardrobe changes in each subsequent game. As he gains and grows closer to his Nakama, he actually loses belts.
While not an actual example (by much), female Fighters in Disgaea are often shown wearing an extremely wide belt for a bra.
- Etna◊ from the same game is a truer example. To wit, she has two belts on each boot, one on each arm, and four stitched to her skirt.
- Well yeah, but Etna can pull it off, her being a demon and all, plus the whole bondage Fetish Fuel issue it probably helped.
GuiltyGear loves its belts. Sol Badguy alone has at least 20 on his costume.
- Ragna The Bloodedge, Sol's Spiritual Successor from GuiltyGear's Spiritual Successor BlazBlue, has at least ten belts.
  - And Tager has 2 GIGANTIC ZIPPERS
  - As does Noel
  - Jin has only 3 belts. This is clearly the source of his rivalry with Ragna.
Unsurprisingly, the clothing textures in City Of Villains include many distinct types of belts, zippers and chains at varying degrees of overkill.
The Hero Rosalyn from Okage: Shadow King has only two belts... but one is on her head.
Mike Haggar of Final Fight does not seem to understand that belts go around one's waist. He wear but a single belt, its gigantic, and its slung over his chest like a suspender. He even wears pants to accommodate this.
Lloyd from Tales Of Symphonia wears four belts, in the oddest places. Kratos wears six (and even more in his alternate outfit).
- In fact, Kratos' alternate outfit has so many that it became a fandom in-joke that he has a belt fetish. Since Kratos' belts in that outfit are quite clearly patterned after a basic Japanese bondage harness, that's probably canon.
Folka Albark◊ from Super Robot Wars Compact 3 sports a lot of belts, and still does a lot of ass kicking... inside his Kung Fu Mecha.
- The belts are there to stop his shirt exploding.
The cover art for From The Abyss◊ has a girl wearing three belts... but no pants.
Gado from Bloody Roar wears three belts in the first game.
Iori Yagami only has one belt...but its placement is what makes it so bizarre. It links together his two pant legs, which would be a concern considering how often he fights.
- Word Of God says he does it as a personal challenge.
As more details of Bio Shock 2 leak, the design for the Big Sister enemy has revealed her suit to possesses no less than thirteen belts.◊
- You just know that forearm and logo are hiding ten more.
Lucca of Chrono Trigger has a set of suspenders made of what appears to be three belts sewn together that attaches to the belt around her waist. Strangely, these do not seem to be holding up anything except the belts themselves.
Dante from Devil May Cry is has several belts on his vest and pants. The latter would appear to be a holster for his guns, but there's only the belts...
Castlevania: Judgment features characters from all across the Castlevania series. Unfortunately, they've all been given makeovers by Takeshi Obata, who decided that Dracula had two columns of golden nipples down his torso, Death was constructed out of discarded orthopedic braces, and the Belmonts were great big fans of belts. Oddly, the redesigned Alucard wears fewer belt buckles than he used to have.
Voldo from Soul Calibur. Perhaps justified, because...you know.
Virginia of Wild ARMs 3 may be wearing too many belts◊ for a western setting. For that matter, Clive's jacket◊ pushes overkill with the belts in place nobody would ever want to buckle, and Janus seems to have that problem and also the problem of trying to use a belt in place of a holster◊.
Many of the class designs in Trickster Online, although the Warrior◊ and Thief Master◊ may take the cake.
Skies Of Arcadia's lead character Vyse uses belts to hold his sleeves together. He's also got belts on his cuffs. Combined with the necessary belt on his waist, that brings him up to five. He also has two belts on his shoes, as does his friend Aika. Aika's evil doppelganger, Anita, has extra belts, one on each shoe and one on her thigh. Interestingly, Vyze's doppelganger Vize has less belts.
Hwoarang from Tekken games wears a lot of belts on his trouser legs in the primary outfit.
Subject Zero from Mass Effect 2 is using belts to make a bra. It looks about as comfortable as it sounds.
- Quarians are also fond of belts. Space gypsies and all.
Lulu's Captain Ersatz, Morrigan of Dragon Age, also seems to favor a lower garment made entirely out of belts and leather strips.

Webcomics

Lampshaded here in Dan And Mabs Furry Adventures. "When you have to take off seventeen belts to tinkle..."
This MMRPG character in Chugworth Academy.
- Although it could be argued that that character (two belts, both around the waist-to-hip area) has 2/3 of a belt less than she needs (since she probably uses half a belt apiece for each swords, and just over a third of a belt total to keep her skirt up).
Parodied in this Adventurers! strip.
Favored by Diane and her posse in El Goonish Shive.
This outfit of Candice's from Sam And Fuzzy.
Von Pinn from Girl Genius. She teaches restraint.

Western Animation

In early seasons of The Venture Brothers, Henchman 21 refused to wear his utility belt because it made him "look fat." After the death of Henchman 24, even his boots have their own utility belts.

TV Tropes

Trope-tan

Truth In Television

Some belts are specifically made to look as if they are two or three separate belts—or possibly even to be worn two at a time, due to being so thin. Also related: Wearing a necktie through your belt loops. That's obviously just for show.
The Metallic Power line of New Rock shoes definitely evokes this trope for most of the boots.
Rule Thirty Four. This concept comes from fetish fashion and was adopted by the punk, goth and metal subcultures.