Half Dressed Cartoon Animal / Video Games

• In Animal Crossing, nearly all villagers wear shirts^note sheep wore scarves until New Horizons, where they wear shirts like all other species, but go without pants.^note Some villagers, like Snake, Knox, and superhero villagers appear to be wearing pants, but are a part of their character design rather than them being able to wear pants. Even when New Leaf and the installments after did introduce the ability to change pants and footwear, villagers are still unable to wear them. Somewhat hilariously and scarily lampshaded in one eavesdropping conversation in Wild World, where a Jock villager comments to a Normal villager that he split his pants doing squats. The Normal villager begins to find this hilarious just before realizing and commenting on the fact they don't wear pants. (Weirdly enough, both Kid Cat and Snake can say this conversation, despite both of them wearing pants.) Dr. Shrunk also lampshades this in the same game, where he says he finds weird that humans wear pants all the time. Lampshaded again in New Horizons by Cranky villagers in the Museum, commenting on the Gallant Statue and its uncensored Male Frontal Nudity.
  <Cranky>: The poor guy's gotta stand there without any shorts for all eternity. Wait, where are MY shorts?!
• In Armello, none of the Heroes wear pants. And only about half of them of either gender have skirts (mostly armored).
• Banjo from Banjo-Kazooie never wears a shirt, but is never seen without his yellow cargo shorts and blue backpack. Additionally, all his transformations keep the shorts and backpack. Yes, this is probably the only series where you will see a washing machine with shorts. Interestingly enough, his sister Tooty is fully clothed (aside from shoes), his friend Bottles wears only a vest, and his companion Kazooie wears nothing at all (save for the times when she temporarily wears one of the shoe power-ups).
• Boris the Wolf from Bendy and the Ink Machine wears White Gloves, white overalls, and black shoes.
  • Subverted in Bendy in Nightmare Run, where Boris starts out in this clothing but then has various outfits that leave him more fully dressed.
• Katt/Rinpoo from Breath of Fire II walks around the whole time wearing a purple top and leggings, but no pants, with no visible reaction from anyone on her state of...erm, undress. However, the bottom half of her body has fur while her top half has normal "human" skin.
• Bubsy wears a shirt and no pants. Various promotional materials for the game make a point of mentioning this. Bubsy's nephew Terrence, introduced in the second game and also appearing in the animated adaptation of the game, also has the pantsless look.
• Castle on the Coast: George the Player Character is an anthropomorphic giraffe who only wears a blue shirt with a red ascot.
• Cave Story: The Mimigas generally don't wear pants. This even includes Sue and Itoh, two humans who were magically transformed into Mimigas. And who magically regain pants upon being transformed back.
• Chuck Rock has every animal enemy be naturally naked, but the final boss is an anthropomorphic dinosaur wearing a crown, boxing gloves, and underwear.
• Conker's Bad Fur Day: Conker the Squirrel wears a blue jacket, gloves, and shoes, but no pants. This is made extremely weird in the mission where Conker must piss on fiery demons trying to burn him up: You can hear a zipping sound as if he is unzipping his pants, but he has no pants! So what the hell is he unzipping? His fur? (However, in the Xbox remake, Live and Reloaded, Conker is given pants, so the zipping sound in the pissing mission makes sense now)
• Crash Bandicoot: Crash Bandicoot, Crunch Bandicoot, and Dingodile all have shoes, gloves and pants, but lack a shirt. Ripper Roo wears a straightjacket, but no pants.
• Diddy Kong Racing: Diddy Kong, Conker, Krunch, and Taj all wear some kind of shirt or vest without any pants. Additionally, Banjo and Drumstick wear shorts and overalls respectively without a shirt.
• Donkey Kong: Diddy Kong, Dixie Kong, Cranky Kong, and Chunky Kong all wear shirts, but no pants. Swanky Kong was also this in Donkey Kong Country 2, but he later switched to Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal in Donkey Kong Country 3. The Kritters in Donkey Kong 64 and the Mario Strikers games wear some form of top-wear, but no pants. Some of the Kremlings (most noticably the Kritters ever since their redesign) that Donkey Kong fights wear pants and no shirt (possibly to tie into the pirate motif that K. Rool's empire inconsistently follows).
• Final Fantasy XIV: Some of the beast tribes wear some form of clothing that covers up their genitals, but they are naked for the most part; the lizardmen Amalj'aa wear a large metal codpiece on their crotch and wear various forms of jewelry on their necks and arms. The Ixal, a bird-man race, wear what is basically a jockstrap and sometimes straps on their chest. The Sahagin are fish-like creatures that wear a mixture of a codpiece and loincloth while wearing various jewelry elsewhere. The Vanu Vanu are a tubby are a gryphon-like race that only wear a tribal loincloth and/or a sash across their chest. The Gnath are a race of insects and only wear a scarf/cape. The Kobolds are the only beast tribe that are fully clothed with a helmet, a shirt, and pants, but no shoes.
• Five Nights at Freddy's has the 'pants only' form of the trope with Foxy, whose torn brown pants fail to cover his bare metal legs. This makes him the most dressed of the killer animatronics—the rest only wear accessories.
• Guilty Gear Xrd: Not necessarily an animal example, but when Sol Badguy turns into his 'Dragon Install' form, he wears a really short jacket, but no pants.
• Inkulinati: As a rule, the Beasts never wear more than one or two bits of clothing, most commonly a headpiece such as a cap, hood, or bishop's mitre, or a belt.
• Jak and Daxter: Daxter is transformed into a Talking Animal as the first game opens, and spends three out of four games complaining about how much he misses pants. He does get some by the end of the third game, choosing them over returning to a humanoid form. Justified, as he's taken on the form of a god.
• Several characters from the Jump Start series of CD-ROMs. Frankie Dog wears a red sweater and collar; Keisha Koala wears an art jacket, beret and sandals; Hopsalot Rabbit sports only a T-shirt; and Casey Cat has a T-shirt and backwards cap.
• Kaze and the Wild Masks has its titular heroine wearing a sleeveless jacket, a long Scarf of Asskicking, fingerless gloves and shoes, but no pants; leaving the lower half of her pale underbelly on display. It's an interesting decision, given that practically everyone else in the game is a Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal.
• Kingdom Hearts
  • As usual, Donald Duck always wears a shirt without any pants.
  • Mickey Mouse is usually an aversion, wearing a shirt alongside pants. The only exception is in the end of the first game, where he shows up in his classic getup with no shirt in sight. 0.2 explains this one: he was actually wearing his attire from Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories at the time, but his shirt was burned off from a Heartless attack.
  • When entering the Timeless River world in Kingdom Hearts II, Goofy sports his look in his older appearances, where he wore a vest and shoes, but no pants.
  • In Kingdom Hearts III, all 3 main characters in the Monsters, Inc. world wear shirts without any pants nor shoes, which fits the fact that nobody in the Monsters universe ever wears the latter two.
• Sabrewulf (a werewolf) is a curious example in Killer Instinct because he, for some design reason, uses both of the trope main styles in his only two canonical games, he is pantless in the first game and shirtless in the second one.
• Kirby:
  • King Dedede's early design has him wearing a red coat, a crown, and a waistband. His current design since Kirby Super Star is debatable, as his entire body is now cream-colored instead of blue, but his design in the early games, Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, and the official artwork for Kirby: Squeak Squad clearly shows he's not wearing pants. It wasn't until Kirby Star Allies finally cleared this up by showing that this cream-colored body is actually a yukata, as we see it rip to expose Dedede's pecs when he Turns Red.
  • Daroach from Kirby: Squeak Squad wears a red trenchcoat and hat, but not pants. Storo is also pantsless, as he only wears a red sleeveless shirt and bandana.
  • President Haltmann from Kirby: Planet Robobot has him wearing complete business attire...except for pants.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Nearly all the Zoras (a race of fish-like people) in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time wear no clothing whatsoever. However, King Zora himself wears a tunic but no pants. In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the Zoras soldiers wear armored breastplates without any pants.
  • The Gorons in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker wear hats, short-sleeved shirts, and shoes, but no pants.
  • The Rito in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild seem to be this and a subversion of being Barefoot Cartoon Animals. Despite looking like they're wearing puffy shorts, further analysis shows that they are actually legs feathers that are of a lighter color than their main feathers. Saki is the most obvious giveaway, as her stomach mark and leg feathers are the same blue color.
• In Looney Tunes B-Ball, All of the animal characters except Taz wear at least a shirt during gameplay. Bugs Bunny is the lone character decked top to bottom in basketball gear, sans sneakers.
• The titular protagonist of MacBat 64: Journey of a Nice Chap is a bat wearing a monocle and striped vest.
• Paw Paw Paw by Simpleton is about a war that started when the king was hit by a meteorite and went crazy, so crazy that he passed a law forcing everyone to wear pants.
• Pokémon:
  • The Abra and Machop lines play with both variants of this trope. The entire Abra line seem to be wearing brown chest-plate armor, but also appear to be pantsless. While Machop is completely naked, its evolutions, Machoke and Machamp, seem to wear speedos (Which are actually markings) and wrestler belts.
    • Mega Alakazam, however, is a Barefoot Cartoon Animal, as it gains pelvic armor not too dissimilar to its chest-plate armor.
  • Incineroar from Pokémon Sun and Moon is supposed to be designed like this, with a wrestler mask-like head, a gray torso that resembles a wrestler tank top, and a (literally) flaming champion's belt, but its lower body is the same color as its head and arms, making it look pantsless. Given its masculine appearance, this also makes Pokémon X & Y's Delphox a Distaff Counterpart to it, which is a feminine-looking Pokémon with a Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal-like design, seemingly playing with the Pantsless Males, Fully-Dressed Females trope.^note Though it is worth noting that both Delphox and Incineroar can be both genders. Even more noteworthy is that male Delphox are a lot more common than female ones.
  • Despite resembling a female human, Meleotta from Pokémon Black and White looks like it's not wearing any pants. Thankfully though, it follows the Nonhumans Lack Attributes trope.
  • In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the body patterns on the adult Maushold make it look like one is wearing only pants while the other is wearing only a sleeveless shirt.
• In Pseudoregalia, the main character, Sybil, wears a vest and greaves... and that's about it, as she does not have actual pants on. Pants are able to be unlocked after either finding an alternate outfit for her, or by enabling the "Give Sybil Pants" toggle in the accessibility options.
• The back-up dancers from the Frog Hop minigames in Rhythm Heaven play with both variants of the trope. In the first game, they only wear pants, but in the sequel, they gain blue sleeveless vests, but wear no pants. The lead dancer and singer wear the same pants in the first game, but they are both fully-dressed in the sequel.
• Skunny: Save Our Pizzas: Skunny seems to be wearing no trousers (or shoes).
• The characters in the Sly Cooper series are a pastiche of cartoon Talking Animals. Most of the male characters are habitually pantsless; however, almost all the female characters have pants or a skirt with an appropriate tail-hole as needed. Two exceptions are Mz. Ruby from the first game and the Contessa from Band of Thieves. The former wears a pink tank top with no pants (not that she'd find a pair in her size anyway) and latter is a spider-centaur-thing with no humanoid legs.
  • In a behind-the-scenes unlockable in Sly 2, one developer comments that Sly is "a universe in pants-less-ness."
  • The Panda King is shirtless.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Charmy Bee wears an orange vest, and is pantsless like the other guys.
  • Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games: Tokyo 2020 features custom event outfits for its characters. In the case of Sonic's male animal cast, this consists of appropriate shirts and a lack of pants.
• Splatoon: This trope is averted by most of the humanoid sea creatures, who go fully dressed, but a notable exception are the jellyfish, who wear shirts but no pants. Splatoon 2 added the Salmonids, who go around wearing nothing but a set of yellow-green suspenders, while Manta ray Big Man in Splatoon 3 is completely naked except for his headgear.
• Elora the faun in the Spyro the Dragon series wears only a top over her human torso, with nothing but fur covering her lower half, though most other fauns either wear full dresses (female) or nothing at all (male).
  • In Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Sheila the Kangaroo was redesigned with a jacket and hair but still bare-bottomed.
• Some of the non-human characters in the Super Mario Bros. series fall under this:
  • Bowser usually only wears a pair of black armbands, wristbands, and a neckband; but during his wedding with Peach in Super Paper Mario he is seen in a white tuxedo briefly, minus the pants.
    • Super Mario Odyssey would later see him have another wedding with Peach, but this time, he averts the Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal trope, by becoming a Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal instead, as he has gained shoes and pants to his outfit.
  • The official artwork of the shell-less Koopa Troopas for Super Mario World and their appearance in Super Mario 3D World shows them with a shirt and no pants. Later on in the series, they are shown with a shirt and shorts. Clothed or not, they all wear shoes and it matches the color of their shells. However, the Paper Mario series seems to imply that shells are effectively the same as clothing for Koopas, so make of that what you will.
  • Wart from Super Mario Bros. 2 wears a royal robe and a crown, but doesn't wear pants.
  • The nameable Yoshi from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door only sports a diaper and Yoshi's iconic shoes.
• The main characters of Super Monkey Ball are of both types. Aiai and Gongon are of the pantless variety — with their bare bottoms on display — and Baby and Meemee of the Shirtless variety.

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