One explanation for the prevalence of this trope in fiction is that hands signify strength and capacity while covering them implies helplessness and fragility, both of which are factors of being "cute."
In some cases when it involves a child or a short person, a character might wear an oversized-sleeved shirt, usually store-bought or inherited from an older relative, that they are expected to grow into. An oversized-sleeved shirt may also be worn by a character seeking to be adorable in order to conceal something nasty from other characters. In other circumstances, a character may use this trope to backstab others later on.
Among otaku, this trope is formally referred to as "moesode" (aka Moe sleeves).
Compare with Nothing Up My Sleeve, usually overlapping when this trope is exploited when a character has long sleeves to hide their own weapons. Also compare with Dork in a Sweater, for when a character wearing a sweater makes them less intimidating. Contrast Sleeves Are for Wimps, when the lack of sleeves represents tough characters.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Beyblade: Metal Fusion: Yu Tendo is always seen wearing a white jacket with large sleeves. They are big enough for him to keep his launcher in, while other characters keep them in various accessories.
- Bleach: Arrancar Cyan Sung-Sun is a Cute Monster Girl who has oversized sleeves that always cover her hands. Doubles as Nothing Up My Sleeve because she uses them to hide her twin sai.
- In Cardcaptor Sakura, some of the card personifications have oversized sleeves, but The Little
◊ uses the oversized sleeves to symbolize the cuteness.
- Offmon from Digimon Universe: App Monsters wears a jacket with oversized sleeves. This combined with his timid personality has many characters fawning over his cuteness.
- Luki and Noki from Dogs: Bullets & Carnage wear matching coats with oversized sleeves. These sleeves serve two purposes: 1) making them even more adorable than they already are, and 2) hiding the truly monstrous weaponry that they keep stored in their artificial arms.
- Fighting Foodons: Cooking prodigy and toppings master Pie Tin has very long sleeves that cover his hands without creasing. The sleeves are also where he hides a whole arsenal of cooking-based weaponry. Combined with his panda hat, the sleeves make him appear very cute.
- In Four Knights of the Apocalypse, Guinevere is introduced as a cute 12-year-old girl wearing an adorable white dress with flaring sleeves.
- Gushing Over Magical Girls: In both her civilian clothes and transformed outfit Kiwi/Leopolt wears jackets with sleeves too long for her that provide the image of a cute and ditzy girl, though while the energetic cuteness is genuine, she's actually Cute and Psycho, being one of Magia Baiser's most ruthless minions, which is represented well by how the jacket for her magical girl outfit appears to be part of a military uniform (she also isn't wearing any pants to further the contrast).
- Love Live!: Rina is by far the smallest and youngest-looking member of the cast, and her default outfit includes a knitted jumper with long sleeves reaching over her hands.
- In Lucky Star, Akira Kogami wears "cute" oversized sleeves as part of her Deliberately Cute Child persona, although she's really a total bitch. Yutaka, Konata's cousin, is a straighter example of the "cute" aspect of this trope, since she's so small for her age that her sleeves often go past her hands.
- Pop Team Epic has a strip referring to these as "cutesy sleeves". In typical absurdist Poptepipic fashion, Pipimi is using them to hide her "bloodied hands".
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Charlotte the Sweets Witch sports long hand-hiding sleeves in her 'doll' form. These sleeves match her cute aesthetic as an Adorable Abomination.
- Super Dimension Fortress Macross / Robotech in the fourth episode, after an impromptu shower, Minmay dons some of Hikaru's/Rick's clothing, which is somewhat too large for her. She makes a point of posing cutely with the sleeves going over her hands.
- Tomo-chan Is a Girl!: Carol's mother Ferris Olston wears a cardigan four times too large for her. Adding to it that she's as ditzy as her daughter and young enough to look like her older sister, it suits her.
- Yuusha Gojo Kumiai Kouryuugata Keijiban: The 9-year-old hero has long sleeves to emphasize her cuteness, wearing a copy of the Dragon Quest III hero outfit that is far too big for her (to the point that the tiara is around her neck, rather than on her head).
Films — Animated
- An American Tail: Feivel wears a ratty old hand-me-down coat with sleeves too long for him. Together with the oversized hat his father gives him at the beginning of the movie, it gives him the look of a young, innocent ragamuffin.
- Doraemon: Nobita and the Galaxy Super-express: The Super-Express' conductor is a short, cuddly midget alien (or robot, it's not really clear) who wears a human-sized uniform. As such, his arms are tucked inside both sleeves in every scene, which flop around comically whenever he walks.
- Fantasia: Mickey Mouse wears a robe with long sleeves in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". The sleeves often cover his hands when he's performing magic, which emphasize his inexperience.
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Dopey has long sleeves that cover his hands, pegging him as the youngest, most naïve of the Dwarfs.
Literature
- How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: Genia Maxwell is a self-proclaimed "over-scientist", so she applies this trope wearing a lab coat that's too big for her. The sleeves going past her hands reflect her eccentric nature while still making her look cute.
Live-Action TV
- Moon Knight (2022): The mild-mannered Steven Grant wears oversized sweaters and jackets with overly long sleeves to emphasize his sweet and innocent temperament. It's a notable contrast with his other self Marc Spector, a dour man of business who always keeps his sleeves at the right length.
Theatre
- Babes in Toyland: In the 1961 Disney version, the mute Roderigo wears a green coat with oversized sleeves that marks him as the silliest of Barnaby's henchmen.
Video Games
- Animal Restaurant: Meow wears a sweater with oversized sleeves that cover their paws, making them appear more cute and vulnerable.
- Durin, from Arknights is an adorably lazy durin who wears an oversized uniform with sleeves that go far past her hands so she can sleep anywhere.
- Atelier Series: Corneria from the Mysterious subseries wears a kimono with very long sleeves. This, combined with her short stature and young appearance makes her very cute. Oddly enough, she never pulls them up whenever she needs to hold something and she also wears her weapons, large bracer-like gauntlets, over them as well.
- Taokaka from BlazBlue is a friendly and rambunctious Cat Girl always wearing a face-obscuring hoodie with massive sleeves, her hands being obscured by massive paw-like covers. In fact, her entire species wears the same kind of attire, with the children looking even more cute because of it.
- Uriko in Bloody Roar 2 and onwards wears jackets that hide her hands to show off her cuteness, at least until she turns into a Cat Girl, which causes her arms to grow considerably. They make for a strange look because the sleeves are very long compared to the well-fitted jacket.
- Brawl Stars:
- Colette wears a loose straightjacket, giving her overly long sleeves. With that in mind, her cuteness is of the Cute and Psycho variety.
- Bonnie is an adorable child who wears a stuntman jumpsuit with oversized sleevesnote , which are also where she hides her cache of grenades.
- Darkstalkers: While Hsien Ko's oversize sleeves are cute, their exaggerated length hides an arsenal of weapons that she uses to fight. Also, she is based upon the Chinese zombie jiangshi (kyonsee in Japanese), which moves around by hopping on their long arms.
- If you have the naïve and playful Cody with you by the fourth day of Don't Escape: 4 Days to Survive, by the time you reach the Moon, he'll be wearing an astronaut suit with sleeves that flop far beyond his hands. Justified in that those are made for adults, not 12-year-olds.
- Fire Emblem Heroes has the gentle and often sleepy ljósálfr Mirabilis, whose hands are always covered by her bell-shaped sleeves.
- Galaxy Angel II: Princess Natsume Izayoi has exaggeratedly long sleeves in both her original outfit, and the Angel uniform jacket. Her younger sister Yuzu also has them when they visit them in the final game.
- Harvest Moon One World: Doc Jr. wears a labcoat that's clearly too big for him, with its sleeves trailing well past his hands and flapping around uselessly while he emotes. Even in Anthos, where he appears to have aged up a little, they are still past his hands. They show him as the eccentric inventor that he is and wanting to live up to his ancestors' path of being inventors, implying that the labcoat is actually from Doc, a character from the previous Harvest Moon series.
- Honkai Impact 3rd: Mobius' sim in the Elysian Realm is assisted by Klein, an ELF modeled after the original Klein, who was Mobius' lab assistant in the Previous Era. Unlike the original Klein who was an adult woman, ELF Klein looks like a sleepy-eyed girl, has a childlike body, and wears a lab coat whose sleeves reach well past her hands, although this doesn't seem to hinder her work.
- In Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil, the residents of Joilant all wear outfits with oversized sleeves. Joilant, the Kingdom of Joy, is themed after an Amusement Park, and the residents resemble dolls or plushies, so this design choice fits their kingdom's theme of childlike innocence.
- League of Legends has Vex, a grumpy little yordle girl with a pessimistic goth image that she tries to maintain. But her comically oversized sleeves that drag everywhere she walks just make her look dorky and cute.
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: Kafei was subjected to a Fountain of Youth curse by Skull Kid and his too-long, too-wide sleeves make him look even more childish. It's implied in the game (and made explicit in the manga adaptation that actually shows the transformation) that Kafei is wearing his now-loose adult clothes, hence the sleeves.
- Miyako Hinano from Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story sports an oversized labcoat in both her civilian clothes and magical girl form. It emphasizes her short stature(145cm) which often results in her being mistaken for younger than she is (she's actually 18, one of the oldest girls in the game), much to her annoyance.
- Metro: Last Light: The baby Dark One, a nonhuman, plucky Tag Along Kid, telepathically disguises himself as a human child wearing a too-large raincoat when you enter the Metro settlement of Polis. Aside from being cute, the oversized sleeves cover the disproportionately long arms of his true form.
- Blanc from Neptunia has sleeves that cover up her hands and is (normally) soft-spoken and friendly.
- Punishing: Gray Raven: No.21's arms are completely enveloped in a pair of sleeves. It not only emphasizes her childish nature but is also reminiscent of the loose sleeves of a straitjacket, alluding to her past as a test subject.
- In the Puyo Puyo series, Lidelle (who provides the page image) is in the same school class as Amitie and her friends, who are all teenagers. However, her hand-hiding sleeves — combined with her short height, child-like voice, and timid personality — make her appear cute.
Visual Novels
- In Popotan, the pet ferret Unagi's human form wears a sleeved coat that fully covers her arms, dragging whenever her arms move. These sleeves are intended to make her appear cute just like her ferret form, and this is acknowledged at the end of the anime adaptation's episode "Friends", where she turns into a human and asks the audience if she is cute.
- Sakutaro from Umineko: When They Cry is Maria's beloved stuffed lion, but he also takes the form of a young human boy with lion ears wearing a shirt that's way too big for him. The sleeves of the shirt go past his hands, which makes him look even cuter.
Web Animation
- hololive:
- Gawr Gura's signature appearance is an oversized hoodie with long sleeves. Many of the idols dote on her cuteness and have mentioned how her hands being hidden by her long sleeves adds to it. Gura embraces the trope. During the music video for "Q", Gura is dressed in a Badass Longcoat intentionally evoking Dante and Vergil, while Dual Wielding pistols effortlessly and still incorporating the cuteness of the long sleeves.
- Houshou Marine invokes this trope in her default outfit, wearing the jacket low enough to cause the sleeves to flop around for a cuter appearance. This is more noticeable whenever she uses her 3D model.
- La+ Darkness's original outfit has long sleeves with shackles on the ends that cover her hands completely, juxtaposing her haughty personality with her diminutive form.
- Gawr Gura's signature appearance is an oversized hoodie with long sleeves. Many of the idols dote on her cuteness and have mentioned how her hands being hidden by her long sleeves adds to it. Gura embraces the trope. During the music video for "Q"
- Reimu and Remilia is a frame-by-frame rebuild of the Tom and Jerry cartoon "Safety Second." Jerry Mouse, Nibbles, and Tom Cat are recast as characters from Touhou Project. Reimu is the Tom analog, and she wears detached sleeves that flare widely at the wrists and are cinched in place with red ribbon just above the elbows. The remade cartoon is viewable on YouTube here: [1].
Webcomics
- Hetalia: Axis Powers: Taiwan wears a variant of qipao, except instead of being a mostly form-fitting dress, hers is paired with a long white skirt and has large, loose sleeves that cover her hands. She is characterized as the plucky, girly "little sister" of the East Asian group.
- In The Last Dimension, Phillip is a shy, sweet boy who wears a turtleneck sweater with sleeves too long for his arms. In addition to making him look cute and vulnerable, it also helps him hide his green, frog-like skin should he suffer a Glamour Failure from overexerting himself.
Western Animation
- Codename: Kids Next Door: Numbuh 3 wears a green sweater that keeps her hands covered. These sleeves are used to match her cheerful Genki Girl personality, as well as contrast with the tomboyish Numbuh 5.
- Craig of the Creek: JP wears an oversized jersey with sleeves that cover his hands, which emphasizes him being the most innocent and childlike of the Stump Trio despite being the oldest.
- Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines: Zilly wears a megaovercoat that makes him the cutest of Dick Dastardly's subordinates... and the Dirty Coward, too. Whenever the mission is too dangerous, he sinks into his coat to dig a hole in the ground and try to escape.
