Too Many Belts

"Time to buckle down, Yuna." "How? You took them all."

"Ladies, I hope you're wearin' two belts, 'cause I just charmed the pants off y'all!"

— Homestar Runner, Homestar Runner

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 JCPenney 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, Impossibly Cool Clothes, and Chained by Fashion. Often overlaps with Fashionable Asymmetry. If the belts are shown to serve an actual purpose besides holding up the wearer's trousers and/or looking cool, see Utility Belt. A subtrope of Useless Accessory.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Cross Marian of D.Gray-Man. Have you seen that man's pants?◊
• Digimon tends toward this. Some of them don't wear anything else... and not always as clothes...
  • And then you get this guy◊. Who is that? DEXDoruGoramon, probably the closest thing the franchise has to a zombie. What's under the belts? Nothing but his soul. Those things are pretty much the only thing keeping him solid and not DEXmon.
• Drifters: Hirano's next manga doesn't drift much away from the style — Toyohisa Shimazu's outfit similarly adds a lot of gratuitous belts to historically red Shimazu armor, and other characters (Octobrists are probably the most guilty here) also love themselves a couple of belts in a strategic place.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Jotaro Kujo wears two belts as part of his delinquent attire. The number remains up until Stone Ocean.
• Kurei wears quite a few in Flame of Recca.
• Alucard from Hellsing wears a costume actually made of thin black belts that unbuttons when he flexes. He hides it under his Longcoat, and overall his outfit greatly resembles Vash's. His creator Kouta Hirano is actually a Real Life friend of Trigun's author Yasuhiro Nightow, and they apparently aren't averse to sharing an idea or two.
• Yue of Lapis Re:LiGHTs wears four belts for her stage outfit. One is actually helping hold her short shorts up, the other three are purely for aesthetics especially the one on her bare thigh.
• Yuuta of Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions! wears seven belts in his "Dark Flame Master" persona besides a normal one — three around each leg, and one on his collar.
• Compared to others, the Barrier Jacket of 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.
• Liru the werewolf in Magical Pokaan has but a single belt across her chest that services as a top.
• Kira Yamato of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED always was partial to a snappy outfit, so even his SEED suit had some gratuitous belts, but when the things moved to Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny...
  • "His Sleeves! His sleeves are connected by belts!"
• Musuko ga Kawaikute Shikataganai Mazoku no Hahaoya: In chapter 11, Lorem finds an old outfit of hers with three belts on it. One at the waist, and one each above and below the bust. The description for the outfit even says "unnecessary belt" for the topmost belt.
• Lady Emmaniel's outfit in My Balls 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; Barbie Doll Anatomy and censorship take care of the rest.
• Naruto's Sasuke came back from his training for the Chunin Exam finals wearing a black outfit with belts around his left arm and both legs. This trope was actually cited as a reason for him returning to the blue outfit he started with at the beginning of the series—the belts were difficult to draw and animate on a regular basis.
• In One Piece, Ace wears two belts.
• Mizore in Rosario + Vampire has a couple of garter belts which connect her waist to...nothing whatsoever.
• Maka from Soul Eater wears belts quite often. On her shoes.
  • Noah also has plenty of belts.
  • A boss from the Soul Eater video game Monotone Princess^note If you haven't heard of it, it's because it falls under No Export for You, unfortunately wears belts on his face and his hair.
• Golden Darkness from To Love Ru has five belts wrapped around each leg (including one pair hidden by her boots), and another pair of belts wrapped around each foot, that do not seem to serve any actual purpose beyond... well, making you stare at her legs. She also has a belt at each sleeve, and two more on her abdomen for good measure.
• 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 torn up Vash tends to get in fights, if it helps keep wounds closed...
• Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-: When the gang visit Infinity, it seems like this is the general fashion.
• Yugi from Yu-Gi-Oh! wears a multi-belted shirt during Duelist Kingdom. After that arc, he changes to a black sleeveless shirt, but he keeps the two belts around the cuffs of his jacket and the one around his neck, while adding another belt around his waist. Kaiba dons eight belts, two on each of his arms and legs, from the second season on, in addition to the normal belt on his pants.
  • The Abridged Series lampshades this, when Yugi (and, unwillingly, the Pharaoh) is getting ready for a date with Téa.
    Yugi: I have a feeling today is going to be super-special-awesome. Now, if I could just find the right outfit.
    Yami: Yugi, you look like a bondage slave.
    Yugi: Perfect! Girls love bondage slaves. *beat* Don't they?
• Hiei of YuYu Hakusho 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. He later stopped doing this, probably because it took an hour to go to the bathroom.

Comic Books

• Rob Liefeld loves belts. He loves putting pouches on those belts even more. To the point where he doesn't need to draw the belt itself. As a result of this and Liefeld's popularity during the Dark Age, a lot of superhero costumes during this time had a lot of belts and pouches.
• Stephanie Brown's Batgirl costume also had a leg-mounted utility belt.
• Batman foe Spellbinder wears a pair of belts crisscrossed over her waist despite wearing what is essentially a bikini bottom. She also wears matching spiked wristbands.
• In a couple scenes in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Batman wears an additional utility belt around one leg. It's never used and its purpose is never explained.
• Similar to the DKR example above, when Jean-Paul Valley took over as Batman, his original AzBats uniform had an additional utility belt on his leg. He dumps it with his first costume redesign. Again, no purpose to them.
• Penance — the Generation X character, not Bleedball — has an outfit made almost entirely of belts. They might be a part of the body itself, given its origin.
• Ghost Rider 2099's outfit under his leather jacket was a criss-cross of belts.◊
• DC's Huntress wears a lot of belts. Most of them in purple.
• Tim's Red Robin wears a belt at his hips and a pair of crossed bandoliers.
• A number of The Scarecrow's costumes across media have featured a large amount of belts. Sometimes this is because a costume will be made out of a strait◊ jacket◊ which actually needs a lot of belts in its intended use, but in examples such as his Batman: Arkham Asylum design, it's just for the hell of it.◊
  • Though that may, in fact, be meant to evoke the sense of the straitjacket without actually having him wear one.
• 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. Considering his characterization in those early days, he probably just thought they looked cool.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Wonder Woman (1942): The Earth-Two bank robber Pat Pending wears three belts around his waist and hips, a belt around each of his upper arms, and a thigh belt on each leg. All but one belt slung around his hips are covered with large pouches containing the tools he uses in his trade.
  • Wonder Woman (1987):
    • The outfit Diana switches to for heroics after Artemis becomes the new Wonder Woman at the conclusion of The Contest includes two belts around her waist, a belt holding up her strapless top like a halter neck and belts on the ankles of her boots.
    • When Circe returns to being Circe her outfit includes a belt around her waist and two belts around her upper thighs one of which has a pouch on it.
• A hallucination sequence in X-Men had Cyclops wearing a variant of his '90s costume. Only with even more belts than it had originally — tons, most of them with X-symbols attached somewhere. Oh, and a tutu.

Fan Works

• In Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way vs. Canon Willow in her first appearance "her many belts were all different shades of orange, varying from the color of Ginny's freckles to that of the sunset."
• This◊ title picture for Misfiled Dreams.
• Inspired by the Stephanie Brown example above, the new Batsuit worn by Melanie Walker as Batgirl in the final two chapters of the Batman Beyond fic "The Second Rebirth" incorporates a leg-mounted utility belt. Its purpose is mentioned during the Chp25 fight against the Royal Flush Gang.

Films — Live-Action

• In The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Reno wears two belts.
• Edward Scissorhands and pretty much everything else in his maker's cookie factory.
• Hellraiser: The Cenobites often employ this trope for their outfits in every installment of the franchise (comics, etc.) save for the original novel, The Hellbound Heart.
• From Pirates of the Caribbean, Jack Sparrow, Barbossa, and Elizabeth as she gets more badass.
• Resident Evil: Retribution. Alice is issued a black catsuit with buckles up the back (including the boots).
  Rain: What's with the S&M outfit?

Literature

• In the mid 70s a reader of TV Guide noticed that a cover illustration◊ of Buddy Ebsen as Barnaby Jones had the detective (one would think mistakenly) drawn with both a belt and suspenders. As they wrote in a letter to the editor pointing out the error - 'How can I trust this man to catch a crook if he can't even trust his suspenders to keep his pants up?'
• X-Wing Series: Thin, brightly-colored loop belts are a staple of Adumari fashion, along with more, sturdier belts to hold their knives, blasters, and blastswords.

Live-Action TV

• On Friends, wearing too many belts is instead an indicator of absent-mindedness, whether from stupidity or inebriation. Word of God is the writers did not mean to use this as a punchline more than once, but it is very difficult to be a Long Runner without accidentally repeating yourself.
• Kamen Rider's Transformation Trinkets are almost always belts, which are worn over top of the ones they use to keep their pants up (and anything else that may hang down there, including jackets, vests, and ties - can't have anything obscuring those expensive new toys they're selling!)
• Too many belts is the In-Universe design style of a mark that Leverage runs into.
• Much like the page image where she wore belts as her dress, one season of Project Runway had a challenge where the contestants had to make a dress out of car parts. One designer made a dress out of nothing but seat belts.
• Star Trek: Enterprise: The Xindi-Arboreal's use this as rank insignia. Factory manager Gralik Durr wears three belts while his underlings only have one. Council member Janaar gets five belts.
• Every season of Super Sentai and Power Rangers have belts on their spandex suits (which obviously aren't going anywhere). While the single waist belt is justified as holding a sidearm holster, sometimes they keep going with it, like in Engine Sentai Go-onger/Power Rangers RPM, where the costumes (fitting into a racing theme) have seatbelts◊ on them.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Cameron likes her belts and her zippers — not to mention leather.
• A bit of fashion exists for two belts, shown in teen shows like Wizards of Waverly Place and Degrassi. The girl wears one belt on her pants in the usual manner, and a second belt over the midriff to adjust the flow of your shirt.

Music

• Dirty Sanchez in "F__king on the Dancefloor": "You're wearing too many belts, and I bet they leave welts".
• Doctor Steel has a three-belted garment that he wears atop his waistcoat, in his Steampunk attire.
• 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" (and the cover of the album it comes from◊), as his fattening form breaks every last belt on the suit.
• There's a reason why Mathias 'Warlord' Nygård is known by some Turisas fans as 'Beltlord'.
• Vocaloid: Luka has two belts, both worn at odd angles, as part of her Fashionable Asymmetry. Rin, Len, and Miku have purposeless belts hanging off their waists.

Music Videos

• All of the members of D in their video for "Tightrope" wear quite a few useless belts, but Asagi stands out by wearing more than the other four members combined. That's a lot of belts. (Thirty-six, to be exact.)
• Rabbit, the clockwork robot of Steam Powered Giraffe, wears at least three visible belts. And as briefly seen in one of their music videos, there's more where those came from.

Pro Wrestling

• Keiji Mutoh has been known to wear several belts as a suit of armor, one example of which can be found here.◊
• At one point in his career (image on his page), Último Dragón held the NJPW J-Crown (eight titles), NWA Middleweight, WAR Six-Man Tag, and WCW Cruiserweight belts. He's held (eleven) and actively defended (ten) more belts at once than any other professional wrestler, ever. (and considering the schedule that required, it is quite an accomplishment)
• There's a popular Photoshop with Triple H holding every belt in WWE, as a shot at his inability to stay out of the spotlight.
• Mike Quackenbush got to walk around this way in 2004, actively defending six belts from the USA, Mexico and Germany, and again in 2007 with different American belts.
• Sarah Stock has a set of ring gear that has five superfluous belts. Sometimes Tag Team partner Shantelle Taylor has a set that requires five belts to keep up, and has two more around her boots just for show. Taylor also has variations that use buttons and such instead of belts. Radiant Rain has the same belt gear as Taylor, but with skulls and USA flag designs woven into it.
• Samoa Joe "only" had three, but he was the first wrestler in TNA to hold more than one title belt at once. He'd go on to be overshadowed by Kurt Angle, who not only held a greater number but also took all of Joe's titles.
• Hailey Hatred wore five different Japanese title belts that she defended in 2011 while holding a sixth in her hands. The Japanese origin belts fell to four in 2012, but she picked up a USA belt and a joint Japan-Mexico belt in 2012, keeping the number at six.
• Santana Garrett had claimed the titles of at least five vanquished champions before mid 2015, though she was content with wearing "just" four of the belts in her growing collection.
• Miranda Alize has a set of gear with belts sewn into it from the chest all the way down to the ankle. She basically uses belts the way most people use stripes.
• Kenny Omega began a phase (in 2020-2021) where he called himself "The Belt Collector". C. March 2021 he holds four belts: The AEW World Championship, the AAA Megacampeonato, the Impact World championship, and the TNA Heavyweight title. And he claims that more will come. (By the end of the year, he lost the Impact/TNA and AEW titles, then relinquished the AAA title due to injury.)
• Matt Cardona adopted his own "belt collector" gimmick in 2022, though he didn't use that phrase, whether in deference to Omega, for trademark reasons, or both. In May 2022, he held the NWA Worlds Championship, the Impact Digital Media Championship, his self-proclaimed "Internet Championship", and four belts from indy promotions.

Tabletop Games

• Any and all artwork for Dungeons & 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.◊ It's mentioned in passing that he likes to be able to change it around; sorcerers tend to be on the chaotic axis.
  • Also it can be an optimization trick to have a character that wears several of the game-breaking magic item called the belt of battle to get extra actions, which avoids the usual magic item restrictions by being a charged item.
• Pathfinder has one horrific example with Apollyon, Horseman of Pestilence. The reason his entire body's covered in belts is because it's the only thing keeping his rotting skin attached to his body.

Theatre

• In Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distrutto, Cesare, Miguel, and a few of the other Spanish students have two belts on their costumes.

Video Games

Creators

• 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. The outer dress is lovely and creative by itself, so it didn't really need the belt-dress. 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? (Or maybe he really hated someone in the CG department.) Oh, and the animators got around the problem by showing Lulu from the waist-up in most of the CG scenes, and leaving her entirely and inexplicably out of others.
  • Meanwhile, Kingdom Hearts has some insane belts to go with its disturbing number of zippers. Just as an example, DiZ wears belts on his head; one as a headband, and one as an eyepatch. According to an interview, the more people mock him for his designs, the more he's encouraged to use belts (and zippers).
  • 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...
  • Nomura's touch is out in force in the characters of Final Fantasy Type-0, 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.

Individual Games

• The Big Sister in BioShock 2 wears a suit that possesses no less than twenty belts.
• Ragna The Bloodedge, Sol's Spiritual Successor from Guilty Gear's Spiritual Successor BlazBlue, has at least ten belts.
• Gado from Bloody Roar wears three belts in the first game.
• 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.
• Unsurprisingly, the clothing textures in City of Villains included many distinct types of belts, zippers and chains at varying degrees of overkill.
• Code Vein: In the character creation screen, there is an entire section just for belts. You can add a lot of them, absolutely everywhere. Most of the NPC designs avert this, however.
• Exaggerated in Cthulhu Saves the World - there is an enemy called Beltman whose outfit is almost entirely made out of belts. He is a Shout-Out to the aforementioned Tetsuya Nomura, of course.
• In the Devil May Cry series, Dante's outfit from the first game and Devil May Cry: The Animated Series has several belts on his vest and right thigh. The latter would appear to be a holster for his guns, but he also has an actual leather belt on his waist. In Devil May Cry 5, his boots are also wrapped by several belt straps.
• Etna◊ from Disgaea is an example. To wit, she has two belts on each boot, one on each arm, and four stitched to her skirt.
• From Dragon Age: Origins:
  • Lulu's Captain Ersatz, Morrigan, also seems to favor a lower garment made entirely out of belts and leather strips.
  • Another example is Duncan, whose leather armor has six different belts, five of them around the waist. Must have been anxious to keep that skirt in place.
  • The Architect seems to wear pauldrons made entirely out of belts.
  • Hawke's signature armour, the Mantle of the Champion in Dragon Age II features several belts, buckles and leather strips throughout it's design, particularly the rogue version, which seems to be more belt than anything else.
  • The new Grey Warden uniforms introduced in Dragon Age II features multiple belts and fastenings, with the amount depending on each class' version.
• One of the "Encrusting" recipes introduced in Dungeons of Dredmor: Conquest of the Wizardlands is "Buckle Up", which involves outfitting a piece of chest or leg armor in excess belts.
  "All the rage among comely, spiky-haired hero types. Why not cover everything you own in belts?"
• Fallout: New Vegas's NCR Ranger Combat Armor has five, as well as some bandaging/etc. being used to tie down a medical kit, the leather armor (go figure) having 8 for men, and 3 for women.
• 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. It's probably some sort of holdover from his days as a pro wrestler.
• In Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Starkiller's starting outfit has about five belts, maybe more.
• The cover art for From The Abyss◊ has a girl wearing three belts... but no pants.
• Guilty Gear loves its belts. Sol Badguy alone has at least 20 on his costume, and his rival, Ky Kiske, has around the same number. Also, every playable character except Justice, Anji and Baiken has at least 3 belts with them.
• Haseo from .hack//G.U. Serves as the rare Subverted Trope on this matter. He has Numerous◊ belts (or rather, buckled leather straps) densely clustered across his body in his first form (his following forms however lose most of them). However, unlike many examples on this page, the design is actually a case where it's Vindicated by History when one researches how armoring an individual has evolved; as the *ACTUAL* pattern of how the straps are distributed and layered atop and next to one-another so densely matches the pattern and placement of where actual REAL light leather armor would serve a place in existing to protect the body, even if the design is for a person that is existing inside of a video game. Likewise, they aesthetically match that of real historical leather armor made from interwoven straps for lightly-armored individuals. As this is from before Haseo Multi-classes and gets to be shown wearing heavier armor, his first form was supposed to be a lightly-armored speedy and agile fencer, and the game-world the character exists in being one where this type of interwoven-leather-strap armor would've been historically appropriate for the setting, This is one of the few cases where it's actually (relatively) justified as having a purpose in looking like this, and not just as a silly aesthetic.
• In Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Alyn Shir's outfit consists of a black leather bikini top and about ten to fifteen belts around her midsection and upper left arm and leg.
• The King of Fighters: 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.
  • After changing outfits for the first time EVER in XII, he now has his legs liberated but wears two belts anyway (a normal one around his waist then a larger one that hangs off his waist).
• Ezreal◊ and Caitlyn◊ from League of Legends fit this trope to a tee. Both of them have a generous number of belts each on their classic skins.
  • Characters from Piltover fall into this trope with such consistency it's probably an In-Universe fashion trend. Both Vi and Jinx follow the same pattern. The latter (who wears very little else) even lampshades it.
    "I'm wearing lots of belts! ...For no reason at all!"
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II has all of Class VII wear outfits that have quite a number of belts on them. Then Cold Steel III decided to ramp up the number of belts the cast wear even more.
• As a general rule, quarians in the Mass Effect series are fond of belts.
• Jack from Mass Effect 2 uses belts to make a bra. It looks about as comfortable as it sounds. If asked, she'll state that it's because while she was in prison, she didn't want to show off her breasts for obvious reasons, but that doesn't explain why she didn't just put a shirt on. Her unlockable and purchasable alternate outfits gives her slightly more normal clothes.
• The asari from Mass Effect 3's multiplayer feature this, with several belts wrapped around their torsos (though ironically they don't have one around their waists) and belt-like straps running up and down their arms and legs.
• The Hero Rosalyn from Okage: Shadow King has only two belts... but one is on her head.
• No More Heroes: Travis has some pants with pointless belts attached to them for style, though at least a few are used to hang his beam katanas. Chloe Walsh in Desperate Struggle wears little besides belts, and hits you with belts on her arms.
• The Prince from Prince of Persia seems to have picked up quite a few belts◊ between Sands of Time and Warrior Within.
• Raynie◊, from Radiant Historia wears a belt on her left thigh, on her waist, on her left arm, one holding her boobs, one strapping a turtle-neck, and lastly... a belt tying her ponytail.
• Skies of Arcadia's lead character Vyse uses belts to hold his sleeves together (Justified, as they're detached sleeves). 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.
• The Dawnguard armor from the The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim DLC appears to use belt straps and buckles to secure every possible connection, and then adds a few more just for good measure.
• While the characters in SpellForce generally don't do this, the woman on the loading screen is wearing several belts on her Stripperiffic battle bikini. Including a belt that could only be holding up her bikini bottom.
• Cammy White as she appears in Street Fighter V has gained a set of pistol holsters over her traditional Leotard of Power. The outfit itself is based on her appearance in spinoff game Cannon Spike for the Sega Dream Cast, minus the rollerblades and sub-machine guns.
• 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.
• Lloyd from Tales of Symphonia wears two, although it's justified in that he carries two swords . In a truer example, 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.
  • Forcystus's undershirt is pretty much just a mass of belts (or belt-like straps, anyway).
• Hwoarang from the Tekken games wears a lot of belts on his trouser legs in the primary outfit.
• Many of the class designs in Trickster Online, although the Warrior◊ and Thief Master◊ may take the cake.
• Trinity Universe's Recit invokes this, wearing several including one as a headband. His character trait does seem to be collecting things though.
• 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.◊
• The Arena Season 11 Warlock armor in World of Warcraft features at least 6 belts as the sleeves (3 for each arm).
• For being a JRPG with heavy anime influences, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 largely subverts this - with the notable exception of Zeke von Genbu (Bringer of Chaos!), who wears numerous belts across his midriff for no apparent reason beyond looking cool.

Web Animation

• An episode of DEATH BATTLE! featuring Sol Badguy and Ragna the Bloodedge lampshaded this twice: first in the beginning, and later with Boomstick's theory about the winner.
  Wiz: No "anime tough guy" trope is complete unless he has outrageous spiky hair, a sword that's clearly compensating for something...
  Boomstick: And belts. Lots and lots of belts.
  
  Boomstick: '[about the winner]'' Likely due to the fact that while Ragna had four belts, Sol had eighteen.
• hololive:
  • holostars ARMIS member Crimzon Ruze wears 42 belts, most of them being decorative.
  • hololive -Promise-'s Ceres Fauna obtains a goth styled outfit in 2024. She jokes that she had to put on 10 different belts, though some fans counted a total of up to 15.

Web Comics

• Balthazar from Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth wears four belts, plus a Badass Bandolier for his sword.
• This MMRPG character in Chugworth Academy.
• Parodied in Commander Kitty, where CK ended up with an unwanted, Liefeldian makeover that included, among other things, two Utility Belts in addition to a shoulder strap.
• Parodied with Square Enix from Consolers, who wears a large amount of belts, including one on his head, and on his BFS.
• Lampshaded here in Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures. "When you have to take off seventeen belts to tinkle..."
• Naal'suul Val'Beldrobbaen of Drowtales likes belts. They help her feel secure against inner demons, and ends up as a complete demon under the belts and close enough to normal above it... so it's not just a good luck charm thingy...
• In Ears for Elves, Tanna's concept art has two functional belts and three decorative ones, along with numerous other buckles on her boots.
• Favored by Diane and her posse in El Goonish Shive.
• Von Pinn from Girl Genius. She teaches restraint.
• This outfit of Candice's from Sam & Fuzzy.
• Stand Still, Stay Silent:
  • The latest fashion in the comic's version of Norway is to wear two crossed waist belts. Sigrun, the Norwegian member of the cast, has this as her personal touch to the Non-Uniform Uniform.
  • Emil, as the crew's Demolitions Expert, always carries a bandolier bearing explosive charges on the field.

Western Animation

• The Legend of Vox Machina: Vax's regular costume includes at least five belts of various sizes (two at the waist, two across the hips and one over the shoulder) and that's without counting any straps on his boots and gauntlets. One of them occasionally turns into a snake.
• 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.
• In Flash Gordon (1996), Flash has an asymmetric red and white top, with the white part apparently being a seperate item that is fastened with several belts.

Real Life

• Tanker Boots. Good idea for tankers, bad idea for infantrymen.
• Historical sword belts and scabbards can often have multiple straps, loops and buckles for comfortable, efficient and non-obtrusive carry. The simplest functional western sword frogs and belts have at least three straps. A belt for more than one weapon would have at least five. Unfortunately, most modern artists and costumers have no idea what the belts are for, and it becomes belt city.
• Gun belts, particularly the sort seen in media set in The Wild West, are a justified example: Holding a heavy revolver, a couple of dozen spare rounds and your trousers in place is a bit much for one belt to handle. Also, a revolver holster sat low on the hip, and a belt couldn't hang low enough to hold it and still be high enough to hold your pants up.
  • Peace officers routinely wear two belts: one to hold their pants up, plus a much heavier duty belt carrying their equipment and pistol. The two are typically fastened together with snap-loops.
  • Officers of the United States Marine Corps. are authorized to wear a Sam Browne belt (with included shoulder strap) to carry their sword for ceremonial use.
• 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.
• A kidney belt is a very, very thick belt worn to protect ones internal organs. Some models come with 3 smaller belts to properly fasten it.
• Typical infantry battledress uniform includes at least one Utility Belt around the waist and a set of webbing straps across the chest, containing enough pouches to keep Rob Liefeld happy. Unlike most of his characters, however, said pouches actually serve a purpose.
  • A common complaint amongst infantrymen before current MOLLE-loop body armor came into common use was the overabundance of straps, loops and belts. It wouldn't have been highly unusual for a late 20th century light infantryman to be wearing 3-4 belts around his waist with several sets of shoulder/chest straps.
  • Some individual military personnel can get a bit carried away if allowed to bring privately-purchased gear along, as parodied here◊
• Famous auteur director Tommy Wiseau, director of The Room (2003) is known to wear more than one belt (occasionally asking fans to count them at midnight showings). In Greg Sestero's book he says that Wiseau does it because 'it feels good' and 'keeps his ass up.'
• The Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony are often associated with buckled hats, but that image actually arose in nineteenth-century depictions. The historical equivalent of that stereotypical hat is the capotain that English people actually wore around that time. It didn't have the iconic buckle, but it was indeed associated with Puritans as well as separatist offshoot groups like the Pilgrims.
• Occasionally seen in certain Alternative Rock subgenres such as Industrial as a fashion statement with multiple belts worn looped around the chest.
• Japan's obsession with belts can be traced back to the obi, which dates back centuries. The highly visible waist ribbon that is the obi proper is actually the decorative piece. The actual parts that hold a kimono together is the datejime, one or more belts worn under the obi (since they're not seen, even a Western-style belt can be used for this). Since kimono are worn in layers, and you need at least one datejime per layer, you're probably wearing multiple unseen belts. Then there's the obiage, a little belt which peeks out the top of the obi and holds its bow up. Then there's the obijime, an even smaller belt (sometimes nothing more than a thin cord) that helps hold the knot in place and is decorative. The obi system is a belt with belts hiding other belts.
• The Sam Browne Belt is a two-belt system designed to reliably carry and hold swords and sidearms. Ever since its invention in the late 19th century (by a one-armed British Indian Army officer who had trouble drawing his sword from an ordinary belt), it became incredibly popular with basically every military or paramilitary force in the world, well as a number of nominally civilian organisations and private citizens who wanted to take advantage of the fact that the belt was quickly becoming synonymous with authority and martial prowess. To this day, Sam Browne Belts are a staple amongst thousands of organisations’ parade and working uniforms (and an internationally recognised symbol for customs and other law enforcement agencies), despite the fact that few if any of them still utilise them for their original purpose: carrying swords and drawing them single-handedly.

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