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Yowza-0

Gotta love how an evening dress, surviving a battle, is all thanks to cartoon censors...

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Kevin Murphy: (as Padmé, when she is slashed by the Nexu) Well that just bares my midriff!

Mike Nelson: What a conveniently alluring injury.
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A variety of Fan Service provided by damaging a character's clothing in such a way as to provide teasing glimpses of the flesh or lingerie beneath.

Female characters tend to fall victim to this, converting their usual costumes into something more Stripperiffic. A male action hero might instead simply lose the shirt altogether for a Shirtless Scene.

Can induce You Must Be Cold or Defeat by Modesty. See also Action Dress Rip and Battle Strip. For the non-combat version, see Wardrobe Malfunction. Kicking Ass in All Her Finery is not immune to this (but it's not common).

The Nudifier is typically a weapon which has no other effect than this. Hat Damage is a non-Fanservice Sub-Trope. See also Magic Pants, which is often combined with this trope despite also being its inverse: no matter how much clothing damage they take, they still have enough threads left over to cover the naughty bits.

Examples of Clothing Damage include:


Anime & Manga[]

  • Pretty much guaranteed to happen in any Hentai in which the female lead is an Action Girl or Faux Action Girl.
  • A male example in Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu: Hideyoshi suffers Stripperiffic Clothing Damage in episode five, complete with Bishie Sparkle and Yoshii blushing.
  • Dragon Half. Apparently, the only thing strong enough to stop the Big Bad's son's Laser Blade just happens to be the Heroine's Boobs of Steel. Said Laser Blade is tough enough to cut through stone pillars, even parts of the audience, but yet when the heroine gets hit with it, all it does is cut her bra off.
  • Mazinger Z: It happened to Sayaka Yumi in the original manga sometimes (too many times for her liking). Given that it was created by Go Nagai, the man introduced Fanservice in anime, it is not surprising. In one chapter, several female robots with blades replacing her arms sliced her dress to ribbons, without actually cutting her flesh or underwear.
    • Great Mazinger: Jun Hono suffered from this more often than Sayaka (much to her disliking).
  • Bleach has a lot of this, mostly for the very lean buff male characters who have a tendency to get their clothes ripped open/off/to shreds and run around for the rest of the arc. Curiously, it almost never happens to female characters and when it does the damage is minimal and not fanservicey (such as Orihime having the clothes ripped off... from her shoulders).
    • Ichigo particularly has this problem; the poor guy can't even fight internal battles without baring his abs. The manga has taken this to its logical extreme, with Ichigo explaining that, since his outfit changes when he assumes bankai, his shirt takes damage in proportion to how much spirit power he loses. As he rests, the robes mend.
    • Also in later manga chapters, Sosuke Aizen's shirt and jacket is partially ripped open at the front, displaying the Hogyoku embedded in his body underneath.
    • Ulquiorra does this deliberately with Ichigo's sword, tearing his shirt open to reveal he's the 4th Espada.
    • Szayel has this happen to him during his first battle with Renji and Ishida, leaving him shirtless. He even stops the battle to go change clothes.
    • Not that he wears much to begin with, but Grimmjow loses his jacket during his second fight with Ichigo.
  • Practically every time that Motoko uses some Kendo technique in Love Hina's manga, it is certain that some female clothes will be damaged.
  • Najica Blitz Tactics, among its ineffable quantity of fanservice, includes damaging some weird clothes usually worn by Humaritts.
  • Inuyasha
    • Kagura's clothes are destroyed when he uses wind scar. Then when Gyomaru fires a laser at her it destroys her clothes again.
    • Inu-Yasha, Naraku, Jakotsu and Hakudoshi also suffer from a very similar situation to lesser degrees.
    • When Inu-Yasha battles Goshinki, Goshinki claws him and his shirt explodes.
  • Ranma One Half
    • There is an amusing Double Subversion in an early anime episode. Ranma's shirt gets slashed low on the chest, and it's even Lampshaded by Ranma's dialogue complaining about his favourite shirt. The Subversion? He's male at the time. Of course, then he jumps through a fountain...and doesn't realize it until thirty seconds later when we've all had a good long look at "his" underboobs.
    • Battle-damage to Ranma's shirts happens while in female form. In her first fight against Mousse, he was intentionally ripping off all of her clothes, since he thought it was a disguise. When he eventually succeeds, Akane steps in and gives Ranma a change of clothes. Much to the despair of their high school's male population, most of whom were watching the fight at the time.
    • Another deliberate instance in the Battle Dogi story arc: the only way to remove the Dogi (other than seducing the owner to get the Dogi to reject her) is with a solid strike to the yin-yang belt buckle, which makes the suit burst into shreds. Too bad for the owner that the Dogi always disintegrates whatever she's already wearing when being summoned.
  • The destructive Transformation Sequence from Moldiver.
  • Honey Kisaragi's Transformation Sequence in the various versions of Cutey Honey. Also, a little humorous clothing damage occurs on occasion. (Her reaction to that varies from episode to episode, though she never cares about the seconds spent naked while her outfit is disassembling and reforming.)
  • Devil Hunter Yohko's Transformation Sequence.
  • In Project A-ko, Ako's first fight with D has her shirt and dress being sliced in some rather interesting places.
  • There's about a nine in ten chance that anytime a female character in Ikki Tousen (a.k.a. Battle Vixens) gets hit any clothing she's wearing from mid bust line down will go up in smoke.
  • Happens in nearly every episode of Steel Angel Kurumi. In fact, in one episode of Steel Angel Kurumi 2, the main character apparently has the ability to completely obliterate her outfit by flexing in just the right way.
  • There's one very interesting example in Sailor Moon. In episode 27, bit character Urawa has a horrible nightmare about Ami being attacked --- but the only thing that gets damaged are her clothes, and by the time the vision ends she's wearing nothing but scraps.
  • All over the place in Mahou Sensei Negima; botched spells obliterate clothes,[1] robots are armed with clothes-destroying lasers, there's a clothes-eating octopus, clothes get petrified and then shattered... then there's Takane, who gets hit with this so often that the other characters (who are used to living in a universe where this happens on a daily basis) call her "the stripper" and she begins getting Stockholm Syndrome about it.
  • Hayate the Combat Butler
    • Poked fun of when one girl's clothing is shredded by a monster attack while trapped in an RPG. Not just any monster, a slime monster. It'd be easier to tear clothing with Jello.
    • In a manga chapter, Sakuya is put into a suit to try and force Saki into gambling against Wataru's mother, she chooses to play roulette, and then Wataru and Saki find out that when they lose a round, Sakuya's outfit tears itself. You don't win roulette often indeed.
  • GetBackers
    • The women in the manga fall prey to this endlessly. It's extremely rare for any of the women to manage a single fight without losing almost all their clothes.
    • Ban Midou also often ends up with his shirt shredded into pieces whilst fighting. And when he doesn't end up totally losing his shirt, he usually ends up giving it to Himiko, who by that time rarely has any clothes on.
  • Happens all the time in He Is My Master.
  • Blue Seed
    • Tends to happen to Momiji a lot. Like in the first episode, and the characters (particularly her love interest) make fun of it through the rest of the season (and beyond).
    • Kusanagi himself occasionally destroys the upper part of his trademark outfit during his transformations and ends up shirtless. His orange skin notwithstanding.
  • Full Metal Panic
    • The final episode of Full Metal Panic Fumoffu, where the scary, deadly, biotoxin turns out to be a bacteria that disintegrates synthetic fibers. Which the entire school's uniforms are made of.
    • When having a Whispered flashback, Kaname rips her clothes to expose her cleavage for no apparent reason.
  • Kaze no Stigma
    • Ayano's clothes are shredded after a climactic fight with a wind demon.
    • In the manga, there are a few incidences where Kazuma damages Ayano's clothes. The first time Ayano and Kazuma fight in the anime, he causes a large rip in her skirt when she fights Catherine McDonald's Metatron.
  • Male example: In Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch it gets to the point where you wonder if Kaito has any shirts left...
  • This occurs to Nana in Elfen Lied in her battle with Mariko in episode 12.
  • An early episode of Bastard!! has a villain throwing one of the female leads into a pit full of clothing-eating green slime.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist
    • Edward Elric couldn't walk past a knife rack without his shirt shredding itself to pieces to reveal his arm. Or his arm and torse.
    • Never mind Ed, Sergeant-Major Armstrong parodies this trope to hilarious effect. He will rip off his shirt at the drop of a hat—in order to show determination, moral conviction, or even sympathy and sadness. It seems to be how he deals with almost any situation. He even uses it when deciding his friendship with Sig Curtis. One scene in the 2003 anime version had him punch an incoming stone fist so hard that his shirt explodes, revealing his almost hilariously buff figure.
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 "♥♥♥ THIS SHIRT-RIPPING TECHNIQUE HAS BEEN PASSED DOWN THROUGH THE ARMSTRONG FAMILY FOR GENERATIONS! ♥♥♥"

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    • Speaking of Curtis, he does the same thing in the friendship scene, flexing so hard his shirt tears off.
    • Roy Mustang mostly averts this trope, as he stays surprisingly clothed throughout the series. However, in episode 19 of Brotherhood, when Mustang is stabbed by Lust, and must resort to searing his wound closed. This leads to a climactic scene in which Mustang is shown with his uniform jacket and shirt undone, revealing his injured chest, as he incinerates Lust to death again and again with Havoc's lighter.
  • Dragon Ball
    • Played for comedic effect when a child Goku seems to have no problem fighting in front of a large crowd completely naked (his clothes destroyed by his Oozaru transformation). Similarly, he is unfazed when only his pants are completely destroyed in a later battle.
    • This is the only kind of damage Taopaipai takes from the Kamehameha.
    • Clothing damage is more or less a given in every fight of Dragonball Z, and nearly random in exposure area. Recoome's chest and butt are exposed by a blast from Vegeta, Goku's shirt is stripped off by a fireball launched by Vegeta.... well, the important thing is that someone's shirt gets torn off, at least In fact, Goku's shirt gets torn so much that you can gauge where in the fight you are by it—if it's still there, and the enemy looks dead, it isn't over yet. Apparently, aliens are immortal unless Goku is topless.
    • In any fight involving fighters with Saiyan armour, the plates extending out over the shoulder or forming a sort of skirt around the waist always got broken off. At the beginning of the Cell saga the only character who still wears the stuff is Vegeta, and it no longer features shoulders pads or the skirt stuff (which The Other Wiki tells me are called Faulds in European armour and Tare in Japanese armour).
    • 18 gets her clothes torn up when fighting Vegeta, but gets a new set later.
    • Also, Videl gets her clothes torn up when fighting Spopovitch.
    • 17 gets his shirt destroyed in a battle against Gohan in one of the movies.
  • Pretty much a given for any fight in Rave Master (unless you're watching the anime). Special mention goes to Julia, for having her first fight include so much Clothing Damage that afterwards all she has left is her underwear and a bra fashioned from the remains of her shirt.
  • Devilman has to inflict this on his own clothing during Transformation Sequences.
  • Devilman Lady goes even further—her pants go bye-bye too when she transforms into a she-devil. Her handler remarks that she's going to have to remember to bring Jun an extra set of clothes for missions.
  • Vaan has to shred his own shirt whenever he popped his wings in Vision of Escaflowne.
  • Chrono Crusade
    • Rosette has most of her clothing torn off during her fight with Rizelle. (So badly that in the anime, the next episode shows her wearing a sack in place of her normal uniform and has to borrow clothing from somewhere in the manga.) Lampshaded when Rizelle mockingly says the effect is quite pretty.
    • Satella Harvenheit also gets her clothes shredded occasionally, most notably in her fight with Fiore in the end.
    • The manga shows Chrono's clothes dissolving in a flashback to when he was first crowned 1000 demon slayer, or whichever version you prefer.
  • In Mysterious Girlfriend X, the title character does this to herself and others with a pair of scissors she keeps in her panties.
  • To Love Ru has clothing damage about every other chapter. In the anime, every episode. Doesn't matter what the cause is, any female in the cast is going to get her clothing torn off in some way.
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
    • Surprisingly uncommon, considering its infamous Transformation Sequence, but there's a very straight example near the end of The Original Series. Fate blocks Nanoha's Divine Buster, but the effort causes her Barrier Jacket to get torn in a lot of places.
    • The scene played out a bit differently in the manga, with both combatants getting hit hard by Precia's area magic. Fate still gets the worst of it, but Nanoha's barrier jacket gets torn up pretty badly as well.
    • In the first episode of A's, one of Vita's hammer attacks that destroys Nanoha's shield also destroys the first layer of her Barrier Jacket. (It's worthwhile to note that this situation was caused by an Unstoppable Rage when Nanoha damaged Vita's hat.) Vita's clothes also get significantly damaged after some difficult battles on a desert world.
    • Another significant example would be in Chapter 15 of the Striker S manga, where Signum and Nanoha go at each other in a no holds barred exihbition duel. Again, Nanoha's outer layer of her jacket gets destroyed by the end, but Signum's armor is completely wasted, with significant rips in her underlayer of armor as well.
  • Aisha ClanClan of Outlaw Star is prone to this. Partly because her skin is significantly tougher than her ceremonial armor, but mostly because her own powered forms are a bit bigger than her clothing.
  • Revolutionary Girl Utena: Utena's clothes get torn up during her second duel with Touga.
  • In Grenadier, Rushuna Tendou's clothing gets damaged so often, one would think her shirt was made entirely out of tissue paper. In the last episode, she actually manages to subdue The Dragon by tearing her shirt off and hugging her tight. Made really funny when the damaged article of clothing is her underwear, and she ends up running around the battlefield with her hand on her crotch while wailing "NOOOOO!!!" The rest of her outfit is also systematically reduced to tatters during the course of the same fight.
  • Doronjo in Yatterman is a regular victim of this trope. This may be a reason why the anime will never be aired in America. Yatterman is a children's superhero anime in Japan and Doronjo sometimes has her breasts accidentally exposed, and this is considered inappropriate for a children's show in America. This has been severely toned down in Tatsunokovs Capcom, which will see an American release.
  • To Aru Majutsu no Index
    • In the first episode, Index wants to see a demonstration of Touma's Anti-Magic powers, and boasts that since her clothes are magical, it should work. Touma touches her clothes, and she's instantly stripped.
    • This also comes up later, since it seems as if all religious clothing is enchanted, and thus destroyed by Touma's hand. One notable occasion has two nuns wearing clothes that bind them from using magic. Touma, logically, thinks he should destroy these... but everyone else stops him. Later, after getting knocked unconscious, he finds the girls looking at him demurely. Apparently their rescuers used his hand to destroy their bindings while he was sleeping.
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 Index: Tou-ma... you did something perverted again...

Touma: Wait, no, you can't blame me this time!

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    • A member of the Amakusa, Itsuwa, actually invokes this trope in a fight with a powerful enemy. She enchants her clothing in such a way that it takes the damage meant for her body, making even normal clothing act like proper armor.
  • In Strike Witches, Charlotte Yeager manages to break the sound barrier during an engagement. She's so fast that she slams onto the enemy, tearing both the enemy and her clothes apart. The rescue squad (Yoshika and Lynnette) can only nervously laugh while they carry her nude body back to base.
  • Plenty of times in Asu no Yoichi. Tsubasa's fighting style is dependent on clothing damage.
  • An early chapter in the Mai-HiME manga has some kind of water monster that melts girls' clothing. Possibly justified because it was looking for HiME, who are identifiable by marks that can appear anywhere on their bodies. (When it actually catches one of the HiME, it locks her in to suffocate her.)
  • One Piece
    • Mr. 3 uses his Wax-Wax powers to trap Zoro, Nami and Vivi on a giant wax sculpture, with a rotating set of candles slowly encasing them in wax. Usopp manages to release them, burning away Nami's shirt and singing Vivi's, but leaving Zoro's untouched. Usopp also burns off Luffy's vest in order to save him from the Color Trap that Miss Goldenweek painted on it.
    • Lampshaded in an SBS, where when questioned why his character's clothes never were fully destroyed despite their various body-changing powers, Oda answered "If they fought naked, wouldn't it kind of change the emphasis of the manga?"
  • .hack Sign
    • The clothing of the main characters inexplicably disintegrates as they fall through space during the Theme Song. The camera always cuts away before anything naughty is revealed.
    • Subaru is assaulted and almost killed by another PK, destroying her clothes in the process.
    • When Tsukasa is attacked by The World, his clothes are also ripped apart.
  • Used by Blue in Pokémon Special. When her shirt is ripped, it is revealed that her breasts are actually two pokeballs tucked under her shirt.
    • Happens again during the Black and White arc, this time to Black and White courtesy of Virizion.
  • Makina in Shikabane Hime tends to suffer serious rips to her clothes before killing the Monster of the Week.
  • This is done frequently in Rebirth to Milly.
  • Frequent male examples in Yu Yu Hakusho, usually to Yusuke. An early chapter of the manga that didn't make the anime also had a female example.
  • When Itsuki and Akiha are handcuffed together in Sora O Kakeru Shoujo, Leopard decides to toy with them by slowly making parts of their Latex Space Suits disappear. Try as they might to go unnoticed, news of someone streaking around the school has already spread by the next day.
  • Funnily enough, it's the men in D Gray Man that suffer the most Clothing Damage. Allen and Kanda especially suffer from this, constantly having most of their shirt torn up. Lenalee also gets her jacket burnt off during her battle with Eshi.
  • Mahoromatic.
    • One chapter features a "Panty-thief Ninja" who devotes his entire life to—well, guess—and whose signature attack is the ability to destroy a girl's entire outfit with a single sword-stroke: so thoroughly does it work that the pieces of outfit left over to preserve modesty can be measured in square millimetres.
    • If that weren't enough, another chapter (also the Beach Episode) is devoted to the attack of the rampaging "Cloud Crab". Cloud Crab is a warehouse-sized robot crustacean that was originally designed by invading alien forces as an Anti-Android war mecha—except that a slight malfunction means that rather than hunting down and destroying androids, it grabs young women and tears their clothes off.
  • A chapter of Midori Days does this when a pervert on the subway cuts two girls' skirts on the rush hour train. The first one finds this out after several shocked stares; the second doesn't discover this until a lot later.
  • MAR
    • When Dorothy's opponent tears off the left half of her dress. She is unfazed until this is pointed out... several chapters later. Ginta even Lampshade Hangs this by saying: "Well, you survived, even if your dress didn't!"
    • When Dorothy is fighting Chimera, this is commented on when she summons her guardian. Strangely enough, despite all of the girls battling, Dorothy seems to be the only one to suffer.
  • In Saikano, Chise's transformations as the Ultimate Weapon inevitably destroyed her blouses, and on at least one occasion left her completely naked.
  • Ronin Warriors
    • The second OAV, "Kikoutei Densetsu", has Ryo get his shirt shredded early on by the film's antagonist.
    • Also happens later in the OVA as the White and Black Inferno armors dismantle each other during the final battle.
  • Katekyo Hitman Reborn
    • Tsuna burns off all his clothes (except his boxers) every time he gets hit with the Dying Will Bullet. He gets hit with it a lot.
    • And during his battle with Mukuro he got hit with an attack that left numerous tears in his clothing.
  • In Flame of Recca, Fuuko. To a less extent some of the guys will have their clothing damaged, but the amount of battles which DON'T end with the poor girl half naked could probably be counted on one hand. Lampshaded during her battle with Fujimaru, where he deliberately aimed at her clothes for his own enjoyment, leaving only her underwear. Afterwards his teammate gave her his coat.
  • Plenty of times in Queens Blade. Special mention goes to Airi, who has her clothes regenerate and then get damaged again.
  • Naruto
    • Kakashi loses his Konoha vest to one of Kakuzu's wind jutsus, but seems otherwise unhurt when he re-emerges after the attack.
    • Any time this happens to an Akatsuki member, you know that they are going to die. Averted with Kisame, Zetsu, and Madara who have all removed their cloaks and are either still alive or die a long time after removing it.
    • And in the second Shippuden movie, at one point the villain hits Naruto with an attack that removes a portion of the jacket covering his back.
  • In Hayate Cross Blade?, Jun does this to Ayana with her "Kamaitachi" attack, which prompts a Lampshade Hanging by Hayate:
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 Hayate: Yeee! Ayana!! Your clothes! They're all ripped and sexy now!! You rank number one in violent sexuality!!!

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  • In Fist of the North Star, Rei uses his Nanto Seiken style to slice off Mamiya's clothing to prove a point, exposing her breasts. His point being that if Mamiya truly renounced her femininity, then she wouldn't need to cover her chest.
  • In Defense Devil, every time demonic defense lawyer Kucabara defeats a Shinigami, his final attack destroys every inch of their clothing. As of chapter seventeen, this has led to the complete stripping of one (delicious) female, and two males.
  • Happens quite often in Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple, especially to Miu and Shigure. Kenichi also has a habit of losing his shirt during his fights.
  • In episode seven of Wandaba Style, the girls' standard sweatsuits are so worn from all the experiments that Teen Genius Susumu had put them through that Sakura and Himawari's burst to pieces with slight provocation (Sakura provoked hers to prove to Susumu that they needed new clothes, Himawari just got too into her dramatic monologue). The same happens to Ayame and Yuri's outfits when Susumu sends them down a tunnel in freefall to get to their new clothes.
  • Happens NEEDLESS to the whole female cast. The girls seriously can't do anything without having half their clothing rip to shreds. Lampshaded in the manga as an accurate visual representation of how damaged people are, to which Madam Black of St. Rose Academy responds by wearing clothes of steel.
  • Beyblade
    • Male example: In episode 49 in the first season, Ray's clothes get torn up by the bit-beast Falborg's wind attacks.
    • Kai gets most of his shirt ripped off in season 3. His very defined chest is revealed very nicely for about 5 or 6 episodes. Young fanfgirls rejoiced!
  • In Zero Zero Nine One Mylene Hoffman, Agent 009-1, gets clothing damage on a number of occasions; she also has machine guns in her breasts that cause clothing damage every time she fires them.
  • Durarara gets one in one of the most awesome ways you can pull off this trope. In episode 3, Shizuo punches a thug so hard his clothes fly off from him!
  • Seen in episode 15 of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
  • Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru: Shusei gets a good deal of the front of his shirt ripped up as a result of being subject to torture by Ashley. And while fighting Ashley leaves a few tears in Hotsuma's clothing with her metal claw-like weapon.
  • Air Gear: Agito has this happen to him.
  • Perfect Blue: When trying to rape Mima near the end of the movie, Me-Mania rips her shirt open, slices the corner of it, and tears the rest of her clothes off.
  • Mirai Nikki once featured Yuno with her blouse and bra ripped open as a result of Tsubaki having her followers attempt to rape her.
  • Hellsing: In a flashback scene of Sera's horrific childhood, a burglar rips off the shirt and bra from her mother's corpse and proceeds to rape the corpse.
  • Legend of the Blue Wolves: Captain Continental rips off Jonathan's shirt before raping him.
  • Sekirei: Occurs every single time when one of the Unwanted Harem members engages in battle. Sometimes out of battle, too!
  • In Fushigi Yuugi when Yui summons Seiryu and he grants her his divine power, her beautiful ceremonial clothes are ripped to shreds.
  • Master of Martial Hearts:
    • In addition to the fact that the fighters are all apparently wearing tissue paper that looks like clothes, there was one instance where a girl got punched in the shoulder and her skirt basically exploded.
    • Another girl took a blow to the face, causing her bra to fly off—which tears through her shirt in the process.
    • Occasionally subverted in that while her opponents tend to wind up over-exposed, Aya almost never loses anything but outerwear. (A notable exception is the poolside fight with Yuu, where she is only wearing a swimsuit to begin with.)
  • One of the cheesier episodes in the Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind manga is when the Emperor decides to give Nausicaä "a good thrashing". His goons basically just tear her trademark clothes apart.
  • In one episode of Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt, Panty gets Stocking to slice off her shorts so that she can access her panties during a fight scene.
  • Freezing is one of those rare series where the girls' bodies get torn up along with the clothes.
  • Shinkon Gattai Godannar. Anna getting her wedding dress torn up in the first episode.
  • The title character in Maicchingu Machiko Sensei apparently wears clothes made of paper since they get ripped off very easily about Once Per Episode.
  • In one of the first battles of the The Sacred Blacksmith anime, Cecily's armor took a beating but survived relatively intact... until after the battle when, while facing and talking to Luke, the chestplate shattered.
  • In Demon City Shinjuku, the skirt of Sayaka's dress gets ripped a good bit.
  • Dog Days embodies this trope. Since battles cause no physical harm (well, in protected areas and to native people), if a female fighter gets hit by an attack she loses her outer clothing.
  • An aspect of the characters' power in Ultimate Girls. The instability of their transformations causes their clothing to disintegrate from the moment they transform, potentially leaving them completely nude when they run out of time. Fortunately, their powers are enhanced by their embarrassment, so the closer this outcome gets the more powerful they become. Further, the girls' transformation sequences actually destroy whatever they happen to be wearing at the time. This means that if they don't strip down prior to transforming they'll have nothing to wear when they change back.
  • In the penultimate episode of Tiger and Bunny, Kotetsu takes the brunt of an energy blast that not only obliterates his Powered Armor, but nearly half his undersuit with it.
  • Occurs numerous times in Girls Bravo for the Fan Service. A notable example is the time Kirie's clothes got ripped during a wrestling tournament.
  • In Jack to Mame no Ki when Tulip the giant finds out Margaret doesn't really want to marry him in his rage he grows taller and tears off his wedding suit and he's left in his tattered undershirt and boxers.
  • Lupin III
    • Has happened many times to Lupin and Fujiko. Fujiko is often in disguise when this happens to her, and when she has her disguise cut off she's left in her underwear.
    • Also frequently inflicted on male Mooks by Goemon, who uses his Absurdly Sharp Blade to cut through their guns and their clothing, leaving them standing embarrassed in their boxers.
  • Hanaukyo Maid Tai Episode 3. As a side effect of Ikuyo Suzuki's Weather Control Machine exploding, all of the maids nearby (except Mariel) have their clothing disintegrate.
  • Fairy Tail:
    • Happens a lot, especially to Lucy. Most notably, during a theater play. As her skirt is on fire, Erza shreads Lucy's clothes with her sword in front of the whole audience.
    • Erza gets this too, though she usually switches armor shortly after. Although after a long fight, Erza will leave her damaged clothing on for some time.
    • Despite having in the most battles, Natsu doesn't seem to get this as much. Possibly justified, since he doesn't ever wear a shirt to begin with. Just a vest and a scarf. His pants and vest are often frayed and worn by the end of a fight, though. And recently his scarf changed colors under ominous circumstances.
    • Gray subverts this. He takes his clothes off in advance. And not just before fights. Avoiding clothing damage is not the reason, he just likes taking his shirt off.
    • Jellal, when fighting Natsu. His overcoat catches fire as he takes it off and it burns to ashes in an instant. This is the only affect Natsu's attack has on him.
  • Highschool Dx D has the protagonist Ise use this as one of his primary skill called Dress Break. This was also one of his Awesome Moments when he applies it to Asia while she's strapped to a nuke, freeing her in the process.
  • In Gourry's first appearance in the Slayers anime, he grabs a bandit, tosses the man in the air, and before the bandit hits the ground, Gourry has sliced all of the man's clothes off without scratching him.
  • The result of Mea's standoff with the ghost girl from episode 4 of Popotan. While she apparently has the power to withstand powerful energy attacks, her clothes do not.
  • This situation happens in Tama Kick. The protagonist a private eye receives a case from a well known cosplayer who is threatened on her Twitter account. Rather than not go to a shoot the cosplayer has the protagonist cosplay with her as protection. Unfortunately their costumes have been sabotaged and one article after another their clothes fall apart before the fans.
  • Tanaka ~Nenrei Equal Kanojo Inaireki No Mahoutsukai has this near the end of the series, where the protagonist gifted with powerful healing abilities projects his power over a battlefield letting his power wash over not just his allies but the enemy. The magic heals everyone from the most grievous wounds and from near death. However the magic has no effect on repairing their clothes, armor or weapons leading to both sides in continuing to battle in remnants of their clothes, until one side surrenders due to embarassment.

Card Games[]

  • There's a card in Munchkin called "Revealing Costume". It gives you a +3 bonus, and then an extra +1 bonus each time you change gender, "due to tearing in inappropriate places".


Comic Books[]

  • Spider-Man
    • Ultimate Spider-Man frequently has to improvise ill-fitting and ridiculous-looking costumes when he is unable to get Mary Jane to fix his Clothing Damage.
    • Regular Spider-Man has this problem too. Once patching his clothing with webs kept someone from pulling his mask off.
  • Elsewhere in the Ultimate Marvel universe, Hulk frequently ends up nude when he transforms. In one case he was witnessed stealing the pants from a fat guy.
  • Giant Man tends to destroy his clothes every time he grew into giant size at least in the first issues of Ultimates.
  • X-Men
    • The ridiculous outfit Alex Summers wore during the Inferno arc as the Goblin Prince. An over-the-top shreded version of his Havok costume.
    • Happens to Emma on occasion. In her origin comic series, this happens to her when she goes to a school dance, in a scene reminiscent of Cinderella.
    • Whenever the mutant Paul Patterson uses his powers, he ends up destroying all of his clothes.
  • Gen 13
    • Lampshaded by protagonist Caitlin Fairchild after realizing that a raft crash has somehow completely removed her khakis and belt: "For some strange reason, I always seem to lose articles of clothing whenever we get into trouble."
    • In a recent remake, Fairchild managed to get most of her skintight body suit ripped nearly to shreds in the space of five minutes. To be fair, she did take out several commandos and jump clear through a roof to do so.
    • The very first time her powers manifested, increasing her muscle mass among other things, she went from petite to Amazonian Beauty and busted out of her clothing.
    • The first issue of Adam Warren's run was a recap disguised as a Behind The Music parody; in the (imaginary) Where Are They Now? Epilogue, Caitlin died after defeating a supervillain in sub-zero weather... of exposure.
    • For a male example, Burnout once incinerated his swim trunks while flying up to a plane and ended up having to fight naked.
  • Typical in Witchblade (the comic, at least), where, in the process of expanding from its dormant bracelet form into Stripperiffic superpowered armor form, the Witchblade tends to tear up whatever Sara Pezzini was already wearing. Justified (and lampshaded!) by a later Retcon that revealed that Witchblade was male and he pretty much did the shredding for his own enjoyment. As Sara became more experienced with Witchblade, the instances of shredded clothes decreased (instead, Witchblade simply appeared over whatever she was wearing at the time.) Danielle, the less experienced Witchblade bearer, on the other hand...
  • The title Superheroine of the comic Empowered has a super-suit that literally shreds with a touch, cannot be worn with other clothing (including underwear) and weakens her powers when torn. The suit can repair itself, but only a day later.
  • Happened frequently to Catwoman in her 1990s series. She was also shown to be able to cut a man's clothing off with her whip without leaving a scratch on him.
  • This can happen pretty regularly with She Hulk; though it's pretty much guaranteed with her cousin the Hulk.
    • Lampshaded in the Sensational She-Hulk where she ends up in a teddy during the fight. When asked afterwards what the hell made the teddy indestructible, she pointed out the "APPROVED BY THE COMICS CODE AUTHORITY" label on them.
  • In a variant case, Plastique's first appearance ended rather badly when she tried to blow herself up for a terrorist attack and make herself a martyr with a suit that was laden with bombs. Firestorm responded by changing the fabric of her suit into air, leaving her naked and humiliated while he gathered up the bombs to explode at a safe distance while her political credibility was equally vaporized.
  • This used to happen to Luke Cage a lot to show off how indestructible he was.
  • Ditto The Savage Dragon.
  • In the recent Blackest Night story, the original Dr. Light came back via the Black Lanterns and challenged Kimiyo "I am now Dr. Light" Hoshi. He not only mentally and verbally attacked her, but to add insult to injury, basically blasted her outfit off of her piece by piece until she was naked lying on the ground. No big surprise, since recent Dr. Light stories have established him as a special kind of evil.
  • Sergeant Nick Fury used to have this happen all the time. Lampshaded when a supply sergeant is issuing him replacements, which are the last shirts available in the European Theater of Operations that will fit a man with a 22-inch neck.
  • A recent Runaways had the older members of the team attempt to hold a prom, which was interrupted by a plane crashing into their current base. Klara freaks out and starts unleashing her plant-based powers uncontrollably, and Nico's top gets completely torn off. She spends the rest of the arc loosely wrapped in Victor's suit jacket.
  • The bounty hunter Lobo, a popular character for DC Comics in the 90s, has the ability to near instantly regenerate any damage done to his body, even from being reduced to a puddle. Unfortunately his clothing doesn't grow back, often leaving him bare naked after, and occasionally during, his fights. Lobo seems to understand how this makes people feel, and takes great pleasure in the discomfort his nudity brings to others.
  • The character Skuzz from The New Universe title DP7 had disintegration powers. Unfortunately, these ran all the time, so an outfit would usually last three days for him even if he wasn't actively using them. And when he does... well, there's usually a scene of him focusing his power to destroy something with a beam attack, only to realize afterwards that he's just gotten nekkid.
  • Happens all the time to the female protagonists in the Al Rio comic Exposure. They even adopt their trademark uniforms because their clothes were shredded to nothing, and even they don't last long.
  • Of The Authority, Apollo seems to suffer from this the most.
  • Being a werewolf, Wolf-Man is very susceptible to this. His costume fits his wolf form. However, with the exception of sweatpants and tanktops, if he has to wolf out in normal clothes they will be shreded.
  • Several characters in ClanDestine.
    • Samantha, who generates "ectoplasmic armor", tends to shred her clothes completely each time she uses her power. She is never shown dispelling the armor (although she is shown altering and dispelling portions, and dispelling the swords that she occasionally generates instead), and it remains intact even when she's unconscious.
    • Walter's Hulk-like transformations destroy his clothing, except for his underwear. It takes him a while to revert to his human form, so the story tends to end before he does so anyway.
    • Adam, who is Made Of Diamond but wears normal clothing, tends to lose his shirt in combat situations but retain his pants. This can be attributed to censorship or to the genie who gave him his powers, whichever you prefer.
  • There's rarely an issue of Atomic Robo that goes by where Robo's shirt isn't destroyed entirely (likely for the same reasons as Luke Cage and Savage Dragon). His pants, however, always remain intact.


Comic Strips[]

  • The comic strip Nguyen Charlie ran in the U.S. military's newspaper, Stars and Stripes, during the Vietnam War. At least twice, the defoliant Agent Orange was portrayed as instantly disintegrating not only trees and grass, but the clothing of anyone who got caught in the chemical cloud. Definitely NOT Fanservice, though, considering the way these guys were drawn.


Fan Works[]


Films — Animation[]

  • The Great Mouse Detective
    • Professor Ratigan has severe clothing damage during the end climax.
    • Basil's clothes are also heavily damaged after Ratigan's vicious beatdown on him.
  • The Animatrix short "Final Flight of the Osiris" opens with a blindfolded swordfight with nothing but Clothing Damage, until both man and woman are almost naked. Mind you, it was intended as foreplay.
  • Anastasia: In the final battle, Rasputin gets his minions to rip and tear Anya's ball gown.
  • Disney's Cinderella has the scene where the evil stepsisters tear Cinderella's ball gown to shreds in anger.
    • In A Twist in Time, Cinderella in a white gown gets transported inside a pumpkin carriage by Lady Tremaine. Once Cinderella is inside the pumpkin, her dress somehow gets all torn up, and she's now barefoot.
  • Peter Pan: Captain Hook's clothes get destroyed in his encounters with the crocodile. It's really incredible how the crocodile can eat up most of his clothes without harming him at all, especially considering harming him is presumably what the crocodile is trying to do. Also interesting how later on Hook wears the same outfit which got destroyed.
  • Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid. Twice in the film, from being in the ocean his boots come off, and his pant legs get ripped.
  • A similar thing happens to Gepetto from Pinocchio. When Monstro destroys the raft he loses his shoes and socks and his pant legs rip.


Films — Live-Action[]

  • Buster Keaton loses his shirt and trousers (through not his shoes, undershirt, or boxers) to a threshing machine in The Scarecrow.
  • Galaxy Quest
    • Happens gradually to Sigourney Weaver's character, Gwen DeMarco. Surely this is a lampshading of the trope, considering her character's stated purpose in the "original" show is simply to repeat computer instruction, i.e. no real purpose except looking pretty and occasionally having Clothing Damage. Rare example of a Defied Trope, as her movie-character despises her show-character being treated as a sex object. Of course, one of the themes of the movie is the various characters end up becoming like their show-characters.
    • This is also parodied with Tim Allen's character, Jason Nesmith. Captain Taggart's clothing damage is also lampshaded. This is fitting, since he's a Kirk parody and Clothing Damage was always happening to Kirk in fights that didn't even muss other character's hair.
  • Wolverine gets caught in a disintegrating attack in X Men the Last Stand. His body regenerates; his shirt does not. (And his Magic Pants remain invincible throughout.)
  • This happened several times in the Stephen Chow movie Shaolin Soccer, generally to comedic effect (or unfunny effect, depending on how one felt about the movie).
  • Used in The Mask of Zorro, where Zorro fights Elena and manages to, essentially, cut her nightshirt off, though she still had pants (and Godiva Hair). In fairness, she attacked his clothes first.
  • Fantastic Four
    • Susan Storm (Jessica Alba) suffers the extreme form of this in Rise of the Silver Surfer. When she accidentally swaps powers with the Human Torch, she immediately lights up in flame, burning off her non-fireproof clothes, leaving her in the buff on a crowded street. Note that when the same thing happens to Ben Grimm, he doesn't suffer from the same problem, only burning minor holes in his shirt rather than being covered in flame. She even lampshades it by quipping "Why does this always happen to me?"
    • Also happens to Johnny in Surfer. When Sue and Reed's wedding is beset by the Surfer's arrival, Reed tells Johnny to follow him, much to Johnny's chagrin since he didn't want to incinerate his tux. He was wearing his uniform beneath the tux, though.
  • Clothing damage in Die Hard is just one part of why John McClane is such a freaking Badass.
  • Star Wars Episode II: The Attack of the Clones
    • A Nexu beast attacks Padme (Natalie Portman), tearing her shirt to expose her midriff and one arm. The scratches on her back from the nexu's claws disappear almost immediately. Her abs do not.
    • Non-fanservice example: During the final battle in Return of the Jedi, Luke gets the collar of his black suit torn open, showing the light gray lining of his jacket underneath. This is arguably to show us that he's overcome the Dark Side that was building up since the beginning of the movie.
  • Zhang Ziyi's character in House of Flying Daggers gets her clothes partially ripped off quite frequently.
  • In Mystery Men, a gang of female furriers is taken down by use of a fabric-adhesive liquid projector, shrinking their clothing sizes "from junior to missy petite". The fanservice is lampshaded by spectator Ben Stiller: "My pants feel like they're shrinking, too."
  • The first Get Smart film (which would probably be considered Fanon Discontinuity if it were more well-known) is titled The Nude Bomb. Guess what the bad guys have, and use. Being a PG film from 1980 you don't see much.
    • Then in the 2008 Get Smart film, the pants damage done to Max during the SUV/train/plane chase.
  • Happens to Fay Wray in the original King Kong, after Kong peels off most of her dress.
  • This has happened to Spider-Man in all three live-action movies.
  • Lampshaded in Diary of the Dead. While filming a B-grade horror movie an actress objects to the cliched idea of the mummy yanking down her dress to expose her breasts, saying that it's just not going to happen. Later on when the actor playing the mummy gets turned into a zombie this happens for real, whereupon she shouts at the DOP (who's been filming all this instead of helping her): "I hope you're happy, you son-of-a-bitch!"
  • In Future War, we are supposed to believe that the male kickboxing lead gets his shirt knocked off in the final battle, even though we can clearly see him quickly slip it off despite it being tucked in and fully buttoned to the collar in the previous shot. We don't know how he did it, either.
  • Hot Shots Part Deux. The female rips part of her shirt off to make a bandage for one of the male soldiers, so several other soldiers also startfaking nonexistant cuts and injuries to get her to rip more of her shirt off.
  • The heroine in Der Clown ? Payday is shown with clothing damage as she is tied to the front of a tractor-trailer. There isn't even a logical explanation as to where this damage may come from.
  • In the 1930's movie version of The Most Dangerous Game the male main character's shirt became unbuttoned and ripped up.
  • A male, and hilariously gratuitous, version occurs in The Beatles' film Help The villains attack the boys with a booby-trapped hand dryer that starts sucking away their clothes.
  • Batman Returns. Catwoman's catsuit gets gradually more and more torn as the movie goes and her psyche is more damaged.
  • In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the right sleeve of Indy's shirt gets torn off by the big Thugee as he's pulled into the rock crusher.
  • In Coffy, a Blaxploitation movie starring Pam Grier, the title character gets into a fight with a bunch of female Mooks, seemingly making a point of ripping each and every one of their shirts wide open and exposing their bare breasts.
  • In Kung Pow! Enter the Fist near the beginning Chosen One attacks a henchman, ripping his outfit until his torn clothing takes the appearance of a bikini.
  • In Dead Air a female victim of the Technically Living Zombie infected gets her shirt torn during the attack, exposing a breast. This can go into Fan Disservice for some as she soon rises as a zombie herself, snarling and bleeding from her eyes and mouth.
  • In Cape Fear Max Cady's shirt is damaged when Danielle sets him on fire.
  • In Home Alone 2, Harry's coat collar is charred after he soaks his burning head in a toilet filled with kerosene, blowing the house up.
  • Most of The Return of Captain Invincible features the title character struggling to control his magnetic powers, causing metallic buttons and zippers to randomly tear loose of the items they are supposed to hold closed.


Literature[]

  • In the reprints of the Doc Savage novels in the 1960s, artist James Bama painted Doc with his shirt ripped beyond repair from his continual fights, showing off his rippling muscles. There was even a contest run by the publisher called "Doc Savage Needs a New Shirt!"
  • In the Spellfire novels, Shandril frequently incinerates her own clothing during particularly intense battles. This is something of a Running Gag.
  • In Tanith Lee's Vivia this is all that is achieved by burning the title vampire at the stake. Ah well, at least it made her hide inside the flames for a while.
  • In Robert E. Howard's "Gods of the North", The Vamp is wearing a gossamer veil, and nothing else; escaping Conan the Barbarian, the veil tears loose.
  • Your Mileage May Vary on if it qualifies as Fan Service, but Duncan vomiting on Kelly and Jason in Mystery Team. Parodied with Charlie, who thinks they're just taking off clothes.
  • In Breaking Dawn, newborn vampire Bella gets mauled by the mountain lion that she's hunting. The mountain lion's claws can't damage her vampire skin, but that fancy dress that Alice put her in doesn't fare so well.
  • Deliberately done by Matilda in The Monk to tempt Ambrosio into sleeping with her.
  • "Another shirt ruined!"
  • Non-humans in the Dresden Files tend to wear clothes less durable than their semi-immortal selves. Hence, if one is hit by, say, a point-blank concussion grenade, they may outlive their clothes.
    • Harry's amped-up protective gear in Changes, courtesy of Leah. After her magic dissipates (at noon, thank you very much, she's a Winter Fey), it scales back down to his regular old duster - and had sustained so much damage that one could have made a rather risque bikini out of the remains.
    • Certain brands of werewolf suffer this regularly - and the Genre Savvy among them have caches of clothes that they try and make their way to in wolf mode. It makes returning to civilization slightly less awkward.


Live-Action TV[]

  • Spoofed in a sketch on Monty Python's Flying Circus. The female lead in the fictional movie "Scott of the Sahara" is being chased by a man-eating roll-top desk, and gets her clothes torn off by snagging them on cacti. The thing is, the cacti are spaced so far apart that she has to go out of her way to get her clothes snagged on them. Just as she's about to lose the last of her clothing, John Cleese appears to say, "And now, for something completely different."
  • Justified in Smallville, as while Clark Kent is indestructible, the clothes he wears aren't. In one episode, he's thrown into a blazing furnace and he's the only thing that survives.
  • Heroes
    • The only time that Elle's electricity powers display any ability to set things on fire is when she shoots lightning at Peter's shirt, prompting him to take it off.
    • In season 3, Elle goes one better, when one of her lightning blasts completely disintegrates Sylar's shirt, and a second blast removes his undershirt too.
  • Doctor Who
    • In the story "Bad Wolf", Jack Harkness loses all his clothes when he is zapped by a "defabricator" ray. He lampshades this later, when he says "Ladies, your viewing figures just went up!"
    • "The Eleventh Hour" features Matt Smith in David Tennant's clothes, looking all tattered from the regeneration and subsequent TARDIS crash-landing.
  • Star Trek
    • Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the Starship Enterprise was infamous for finding a way to get his shirt torn in just about any conflict that he got in to.
      • It was parodied in the Futurama episode, where Shatner simply tears his own shirt right before a discussion.
    • It was also parodied in the actual show. The one episode where Kirk manages to NOT tear his shirt, McCoy walks up behind him and rips the sleeve off... to give Kirk a shot, apparently. All the other characters got the injection in their neck, but Kirk can't be forced to end an episode with his shirt intact!
  • Star Trek Enterprise. The Augments in Season 4 wear permanently tattered clothing.
  • In The Sarah Connor Chronicles, when Cameron launches her One-Cyborg Army assault on the LA County Prison lockup. Her clothes are absolutely riddled with bullet holes, but the only result from that is a lot of red stains from her cyborg blood and one half her face being shredded clean off by a shotgun blast.
  • The Myth Busters tried a variation of this, where the myth was that you could punch a person so hard that his socks would fly off. Turns out, you'd kill the guy several times over long before you could manage to pull it off, and that's including using battering rams and high explosives. Not surprising, given the nature of form-fitting, elastic-banded socks. Regular clothing, however, depending on the fabric and construction, can become shredded or completely torn away at lower, survivable overpressures. Reportedly, people struck by lightning are frequently blown out of their shoes as the electricity instantly vaporizes foot sweat, literally popping them off or splitting them apart.
  • In The Troop, the borlak's slime actually melts their clothes away.
  • In the Season 1 finale of Game of Thrones, Daenerys walks into her husband's funeral pyre. Since she is immune to heat, she emerges completely naked and covered in soot, but otherwise unharmed.
  • Baywatch in "The Fabulous Buchannon Boys", a con-man's bikinis disintegrate in seawater. In the show one woman's top is lost and she uses Hand or Object Underwear to cover herself as the same with the other women who face the predicament.


Music Videos[]

  • In the music video for Devo's "Whip It", a female character's costume is removed, piece by piece, by a band member wielding a whip. The video ends just as her modesty is about to be violated.
  • Freddie Mercury endures this in the music video for Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love".


Theater[]

  • Parodied in Evil Dead: The Musical, with lots of "Oh no, now my [X] is torn." by the heroine. Followed by her ripping the offending bit of clothing off.


Video Games[]

  • In Onimusha 4, Ohatsu's clothes are supposedly destroyed after a battle (not that there is any evidence for this at the time). She returns later in the game with a new, fan-servicey outfit created from the remains of the old one.
  • Late in Makeruna! Makendou Z, a crab-girl named Masakani destroys our heroines' outfits after a bit of a dispute. Three shots of Mai, Hikari, and Saya with their clothes ruined are shown, but afterwards, they simply revert back to their everyday clothes on the game screen. Miraculously, they were able to regenerate their outfits right afterwards, before actually fighting.
  • In the "La La" stage in Elite Beat Agents, ending the first section in the red results in Cap White taking some serious Clothing Damage. In the "Canned Heat" stage, ending the second section in the red causes Ken to accidentally cut up his Ninja costume while slicing open a door with his katana.
  • Art of Fighting
    • This is actually used for a Tomato Surprise in the first game. The character King looks perfectly masculine (if a bit like a pretty boy), unless defeated with a fireball-type attack in the deciding round... which blows open King's shirt and reveals her bra.
    • In the second game, defeating anyone with a fireball wrecks their outfit. But only King and Yuri reveal the lingerie beneath. For them, this Clothing Damage caused by a Special or Super Attack carries over to the crossover game The King of Fighters (first two installments: '94 and '95; ceases afterwards, until KOF XIII brings it back). To their credit, Yuri covers up after she lands, and King covers up (even managing to stay conscious to do so!) in the Art of Fighting games.
    • In Art of Fighting 3, every character can be subject of Clothing Damage, provided it's an Ultimate K.O..
  • Suggested in dialogue during the rape scene at the beginning of A Dance With Rogues, if the player chooses not to be compliant. Though, given the Stripperific nature of every single piece of female clothing in that module, any clothing damage at all would likely render the character nude.
  • Prince of Persia
    • The title character combines this with a Shirtless Scene by the end of The Sands of Time, as his shirt is gradually damaged more and more by the swordfights he gets into.
    • In Two Thrones, the prince starts off with a shirt but loses it almost immediately in the sewers close to the beginning of the game with no explanation as to how and goes through the entire game shirtless.
    • In the 2008 reboot, Elika's clothes are artfully tattered in a few places as well.
  • The player-character of Heavy Metal: FAKK 2 takes clothing damage over the course of the game, although it is reset every time she receives a new outfit.
  • Metroid
    • Occurs in Super Smash Bros. Brawl with Samus Aran. Her "Final Smash" move has her fire a massive laser beam from her arm cannon that fills up one side of the screen... along with causing her armour to fall off, leaving her clad in only her skin-tight Zero Suit. You can also start a match without armour.
    • On another note, when in the Zero Suit, her "Final Smash" consists of her regenerating her armor, undoing the previous Clothing Damage (Clothing... Recovery?).
    • Also occurs in Zero Mission. If Samus loses all of her energy, the death scene shows her armor disintegrating.
    • And in every 2-D Metroid game ever except 1 and 2. Also Other M.
  • Part of the concept of the Sega game Fighting Vipers. In this 3D Fighting Game, all combatants wear some kind of armor that can be blown off area-by-area with specific attacks. Naturally, the male characters wear fairly normal clothes underneath while the females wear mostly lingerie.
  • A rather extreme form of this can be seen in the Ghosts 'n Goblins/Ghouls 'n Ghosts games, where Arthur can go from fully decked out in armor to being stripped to his undies in a single blow.
  • This also happens to the title character in the 3-D Spiritual Successor series, Maximo.
  • Also occurs in another game Capcom developed and published, Three Wonders for the Arcade. This game is actually a set of three games in one, with the one titled "Midnight Wanderers" featuring clothing damage much like in Ghouls 'n Ghosts, where any kind of contact with the enemy ends up with your character in nothing more than a pair of shorts.
  • And yet another Capcom Arcade game, Black Tiger, the Barbarian Hero's armor breaks off and leaves him in his Loin Cloth after enough hits. Capcom just likes this, I guess.
  • In Eternal Fighter Zero, this occurs to varying degrees whenever a character is hit with a fire attack. It only lasts a moment; all damage to clothing is regenerated as soon as the character hits the ground.
  • The Bloody Roar series features characters whose clothing shreds every time they transform to Beast form, to some degree. (Male characters usually lose little more than their shoes and maybe their sleeves; female characters, however, can lose anything from just their shoes to—in the cases of Jenny the Bat and later versions of Alice the Rabbit --- their entire outfit). Their clothing is mysteriously repaired when they change back to human form.
    • Lampshaded in the fanfic Heart Of An Animal. One of the characters (Shenlong) removes a very expensive shirt he's wearing before a fight to prevent it from being destroyed when he "beasts out", and after the fight, he and his opponent discuss the types of clothes (read: underwear) they wear to prevent them from being destroyed during their transformation, as well.
  • Soul Calibur IV features clothing damage, if one attacks a specific area enough, or does a Soul Gauge Break (which happens if the opponent blocks too much), then that area breaks, reducing the character's defence at that level. There are three areas that can be broken, which correspond to the areas that can be attacked; high (helmets and capes), mid (shirts and gloves) and low (pants and shoes). While the main cast have customized clothing damage (Break Nightmare high, and the horns on his helmet will come off, and even remain on the battlefield), custom characters don't have that luxury, and clothing damage will cause their entire articles of clothing to break off. Even the most heavily dressed characters can be clothing damaged down to their undergarments and socks. One tends to wonder how someone manages to kick a shirt to pieces. Or why hats and shirts make metallic clangs as they splinter.
Cquote1

 "You broke my pants!"

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    • Parodied in the Omake released prior to the game's release in Japan.
  • Evil Marie, the level boss of the Haunted House level in Carn Evil, loses clothing as she takes damage, ending in corset, stockings, and underwear when she is defeated.
  • Appropriately for a series with a large number of ways to die, at least a few methods of death in Metal Slug result in clothing damage at least one, the larva in Metal Slug 3's 4th level, shows nipples if using a female character.
  • Fan Disservice in Okami: During the fight with Orochi, Susano's clothes are torn to reveal his butt.
  • The goal of the hentai shmup Sentimental Shooting: To entirely destroy giant girls' clothes.
  • In both Tony Hawk's Underground and Tony Hawk's Underground 2, the more you grind, the more damage is done to your board's deck graphic until it's just stripped to nothing. This was phased out in American Wasteland and later games.
  • Ryu's alternate costume in Street Fighter IV is a gi with the top half torn off, with Ryu visibly battle-damaged. Sakura's colour 10 of her alternate costume reduces her to gym shorts and a T-shirt. Ditto for M. Bison (the dictator).
  • All of the Darkstalkers who wear clothes lose some when burned. Some characters just get them tattered and charred a bit while others (of both genders) end up completely naked and covering their naughty bits with their hands/wings/feet.
  • The unlicensed NES game Menace Beach, made by the infamous Color Dreams, has cutscenes between levels where the Distressed Damsel's clothes gradually "rot" off until only her lingerie is left.
  • There was also a pirated H-game, Miss Peach World, based on this game.
  • In Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, nearly every character except for a few suffer clothing damage in battle, most notably with Superman and the Flash. The Flash can end up with one of his sleeves missing and his buttocks exposed.
  • In the SNES title Pocky & Rocky, damage was kept track of by diminishing hearts. In the sequel, Pocky & Rocky 2, damage was kept track of by how much Pocky is wearing. She starts in her usual robes, but one hit knocks them off, leaving her in shorts and a shirt, which is tastefully only slightly less modest than her usual wardrobe. The next hit takes away a life. It is possible to obtain an item which adds another hit in the form of armor.
  • Speaking of Pocky & Rocky, the series's Spiritual Successor Heavenly Guardian goes back to a lifebar of icons. However, if Sayuki takes her last hit from a spear-wielding rabbit inside a wall unit, instead of her normal death animation of spinning around and falling down, her robes will come undone and she'll fall on her knees.
  • In X Men Origins Wolverine (the game, and likely the movie), taking damage from gunfire will perforate both Wolverine and his clothing. His body regenerates, but the shirt does not. Strangely, he always seems to find a new one between stages, and the pants never take so much as a ding... Not to mention he recovers his shirt every time he levels up.
  • The freeware title Holdover gives the protagonist swimsuit armour which will dissapear if you get hit for damage. It's separated into top and bottom so where you get hit determines which part of the swimsuit you lose. Getting hit without the armour leads to death.
  • There's an H-Game called Battle Raper. It's a Fighting Game where almost all the characters are female and when enough damage is done to them, their clothes come off.
  • Similar to Prince of Persia above, in Batman: Arkham Asylum, the Dark Knight starts off looking impeccable, but gets more and more haggard looking (torn cape, nicked armour, and some apparently really fast growing manly stubble) as the night progresses. This continues in the sequel and applies to Catwoman as well, who manages to accumulated clothing damage much more quickly.
  • This happens in "Toy Pop", a "multi-directional shooter" arcade game Namco released in 1986. Unlike most games at the time, you lose a life after "two" hits rather than one (as in Rolling Thunder, released the same year, but I digress...). What happens, when your character ("Pino" for player 1; "Acha" for player 2) gets hit once, he or she gets reduced to their underwear. However, a "clothes" icon may randomly appear in one of the boxes that you shoot open, giving you back the "first hit" you took.
  • Takes place during the arcade game Dynamite Cop. As the player character takes health damage, the character appearance will change to reflect that.
  • The old arcade game Gladiator released by Taito had the player and enemies armor act as the health points. The first attack on the area would remove the armor in that area with a second hit in the same spot slaying the character. The exception to this was the one female combatant who had several layers of chest armor and could actually become topless in one version of the game with enough blows landing in that area.
  • There was a Fighting Game released for the Arcade based on the characters of the Gladiator game called Blandia. Several of the characters here wore armor that acted as additional health and must be destroyed before health damage could be inflicted.
  • Happens indirectly during Die Hard: Arcade. As the stages progress, both main characters' clothes become more ragged.
  • In Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro during the final battle Spiderman receives heavy clothing damage during his final battle with Electro; the spider symbol on his back is even missing.
  • In Blaz Blue: Continuum Shift, Bang's revised Astral Finish causes his clothes to burn off at the end of it.
  • This happens to the loser of any danmaku duel in the Touhou games.
  • Bayonetta
    • In the opening, the title protagonist rips out of her nun disguise and is briefly shown nude before conjuring up her Godiva Hair suit.
    • Moments later, her clothes are ripped by attacking angels in strategic places, including breasts and ass.
  • The Japanese Play Station 2 game Nuga-Cel has a lot of this, and is actually an important gameplay mechanic. Your team of girls battle against other girls with the help of magical costumes. Along with your standard health, costumes have their own "health" as well. When it's depleted, the poor victim is stripped to her underwear, her stats drop low enough so almost anything will one hit kill, and they will lose a turn while they cover themselves in embarrassment.
  • Starcraft II: Poor Kerrigan...
  • In The 3rd Birthday PSP game, Aya's clothes can be "damaged" if she gets hurt. There have been screenshots of her left wearing very little as a result of this.
  • Illbleed has an interesting example. On a second playthrough, if the protagonist Eriko lets her friends die in the next level her clothing will be torn slightly. If she lets all of them die, by the end she'll be naked save for some mud covering the naughty bits. Now, you don't actually see it damaged, you just have to assume it sort of happens while you aren't looking.
  • On the cover of Doom, what looks like a midriff-less Space Marine outfit has actually been damaged from one of the demons clawing at him (note the claw marks on Doomguy's chest)
  • Kyoya of Siren gets shot in the chest early in the game (don't worry, he gets better) and the bullet hole remains in his shirt. He gets shot again later and gets a second hole in his shirt.
  • Every character in the recent Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage game will slowly lose more and more clothing as they take damage; Mamiya's is particularly amusing. Ken, of course, also loses his shirt every time he finishes off a boss.
  • Not done with actual clothing, but in order to defeat the Darknuts of The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, you must knock off every bit of their armor, turning them from Mighty Glaciers to Fragile Speedsters.
  • Mega Man Legends: One of Tron Bonne's defeats also vaporizes her clothes. Seeing as how both Mega Man and two Servbots are also in the room, Hilarity Ensues.
  • In ''Indiana Jones and The Staff of Kings, after your fight with the fire breather much of Jones' shirt is damaged and one of his sleeves has been burnt off.
  • The outfit Kratos wears for most of God of War II is a heavily damaged version of his God armor from the beginning of the game (which conveniently resembles his outfit from the first game). In God of War III he wears an even more tattered version of that outfit.
  • A stag beetle enemy in Bug!! loses his entire exoskeleton when damaged once, leaving a skinny, shivering bare body wearing nothing but boxer shorts. It will die after a short time or if Bug stings him again.
  • In the Game Boy Color game SpongeBob SquarePants: Legend of the Lost Spatula, SpongeBob starts out with his pants on. If he gets hit, his pants rip off and fly off the screen. If he gets hit one more time, his underwear flies off the screen and his jaw drops as he covers himself and he restarts the area.
  • In Space Quest IV, Roger's shoes and pant legs get vaporized by the Latex Babes of Estros in preparation for leg-shaving based torture. Shortly after, you must get replacement clothes in order to enter Monolith Burger, which has a "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service" policy.
  • Queens Blade : Spiral Chaos and its sequel, Queen's Gate : Spiral Chaos, feature clothing damage for both playable and enemy female characters (guys are immune, but there is so few of them...). It's included in the gameplay mechanics, as breaking all the clothes/armor results in a Defeat by Modesty.
  • A major game mechanic in the MMO Vindictus. If a certain amount of damage is taken to an area, that piece of armor breaks, and the model reflects this. This has an effect game-wise, as the armor is less effective when broken than undamaged. The Clothing Damage can be undone in a dungeon by using certain items, and is fully repaired in town. Each piece of gear has a durability statistic, which makes the armor easier to break.
  • At the end of Mass Effect 3, Shepard gets his/her armor blown off/incinerated by Harbinger's attack, leaving just a charred and blackened shell. He/she survives. (maybe?).
  • Endless Frontier has Robot Girl Aschen Brodel lose the green, latex-looking covering over her Cleavage Window and thighs when she activates Code DTD or overheats. A rare example of this being justified, since shedding clothing actually does help heat dissipation.


Web Comics[]

  • Lampshaded in this Nowhere University comic.
  • In Pet Projects, this happens to Notle the Witch in an arc storyline involving moths that get created and start eating Notle's clothes.
  • Shortpacked
    • Subverted when Robin gets in a catfight with Sarah Palin (yes, really) at one of her rallies because she's pissed Palin stole the "ditzy government official" limelight. Once the action starts, the panels focus on Amber in close-up as she gets covered in torn items of clothing, starting with torn-off sleeves and ending in underwear... but then the last panel goes wide focus, showing that Robin and Palin have been trying to strike at each other through a clothes rack.
    • Played straight with the Ethan/Willis fight. Then they get pushed into a tub of pudding.
  • Girl Genius
    • Gil's attempts to hit Zeetha with a metal-destroying device backfires when he grabs the cloth-destroying one by mistake. Of course, on the next page, we find out that it logically doesn't work on the leather, which—since the "Wacky Weave Destabilizer" is infamous enough—makes up Zeetha's underwear.
    • Anevka's electric weapon turns her clothes to ashes. Of course, she has it in the first place because she is a sufficiently advanced metal mannequin.
  • Referenced and riffed in this side strip of El Goonish Shive .
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 "Maybe we shouldn't wear fabrics that rip like tissue paper."

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  • Exiern: "What's with the clothing? Ever since the change, it's always the clothing."
  • Terinu ends up losing his shirt when Gwen does her best to bandage up the nasty gut wound that tore it up in the first place.
  • Philip M. Jackson's Nurse Sally vs the Mutants, which doesn't take itself seriously in the least, features "mutant fabric-eating piranha" which reduce the heroine's nurse outfit to nothing more than a barely-there top.
  • Happens repeatedly to Spinnerette, including in her first ever actual fight. The most interesting to straight male readers (and possibly Mecha Maid) is having about half of the suit shredded by vampire Cal Warden's fangirls, mainly around the midriff area.
  • Master of Parade Balloon Animals in Samurai Princess gets to show off her balloons! And we ain't talking about the inflatable kind.
Cquote1

 "And there was much rejoice!"

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 Sidekick Chief: Dear god...wait, men! STOP! Our attacks are only making them sexier!

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Web Original[]


Western Animation[]

  • One episode of Totally Spies actually has a minion shoot the girls with a "clothes shrinking ray".
  • Samurai Jack loses clothing this way quite frequently. Seriously, just about every other episode.
  • The Duck Dodgers episode "Samurai Quack" parodies the above by having Daffy (in the role of Jack) insist that he and Aku can't have their big fight until he's ripped off his shirt, hakama pants, and hair tie, leaving him near-naked and wild-haired. He then rips his own flesh off leaving him a skeleton.
  • Teen Titans
    • Played to its most disturbing in the episode "Birthmark" where Slade actively tears Raven's clothes, showcasing the various demonic birthmarks that show up on her skin. The intense shredding eventually leaves Raven clad in a ragged bikini, and is so reminiscent of rape for all intents and purposes that it's a wonder how it got past the radar.
      • This gets more disturbing when you recall what had happened next afterwards :someone from Newgrounds named ZONE-SAMA recreates the entire sequence where the Mind Rape escalates into actual rape!
    • In a more traditional application of the trope, Robin gets the sleeves of his martial arts tunic ripped off by a Threshold Guardians in "The Quest". Fangirls were... quite pleased.
    • In "Haunted" Robin's costume is heavily damaged following his battle with Slade's projection. He also damages his costume in Teen Titans Trouble in Tokyo during his fight with Saico-Tek.
    • And in "The Beast Within", Beastboy's costume us shredded every time he turns into the werebeast. And yet it remains intact when he turns into an elephant, dinosaur, whale, or other animal of enormous proportions.
  • The early '90s X-Men animated series:
    • In a first-season episode, Rogue confronts Apocalypse. He hits her with an energy blast that blows back, then shreds, then vaporizes her jacket. Rogue being '90s Rogue, and this being a) a kid's show and b) the Marvel Universe where pretty much everyone uses Unstable Molecules, there was no other damage done on the surface. Of course, no damage was needed; convenient angles and the fact that Rogue was deprived of her bomber jacket provided all the Fan Service the scene needed.
    • Also sometimes in battle Wolverine would get his shirt ripped or blown off.
  • X-Men Evolution
    • Something similar happens in this show, but somewhat justified. Rogue is hit head-on by a massive fire blast from Pyro. Having just absorbed Colossus' metal skin power, she comes out of it unharmed. Her clothes, however, are burned off except for the obvious necessary bits and some extra scraps.
    • Happens other times in Evolution, especially with Scott. Whenever he got into a rough situation, his shirt would usually get ripped, exposing half of his chest.
  • One Treehouse of Horror segment on The Simpsons was based on the film The Fantastic Voyage. It has a sequence where white cells attack Marge (who was given a Stripperiffic outfit and made unusually busty just for this episode) and eat away at her clothing. "But they seemed to know just where to stop".
  • Has begun happening to Kevin from Ben 10 Alien Force in a couple of episodes, sealing his fate as the Mr. Fanservice.
  • The Final Battle of Avatar: The Last Airbender has Aang losing his shirt, though the Magic Pants stay firmly in place and unripped. This is actually important though:hitting his scar on a rock ended up unleashing the Avatar State. Zuko also got his shirt torn taking the lightning for Katara.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fast Forward
    • In an episode, Raphael tears his own (rented) tux to shreds as he draws his laser-sais when a fight breaks out.
    • In another episode April's outfit gets shredded when Raphael pulls her out of some thorns she then proceeds to tear off the loose parts of her clothing.
  • One particular scene in the Danny Phantom Grand Finale had this happen to Danny no less than three times in a row!
  • In the Adventure Time episode "Finn the Wizard", an asteroid that Finn has destroyed shatters into pieces, tearing apart Finn's and the other Wizards' clothes, as well as Jake's fur, thus rendering them nude.
  • No matter what happened to Zeta in The Zeta Project, he never had so much as a rip in his clothes—because they're a holographic projection outside his robotic shell. Ro only has occasional clothing damage, usually to her jeans.
  • In Family Guy, this happens to Peter every time he fights Ernie the giant chicken.
  • King of the Hill
    • In the episode "Texas City Twister", when a tornado strikes the trailer park the Hills are at and Hank fails to make it to the shelter, he grabs onto a nearby pole the force of the tornado shreds Hank's clothes bit by bit until he's left in his underwear which eventually blows off too, he covers himself with a cactus so Luanne won't have to see his private parts.
    • This has happens to other characters like Luanne in "Propane Boom part II"; her shirt and jeans get damaged in the explosion but it's minimal and she also loses her hair.
    • Bill got his shirt ripped off his newly adopted Rottweiler in "Dances With Dogs".
    • And Dale got heavy clothing damage when he accidentally blew up a mini propane tank in "Master of Puppets".
  • At least a couple of moments in Justice League.
    • One instance that comes to mind is The Flash in "Divided We Fall".
    • Also, Superman in "Hereafter."
  • Batman/Superman
    • In a Crossover episode, Bruce Wayne is kidnapped by Brainiac (not for being Batman, which he doesn't know, but for being filthy rich), so Robin recruits Supes to help him find Bruce. In the meantime, Supes poses as Batman by wearing his suit (over the top of his own) and using his superior muscle control to fake Batman's voice. When they confront Brainiac, he blasts "Batman" with a beam that would've killed a human. Then Superman walks out of the flame, the Batsuit completely burned away, but his own clothes and cape just fine.
    • In the first crossover of the two, Harley Quin and Lex Luthor's driver have a Cat Fight while Lex and the Joker have a "business discussion" about killing Batman and Superman. When the fight is over, both of the girls' clothing are very ripped, but none of it is very revealing, and it is QUITE clear that the girls are in all kinds of pain.
  • Snake Eyes in G.I. Joe: Renegades suffers this on a couple of occasions, but never enough that we can see his face.
  • During the events of Tokyo Mater, Mater actually gets parts of his new paint job in Japan gradually peeled off by Kabuto, the short's villain, as their race progresses because of Kabuto's tendency to strip his rivals of their own paint if they lost to him. But at the end of the short, Mater wins the race though with almost all of his paint peeled away, and as a result Kabuto ends up losing his own paint job.
  • Good thing Superboy bought so many shirts in Young Justice. His favorite boots were destroyed by magma though.
  • On The Spectacular Spider-Man, Peter's suit suffers this a lot. Not generally Fanservice.
  • Catwoman's suit receives a pretty hefty helping of this by the end of DC Showcase: Catwoman.
  • Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes
    • Happens to The Wasp, Captain America, Black Panther, and several civilians and SHIELD agents (but not Iron Man) after The Leader unleashes a gamma explosion that turns them into monsters.
    • In an early episode, Captain America's outfit gets torn when a WWII-era pursuit of Red Skull instead results in an explosion causing Cap to drown into the Arctic Ocean and freeze for over 60 years.
  • Futurama: Enforced in "I Second That Emotion." When Leela is offered up as a "virgin" sacrifice by the sewer mutants, the mutant leader orders a minion to chain her to a post, then tear her shirt a little.


Real Life[]

  • In a rather bizarre case in real life, the 20 July 1944 attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler only resulted in him getting minor injuries and having his trousers blown off. Four others died.
  • Severe clothing damage, including naked victims, is common enough in high-explosive detonations that first responders can usually tell if they're dealing with a criminal bombing or genuine accident.
    • It's also quite common for people in car accidents, either crashes or being run over, to lose their clothes from a severe impact. Many of the graphic images of victims available on the internet show them with their pants or shirts half-gone.
  • This isn't quite a fanservice example, but it's Egregious enough to be worth mentioning. During the Winter War, after the Russians had enough people killed by Simo Häyhä that they just decided to carpet bomb the entire forest he was in, he finally took some damage... to his coat.
  • In many massed melee battles in history, the amount of movement and the proximity of a writhing, stabbing, pulling, punching, slashing, and hooking masses of men can actually cause certain fighters in said battles to come out completely naked and covered in cuts. This is one of the reasons why armor of any kind, despite the numerous amounts of armor-piercing weapons, exists.
  1. some do that even when they go right
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