Magic Skirt

Another picture people thought was sexy... I wanted to draw a pose that showed off her shoes, so it turned out like this. Her skirt is kept in place by magic.
—Ume Aoki, on this picture of Yuno◊ from Hidamari Sket
The odd local laws of physics which apply to a (super) heroine's impossibly short skirt which cause it to always cover everything regardless of what ridiculous things she may be doing, like falling legs first. Note that the skirt always conceals the girl's modesty from "the camera", i.e. the viewers at home, and thus acts as a form of censorship. In Japan it is known as an iron skirt due to the uncompromising and impenetrable defense. This trope's at least plausible if the skirts are quite close-fitting. It applies more to the pleated skirts which are in no way prevented from flapping around —Supergirl, we're looking at you.
Can coincide with Panty Shot if another character is watching from a different position, albeit without the usual Fanservice. Occasionally this trope gets averted by simply giving the character something extra to wear under said impossibly short flappy skirt — usually something akin to cycling shorts, as worn by Skuld, Setsuna, Cure Black, Hinagiku, and the post-Matt-IdelsonSupergirl.
And one last way to at least try to explain this is if said heroine is actually falling headfirst at the time; then it can be believed that wind resistance plus inertia keeps the skirt pointing back where the character came from.
It's the thing you must wear for convenience sake if you are an Action Girl, otherwise you're going to tear the hem off every dress you wear if you want to be able to move.
In some cases when an up-skirt angle can't be avoided, an additional tactic is to make the area under the skirt impossibly dark as if there were a miniature black hole within.
For clothing that mysteriously maintains dignity in the face of Transformation Sequence-based Clothing Damage rather than Waif-Fu, see Magic Pants.
Compare Impossibly Low Neckline. Contrast Panty Shot.
==Examples==
*Lotte no Omocha! makes use of this quite often thanks to Asuha frequently discarding her panties. This happens with a few other characters Going Commando as well, but mostly just Asuha.
*All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku uses this in the TV series (obivously caused by the time slot), but not in the OVA series.
*Futakoi Alternative: during the whole first episode, which uses a ridiculous amount of Stuff Blowing Up and other activities involving Action Girl, there is even no Panty Shot during the Super Window Jump. In a loose skirt. With the camera near the earth and looking up.
*Umineko no Naku Koro ni Jessica's skirt is very short, but good luck finding pantyshots.
*The characters on Noir are always covered by their skirts, even when upside down.
**Especially noticeable to Cosplayers, who will attest to the impossibility of replicating Mireille Bouquet's leather miniskirt without occasionally flashing people.
**Apparently, the animators learned the lesson and gave Madlax and Nadie hotpants. And Ellis, who wears a loose tunic, is a telekinesis-capable witch, to boot. Evidence indicates that she doesn't wear anything under it, so the Magic Skirt is an absolute necessity.
*Mai in (the 2006) Kanon.
*Saya, at the end of the third opening of Blood+.
**And again in Blood-C, during the various Monster of the Week fights.
*Kyou and Tomoyo in CLANNAD as well, which is quite surprising, considering all the high kicks they do. (Though they aren't shown to the viewer, Kyou's flying high-kick does end up giving Sunohara a fleeting glimpse (light blue) at one point.)
*InuYasha: Intentionally invoked by the author herself who point-blank told the animators to never reveal Kagome's underwear no matter how rough the action became. As a result, although there was at least one occasion where both Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru must have had an eyeful◊, you'd never actually know it from what they're thinking◊. This author-originated taboo extended to other characters as well. As a result, Kohaku's very short kosode never reveals anything and neither does Kouga's very short fur kilt.
*There were some comments about Yuki Nagato's fight against Ryoko Asakura in Suzumiya Haruhi about how her acrobatics never actually led to any panty-flashes.
**Likewise, Haruhi's dropkick of the Computer Club President with nary of glimpse of her panties also fits this trope.
**Because of the nature of both girls (especially Yuki), this is more "Powered by Microsoft SQL" Skirt...
***Please. I'm sure she uses Postgres or at least Oracle. It would be so like her...
*In Futari wa Pretty Cure, not only there's the Cure Black shorts-under-skirt example above, but also her partner Cure White has a skirt that only ever flies up either to the side or in the direction you're not looking. This is even seen in her civilian form in the second opening, where her skirt actually seems to lengthen for this purpose.
**A similar example happens in Fresh Pretty Cure!; their underskirts are so frilly that you can't even see panties. Cure Lemonade used a similar method; her teammates and immediate predecessors follow the Cure Black technique.
*Despite having a large Lolicon fanbase (including an adolescent girl who is one in the show itself) Card Captor Sakura never gets a panty shot, even with all the ridiculous costumes made by the aforementioned lolicon fan, and even while cheerleading in a very short skirt.
**This is said to have been ordered for Sakura; despite short pleated skirts of both the schoolgirl and cheerleader variety and dozens of fanciful battle costumes, there's not a Panty Shot in the series. Then again, unlike Kagome and the women of Noir, she's ten.
**You do see right up her skirt on at least two or three occasions in the anime (in the Jump and Sleep card episodes for example), however all you see is darkness or brown shorts under the skirt.
*In the same fashion, Juri's skirt in Digimon Tamers flaps around freely when standing but is magnetically attracted to her knees when she sits or kneels (and she spends a long time crouching on the ground towards the end of the series). Ruki's Transformation Sequence (nekkid and glowy, albeit with Anime Anatomy) is apparently perfectly OK, however.
*Yomi and Kagura in Ga-Rei -Zero-.
*In Keroro Gunsou; despite getting attacked and spun around at least once an episode, Natsumi's skirt manages to conceal the goodies. That Vacuum cleaner in the first episode tried its best, though. She also holds her skirt up after getting trapped in Sgt. Frog's snare, causing her to hang upside down by one foot.◊
**Not in the manga however. Panty shots (and occasional nudity) abound. That would be because the anime is supposed to be more kid-friendly.
*Hinoki of Betterman, despite sporting a pleated skirt that's an inch away from being reclassified as a belt.
*Hikari/Dawn in Pokémon. She has had exactly one Panty Shot (black, if you must know), despite having a skirt which looks like it should flash people every time she bends over.
**The black panty upskirt was recently edited out and it's probably impossible to find it in a video but this◊is not fake, it was taken before the recent editing of the episode "Steamboat Willies".
**DP122 gives her another, see here◊. Noticeably the shot is right before some QUALITY animation (use that to build whatever theory you will).
**There was once a video, involving a person in a Dawn mascot costume, shows just how bad that skirt of hers would really be. Even walking seems to result in exposure.
*Seras Victoria from Hellsing wore a tiny miniskirt, and yet only had one Panty Shot in the entire series (the final chapter) despite numerous occasions of her kicking, crouching, and generally having enough crotch shots to fulfill a hundred panty shots.
*Played straight in Bleach. The only two females to display any acrobatics while wearing a skirt are Rukia and Tatsuki, both in schoolgirl uniforms; Rukia is decidedly the more daring of the two, delivering a blow to a Hollow with her knee. Tatsuki, on the other hand, does not have any qualms about kicking openlylesbian Chizuru in the face, darkness obscuring her unmentionables from view.
**However, later in that scene, a different angle shows that Chizuru is on her stomach while Tatsuki is kicking her.
**"Hey!! You're flashing the quad!!" When Orihime "smells" Ichigo and nearly jumps out the window trying to find him.
**What about Nemu? With that "skirt" and combat style in the ending, she should be making panty shots just by walking or sitting down.
**Lampshaded once when Rukia steps out of Ichigo's closet onto Kon's face, obscuring his left eye. Then, as if it weren't already obvious to the readers/viewers, a dotted arrow leads from Kon's unobstructed eye to, guess where?
**While the anime likes to hide things like Sexy Back and visible G-strings (Yoruichi and Soi Fon) with undershirts and the like, Tite Kubo apparently had no qualms about them when he drew them in the first place.
**Subverted during the Bount filler arc, as Rukia jumps out of Ichigo's window, momentarily exposing nearly her entire lower anatomy as she lands◊. Her strategically positioned leg covers her essentials.
**During her fight in episode 124, Lisa Yadomaru was doing all sorts of flips and upside-down spinning handstand kicks and yet her short skirt never revealed anything.
**The same is true for Senna from Memories of Nobody and Homura from Fade to Black; no matter how much the skirts moves, we never got a shot from either of them.
**Don't forget when Neliel fights Nnoitra! this is especially obvious in one shot in the anime where she is twirling in the air in a slow motion shot, that from where the camera is pointed should show right between her legs, but her green skirt sort of wraps around so we never see if she is actually wearing underwear or not.
*All the characters in the Pretty Sammy series. It looks sort of silly at times, such as when Sammy gets slam dunked into a basketball hoop rear first and her skirt just happens to maintain itself.
**And this is another series where full-frontal toplessness (and backlessnes) was OK. Oh well, we'll just make do...
*Chiko from The Daughter of Twenty Faces. Admittedly, her skirt is oftentimes more like a dress in length, but still, considering all the insane acrobatic stunts she does...
**She does show off a lot of leg though, but it somehow gets cut off before it gets too high. That's some magic there.
*The entire cast of Lucky Star —especially during the OP animation.
*Shinosuka from Gad Guard. Especially evident since the camera is frequently behind her while she's flying through the sky on the back of her Humongous Mecha and it's still stuck to her legs.
*The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, despite leaping and falling a lot.
*The girls of Manabi Straight, to ridiculous levels.
*Most of the girls in Petite Princess Yucie wear magic skirts — which is even more amazing if you consider their shape.
*Chen Agi of Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack wears a mini skirt as part of her military uniform. Not so bad, until you see the scenes where she's bouncing around IN SPACE and she doesn't flash any of the males in the process!
*The girls from Windy Tales manage to never flash their panties even once, despite the shortness of their school uniform's skirts and all the wind that blows around them, often caused by themselves. Sure, their fairly unique character designs might have something to do with it, but still...
*The three titular ten-year-olds in Zettai Karen Children have this. Sixteen-year-old Naomi doesn't.
*Hinamori Amu's "Amulet Heart" form from Shugo Chara! features a cheerleading skirt, which is usually a magic skirt... except for the third opening, where Heart gets panty-shotted several times in 10 seconds (you should never wear a skirt while using flying roller-skates). Her other two usual transformations don't fall under this, since Spade wears pants and Clover's "skirt" is VERY tight. Diamond, Devil, and Angel haven't been used long enough yet to judge. Some of the Shugo Charas themselves seem to wear Magic Skirts as well, especially Ran, who is the source of Amu's "Amulet Heart" transformation.
**In the manga, there are several upskirt shots of Amulet Heart, in which she is shown with pink, what I assume is, trunks, considering that Ran, the source of the transformation, is shown to be cheerleader-themed. Also, Ran wears really puffy versions of trunks in her non-transformed self.
**Also, several of the girls' chara-transforms are shown to have shorts, such as Utau's charatransform with Dia and Amu's with Yoru, though this was only shown in an omake illustration.
*In Record of Lodoss War, Deedlit would sometimes fly around with a lot of dramatic wind. The wind would blow her hair and cape around, but not her skirt.
*Ran and Midori from Telepathy Shoujo Ran have these, and they tend to wear rather short skirts throughout the series.
*Soul Eater: In the anime version, Maka's skirt might as well be glued on. No amount of tumbling or backflipping will budge it.
**In an early episode however, Maka ended up dangling by one foot, and she had to hold her skirt with her hands.
**In the 3rd ending, nearly all the angles and camera views are prime territory for a panty shot of Maka's; however, you never see anything. One of the shots is even looking up, from the ground, directly underneath Maka, and still, you see nothing.
**Mifune also has a Magic Jacket. Despite keeping both his arms out of the sleeves at all times, it stays perched solidly on his shoulders. While he jumps around in the air and fights with about three dozen swords.
*Sailor Moon's manga version, to the point it's just ridiculous. Nicely subverted in Sailor V, when the resident Game Otaku pulls Minako's skirt just to see her panties (or if she's a girl, but it still was one hell of a subversion). Of course, taking in consideration that Sailor Moon and Sailor V were serialized in Nakayoshi (a really strict shoujo manga magazine), Naoko had to take such providences to avoid Panty Shots.
**The anime threw out the magic skirts in favor of normal ones, probably because the fight scenes would be nigh-impossible to animate otherwise. Of course, the girls are wearing Leotards Of Power when transformed, so it makes sense that they wouldn't mind as much.
*In most versions of Cutie Honey, Honey's miniskirt allows for Panty Shots aplenty, but the shoujo Cutie Honey Flash put on a spell on her skirt.
*The opening sequence to Majokko Megu-chan (Toei, 1974) features the title character hanging by her knees from a flying broomstick, her hemline defying all known laws of physics◊. This is a remarkable omission in itself, given the amount of Fanservice that occurred throughout the series◊.
*Ogata Rin of Ride Back has this. She has a long dress, but the stunts she pulls should've flashed many people already.
**Actually in the first episode, as she rides Fuego for the first time, a man she passes yells "I can see your panties!" Presumably she flashes lots of people, just not the viewers.
**There's actually some flashing in the last episode.
*Parodied in the "toxin purging" episode of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei — the theme of the episode was the girls losing the "toxic" parts of their personality that made them THEM after a detoxifying soak in a hot springs... so when chronic Panty Shot character Kaere trips and her bath-towel comes off, she is shown wearing a full-body wetsuit that would, of course, been impossible to hide under that towel. Fujiyoshi even outright states "we were expecting fanservice for the viewers, but they didn't even use a swimsuit!"
*Happens to Moka (only Moka) of Rosario+Vampire in the manga version only. The anime Moka is a Panty Fighter. Both love high kicks.
**Magic Skirt was Inverted from the very first episode of Rosario+Vampire, when Moka proves that she can do so much as walk, and the tiny skirt she has to wear for school will not hide anything.
**Averted by Yukari when Kurumu and Mizore hang her up by her ankles; she's holding her skirt in place with both hands.
*Sandy, the little girl in the children's series The Noozles, has a panty shot in a particular episode where she's underwater (a rear shot as she swims away from the camera). Later in the episode she gets caught in a snare. It can be assumed that her skirt flipped over as she hangs upside down as the view of her is of head and shoulders only. As the snare catches her foot and lifts her up, she remains sideways until she is out of shot.
*Shampoo's Chinese minidress in Ranma ½. Nevermind that it's scandalously skin-tight, it's also unbelievably short. This is even spoofed in her introductory arc, when she hangs upside-down from a tree and she has to tuck the hem of her dress between her thighs.
**Otherwise, the manga and anime aren't really shy about this. Kodachi's first appearance involve a backflip and an obvious panty shot, despite her wearing a long skirt.
**Which is funny, since the maker of Ranma ½seems to have NO problem with full frontal nudity.
*Similar to the Inu Yasha example above, animators for Vision of Escaflowne were specifically instructed not to let Hitomi's constant leaping or running show her unmentionables. This is quite a feat, as the girl is a top track runner and long jumper and enjoys displaying these skills often.
*The lead girls from Dennou Coil never get any panty shots, despite all all the jumping, crouching and climbing they do while wearing short skirts. Kyoko gets one briefly, but even that one is only to show that she's just a little kid.
*While not direct magic skirt usage, newer anime averts this realistically by giving the girls a set of shorts to wear under it, ranging from biker shorts to skirt length shorts including Biri Biri from A Certain Magical Index and Alice from Nightmare of Nunnally.
**Something similar was done quite earlier in Urusei Yatsura: When Lum started going to Ataru's school and wearing the uniform one of the female teachers noticed that she flashes anyone who she passes over when flying around, and gives her a pair of gym shorts to wear under it.
*With all the jumping, flying, etc., that Lenalee in D. Gray-Man does, and with how goddamn short the skirt is, it's amazing how little — if any — Panty Shots there are of her. There's no wonder as to why Komui's so protective.
**It seems like there are little to no panty shots of her in-universe as well. Lavi, Allen and Kanda are only shown finding out that she's usually wearing shorts underneath her skirt when they get new uniforms and she lets them see, despite fighting alongside her numerous times. And even though they were with her in Japan after her second uniform, including the skirt, was destroyed and she was wearing shorts..
*Lampshaded in one episode of Nerima Daikon Brothers: with Mako planted headfirst in the dirt by Yukika, Hideki wonders if her skirt will succumb to gravity, giving him a peek at her panties. Ichiro tells him not to get his hopes up about what the animators will show.
*Saki has a... weird version of this. Even though the characters wear these short skirts and the series uses angles that should normally give a Panty Shot, no panty shots have ever been shown. There is, however, suspiciously bare flesh in its stead. These has led readers and viewers to wonder if the characters are wearing really small panties, or if they aren't wearing any panties at all.
*In Mahou Sensei Negima!!, Fate's girls get Magic Skirts after losing their panties to Jack Rakan. But even then, they only cover the bare minimum.
**It's worth noting that besides this one incident, the strip typically averts this as much as it possibly can. Regardless of whether the girl in question has panties on or not.
*In Fruits Basket, Tohru wears a very short skirt as her part of her school uniform (apparently one can decide on the length, due to the fact that Uo and Hana's skirts are longer.) Even though it would barely cover her underwear in Real Life, nothing is ever seen, even if she falls down.
**The artist once mentioned that Tohru wears shorts under her skirt.
*The two high-kick-to-the-face happy female leads of Angel Densetsu manage not to flash the reader every other panel without any kind of Magic Skirt. It's all done by skillfull camera angles. It's lampshaded a couple of times when someone flashes some other character (luckily not the reader, in one case it would have been a bit squicky )
*Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne wears one of these. Despite being a Kaitou who does a lot of impressive acrobatics, we never catch a glimpse of her panties. Maron, too, in the Transformation Sequence that involves her jumping from a high place and transforming in mid-air. Apparently the skirt is turned off when Chiaki is around, though, as their very first meeting involves her falling on the floor and him commenting on the "great view". The skirt is mostly active only when she is moving. If she's sitting holding her knees, then the magic magically disappears.
*Eureka's dress in Eureka Seven, as well as Talho's skirt. Though Talho later gets an Important Haircut and corresponding clothing change that does away with her old Stripperiffic outfit.</span>
**Interestingly enough, this trope is mostly averted by Anemone from the same series, although she does wear shorts underneath.
*Kuniko Hojo from Shangri-la. Her anime-length skirt never flashes anything (at least on camera), despite her acrobatic moves. It's widely confirmed she wears polka-dots, though.
**There's exactly ONE panty shot in the entire series, in the last episode. For ONE frame.
*Miki and Megumi from Muteki Kanban Musume never once flash their panties, despite all the high-level martial arts moves they pull off. Megumi has the excuse that she's usually wearing long dresses, but Miki's skirt is fairly short.
*Tea Gardner from Yu-Gi-Oh! wears a short skirt as part of her main outfits, including part of her school uniform, a blue skirt with a yellow blouse that is pleated at the bottom, a pink vest, and tan boots during the entirety of season 1 of Yu-Gi-Oh! and Code Lyoko, and a red skirt with either a yellow t-shirt (which had the word "SPIRIT" written on it, but was removed from the Ocean Group dub) and tan boots in some episodes of seasons 2 and 3 of Yu-Gi-Oh! until entirety of seasons 2 and 3 of Sonic X, or with a black t-shirt (with a capital "A" written on it, but was also removed from the Ocean Group dub) and white boots throughout seasons 4 and 5 and Dragon Ball GT.
*Asuka (Alexis) in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX (as well as all the other female students) wears a ridiculously short blue skirt for a uniform. It's more tight-fitting than most anime skirts, but this trope certainly applies, as it never seems to move in the slightest, no matter what she does.
**Just about every girl in Yu-Gi-Oh ZeXaL has a Magic Skirt.
*Reiri in the Princess Resurrection anime sure seems like a panty shot waiting to happen, but in practice, her skirt does an excellent job of being in the right place at the right time. Hime's skirt has an easier job since she doesn't fly around — and let's face it, no one would dare to peek anyway.
*Shiranui's introductory episode in Seto no Hanayome features a magic skirt as Shiranui meets Saru. He bows down to kiss her feet and swear fealty to her, but she takes it the wrong way and starts kicking his face. The camera drops to beside Saru's face and the front of Shiranui's skirt magically jumps in between her legs.
*Chrome Dokuro of Katekyo Hitman Reborn! must have some of these as she never has a panty shot no matter what the skirt's length is, and the one time we DO get to see her bottom she's not even wearing any panties, much less a skirt.
*Despite what you might think from the gratuitous fanservice of the official artwork, the girls of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni wear magic skirts and are definitely not fanservicey. (Unless you're into that kind of thing.)
*Averted in Bakemonogatari, in the final episode (15, not 12). Shinobu attacks Black Hanekawa with a series of flips and kicks, and if you frame step through the sequence, it is quite clear she isn't wearing panties under that dress. It turns out the only thing she has on is a strategically placed bandaid....
*As opposed to several of the girls of Hayate the Combat Butler, stating that they wear bicycle shorts to avert this (and once in the background Izumi was facing away from the audience during a kick and the guys who ended up seeing lampshading that they saw), Nagi is given a literal magic skirt that's somehow attached to her kicking leg to avert the panty shot while she's facing the audience in a promotional picture.
*Madoka Magica: It would seem that part of Mami's magic is keeping her skirt up when hung upside down.
*In Hidan No Aria, even as Aria is dangling upside down from a parachute while pulling guns out of garters that are well below the hem of her skirt, it stays up no matter what.
*A variation in Cowboy Bebop with Ed's magic shirt. At one point, Ed is hanging upside-down with her arms over her head, and her shirt doesn't go down much further past her navel.
*Merry Nightmare has a skirt like this. The manga actually manages to reveal what kind of panties Merry wears without ever giving away a Panty Shot — in one scene, a villain slides across the floor and winds up between her feet, and there are stripes reflected in his eyes when he looks straight up.
*Alice's skirt is very short, and with the amount she likes kicking people you'd think that something would show. But, surprisingly, nothing does.
*This unfortunately happens with Nami throughout One Piece.
*Lucy Heartphilia from Fairy Tail has this same problem despite that almost all her outfits include a short skirt.
**As of the second half of the Edolas arc, Lucy's dress shows her green panties almost all the time.
***She's wearing a bikini with a pareo so that wouldn't really count as a Panty Shot.
**This happens with Erza Scralet in the anime.
*Rahzel from Dazzle frequently wears miniskirts, and fights in them, but we never get so much as a glimpse of anything underneath. Lampshaded in oneFourth Wall Mail Slot segment.
*Ben-To's Ice Witch and the other female combatants. Lots of thigh focus though.
*Sandy in The Noozles
*It was averted in the early theatrical version of the movie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Jessica Rabbit wore a dress with a long slit up the side that, in one scene where she's thrown from a crashing car, briefly flashes her naughty bits. Once Disney had caught on to what the animators had done, the scene was changed, and it thus came in line with this trope.
*Disney's Tarzan has a magic loincloth, although if one were to, er, look up his skirt in the Kingdom Hearts game, one would see he wears matching bikini briefs underneath.
**Generally a loincloth is one strip of fabric that goes between the legs, is belted at the waist, and hangs down in front and back, so he's really just wearing a normal loincloth. Nothing to see here.
*Disney's Alice in Wonderland has Alice hanging by her feet from a tree branch but her skirt stays where it is (yet earlier we see her tumbling down the rabbit hole and we see her calf-length pantaloons).
*Disney's Pocahontas. Even when she jumps down a waterfall, her little dress thing still stays down.
*In Monster House Jenny's skirt manages to barely budge despite all the acrobatics.
*Crysta in FernGully. Same problem as Tinkerbell, only even curvier, with a shorter skirt, and dancing with jazz spins.
*Now, in the case of Tinkerbell, this isn't exactly true. Example: keyhole scene. Tink's panties are visible in several shots actually, for the first Peter Pan film. However, this trope is played straight in the sequel Return to Never Land, and the current CGI Tinker Bell films. Not in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleephowever, in which she has a fairy extended upskirt shot. She has pink panties, for the record.
**"Fairy" extended? Nice typo.
*In the animated Batman movie Sub-Zero, Barbara Gordon (a.k.a. Batgirl) is wearing the same early 60s' loose dress through the episode. In a chase scene through Mr. Freeze's lair, we see a ground shot of her leaping up to grab an overhead pipe and swing over. The drawing where we should have and could have seen something was deliberately left out. Later, Barbara rides a pully down a wire and her skirt goes only as far as her thighs.
*The blue cocktail dress Roxanne is wearing when Titan is tossing her through the sky in Megamind.
*Disney's Hercules gives a rare male version of this trope. The titular hero's armored skirt doesn't even reach his knees, and despite all that he gets into, there's never any shots of what's underneath.
*In the opening few minutes of Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, Supergirl wears nothing but a loose trench coat. While flying for the first time, she turns upside down moving upwards and the coat continues to cover her Kryptonian privates.
*In the 2002 live action Scooby-Doo movie, Velma falls off a scaffold and gets her foot caught in the scaffold's chain, making her hang upside down◊when it goes taut. Her skirt does not fall over as the studio wanted to maintain the "family film" sense. Word is that Linda Cardellini (who played Velma) had her skirt taped to her legs so it wouldn't flip over as she hung upside down. In the 2004 sequel, Velma jumps into a boat vent funnel and for a couple of frames, she is shown wearing orange panties.
*In the movie Troy, Achilles' (Brad Pitt) leather skirt somehow manages to completely obscure all private parts, despite Achilles leaping into the air with his legs spread apart.
*In Ghostbusters 2, the lawyer representing the district Attorney's office is captured by a ghost, and is held upside-down by one foot (with the other kicking around) and carried out of the courtroom by it. Her skirt stays completely on her legs the entire time.
**While the novelisation of the movie says that she was struggling to keep her skirt from rolling over.
*Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct was probably expecting her skirt to do this. Whoops.
*Both played straight and averted in James Cameron's Avatar. The Na'vi almost never wear anything but loincloths, but you never see anything down below. The aversion is Ney'tiri's top; it's basically just a bunch of strings, and you do catch a glimpse of her nipples every once in a while.
*In the 2010 Clash of the Titans, Action Girl Io's dress follows the trope during the scorpion battle.
*In the Doctor Who serial "The Invasion", Jamie was required to climb into a helicopter. The crew followed the example of Elizabeth II below and gave him a Magic Kilt by sewing weights into the hem.
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer — the first season, pretty much.
*Completely averted in the Live Action version of Sailor Moon. While you rarely see anything in the Anime or Manga, the live action has the Senshi doing flips and relaying much more on hand-to-hand combat (mainly due to it being a tokuotsu version of the series). The Senshi's skirts pretty much flip once per episode due to this. Though they're wearing leotards under the skirts so no Panty Shots for you.
**Though it is played straight with Sailor V. She doesn't get any flips that would give her a panty shot (likely due to her uniform being a skirt and shirt combo rather than a skirt over a leotard).
*Echo on Dollhouse wore a skirt while dancing during the first episode which, to the naked eye, would suggest it's so short it shouldn't cover so much as half of her ass. Magic is really the only logical explanation.
**However, in some bar-heavy neighborhoods that sort of skirt is nothing unusual on a friday or saturday night.
*Renee O'Conner, the actress of Gabrielle from Xena: Warrior Princess, had her skirt taped down by staff before she'd do fight scenes.
*Spoofed in The Benny Hill Show, where a "murder victim" can be seen rearranging her skirt in the background.
*Averted by River Tam of Firefly, who (in keeping with her erratic taste in clothes) wears bike shorts under her skirt, in both the dance scene in "Safe" and the bar fight in Serenity.
*Power Rangers, despite being a huge fan of Skirt over Slacks, has choreographed fight scenes that play this trope straight. They are in a very small minority, though.
*Zig-zagged in an episode of Gilligan's Island: Gilligan has a vision disorder that makes him see everything upside down. He asks Ginger and Mary Ann why their skirts aren't falling over.
**Pretty much every single character in Eternal Fighter Zero.
***Although you can burn their clothes off with any fiery attack.
**Final Fantasy VIII allows the player to cast Scan on their own party members and rotate their models up and down, and around. However, Selphie can only rotate around, not up or down, and thus, her panites remain safe. At least as far as Scan is concerned.
***Quistis wears a Skirt over Slacks, and Rinoa Modesty Shorts, so this isn't an issue with them.
***On the flip side, Selphie makes a point to jump up and down when you win a battle. Depending on the camera angle, the player can see up her dress when she does this - she wears white or light blue apparently.
**Final Fantasy XIII.
***Go ahead, just pick an action sequence with Lightning in it. Any one at all.
****Somewhat justified. The box art for the game revealed that she's wearing what appear to be very short biker shorts underneath the skirt.
***Serah's mini skirt is definitely magical. It somehow hugs her derriere during supine levitation and when landing in a crouch after a drop of several feet.
**Occasionally crops up in fighting games. Disregarding the question of why you're in a fighting tournament wearing a long slit skirt and high heels, Anna Williams in the Tekken games doesn't have any wardrobe failures if, say, turned upside down for a friendly Tombstone piledriver. Then again, in the same game, Ling Xiaoyu's skirt (if in a pleated schoolgirl one) may or may not follow this, depending on the mood of the game engine.
**The Artificial Girl series of Hentai games suffers from this phenomenon, though more for technical reasons than any attempt at modesty (obviously). In fact, even the characters' hair fails to obey the law of gravity.
***That's because Illusion has no physics engine; all the Gainaxing is done by animation.
**Any BioWare game in which anyone wears a skirt of any sort. The skirt appears glued to the character's legs, and in the case of longer skirts stretches to accomodate a normal walking motion.
***Prime offenders are Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age, and Dragon Age 2. Especially blatant during the animated Sacred Ashes trailer for Dragon Age, where Leliana's skirt stays on regardless of how many acrobatics she does.
**In a commercial for Guitar Hero: World Tour, supermodel Heidi Klum recreates the iconic "Old Time Rock And Roll" scene from Risky Business, but the shirt she wears stays firmly at waist-level, not even revealing whether or not she's wearing the requisite boxers. The trope is immediately subverted in a sequel commercial where Klum ditches the shirt altogether and cavorts in her underwear.
**In the Super Smash Bros. series, Peach and Zelda must buy their magic dresses from the same place. Maybe Zelda uses her own magic on hers, but it still doesn't make much sense. Slightly averted, as pausing and rotating the camera at the right time show that under those dresses, Peach wears panties and Zelda wears... Sheik's boy shorts? On a more disturbing note, Young Link's tunic. * twitch*
***Or maybe Zelda used to have panties and had one too many "accidents" while leaping.
***This is actually averted in Super Smash Bros. Melee. If you do Peach's taunt when in one of Donkey Kong's stages (the verticle climb one) when the wind is blowing... surprise!
**On that note, Link in Twilight Princess. He spend a fair portion of the game walking on the ceiling (magnetic walls + iron boots), yet the skirty portion of his tunic stays firmly in place, gravity be damned. His hat, however...
***Ironic since this is the first time that Link wears actual pants so it wouldn't be indecent.
***It should be noted that TP Link's tunic seems to be made of firmer material than his previous incarnations, and doesn't flap much in general. The developers may not have been aiming for this specifically.
**The strange miniskirts that form the bottom half of leather armor on male and female characters in Dragon Age always remain in place, though at one point Alistair does get a nice view.
**Ilyana, a playable mage in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (and later, the sequel, Radiant Dawn), has a ridiculously short skirt. While she has plenty of panty shots in the first game (almost every attack!), the only thing that results in one in the 2nd game is attacking through a barrier (barriers you can attack through are only in a handful of levels).
***It's okay, though. When she reaches Tier 3, she get a see-through skirt.
**Freya of the Valkyrie Profile series has a skirt that's about as short as can be without showing anything in a normal pose. Everthing somehow remains hidden as she flies around the battlefield, while the camera draws attention to her hips.
***Depending on the game, she's actually wearing a combination of a leotard and a skirt.
**Male example: In Castlevania: Bloodlines, Eric "Spear Dude" Lecarde's short tunic stays in place even when completely upside-down AND flying feet-first.
***The Fairy Familiar in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night averts this, managing to have her dress fly up whenever she takes the most minor of falls.
**In the Ash the Archknight sidegame of Dragon Fable, the first story has a bit where a princess in a long dress, with a slit up the side no less, is being held upside down by a monster. Her dress is, presumably, held up by magic.
**In Persona 4. Yukiko's summer outfit uses the "lots of shadow" variant.
***Also played straight in Persona 3 for Yukari and Mitsuru. Also played straight with the PSP versions female MC.
**In Arcana Heart and Arcana Heart Full, none of the all female cast will have a panty shot, no matter what the circumstances are.
***Except with Petra in Arcana Heart 2, where one of her supers causes one.
**Lampshaded with Shii from AdventureQuest. The PC even refers to it as her "impossibly short skirt."
**Noel Vermillion of Blazblue plays it straight. Litchi Faye Ling and especially Taokaka, however, are more than generous with the panty shots.
***A piece of official art for the console release of Continuum Shift seems to suggest that Noel is Going Commando, which would explain the need for a Magic Skirt.
***And as the opening to Continuum Shift II will tell you, Platinum... does not have a Magic Skirt. And doesn't wear panties. Oh God.
**Baiken in the Guilty Gear series is one of (if not the) only character not wearing pants that doesn't show her panties at any point despite raising her leg well above her head when doing her tatami mat special. Possibly justified in that it's entirely possible she might not be wearing panties at all, if her lack of a sarashi is any indication.
***Baiken's outfit doesn't flip up when she kicks or uses the tatami mat because it hangs open at the front, almost all the way to her hip — one of her legs is completely uncovered even when she's standing still◊. Still, her opponent must be getting an eyeful...
**Newer games in Japan are stricter with upskirt shots than usual, the CG usually has some means to cover up any potential panty shots and Panty FighterIkkitousen only has upskirt shots on the sprites, not the CGs. Agarest Senki, a game known for fanservice, has all upskirt shots covered. Total undergarment exposure is fine, though.
**Heather from Silent Hill 3. I mean, come on, she's going to Silent Hill and she's wearing a miniskirt!
**Play with in Atelier Totori. In an interview about a scene where Totori is subject to being harassed by an octopus, people thought it was her panties, but theproducers said they were bloomers.
***And once again in Senran Kaguya where the female cast wears swimsuits which are impervious to clothing damage
**King of Fighters/Dead or Alive. If indeed he has a wang (of black stone pulsating with golden light, no doubt), Mukai's... cloth... thing thankfully keeps it in check every time he raises his leg above his head to deliver a special attack (which is often). He kicks high.
**Played straight with Blaze Fielding in the original Streets of Rage... for the Genesis/Mega Drive. For some reason, even though her sprite is scaled down (very much so in the Game Gear version) the artists for the 8 bit versions decided to add a flash of white to just about every Blaze sprite that wasn't standing or punching.
***Averted or played straight in Streets Of Rage 2/Bare Knuckle II depending on your region. The international versions redrew a Panty Shot jumpkick for Blaze, changing the placement of her legs to hide her crotch.
**Averted in Street Fighter; Sakura wears shorts under her school skirt.
**In World of Warcraft, many characters, both male and female, wear robe, dress or skirt-like clothing. Any action the character might undergo that would move the character upside down though does not lift up the hem of the garment above the basic position, however, due to limitations in the game's models. Looking up the garment while a character might be floating will just reveal hints of the ankle and blackness. As result of how their feet look, Draenei, Worgen, Tauren and Troll players don't even see footgear on below the hem of the garments.
***The skirts in some Professional Wrestling games would follow this style, too. Makes picking your panty design almost redundant.
**All skirts in City of Heroes function this way, at least in the "never fall over" department. With all the flips and such that certain characters do, panty shots are frequent, but very hard to catch.
**In Skies of Arcadia, characters' clothes flutter whenever they use magic. Fina's skirt only goes up to her knees. (Aika's skirt goes up all the way, but she's wearing shorts, and it's questionable if that's really a "skirt" anyway.)
**Red Alert 3: Yuriko Omega's Obligatory Schoolgirl Skirt goes back and forth. On the one hand, she can hover, do random spins, and flip tanks around without showing the camera anything. (But then, it's a 3/4ths overhead camera, so it's not hard. No word on what the guys on the ground see…) On the other hand, it's pretty easy to get a Panty Shot - when she dies. (For the record, it's pink.) Yes, this means Yuriko panty shots cost two thousand credits each -Worth It?
**Amy Rose in the Sonic the Hedgehog series post-Sonic Adventure. Interestingly, while in the 3D-based games, she plays this straight and the players'll get a little too much of it, in the 2D-based games, jumping animations go out of its way to have Amy hold down her skirt while falling. Even in Sonic Advance, her falling pose in the ending has her holding down her skirt.
**A non-issue in Touhou Project games. In the tradition top-down danmaku shooters, due to odd perspective between the boss and the player, you'd think thecharacter could probably see up her opponent's skirt (but not the player). In the fighting games, characters hit hard enough fly and spin around the stage uncontrollably. The non-issue is that they all either wear long skirts (or layers of skirts, historically-speaking) and/or bloomers. The fans have a bloomer fetish.
**In the Harry Potter video games, all the female students at Hogwarts wear skirts which sometimes seem like they could qualify as very long miniskirts. Starting with The Order of the Phoenix, you learn the spell, Levicorpus, which hangs your opponents in dueling upside-down by the ankles. When you duel a girl, her skirt still covers her underpants even when this spell in cast! (At around 2:14). However, in the Half-Blood Prince, Expelliarmus will knock opponents over and occasionally their legs will be apart. If this happens with a girl, everything starting from a certain point under her skirt will be strategically shaded.
**The Powerpuff Girls' dresses cling tightly to their bodies even while they fly around and fight monsters. It's more a stylistic choice than a censorship trope, because due to their young age and simple designs they're already shown in their underwear from time to time.
**Kim Possible has the good sense to not go looking for a fight in a skirt, but trouble occasionally finds her while in an evening gown, or a cheerleading outfit. When she does get physical in one, this trope applies in all cases but two: a first-season incident that somehow got into the Title Montage for the first three seasons and a somewhat less subtle incident from the fourth season.
***In the Grand Finale, Warhok grabbed Kim Possible by the leg while she's wearing her graduation gown◊. She's hanging upside-down, yet her dress isn't down around her shoulders. Because Warhok's got a bit of the fabric in his hand.
**She Ra Princess Of Power: Despite having a skirt shorter than most tennis players, and She-Ra's main offensive move being a roundhouse kick.
***Well, there is a panty shot that made it into the Christmas special◊.
**In the Legion of Super-Heroes cartoon, Triplicate Girl's underwear are never shown, despite the skirt's short length and all the high kicks she does. Shrinking Violet later swaps costume to a dress in season 2 and the same occurs, even when she is a giant compared to them in one episode.
**In Superman: The Animated Series, Lois Lane's short skirt has to be some kind of Kryptonian Imported Alien Phlebotinum or some such. Realistically, the entire cast would be familiar with Lois' unmentionables by the end of any episode, especially when you consider how often Lois is seen falling from high places. Doesn't matter if it's straight down legs-first, or end over end, or how she lands when it comes to falls that don't require superheroic intervention, Lois's Super-Skirt will remain glued tightly to her legs.
***Lex Luthor's bodyguard Mercy Graves. She wears this outfit◊for cryin' out loud! Even in this episode where she does a lot of high kicks and running around, she remains Panty Shot-less.
**Her fight with Harley Quinn.
**Sprite the fairy from the old The Legend Of Zelda cartoon, who should rightfully have flashed Link every other time she moved. Some game versions of Link himself fall into this. A Link to the Past's Link is portrayed in official art to be less Hero of Time and more Peter Pantsless.
***It's not just in the games where Link's tunic saves his modesty in impossible ways. In the series there are several occasions where he is forced to fight wearing only a turquoise shirt and it hides his shame despite him doing flips, kicks and jumping around. This is most prevalent in the first episode. In a later episode this is slightly subverted when his tunic falls down and we see that he is wearing boxer shorts, but these would have been fully visible in several of the previous shots and yet they aren't until that point.
****That wasn't his tunic; it was a nightshirt, which is why he didn't have his usual leggings on. Though yes, clearly it was Rule of Funny that let his boxers be exposed on that occasion, because for the rest of the scene it had indeed been a Magic Nightshirt.
***Averted at one point in the first episode. When Spryte fell over due to the earth shaking, it was revealed (in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene that flew a high-speed night mission under the radar) that she wears nothing at all underneath her skirt.
**Sari of Transformers Animated. She's been hung upside-down on two occasions, and that skirt stays down. At one point, she's sitting on the ground andone of her legs appears to be going through a hole in the top of her skirt◊.
**In the original Doom Patrol's appearance in Teen Titans, Elastigirl's power, despite her name, is actually to grow and shrink. (This is consistent with comics, though the comics version can expand or shrink individual limbs.) She also wears a very short skirt. How does a giantess with a short skirt never flash anyone down below, including the viewer? Gotta be magic.
***However, her appearance in Secret Six had a character deliberately looking up her skirt and remarking on the view.
***The same goes for Giganta in Justice League. Probably why she switched to catsuits in the comics. This was averted in the television show, where Shade makes a remark on how the job just keeps getting better when Giganta grows.
***Both Sean Baby and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law have pointed out this exact problem with Apache Chief.
***Speaking of Teen Titans, a fanfic of the animated series pointed out how everybody in the show has probably seen Starfire's panties. Not the best choice of costume for a Flying Brick... Her skirt even stays straight in on episode where she's pushing a spaceship downwards.
****A couple of other fics state she doesn't wear any. In one of them, Robin managed to be unaware of that until after they became a couple...
**Gwen of Ben 10 Alien Force is capable of executing karate kicks, flipping, getting caught in a tornado and whisked into the air, sliding down an ice slide to escape from said tornado, and sitting cross-legged in a miniskirt without trouble. Granted, she wears some sort of pantyhose under it, but...
***Speaking of Ben 10: Alien Force Julie Yamamoto plays tennis in a short skirt but when she plays it flutters so slightly (in direct contrast to the same skirts in real life).
**In the 1951 Mighty Mouse cartoon Sunny Italy, Pearl Pureheart is seen dangling by one foot and wearing a very short, loose blue dress. But only the hem of the skirt flips over. Similarly that same year, a human Pearl Pureheart-type girl in a cartoon called Better Late Than Never is wearing the same type of dress and plummets from a building feet first. Her skirt flies all the way up, showing her matching lacy panties. So according to Paul Terry, hanging upside down constitutes a magic skirt but falling feet first doesn't.
**Despite having four characters with skirts of some sort, the main heroines of WITCH always have Magic Skirts, even to the point where one episode has a monster holding a transformed Hay Lin (who has the worst of the designed skirts) upside down, yet the skirt is still up right! So, for Disney, revealing transformations is okay, but not panty shots?
***Consider that Disney wouldn't let Annette Funicello show her navel in her surfing movies but in their 1961 edition of The Parent Trap, Hayley Mills' panties are exposed: the dance party scene where her twin cuts an opening in the back of her dress.
**An episode of What's New, Scooby-Doo? has Velma and Daphne get caught in a chain in midair with the others. Their skirts stay hanging upward.
***Scooby Doo and the Samurai Sword: Daphne's friend Miyumi, wearing a short, pleated school dress — check. Does backflips and jumps during battle with sensei Miss Mirimoto — yepper. Panty shot —bzzzzt! But thanks for playing.
***Scooby-Doo Where Are You! episode "Haunted House Hang-Up": Shaggy, Scooby, and Velma all fall into a well feet first, and Velma's pleated skirt never goes up.
***Mai Le in episode 18 of Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated. She gets hung upside down twice and her skirt remains in proper place.
**Aelita from Code Lyoko gains a Magic Skirt as a part of her standard outfit once she's materialized on Earth. This is somewhat strange considering the show's reputation.
***Even stranger when you realize her Season 4 virtual form had a see-through skirt...designed by her love interest. And now I must wash my brain to get it out of the gutter.
****Interestingly the explanation for the Magic Skirt in Season 4 is that she wears pink tights under her purple dress. Apparently it's fashionable in the real world.
**On the PBS show Cyberchase, the character Jackie wears a short blue skirt — and no matter what she does her panties are never seen, just the back of her skirt only. It's pretty much an action show, so doing front flips, spreading her legs open or even strong winds do nothing — and she doesn't even hold her skirt down. 87 episodes and still nothing.
***I always thought it was a skort. You know; a skirt/shorts hybrid that's basically shorts with an added flap of fabric across the front that gives the illusion that it's a skirt until the flap is unbuttoned? And I phrased that entirely wrong didn't I?
**In one episode of Codename: Kids Next Door, Numbuh 3 was in a wedding dress, tied at the ankles, with her dress staying firmly in place. Because they couldn't have her dress tied as well, thus holding it up. No, they had to make it obvious and fake.
**In the Batman & Robin episode "Love Is a Croc", Killer Croc grabs Baby Doll's foot and holds her upside down long ways up from a HVAC fan. Baby Doll's skirt stays firmly in place, only giving a shot of her panties◊from an aerial view as we see the giant fan below.
**Often Subverted in Betty Boop cartoons, where the animators would repeat a motion over and over using the skirt, only to have it fail ever so often. Also in the Cartoon Betty in Blunderland, the lack of a Magic Skirt means Betty has to hold it down while falling down the rabbit hole, until she passes a clothesline and grabs a pin to keep it in place.
**In Futurama, Zapp Brannigan wears a skirt so short that it should not be as all-covering as it is. One can only assume nebula!God intervenes to keep it in place.
***Worse, in one early episode, it's implied that he's going commando under there.
**In The Real Adventures Of Jonny Quest, Jeremiah Surd's female Dragon Julia regularly wore an extreeeemely short skirt, and fought with a high-kicking kung-fu style. There was never an upskirt shot, ever.
**Katana in Batman The Brave And The Bold.
***In "The Malicious Mr. Mind", Mary Marvel performs a straight-ahead attack with her foot, but her skirt never goes up. Likewise, when she lands or is flipped head over heels.
**Kimberly on the "Space Ace" segments of Saturday Supercade. Which is ironic because in the original video game, practically every other shot of her is aPanty Shot.
**Averted in Recess — Upside-Down Girl is always shown with her skirt flipped when she's hanging upside-down. Fortunately she's always got shorts on underneath.
**In the Josie and the Pussycats episode "All Wong In Hong Kong," Alexandra jumps on a trampoline and falls feet first towards a toy bucking horse. As she falls, the front of her skirt stays in place while the hem in the back flips up ever so slightly.
**In a 1969 episode of the Archie cartoon, somebody should have given Big Ethel a magic skirt. She shown in a sequence hanging upside down in a snare she intended for Jughead, showing knee-length granny bloomers. I can never unsee that.
**An episode of Atomic Betty has this Canadian cutie superheroine swinging by her knees on a trapeze (rhyme unintended). Her skirt flitters with the force of swinging but never flips over to her face.
***It's possible her bent knees trapped the skirt between her and the trapeze.
****Not likely. Betty's skirt isn't long enough to reach her knees.
**The Alice in Hanna-Barbera's 1967 special Alice in Wonderland, or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This? simply averts a panty shot by holding her skirt and slip down as she slowly falls feet first down the rabbit hole.
**Averted in Archer, where the woman formally known as Cheryl (who can no longer remember her name after changing it so often) was laying on some boxes with her legs resting on a higher box and was holding her skirt in place.
**In an episode of KaBlam!!, June is seen wearing a dress, and then during her musical act, she's flipping on a bunch of hurdles, yet her skirt is always in place (this is probably due to Nickelodeon standards).
**Also, in an Angela Anaconda short, one of Angela's fantasies involve Nanette Manoir falling off a cliff and her skirt doesn't flap up. In the same short, Angela herself almost has a Panty Shot, but it wasn't on-screen.
**The loincloths that the Gargoyles wear seem to do an unusually good job of keeping their naughty bits covered.
**Phineas And Ferb is one show where all the girls have magic skirts in many notable episodes. Examples are:
***In "Backyard Aquarium", despite being thrown multiple times by whales and squids, Candace never got one upskirt.
***In "Swinter", she's falling down into the backyard but her skirt stays in place.
***In "Isabella and the Temple of Sap", Isabella's skirt only flutters so lightly in the wind.
**A rare male example: the 1960's era cartoon The Mighty Hercules has the title character in a short robe that barely covered his essentials. But, even when jumping off Mount Olympus and falling feet-first toward the plains, it did little more than flutter around his legs.
**Subverted simply by proper position: In Punky to the Rescue (animated Punky Brewster), Margaux has one foot caught in a snare as she poses as bait for a so-called swamp monster. However she is shown standing upright with her snared foot raised and not hanging upside down (presumably because the gang's token male, Allen, is present). If she did get hung upside down, the animators would most likely have given her a magic skirt. In The Perils Of Punky, the kids form a chain down a well in retrieving a gem: Allen is above holding Cherie up by her feet, Cherie holds Margaux's feet, Margaux holding Punky's feet, and Punky holding Glomer's feet. Margaux (as are the other girls) is upside down, and her skirt and slip are draped over her keister.
**Amalia and Evangelyne from Wakfu, despite being both quite active, have magic skirts whether in their normal clothes, nightgowns or even cheerleaders outfits. With the latter, during the Gobbowl match, they perform a "body letters" routine with Yugo to spell "RUEL STROUD", and the skirts stay glued to their backsides even when doing the two "U" with their legs. Averted, however, with Xav's little girl in episode 8 when she hugs her grandfather. It's quick, but yes — you can tell she's not wearing panties.
**On the Complete Animated Series DVD set of Daria, the cast and crew interview segment on disk 8 starts off with some sketches that go by quickly. One of them, if you use the pause button on your DVD player, details to the animators exactly how Daria's skirt is supposed to sag when she is sitting, and that it is never to be drawn in a way that you can see the inside of it.
**Haley Long in American Dragon Jake Long. Despite spreading her legs out while sitting on a railing and turning into a monster two times bigger than her, she has no shot — and none of her clothes ripped. Also notice that in one episode, she jumps with her knees to her chest and it looks like they put her leg through her skirt so that they don't have to open it up.
**Total Drama Island does this often with Lindsay and Gwen. May be justified by the blocky, simplistic drawing style — if the clothes moved like regular fabric, it'd look odd.
**An early 60's syndicated animated special called Return to Oz has a scene where the Wicked Witch of the West holds Dorothy upside down by her feet outside a castle window. Dorothy's skirt falls just barely enough to show the lace legbands of her panties.
**Used somewhat ironically in the 1934 French animated short La Joie de Vivre, since moments later we see the magic-skirt-wearing characters naked anyway.
**Kimiko on Xiaolin Showdown. Lots of flips and tumbling in a short skirt and no show of skivvies.
**The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!: In "Whale Song", Nick and Sally do headstands; Sally's dress does not fall over.
**The Simpsons: Lisa's trademark red sundress; especially egregious as it's a dress with no waist, which should logically fall all the way down to her shoulders whenever she's upside down.
**An episode of Superjail! had the flying prison robot arresting a little girl in a hospital gown. It attaches a chain to the girl's foot and carries her off, dangling her upside down. Her hospital gown stays where it is through the flight.
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OnePiece-Episode005 250.jpg|Nami's wooden staff parts within her skirt 
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Category:Miscellaneous