Leotard of Power



Generally a Superhero trope, but used in other settings as well, where a character fights in a skintight leotard, or, more generally, a swimsuit-esque one piece. In fairness this isn't always fanservice, the leotard, like the classic tights+"underwear on the outside", originates as acrobats garb.

One of the leotard's advantages is that it is more "modest" or less revealing than a two-piece garment like a bikini, and thus for a long time was used in comics, games, TV shows and media to convey the portrayal of a sexy female character (or at least, "bold") without enraging Moral Guardians. Note that also, back in The Eighties and The Nineties the leotard (or one piece swimsuit) was "the" ultimate in fashion clothing, being much more popular than the two-piece garments and portrayed in aerobics shows, Baywatch and the such, so it can be used in retro references too.

This is a Fan Service trope, the backbone of Most Common Superpower.

Compare Mini Dress of Power, Playboy Bunny, She's Got Legs, Showgirl Skirt, Underwear of Power (which is often worn in a way that pretty much looks like a leotard anyway), Walking Swimsuit Scene, Superheroes Wear Tights.

Anime & Manga

 * Sailor Moon and company. With a tiny thing that some would say qualifies as a skirt attached. Some of the female villains as well.
 * Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
 * Fate Testarossa. With even less skirt than the Sailor Senshi.
 * The uniform of most of the N2R Nakajima Sisters formed after Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, which is a leotard with a jacket and chaps worn over it. The only exception is Cinque, who wears a miniskirt with leggings instead.
 * Major Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in The Shell wears a leotard with a jacket over it, and really long stockings. She later gets pants. For some odd reason, the fan consensus is that getting the pants improves her character.
 * Kodachi Kunō of Ranma One Half will readily fling her clothes to reveal the leotard she wears underneath with little provocation. Somewhat "justified" by her martial art being based on rhythmic gymnastics... but mainly because she's a shameless loon.
 * Not during the fighting part of the manga, but Mahou Sensei Negima has plenty of gratuitous scenes of Makie performing her rhythmic gymnastics. And it's a flashy routine -- every time we see her practicing in anything other than her leotard, she gives a lot of Panty Shots.
 * The title Claymores wear an outfit like this after the time skip, often with a variant of a short skirt or Zettai Ryouiki.
 * History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi: Miu Furinji's leotard, which bears more resemblance to body paint than clothing.
 * Ryoko's skintight battlesuit from Tenchi Muyo
 * In Gun Buster, the official uniform of the Earth Defense Force's Humongous Mecha pilots looks like a one-piece swimsuit with a sweatshirt over it.
 * Every of Kisugi sisters from Cat's Eye wear one. Of course, despite what some sources say, their leotards are actually unitards.
 * Saint Seiya: All of the Amazons have these as their trainers.
 * Everyone's IS Suit but Ichika in Infinite Stratos.
 * Bleach: For the climactic battle with Aizen, Yoruichi is wearing one of these.
 * Busou Renkin: (Male) villain Pampillon's outfit is...uh...rather fabulous and definitely off-putting.
 * The standard Magical Girl outfit in Okusama wa Mahou Shoujo is one, plus frills and other accessories.

Comics

 * DC Comics pretty much made this trope; nearly every other DC Comics superhero or superheroine wears a Leotard of Power, if not wearing Underwear of Power instead:
 * Wonder Woman is the classic example, which is lampshaded in Justice League, where a pundit snarks that she looks like a stripper. Also played with in the movie, when Steve Trevor says "Let's get you into an outfit that doesn't get me arrested for solicitation."
 * This was averted DC updated her look. It didn't last long.
 * Wonder Woman's "New 52" outfit was set to be another aversion, until her creative team opted for something closer to her traditional look. Certain covers and promotional images were even released with "pants" and "no pants" versions.
 * Just one of the many fanservices given to us by Power Girl.
 * Batman's foe Poison Ivy wears a leotard made of leaves. Given that she's practically Ms. Fanservice, it's not really surprising.
 * Huntress (Earth Two wears one all the time, the Post-Crisis version less consistently so).
 * Star Sapphire
 * Starfire (When her costume isn't a Chainmail Bikini, anyway.) In 52 she's mistaken for a stripper after showing up on someone's doorstep.
 * Black Canary wears this with the addition of fishnets and a leather jacket.
 * Zatanna wears a shirt and jacket over the top half. That's because it's a classic magician look, it's her shtick.
 * Hawkgirl / Hawkwoman, during The Golden Age of Comic Books and The Silver Age of Comic Books. Post-Crisis, she switched to a two-piece costume.
 * Marvel Comics does this often, but not as often as DC (they generally seem to prefer spandex bodysuits instead):
 * Storm, generally.
 * Rogue (though she usually wears it over another layer of tights).
 * Psylocke, for almost seventeen years. To the point that any change to her costume is met by a cry of "They Changed It, Now It Sucks!"
 * Scarlet Witch
 * Polaris (her classic outfit, usually worn over tights, as well)
 * Ms. Marvel
 * She-Hulk (at times).
 * Squirrel Girl (though she always wears it over another layer of tights)
 * Bunnie Rabbot
 * Caitlin Fairchild of Gen 13. Probably the tallest example of this trope.

Film

 * Worn by Christopher Reeve as part of his Superman costume in a rare male example. Granted, it isn't obvious to the naked eye (as he's mostly covered in identical shades of blue so the red in the middle looks like Underwear of Power to the naked eye), but there's at least one account that describes Reeve's costume as incorporating a leotard.

Literature

 * In Animorphs, the morphers will normally tear their clothes if they morph into bigger animals, and the clothes will fall off if they morph into smaller ones. To prevent this, they wear skin tight clothes when morphing, such as bicycle shorts, tight undershirts, and for the girls of course, leotards.
 * The woman shown on the cover of The Menace from Earth wears one.

Live-Action TV

 * Leela in Doctor Who.

Music Videos

 * A common staple in Lady Gaga's wardrobe, particularly earlier in her career. These ranged from relatively simple with shoulder pads to increasingly gaudy pieces that had mirrors, crystals, spikes, etc.
 * "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" by Beyonce. 'Nuff said.

Pro Wrestling

 * This used to be all over the place in Professional Wrestling, though you rarely see it nowadays unless someone is either an older wrestler or is going for that old school look.
 * The legendary Memphis wrestler Jerry "The King" Lawler (now known as the priapistic screaming nut on RAW) mixed this with a My Name Is Inigo Montoya routine in which he would pull the shoulder strap down before destroying a particularly annoying opponent.
 * A Notable modern example would be Kurt Angle.

Sports

 * Truth in Television: gymnastics and figure skating.
 * Though one hopes it's less fanservice-y considering most Olympic-level female gymnasts (and figure skaters, to an increasing degree) hit their prime at sixteen.
 * Which is A-OK in most of the world, including the better part of the US (except California and couple other states). It's still squicky, though, because actually female gymnasts are at their prime not at sixteen, but at twelve, thirteen tops. By sixteen years they already start to lose their edge and finesse, compensating more by the brute force.
 * And occasionally by starvation.
 * Different in the case of rhythmic gymnastics, where athletes compete well into their twenties, and are often tall, leggy and curvy to boot.
 * But ever since 2000(?), rhythmic gymnastics leos tend to skirt the issue. Rhythmic gymnastics and "women's" figure skating tend to occupy the surprisingly obscure line between this trope and Mini Dress of Power.
 * NCAA women's gymnastics. At least the competitors are around twenty years old, instead of eleven.

Tabletop Games

 * Exalted has this if the cover of Savant and Sorcere is any indication.

Video Games

 * Cammy White of Street Fighter is the poster girl for this trope in Fighting Games. The same series also features Rainbow Mika. Given they're each wearing a thong-cut Leotard of Power, both have their asses on full display, too.
 * In Mortal Kombat, nearly every female character does this, most often Sindel, Kitana, Tanya and occasionally, Mileena and Jade (who both have other costumes with Underwear of Power instead).
 * In Final Fantasy VI, Celes and Terra's sprites seem to be wearing these. Celes' concept art has her wearing a completely different kind of suit, but it was changed for the game for whatever reason and Terra's concept art extends it to a sort of evening dress (this may simply be a matter of a short dress being hard to show on a sprite).
 * In Final Fantasy IV, Rydia wears one both as a child and as an adult along with a numbers of very frilly trails and sleeves. Rydia however, is somewhat reasonable compared to Rosa, who tends to switch between this and a damn bikini between actual in-game and concept arts. She is also covered in scarves and in the DS CG, actually wears two capes.
 * Of course this is a valid costume option in City of Heroes.
 * Mei-fang of Arcana Heart wears one with the top part of a Chinese dress jacket worn over it. "Top part", as in just the collar and sleeves, to better display her assets.
 * Eclaire of La Pucelle Tactics wears one when she's in her "dark" form. Priere as well.
 * In Metroid, players are able to play as a leotard-wearing Samus if they complete the game in under three hours.
 * And in Zero Mission, you're guaranteed to get to see it anyway.
 * And then it appears again in Super Smash Brothers Brawl, rendered beautifully on the Wii, this time around. Her move set become far less conservative when she loses the power suit.
 * Nina from the original Breath of Fire.
 * Breath of Fire II actually has an armor called, simply, "leotard".
 * Fortune's outfit in Metal Gear Solid 2 is basically a one-piece swimsuit worn under a Badass Longcoat.
 * The piece of armor known as the "Pink Leotard" is a staple of the Dragon Quest series. Only female characters can wear it, and it's actually one of the most powerful pieces of armor you can buy in the game. (Fanart of various characters wearing it is popular in Japan.)
 * Dragon Quest IX has "Zenithian Leotard" (Dragon Quest IV heroine's costume). 52 defense, 10 point below Metal King Armor. It's green, and it's leaving your right shoulder naked.
 * The Dark Queen from Battletoads.
 * After  Flonne from Disgaea wears one.

Web Comics
"Mindmistress: Who's [your tailor]? Hugh Hefner? All you need is a cotton tail on your butt and some rabbit ears."
 * Preferred by Athleta in the Fashionably Heroic cartoons in The KA Mics.
 * Awesome Lady from My Roommate Is An Elf.
 * A bright red leotard with boots and gloves of the same color is the standard costume of superheroin Dasien. Commented upon in The Crossoverlord:


 * Also from the Heroes Unite universe, we have Bombshell.
 * Lightning Lady from Evil Inc fits into this. I meant fits into this category.
 * The Jane Gang from Everyday Heroes.

Web Original

 * At Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe:
 * Kismet. Turns out, it's not too good in a cold classroom.
 * And Mega-Girl, and Gloriana, and... Well, it's a popular look for teenaged girls who are built like Playboy Playmates.
 * Favored by some members of the League of Intergalactic Cosmic Champions.
 * Pretty much every other superheroine in the Global Guardians PBEM Universe wears a Leotard of Power. Every other superhero wears Underwear of Power instead.

Western Animation

 * Cheetara from Thunder Cats.
 * Raven from Teen Titans. Also Pantha.
 * Ace and Queen from Justice League.
 * Princess Ariel from Thundarr the Barbarian.
 * Many of the characters from She Ra Princess of Power (including She-Ra herself... as Princess Adora; as She-Ra, she only appears to be wearing a Mini Dress of Power).
 * Evil-Lyn, Teela, and the Sorceress all wear them in He Man and The Masters of The Universe.

Real Life

 * Mr. Jules Léotard himself and his various trapeze-swinging colleagues, naturally. Lots of circus people wear them to accentuate the awesome.