Bandage Babe

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In short, wearing gauze, casts, eyepatches and similar items for Fetish Fuel purposes, or seeing it as such.

Particularly well-entrenched as a Moe trait in anime/manga circles, and featured in the cosplay style/fashion trend called kegadoru ("injured idol"). The basic psychology isn't difficult: the appearance of injury implies the need to be protected, which inspires a desire to approach and comfort the injured person. The fact that wearing only bandages has an implied nudity or exposure to it doesn't hurt either.

A more extreme version of this fetish is abasiophilia, a sexual obsession with disability or the appearance of disability. Amputations, prosthetics, parapalegia, and the like fall under this category.

Sarashi is a sister trope. An older sister trope, actually. See also The Florence Nightingale Effect, which is when a nurse or doctor falls in love with a Bandage Babe. Usually involves a Bandaged Face. Overlaps with Good Scars, Evil Scars.

Examples of Bandage Babe include:


Anime and Manga

  • Rei from Neon Genesis Evangelion, in the first episode.
    • Subverted in episode 23: Rei is in bandages AGAIN due to injuries sustained from Unit 00 self-destructing against Armisael. She goes home and discards the bandages, revealing she is injury-free.
    • Asuka ends up as such by the end. The doujinshi RE-TAKE uses that visual of her for all its worth (slightly NSFW).
    • The Other Wiki's article of Rei specifically notes this trope being in effect about her merchandise: "Figurines of a bandaged Rei were the most popular, outselling all else".
  • Lucy and other Diclonius in Elfen Lied.
    • Actually a case of Beam Me Up, Scotty, aside from some of the box art, Lucy as a child in a hallucination,[1] and Mariko in her first appearance, the diclonii don't wear bandages, or usually anything else for that matter.
  • Takatsu Aoba from Code Breaker has her right arm all bandaged up and wears it in a sling after Ogami sliced it off.
  • Tomoko gets put in a bandage bikini as part of a side story in Great Teacher Onizuka.
  • Given the number of battles and bad-until-magically-healed injuries sustained in Mahou Sensei Negima, there's a definite element to this. Mind you, this is a Ken Akamatsu series...
    • Oddly, this seems to apply to Negi more than it applies to any of the girls...
    • Although Evangeline is briefly like this in the aftermath of her fight with Setsuna during the first Tournament Arc.
  • Chii in Chobits when first discovered, wrapped in what looks like bandaging.
  • Shana from Shakugan no Shana, in the flashback of her first fight as a Flame Haze.
  • Abiru Kobushi in Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei. At one point Abusive Email Girl Meru sends her a text message that "Bandage characters are no longer popular" and she protests that she really needs them.
    • Especially noticeable when Abiru is used by Chiri as an example of perfectly half-naked. Yeah.
      • She's really a parody of this trope, since the bandages cover injuries she brought upon herself by repeatedly bothering rather dangerous animals due to her tail fetish. Also she even admits she just puts them on even when she isn't injured as she likes the attention.
      • Although in the final OAV, Bangaichi, she does get labeled as "Ayanami" in a scrolling screen gag.
  • Yayoi Schwael in Dual.
  • In Excel Saga manga volume 18, Elgala is injured by a bomb, and is shown with bandages like Rei Ayanami's ones. She even says "Maybe I'm the third one".
  • After Nanoha's Near-Death Experience in the Snow Means Death Flash Back of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, we are shown a picture of her connected to several life-support units, her upper torso clad only in bandages.
  • Subverted by Adorea of Franken Fran. A female servant of Fran's covered in bandages like a mummy. Her striking figure, beautiful hair, and selfless willingness to give her organs certainly made her look like a bandage babe, and the volume cover that has her story even made it look like that underneath those bandages was a naked, classic Tall, Dark and Bishoujo. Then, when a terrorist who was smitten with her asked to see her face, she removes the bandages around her head and we're treated to a frame filled with nothing but tentacles surrounding a gaping maw that she uses to swallow the terrorist whole.
  • Allen Walker from D.Gray-man is a Moe Moe male version of this trope. Seriously, though - he's so incredibly pretty, and has such an effeminate, slender figure, he fits pretty darn well with all the other examples.
  • In Fullmetal Alchemist Ran Fan is injured and cuts off her own arm after an attack from King Bradley and for the majority of her appearances before she leaves to get a replacement arm she's pretty much topless except of the bandages around her chest.
  • Suzaku from Code Geass to the fangirls.
  • Hayato Gokudera of Reborn! wore a bandage-centric outfit to his Ring Conflict battle, having nothing on under his gauze shirt, but wearing impractical skinny jeans and single-buttoned, almost non-existant jacket-y thing in spite of his other injuries. Makes perfect sense, right?
  • Game X Rush gives us two male examples in the last chapter, as well as a single-panel flashback of Miyuki as a Bandage Babe.
  • Rather common on Bleach since everyone spends so much time having been nearly slashed, stabbed and chopped to pieces. Ichigo takes it so far that even his sword is wrapped in bandages!
  • Full Metal Panic! has a fanservicey male version of this with Sousuke, in the later parts of the story. Nicely illustrated in the Sigma manga. After being in a coma for a month, Sousuke was rendered very weak and helpless in bed, being half naked and having his bare chest and arms wrapped in bandages. (Of course, "helpless" for him means only being able to bomb the hell out of the enemies that try to ambush him.)
  • Shizuka/Serenity from Yu-Gi-Oh is going blind for a period early in the series, and wears bandages that completely cover her eyes after her eye surgery.
  • Ruthlessly subverted with Balalaika in Black Lagoon. One of her flashbacks involves her sitting in a vehicle with bandages covering her burns and wounds from a recent battle. There was nothing remotely sexy about that scene as she looked exactly what you'd expect from someone coming from a war zone. She also retains a large number of scars over her body because of those wounds.
  • Crane Yuzuriha of Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas
  • Ryomou Shimei of Ikki Tousen
  • Hannah of Black Butler starts wearing a bandage over the left side of her face after Alois stabs out her left eye in the first episode.
  • Mikaila from Godchild is completely covered with bandages (except for her head) under her clothes, due to the fact that she is literally rotting away underneath due to a bad case of clone degeneration.
  • Rokujo Chikage from Durarara!!. Evidently, having his face violently rearranged by Shizuo has done nothing to hinder his chick magnet status.
  • Mizho from Karakuridouji Ultimo whose bandages even double as Zettai Ryouki. She also uses a crutch as weapon.
    • Her doji Palace (pictured beside her) would be a male example.
  • Mira Nygus from Soul Eater, most of the time.
  • Gunslinger Girl. A flashback scene shows Henrietta like this before she became a cyborg, when she was in hospital after a brutal attack. Becomes Squick when a full-body view shows that one of her legs has been amputated. Triela is also shown this way after her fight with Pinnochio (it's more of a fanservice version as Triela has only got her skirt and bandages on under the blanket, and she gets a Cooldown Hug from her male handler). Due to the nature of the cyborgs she gets better after a quick operation.
  • Tiger and Bunny has taken to injuring Kotetsu/Wild Tiger for the purposes of getting him out of his shirt and into bandages.
  • Sango from Inuyasha since she's a warrior sometimes gets gravely injured having to be bandaged.
    • Inuyasha himself gets this on occasion.
  • A male variation, Aki at the end of the Yaoi OVA Sensitive Pornograph after defying his "master" gets beaten appears as this.
  • Mummy Maker from Cube X Cursed X Curious is covered in many bandages that not only hides her many scars and burns but also seems to be alive.


Comic Books

  • Painkiller Jane.
  • Wynonna Earp got this treatment (especially on the cover) in the issue where someone attempted to mummify her.
  • Nara Kilday from Josh Howard's Dead@17: Afterbirth.
  • Lady Mastermind had a scene where she was clad only in bandages and a slipping hospital gown after the X-Men rescued her from a hospital.

Film

  • Leeloo in The Fifth Element wears a "costume" pretty much made out of strategic surgical bandaging as her first outfit.
    • They're actually called "thermal bandages" in the dialogue.
      • Thank God. For a moment there I was worried that her naughty bits might get cold.
  • Gabrielle in David Cronenberg's Crash straddled the line (metaphorically and literally) between abaisophilia and bondage, using chrome and leather/vinyl full leg braces.
  • Ahkmenrah as a Mummy in Night at the Museum, especially in this picture.
  • Arguably the female leads in The Human Centipede
  • In Brazil, Jill wears a bandage on one of her hands. According to Word of God, it was added to give her "more personality."


Magazines


Toys

  • Cleo from Monster High wears bandages, being a Bandage Mummy, as does her sister, Nefera. Cleo at least, and possibly both of them, is cursed to have to wear some of her bandages at all times or suffer some unexplained consequence, but she doesn't have to wear all of them, leaving all her outfits to end up like this. Rule of Sexy is enforced almost constantly.


Tabletop Games

  • Warhammer 40,000 has the Sisters Repentia, members of the Adepta Sororitas who have forgone their armour and firearms in order to undergo penance for their sins, and charge into battle wearing nothing but ragged strips of cloth and wielding chainsaw-swords almost as tall as themselves.

Video Games

  • A.B.A. from Guilty Gear
  • Animal Crossing of all things lets you purchase and wear a post-op patch over an eye. There's also headgear called "Dressing" that covers your entire head except one eye in bandages.
  • Beating the Ultimate Bass Challenge in Rock Band 2 unlocks an all-bandages outfit for your created character.
  • World of Warcraft players can invoke this trope with either of two expensive "shirts" available in Wrath and otherwise stripping down to the waist.
  • Female (and male) stars in The Movies recovering from chest augmentations wear these on top, and pajama pants on the bottom. The same set is available as a costume option for use in movies.
  • In Soul Calibur 4, female custom characters have the option to choose a layer of bandages as their underwear.
  • Xelors in Dofus are covered in bandages. Probably for good reason, as Wakfu reveals that they aren't even strictly organic...
  • In Neverwinter Nights, when you first meet Aribeth, she is scar free, and her army is shiny and at %100. However, When she turns to the bad guys, she gets new armor, a new model, and a new portrait. You can see a heavy bloodstained bandage around her waist through the part of the armor that normally would have shown some skin
  • Alta, the heroine of Mighty Flip Champs!, has the bandages-replacing-underwear variety.
  • Alessa Gillespie appears briefly in bandages during the game start animation of Silent Hill 1. This scene never appears again in the game.
  • In the The King of Fighters, Mature makes her comeback in XII as one.
  • Viola Cadaverini from the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney series. She considers herself the "lover" of Furio Tigre, although it's debatable as to exactly what they've been up to. Given that he's flat-out terrified of her, the answer's probably 'whatever she wants'.
    • Defendant Lana Skye cut her hand, supposedly while she was attacking the victim with a knife. You find out about this when the otherwise stern Lana holds up her bandaged hand to cover her mouth when she gasps in surprise at something said.
    • Kay Faraday also ends up covered in bandages after she gets attacked in Ace Attorney Investigations 2
  • Final Fantasy XIII: Can Snow Villiers count [dead link]? He is bandaged, and he is a (male) babe...
  • Kaine in NieR keeps her left arm and leg covered by bandages constantly. It's never revealed what's under them, but it's implied they were scarred in a Shade attack.
  • Bandage Girl in Super Meat Boy can be seen as this taken to ridiculous extremes.
  • Touhou Project: Kasen Ibara's entire right arm is covered in bandages. Or rather is made of bandages.
  • Ezio is briefly bandaged at the beginning of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood's second sequence.
  • Burn victim and all around Badass Joshua Graham from Fallout: New Vegas sometimes receives this treatment at the hands of the Fan Girls.
  • Mileena's secret third outfit in Mortal Kombat 9, reproducing how she looked when she came out of the Flesh Pits. Crosses well over into Stripperiffic territory.


Visual Novels


Webcomics/ Web Original

Western Animation

  1. ↑ the one where the bandages fall down to show Lucy the voice talking to her has her own face
  2. ↑ except in one issue, where he and his partner, Jandoe, switched outfits.
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