Invisible Anatomy: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* Krillin of ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' fame was drawn without a nose, which was a plot point when he was in a fight with a large, hairy man who deliberately didn't bathe so no one would be able to stand being around him long enough to actually fight him. He suffered horribly from the odor during the fight, until Goku reminded Krillin that he didn't have a nose...

** Of course, next arc had him sniffing a jewel Bulma hid in [[Trouser Space|her bikini bottom front]] because "it might smell bad". This was more [[Rule of Funny]] than lack of consistency.

* In ''[[Pani Poni Dash!]]'', anthropomorphic rabbit Mesousa isn't drawn with hands, and is frequently depressed when reminded that he can't hold anything.

 

* In the children's magazine ''Cricket'', Sluggo the snail is often seen carrying around a baseball bat, despite his lack of appendages to hold it with. George the earthworm isn't usually seen carrying items with him, but he often leaves things propped up outside his hole with no explanation for how (or if) he managed to move them there.

* ''[[Doom Patrol]]'' villain Love Glove lost his arms after having a strange dream about a glove-laden tree, and has a single disembodied floating glove to manipulate his surroundings with. He can also retrieve gloves with special powers from the glove tree, such as the Shove Glove.

 

* All the characters in ''[[Cars]]'' are... well, cars. With no hands. So how do they grip things like power tools or flags? There are foot (wheel?) pedals that they use to activate some things, and some of the cars have special attachments for holding things, but the question remains: ''how was all this stuff built?''

* Many Monsters in Monsters Inc. A lot of the stock monsters are shown without hands, feet, or are just toothy heads walking around on little nub limbs. So how do these monsters operate the machinery, let alone drive cars? In fact, how can Wazowski drive a car himself so effectively when he doesn't have binocular vision?

* ''[[Surf's Up]]'': Justified with Chicken Joe because he can at least use his feather fingers to manipulate objects, but it becomes stranger when it shows the main character, Cody, somehow using a Shaka sign (which consists of extending the thumb and smallest finger while keeping the three middle fingers curled, and raising the hand as in salutation with the back of the hand facing the person that is being greeted) despite having flippers.

 

* The shapes in ''[[Flatland]]''.

* The oysters in "The Walrus and the Carpenter" from ''[[Alice in Wonderland|Through the Looking Glass]]'':

{{quote|''Their shoes were clean and neat--

** The Disney version shows this by having the oysters floating over disembodied shoes.

* [[Justified Trope|Justified]], [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]], and [[Exaggerated Trope|exaggerated]] heavily in [[Stationery Voyagers]], with "[[Hand Wave|phantomitics]]."

** When their caps are on, [[The Blank|they aren't even drawn with faces]]!

 

 

 

* [[Rayman]], being the [[Trope Namer]] for [[Raymanian Limbs]], has visible hands and feet, but no arms, legs, or neck. And given his use of [[White Gloves]], we can't even be sure he actually has ''anything'' besides his head. In moments of boredom, Rayman has a tendency to remove his torso and bounce it like a basketball.

* In ''[[Spore]]'', creatures without arms handle tools just fine, though the game suggests you get arms anyway (and, indeed, the Creature phase actually gets kind of hard without em).

* In ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'', characters have been shown that, without shoes on, they don't have toes. Eggman, a human, doesn't even seem to have ears.

*** That has more to do with the fact that if they'll always have their shoes ''on'', [[Hands in Pockets|why waste the time modeling or animating what's inside them?]]

** It seems that Eggman's always had ears, but it's rare that one can see them past his moustache.

* Even weirder in games like ''[[Half-Life 2]]'', where the characters ''have'' arms and hands, and do use them to hold weapons, but when they do anything else (like push a button or lift a small object) their arm is not shown. As pointed out in ''Concerned'', a small object just hovers in front of the character. Also, you can't see your feet.

** This is only for the ''player'' character; everyone else uses their hands normally. The Half-Life series does allow you to see your hands (usually while holding a weapon), but not how they connect to your body.

** Averted in ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' , where your arms and legs are visible. Played straight in Left 4 Dead 2 with your legs.

* The characters of ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' do not have noses on their faces. (Though sometimes in the PSP [[FMV]]s if you're shown a profile you'll see a small bump between their mouth and eyes.) In fact, no noses is something of a recurring style in a lot of Akihiko Yoshida's work like the artwork for ''[[Final Fantasy III]] DS''.

* Yeta from ''[[Twilight Princess]]'' doesn't have arms. Or maybe they're just hidden under her snow coat. Luckily she has Yeto to do the cooking for her.

 

== Web Comics ==

* [[Rice Boy]], despite being the only character in his [[Verse]] with no obvious limbs, has comparatively little trouble picking up and carrying small objects.

* In ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'', one of the many ways that Dr. Disaster [[Rule of Cool|completely disregarded realism]] in designing the scenario of his [[Space Opera|space battle]] [[Hard Light|simulation]] is the fact that the terrible Enigmarons are somehow able to build a [[Death Ray]] and tie people up (all off-screen) in spite of their lack of arms.

* Bob and other beholders from ''[[Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic]]'' sometimes give off this effect, carrying or manipulating things despite a lack of prehensile appendage. [[Justified Trope|Justified]], though, since [[Dungeons & Dragons|beholders]] are gifted with telekinesis.

{{quote|'''Vexxarr''': Humph. Makes you ask the big questions...

'''Minionbot 107''': Such as...?

'''Minionbot 107''': True... even the Buddha has the one. }}

** "[http://www.vexxarr.com/archive.php?seldate=012306 Now tell me, in explicit detail...]"

* ''[[Ghastly's Ghastly Comic]]'':

** One character has invisible...er...anatomy. He takes advantage of it for [[Squick|nefarious purposes]].

* This is one of the many, ''many'' running gags in the various ''[[MS Paint Adventures]]'' comics. Characters are often drawn armless unless they're actually using them, and almost always when they're first introduced. Their first instruction is with a few exceptions always "Retrieve arms from <x>".

* This is how the two tooth characters, Lardee and ickle, from ''[[My Milk Tooth]]'' are able to do anything like when they go fishing.

* In ''[[The Adventures of Joe the Circle]]'' the three main characters are respectively a circle, triangle and pair of ovals, with no other features except faces. [[Word of God]] establishes that they're all telekinetic.

* '[[Devil Bear]]'' has a [http://www.thedevilbear.com/comics.php?p=65 literal version] with wings of the daivas.

 

== Web Original ==

* How the hell is Handy the Beaver in ''[[Happy Tree Friends]]'' able to build so many things with handheld tools when he only has amputated stumps for hands? Granted this is only seen off-screen, but when he [[Centipede's Dilemma|realizes his obvious predicament]] all his building expertise goes out the window. Ditto for Cro-Marmot whose entire body is encased in ice yet is still capable of performing various tasks.

** And it has yet to be explained how Cornert's bowtie stays on, or Polly's bow for that matter.

* The ''[[Floating Hands]]'' series of web cartoons. Matt Gardner animates in Flash, you see, and it's just easier to have heads and hands as completely disembodied body parts that he can move around independently.

*** The [[Spin-Off]] series ''The Animated Adventures of Larry-Boy'' seemed to be deathly afraid of this trope. The title character had a [[Utility Belt]] that had hammerspace claws and other manipulating devices, and characters had levitating gloves, gauntlets, and sleeves at every opportunity.

* Phantom Limb on ''[[The Venture Brothers]]''. Technically, his limbs were just rendered invisible (and dangerous to the touch), but he still looked like nothing more than a floating torso.

* ''[[The Penguins of Madagascar]]'': Kawolski, the smart man of the group, is capable of building eye-popping inventions and machinery despite the fact he only has finglerless flippers for hands.

* ''[[My Little Pony]]'' does this all the time. They are ''ponies''—they are unquestionably quadrupedal and have no fingers to boot. Yet they cook, dress up, decorate, etc. Now, the [[Real Life|actual toys]] have magnets in their hooves to help them manipulate stuff, [[Epileptic Trees|so.....]]

*** Basically, hooves do pretty much what real hooves do, unless [[Rule of Funny|Pinkie Pie happens]].

*** But that raises the issue of the tails - while horse tails do have a base called the dock which can be moved, it's very short and the rest of the tail is just pure hair. Said dock doesn't even appear in the show's character designs... and yet Applejack can [[Prehensile Hair|grip and use a lasso with the end of her tail]]?