The Nudifier



""Can you not solve anything without blowing people's clothes off!?""

- Asuna (to Negi), Mahou Sensei Negima

This is a device, whether magical or advanced technology, which exists with the sole purpose of getting rid of clothes. Mostly because Naked People Are Funny and for Fan Service.

Compare Clothing Damage and Wardrobe Malfunction, when clothes are ripped or torn off as an incidental side-effect, often in an action scene. Note particularly that if something breaks bones, tears skin and/or destroys the surrounding area it is not this trope; it's just damaging clothing along with everything else.

In fantasy situations this is also a very useful way of removing cursed items which won't allow you to simply take them off.

General

 * Moths often serve this function in comics and cartoons. While there is a real-life clothing moth whose caterpillar-like larve will sometimes eat through sweaters and other woolen items over time, the cartoon version will swarm and strip their unwary victims in seconds (usually just down to their underwear in kid-friendly shows).

Anime & Manga
"Asuna: (to Negi) Can you not solve anything without blowing people's clothes off!?"
 * Blame Academy introduces the "Women's Clothing Disintegrating Beam Emitter", a parody of the main character's weapon and running gag.
 * Those Who Hunt Elves: The potion which will make any elf naked.
 * Full Metal Panic Fumoffu has the "full monty", a . Of course, none of the infectees or the audience get to learn about this until Hilarity Ensues.
 * Mahou Sensei Negima
 * "Flans Exarmatio", the series' primary disarming... and Fan Service spell. Or magic in general, really. Almost anything that appears in the series has probably been used to destroy clothes on at least one occasion.


 * It is worth noting that for the first few chapters, the eponymous Negi casts "Flans Exarmatio" whenever he sneezes. The idea behind this is that he's still young and doesn't have full control of his magic yet. Also, he's a specialist in Wind-based magic. Put them together...
 * He also has an unfortunate tendency to end up in combat with Takane D. Goodman, who has the unfortunate habit of making her clothes out of magic. If she's knocked out, they vanish. And if she fights Asuna...
 * The spell that allows you to travel into another person's memories inexplicably gives you a naked avatar.
 * The "Martian Army" is armed with rays that only destroy clothing.
 * It later also features a clothes-eating octopus.
 * Bastard!! features Dark Schneider's girlfriend being subjected to an evil forbidding slime. You can guess what it turns out to do.
 * To Love Ru has a teleporter example, and many others. Weird alien technology leaving people naked is a running gag in the series. For example, Lala's clothes are created on her by her sentient robot helper, which she wears in the form of a hairclip, and if it ever gets knocked off, distracted, or dizzy, her clothing vanishes in a poof. Another device randomly switches costumes out for cosplay (including Hadaka Apron and Hadaka... whipped cream) oufits. Yet another device is a clothes dissolving gas. Lala, for the most part, doesn't care, but the rest of the cast does.
 * Melona from Queens Blade squirts acid from her breasts that dissolves clothing quite readily.
 * Suehirogari's ero-manga TAG combines The Nudifier with Hypno Fool. The main character makes fun of a gypsy fortune teller, which turns out to be a bigger mistake than usual: She's given a post hypnotic suggestion to compulsively stay naked whenever certain (also naked) women kiss her. Of course, she's not told about this suggestion until her best friend ambushes her at her college campus and plants a wet one on her, leaving her trapped with an overwhelming urge to stay naked against her will. (Her friend wasn't even told that much -- just smooched by a stranger and left with a note and a paper bag to put her clothing in.) Of course, since this is "TAG", you can see where he's going with this -- the only way (outside of years of hypnotherapy) to bring herself to put clothing back on is to kiss someone else (thus passing on the urge to stay naked to the new victim), with the ever-present danger of looking up and discovering another scared looking nude woman running at her later on. And since it's Suehirogari, she (and her entire cadre of friends) discover an exhibitionism fetish after the "game" (and the subsequent blackmailing by the Gypsy and her friends).
 * There's one in Inukami!, but it only works on men.
 * One contractor in Darker Than Black has the ability to teleport herself and others... but not their clothing. So she and anyone else she teleports effectively gets hit with this trope.
 * In Asobi Ni Iku Yo, the Catgirl aliens fight with weapons that destroy only nonliving matter. Including clothes.
 * The first Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Sound Stage, having been made during the Fan Service-filled early episodes of the first season, features a Jewel Seed Water Monster that is created to swallow up every girl it encounters and spit them out naked.
 * In To Aru Majutsu no Index, Touma's Anti-Magic right hand does this if he touches someone wearing magical clothing.
 * Maicchingu Machiko Sensei depicts students creating very elaborate devices in order to nudify their teacher.
 * In the first Fairy Tail OVA, Lucy's clothes disappear because they were from heaven and were revoked.
 * Highschool Dx D: One of Ise's first skills is called Dress Break that is nothing but this.

Card Games

 * The "Ecchi Moth Swarm" card from the Tank Vixens collectible card game destroys all Tops and Tails containing the keywords Cotton, Denim, Lace or Silk.

Comic Books

 * A ray that destroys fabric featured in a Shadow Lady story in Big Bang Comics.
 * In the XXXenophile story "Time Piece", Franz claims to be naked because only living matter can be sent through time.
 * In "The Mind Molder" arc in the Doc Savage series published by DC Comics in the late 1980s, "Monk" Mayfair was tasked with coming up with a way of rendering their foes' gasmasks inoperative. He concocted a gas that dissolved polymers, forgetting that he was wearing a polyester suit.
 * In Green Lantern, when a power ring puts you in a uniform, you'll be back in your own clothes when the ring is deactivated. This isn't the case with Star Sapphires.
 * The cover of DC Comics Legends mini-series issue 5 has Captain Marvel standing amidst piles of superhero costumes strewn around him, suggesting that something (or someone, as the issue itself reveals) has removed the heroes from their clothes.
 * Firestorm does this to Plastique during her first appearance. He vaporised her costume, leaving her naked and humiliated in public, while he took the bombs that had been attached to her costume away to explode in a safer area.
 * In one of the Teen Titans Go! comics, Mad Mod makes clothes that control people. When Cyborg uses a sonic device to destroy these clothes, everyone who wore them becomes naked.

Comic Strips

 * In one of the early "Spy vs. Spy" strips from Mad Magazine (and reprinted in the first collection) the Black spy creates an invisibility "potion," and envisions himself being able to attack the White spy unseen. The White spy, however, see him testing it on a mouse, and dilutes the mixture with seltzer water. When the Black spy drinks the concoction on a street corner, where he hopes to ambush the White spy, the diluted potion makes only his clothing disappear (although it appears that his clothing simply instantly disintegrates), and he is arrested (and given a nightstick to the head) by a police officer who was nearby.
 * The original, off-continuity print version of The Order of the Stick that appeared in Dragon Magazine has a strip featuring Belkar's Wand of Dispel Clothing, which he aimed at Haley, but which hit Elan instead.

Fan Works

 * Harry Potter fanfiction has naturally made up spells which can remove clothing.
 * "Divesto" is the most common choice for the incarnation, almost to the point of it being Fanon.
 * It should come as no surprise at all that "Nullus Vestis" is frequently cast in Hogwarts Exposed.
 * It has also not escaped fans' notice that you could make someone naked through creative use of canon spells. "Accio clothing!"

Films -- Animation

 * From Interstella 5555, the process turning the kidnapped aliens into humans (during "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger") includes lasers reducing their clothes to shreds -- while not grazing at all their skin.

Films -- Live-Action

 * Hong Kong film Hex After Hex (Che yuen joi che) features a bizarre scene where a ghost girl turns into Darth Vader, carrying a lightsaber that removes peoples' clothes.
 * Appears in Scary Movie 3, ending with mass weaponized Fan Disservice to the characters (which we are not privy to, fortunately). For reference, the representatives were so disgusted, the Japanese ambassador committed Seppuku on the spot.
 * The Nude Bomb from the Get Smart movie titled, well, The Nude Bomb.
 * Sometimes teleporters and the like have this built in, deliberately or otherwise, as in Terminator.
 * The remake of The Italian Job (2003 film) has a character expressing his desire to purchase a stereo system powerful enough to do this. He finally gets it and, during the end credits, we see him try it out on an attractive girl. A pity that she is offscreen when her clothes are blown off.
 * A number of dangerous items in The Return of Captain Invincible prove only able to do any real damage to female outer garments. Usually shirts.
 * One of the non-lethal superhero weapons used in Mystery Men is an energy beam that makes clothes shrink. It's used on some already scantily-clad women, making them writhe and moan. One can presume that eventually they burst (the clothes, not the women).
 * The orgasm piano device in Barbarella strips the subject first.
 * Alec Guinness in The Man in the White Suit invents a fabric that is unstainable and indestructible -- the clothing industry tries hard to suppress the discovery, but by movie's end, the fabric proves chemically unstable, and his suit disintegrates off of him.
 * The string factory from Mousehunt turns into this if you push the wrong button.
 * In Loose Screws, one of the students comes up with a chemical to put into the girl's swimming pool that dissolves all fabric.
 * In Zapped, Scott Baio undresses women using telekinetic powers. In the sequel, Zapped Again, a new actor gains the same ability, and uses it to the same ends. Both movies are not available due to Willie Aames later finding religion and becoming Bibleman. He can't stop those clips from appearing on YouTube, though. And anyway, Baio's character uses his magic power for other things too, such as humiliating bullies and winning at roulette.
 * In Dark Angel: The Ascent, a few minutes after the demoness Veronica arrives on Earth, she is inexplicably turned human and her clothes vanish. She later switches between human and demon form and nothing happens to her clothes.

Jokes
"Husband: But you're naked.
 * Old joke: A woman is having an affair. One day, her husband comes home early, so she hides her still-naked lover in the closet. However, her husband looks in the closet. The lover claims that he's an exterminator taking care of a moth infestation. You can probably guess the punchline:

Lover: (looks down) Those little bastards!"

Literature

 * One of the Norby books (by Janet and Isaac Asimov) has a "clothing dissolver" gas in the backstory. One character was kicked out of the Academy because he placed it in the air circulation systems of a space station.
 * After "groking" human sexuality in Stranger in A Strange Land, Valentine Smith quickly works out the Power Perversion Potential inherent in his mental abilities. Lots of levitation and clothing evaporation follows.
 * A short science fiction story from the 1950s or 1960s featured a village of two factions, neither of which (allegedly) admitted the existence of the other. The factions were distinguished by the clothes they wore. The space traveler main character solves the problem by emitting some kind of radiation that melted everyone's clothes.
 * In the Discworld novel Unseen Academicals, while writing Trevor's love letter, Nutt who is a bit inexperienced with romance wonders if speaking poetry will cause the recipient's clothes to fall off.
 * In The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, a popular party prank using the finite improbability generator is to make all the molecules in the undergarments of one's hostess move three feet to the left. Presumably this could be done to her outergarments as well, provided it's the right sort of party.
 * The time traveler from Kuttner's short story "The Twonky" arrives naked, his clothing having been atomized during his temporal journey. This is mostly an excuse for him dressing up in a work uniform, so he can be mistaken for a factory employee.
 * Related to the above, Henry from The Time Traveler's Wife doesn't take his clothes with him when he jumps through spacetime. Played for Drama, because he ends up naked and alone (in the snow), and has to steal money and supplies.
 * Sandry from the Circle of Magic universe is an ambient thread mage or "stitch witch", and repeatedly overpowers difficult people by either threatening to embarrass them, actually embarrassing them, or creating problems for them that make embarrassment a secondary consideration, such as causing their armor and their horses' tack to fall apart by pulling out the stitching (or doing the opposite, causing their clothes to bind together cocoon-like so they can't move).
 * In the fifth Myth Adventures book, Aahz tells a story involving a spell that apparently teleports the targets' clothes away. Thanks to the other characters ignoring him and talking over him, we never get the specifics.

Live-Action TV
"Captain Jack: Defabricator. Does Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Am I naked in front of millions of viewers?
 * Doctor Who has The Defabricator, a ray gun which disintegrates only the target's clothes.

Zu-Zana & Trip-E: Of course.

Captain Jack: Ladies, your viewing figures just went up."


 * Star Trek the Next Generation
 * One Ferengi transporter when transporting women. In their society, women aren't allowed to wear clothes. Which is two reasons we've never seen much of actual Ferengi society. Later in the series, Quark's mother starts openly wearing clothing -- Quark reacts the same as the average human discovering his mother is a nudist (the hard way) would. She later starts working getting the rules changed based on the idea that someone would have to sell all those newly-clothed women outfits, and jewelry, and makeup...
 * In the episode The Most Toys, having abducted Data and unsuccessfully ordered him to wear something other than his uniform, Kivas Fajo splashes a solvent on him which dissolves his uniform. He then explains Data's choice to go naked or follow his programmed sense of modesty and wear the other clothing.
 * In Star Trek Voyager, Q's mischievous son uses his Reality Warper powers to make Seven of Nine's clothes disappear. He's rather disappointed when this doesn't faze her. Having spent most of her life among the Borg, the idea of modesty is somewhat mystifying to her.
 * Red Dwarf series 8 features Lister and Rimmer trying to use a genetically altered microbe to take the skins off a mountain of potatoes they've been ordered to peel. The microbe does its job, but it also eats away their clothes and hair.
 * Dr. K in Power Rangers RPM makes an experimental sonic cannon that ends up being one of these. (But only while in the experimental phase; she later perfects it into a standard weapon.) Being Power Rangers, the boxers get to stay.
 * In Extras, Patrick Stewart describes a script he's written where he plays a character with awesome psychic powers, which he uses solely to cause women's clothes to fall off.
 * Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. As in the films, only living matter can go through a time portal, so anyone who travels through time comes out naked on the other side.
 * In an episode of Bewitched, Aunt Clara magics up clothes for Samantha and Darrin to wear to a party, but because she is an Inept Mage, the clothes disappear a few hours later, leading to Darrin getting arrested for indecent exposure (he was left in his underwear). Luckily for Sam, she was able to magic up replacement clothes before anyone noticed her.

Radio

 * The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy: The most popular use of the early finite improbability generators involved teleporting people's underwear three feet to the left (in accordance with the Theory of Indeterminacy).

Tabletop Games

 * The "Disrobe" spell from the Dungeons and Dragons "Book of Erotic Fantasy". Although it doesn't affect magical items, it's still a good way to score a Defeat by Modesty.
 * In Changeling: The Dreaming, it is often easier to target spells at someone's clothes than at the wearer. This can go very wrong, or very right depending on your intentions. A popular example is to keep someone out of a battle by making their clothes (and hopefully them) superjump away from it.
 * In the Third Edition GURPS supplement "Mixed Doubles", a superhuman called the Liquidator can liquefy matter... including another super's costume. The background stated that he hadn't used this ability on a female metahuman yet, and that the likely result would be a) outrage from her and b) considerable coverage from the media.
 * The Dark Eye
 * A spell reserved for fae and the humans raised by them will have all clothing slip off the target and tangle around its feet. The GM is advised to penalise use as combat preparation, since that'd be bad roleplaying for the character type.
 * Another spell disintegrates dead matter, but not living bodies, so it can be used for this effect.
 * One of the joke items featured in an April issue of Dragon was the "Snazzy Ring", a magical ring that would make the wearer's armour take on the appearance of an elegant gown or suit, while still providing the same level of protection. Unless it went wrong, in which case it left you genuinely naked and destroyed your outfit, making it The Nudifier as well if you roll a 1.

Video Games

 * Kingdom of Loathing has a "Depantsing Bomb" that works on anyone, even if they're not wearing pants... not depicted graphically, though.
 * The Elder Scrolls
 * In Oblivion, there is a quest for the Daedric Prince Sanguine which requires the Player Character to cast the spell "Stark Reality" at a dinner party. The spell strips everyone in the vicinity to their undergarments. This is pretty appropriate for Sanguine, who's pretty much a Captain Ersatz of the Greek Dionysus.
 * Also the "Ring of Disrobing" from the "Shivering Isles" add-on, which unequips all the players of clothes.
 * And don't forget the Dreamworld.
 * The Bartolls from Super Robot Wars. A requirement for you to be put as its pilot is to be stripped naked first. If you get caught by it, get ready to strip. However, instead of funny, this is usually played for Nightmare Fuel and Fan Disservice.
 * Nethack
 * The Scroll of Destroy Armor.
 * The Succubus is a creature that removes armor and clothes before she gives you a "Very Educational Experience", which gives you +1 level and increases your wisdom (other, often detrimental effects are also possible, mind you). Of course, low-level characters may simply just go Out with a Bang, so the technique should only be attempted by higher leveled characters. Either way, the Succubus is a very useful way to remove cursed armor. After all, the succubus is among the original Horny Devils.
 * Disintegration Blasts first destroy your armor. Then they instant-kill you.
 * In Russian adventure game Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, there's a prank spell. It looks like a cure for petrification, but actually just disrobes the caster. Used by the protagonist for.
 * In X-COM Apocalypse, the Entropy Gun. It's a homing bio missile which on hit starts to dissolve all your armour and weapons. On its own it doesn't do any damage, however, dissolved ammunition tends to fire. Including grenades.
 * According to Huey Emmerich in Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker, this is all the prototype Stealth Camouflage is able to do at this point. Oh well.
 * The maggots in Metal Slug III. While they simply melt any male characters they manage to spit on, they have a rather more... specific... effect on the females. Which still kills them, for whatever reason.
 * Final Fantasy XI features Lamia generals in the sieges of Aht'Urghan who, among other annoying AoE spells, can strip you of all your visible armour and weapons leaving your punching the air in your skivvies. Strangely, the spell does not remove your rings and earrings; one should still accessorize when their pants are dropped, shouldn't they?
 * Zenka from Super Cosplay War Ultra, being one who cosplays Sanger Zonvolt, has the Unyou no Tachi move (just like the original) and what does it do when it hits male characters? Cuts down their clothes.
 * Dragon Age: Origins Awakening can cause your imported character save from the previous game to start the game in their underwear if they are wearing certain DLC armor.
 * Witcher 2 has a sex scene were Triss uses a spell to cause her clothes to disappear before diving into a Elven pool. Geralt has to take off his clothes the old-fashion way before following suit. Naturally it's become the most popular scene in the game.

Web Animation

 * In the Strong Bad E-mail "senior prom", Strong Bad tries to prank the prom by bringing in a device that makes everyone's pants "poof away".

Web Comics

 * Girl Genius: Dr Bunbury's Wacky Weave Destabilizer; the reason so many performer women, including Zeetha, wear metal/leather underwear.
 * College Roomies from Hell has fast-acting clothes-eating moths.
 * Sluggy Freelance: What to do with a swarm of clothes-devouring moths? Cue the meeting of the Young Republican Women's Assembly.
 * Dr. Germahn of El Goonish Shive once invented a potion that caused your sweat to dissolve clothes. It has not been seen in action, but the "shrink soda" has, and it's just as effective.
 * The Dragon Doctors
 * One of the heroes fires an "Equipment Failure" ray at a pair of assassins, one of which is a guy. The two suddenly-naked killers flee, and almost get arrested for public nudity.
 * Again used by Sarin the wizard a couple of times: once as punishment for a very nosy magic user, and another to solve a hostage situation by blowing away all the equipment held by both the hostage taker and the hostage.
 * The Ax Crazy rapist Voulger in Flipside uses a sword called "Thread-Reaper", which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. It's particularly effective on Maytag since her self-confidence is directly linked to her jester outfit. Later, a magic sticker does the same thing while she's on stage.
 * Girls with Slingshots has lasers that remove your clothes, used in playing Strip Laser Tag.
 * In The Easy Breather, Ant Woman, in her non-heroic identity, met such a robot at the jewelry store.
 * Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic reminds: Disintegration Finesse has many uses...
 * Intragalactic has the Nuditizer (link NSFW), apparently a piece of medical equipment. Which could come off as really handy when emergency access to the body is needed fast. It sure seems faster than scissors.
 * The Adventures of Fifine has an unusual variant: Naked Island. Just arriving on the island by whatever means will obliterate clothes.
 * In Super Bikini Girls, Ebony and Ivory's bikinis are destroyed by a giant alien monster's "Preasure Beam". They continue fighting covered by the word "censored".
 * This was misdiagnosed by Bud (in that Bud thought that this was all that happened, but the truth was far more complicated) in a strip of Wapsi Square. Link is NSFW and contains some spoilers.

Western Animation

 * Kid Rot from Grossology has the ability to cause all organic material to rot with a single touch, including clothing. He himself is exempt from this because his clothes are synthetic (and thus, do not rot).
 * Saturday Night Live's TV Funhouse cartoon series had an episode of The X-Presidents where Bill Clinton wants to join the X-Presidents and creates this robot that has a magnet that sucks the clothes right off people's bodies.
 * In the Tripping the Rift episode "Miss Galaxy 5000", Six is reciting a poem during the talent portion of the eponymous Beauty Contest when Chode McBlob decides to liven things up by zapping her with a "Clothes B Gone" device.
 * In Codename: Kids Next Door, Sector V tries using a "Nude Torpedo" against Professor XXX-L; however the coordinates were wrong and instead it hits them. And note that it happens at the North Pole -- sure, the kids weren't happy about the nudity, but the cold was a much more pressing matter.
 * Bob Clampett's Looney Tunes short Eatin' on the Cuff is another example of fast-acting clothes-eating moths.
 * A '70s Sesame Street cartoon has a man getting disrobed by moths.
 * Same with a late one-off short from Ka Blam, but going after underwear.
 * The Simpsons
 * In the "Treehouse of Horror" episode parodying Fantastic Voyage, white blood cells eat away Marge's jumpsuit although, as she comments, "They know just when to stop".
 * Milhouse accidentally strips himself completely nude with a botched magic spell in their Harry Potter spoof, triggering a Naked Freak-Out.
 * Kabuto, the main villain of Tokyo Mater is essentially the automobile equivalent of this. "The loser will be stripped of all modifications... and become STOCK!!!"
 * On Jimmy Two Shoes, Heloise trains moths to partially do this to Beezy, to get rid of the fear sweater he was wearing. Unfortunately, their orders were to eat green, and Lucius just happened to be walking by wearing an all green suit.
 * Nanobots eat The Powerpuff Girls' clothes in "Nano of the North", rendering them stark naked (using their arms to cover themselves).

Real Life

 * The controversial "perv-scanners" being installed in airports around the Western world don't literally remove your clothes, but generate 3-dimensional images of the person being scanned and allow for layers of clothing to be taken away virtually. But in defiance of this trope, the employees that monitor the scans never see the person being scanned, the images produced are not in colour and are of low enough resolution that your genitalia aren't worth looking at, and the files are deleted once the scan is over. Or at least, they're supposed to.
 * The "Get Naked Bikini". (Link SFW ... barely)
 * A Real Life inversion has been created by scientists at Imperial College, London. Reported in New Scientist magazine, the device can be used to spray a liquid onto a person's skin where it turns into a fabric.