Can't Bathe Without a Weapon



When a character is bathing and someone of the opposite sex comes in, or something is going to attack the bather, they suddenly pull out a gun while still in the tub and try to shoot the intruder. Or draw a blade and try stabbing him, if firearms aren't an option. Sibling trope to the Pillow Pistol. If they employ their towel as said weapon, that's Cloth Fu.

This commonly happens in Outdoor Bath Peeping. See also Crazy Prepared, Properly Paranoid.

Anime & Manga

 * Gundam
 * Natasha does this in the 19th episode of Mobile Fighter G Gundam.
 * Done in the second episode of Mobile Suit Gundam The 08th MS Team.
 * In the second episode of Soul Eater, Tsubaki throws a shuriken at Black Star for peeping at her while she is bathing in a lake.
 * Grenadier
 * Rushuna Tendô does this in the intro credits and in one part of the manga.
 * In one episode, she's bathing and is attacked. She has her gun where she can snag it with a towel that's at hand.
 * In the he second episode of Soul Eater'', Tsubaki throws a shuriken at Black Star for peeping at her while she is bathing in a lake.
 * Revolutionary Girl Utena film, Adolescence of Utena, Kozue threatens her brother with a razor blade while she is in the tub. She was trimming his eyebrows, incidentally.
 * Mahou Sensei Negima
 * When Kazumi is taking pictures of everyone at the end of the trip to Kyoto, she takes a picture of several of her classmates in the hot springs, including Mana Tatsumiya. She was hiding a gun under a bucket, and is seconds away from shooting Kazumi.
 * Earlier in that same arc, Negi personally discovers that yes, Setsuna does bathe with her demon-hunting sword.
 * In Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple, Shigure and Kenichi are bathing together in a mixed-sex hot spring when they are attacked by assassins after Shigure's head. She then reveals that she is a) skillful enough to use her wet hair ribbon as a whip against three armed men, and b) Properly Paranoid enough that she had stashed her sword in the branches of a nearby tree, nearby enough that she could use the ribbon to pick it up.
 * Code Geass has Kallen. She seems to get to show it off with startling frequency.
 * In one episode of Tokko, Kureha is attacked by phantoms while taking a shower and quickly grabs her twin daggers, which were within arms reach and slices up her attackers.
 * In the Hot Springs Episode of Outlaw Star, Suzuka hits Gene with her sheathed sword when he landed in the Hot Spring her and Melfina were bathing in.
 * In Ninja Scroll, Jubei has his sword within arm's reach when he's bathing at the hot springs. It quickly comes in handy.
 * In Princess Lover, Sylvie Van Housen tries to bring her rapier into the hot springs, much to the surprise of the other girls.
 * Promo / Fan Service art of Noir shows that, yes, the assassin duo take showers with their guns within reach.

Comic Books
"Achille Talon: A blunderbuss in a bathroom! Violence is indeed everywhere.
 * In Black Moon Chronicles, Feydreiva the elven female warrior is spotted by Wismerhill while bathing in a river -- the first woman he'd ever seen naked. She responds by throwing a bastard sword in a tree next to his head.
 * Lucky Luke pulled this on Dr. Doxey once. It should be noted that Luke had hidden his six-shooters underwater.
 * Blackhawk did this during his run in Action Comics Weekly; riffing on the "never bring a knife to a gunfight" line from The Untouchables.
 * Deconstructed in an Achille Talon album, La Main du Serpent: Vincent Poursan jumps out of his bath with a blunderbuss, spurring the comments:

Lefuneste: Yeah, that's kinda dirty."


 * Jonah Hex is often shown bathing with trusty bowie knife concealed in the tub.

Films -- Live-Action
"Cooper: There's a half a million dollars in that satchel over there and your gun is eight feet away from you. Not smart. Not smart at all."
 * John Wayne has done this in at least one Western, Big Jake. There's a shower scene, and he knows someone's after him, so he keeps a shotgun in the shower. When the guy comes in to kill him, Jake has the shotgun in his hands and uses it to shoot through the thin wooden door of the shower stall.
 * An unnamed blond girl from Doomsday pulls out a shotgun while still in her bathtub and shoots.
 * In Ghost Rock, Jenya Lano does this in her bathtub with two pistols. She then gets out and walks all over the saloon naked, shooting all the intruders.
 * Averted at the end of the Maverick movie. Twice.

"Tuco: When you gotta shoot, shoot. Don't talk."
 * However, both those times were deliberate:
 * The Good the Bad And The Ugly: A vengeful man, whom Tuco had previously shot in the hand and permanently disabled, catches the "Ugly" naked in a bathtub. He delivers a long speech about how he tracked Tuco down, and how he had lots of time to learn to shoot with his left hand... which is cut off when Tuco shoots him with a gun hidden under the bathtub bubbles.

"Sorceress: Well? Are you going to kill me or just stare at me?"
 * When Mathayus (The Rock), hero of The Scorpion King, crashes through the ceiling of the Sorceress' bathroom, she instantly grabs a convenient dagger and assumes a defensive stance that has Mathayus' jaw hanging.

"James Bond: (not surprised at all) A water pistol?"
 * Firefox offers a shower example: while bathing for the title plane's maiden flight, the protagonist talks to a mission command officer, without leaving his revolver. (Justified for two reasons: he's an American sent there to hijack the Firefox... and he's Clint Eastwood.)
 * Subverted in Eastern Promises in the Turkish Baths,
 * James Bond
 * In The Man with the Golden Gun, Andrea Anders pulls a gun on James Bond when he walks in on her showering.


 * Bond himself pulls a similar trick in Goldeneye, when Xenia attacks him while while he's having a leisurely swim at his hotel. He retrieves his gun from alongside his towel once out of the pool, and sets it down when Xenia begins to kiss him. Conveniently, it disappears when Onatopp starts crushing him to death, presumably as not to ruin the tension and provide a too-easy ending to the fight.

Literature

 * In the Dragonlance Chronicles, when Silvara hears Gilthanas watching her, she runs over to her clothes. He expects her to cover herself, but she just pulls out her knife.
 * Not a literal example, but in Iron Fist, two of the Wraiths on a mission are surprised to find that another Wraith brought his sniper rifle, even though the mission wasn't one that should have called for any sort of sniping. He offhandedly tells them that he takes it everywhere -- sleeps with it, bathes with it, goes to the fresher with it... He's probably just messing with them, of course; even in Wraith Squadron, someone carrying a metre-long laser rifle on his person at all times would have earned him some weird looks.
 * In The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You by Harry Harrison, James Bolivar DiGriz is showering at home on a peaceful planet. He hears his wife's scream and runs out without even grabbing a towel. He sees her get shoved into a car by two goons and pulls out a gun he keeps in his ankle holster. We can assume that the gun is waterproof. Needless to say, the neighbors are a little freaked out by a naked guy firing a gun.
 * In the first Doom novel, Flynn Taggart decides to risk taking a shower in the Phobos Lab infirmary. He takes the trouble to lock the doors and turn off the lights except for the one in the shower stall and keeps his trusty shotgun within arm's reach. Makes sense since the base is currently in the middle of an Alien Invasion and a Zombie Apocalypse. Luckily for Flynn, he doesn't get attacked while he's showering.

Tabletop Games

 * One illustration in Scion: Demigod shows Horace Farrow lifting a pistol out of his bath and shooting an intruder. Appropriately enough, it's next to the description of the "Eternal Vigilance" Knack. It's also a reference to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (see above).
 * The Forgotten Realms spell "Laeral's Gesture" is the result of Laeral being tired of being attacked while bathing, and thus not having her spell components on hand (it quickly fires any currently available low-level spell, skipping its material or verbal components).

Video Games

 * In a cutscene in God Hand, Olivia pulls an ax out of her bubble bath.
 * No More Heroes
 * Averted at a critical moment: Travis doesn't have his beam katana when, almost costing him his life.
 * A nod to this is in the sequel, which upholds this trope -- Travis keeps all his beam katanas on his belt at all times in the sequel, most likely due to the above incident.
 * Not a gun, but in The Grandstream Saga, the hero sneaks onto a flying vessel in a treasure box. Said treasure box is delivered to the female leader's personal quarters. The hero sneaks out of the box at just the right time (said leader is taking a shower in the same room), said female leader notices and throws a battle axe across the room, barely missing his head and comes out of the shower with a towel holding a massive morning star.
 * The Operative: No One Lives Forever: Cate isnt't attacked in the shower scene, but you can see she's ready for that contingency, as her handy revolver is right there.
 * In a scene cut from the US release of Breath of Fire IV, Ryu sneaks in upon Nina and Ursula conversing while enjoying a hot spring (after Nina told him not to, no less) in an island the group is currently stranded on. The moment his curiosity get the better of him and he tries to take a peek, he finds out that Ursula apparently prefers to soak with her firearm close by. See for yourself. In fact, given that there was literally zero reaction time between him starting to peek and the rock he was hiding behind getting shot, she probably heard him and knew he was there the whole time, just waiting for him to try his luck.
 * Watch out for the bather in Shadow Warrior. She only looks unarmed.

Real Life

 * George Macdonald Fraser's way of describing the dangers of serving in the British Army in Palestine in 1946 was, "You took your service revolver into the shower with you." He was not exaggerating.
 * A variant: the legendary Miyamoto Musashi supposedly had poor personal hygiene because he refused to bathe very often, with the reasoning that even if you brought a weapon with you, you could be caught off guard too easily.
 * Prison would probably be a place where this trope sees regular usage.