The Coats Are Off

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Ass is about to be kicked. And fangirls are about to squee.

Everyone knows that wearing a longcoat[1] is one of the surest ways to show that you’re a Badass, because nothing says “don’t fuck with me” more than having a long dark coat billowing out behind you as you walk. But when a Badass Longcoat wants to really get dangerous, he takes his coat off.

Basically, when someone loses his coat, his badass level increases drastically. He can still be defeated, but he will look good while doing it and be very hard to put down. It could be argued that this effect is why Badass Longcoats exist in the first place. See also Necktie Headband.

In an actual combat situation, this does make sense. Coats and cloaks look great but are also bulky and tend to move about on their own quite a bit. This restricts the wearer's movements and limits their effectiveness in battle. Shedding the coat will not only make movement easier but also deny the enemy a potential grappling point. This also has the added advantage of getting the garment out of the combat zone. After all, who wants to get blood on their badass coat? Cloth also can be used for entanglement, and folded thick cloth can work as a makeshift shield - at least against cuts from light fencing blades Swashbuckler tend to face or critters with short teeth.

Bonus Badass points if you are shirtless beneath the coat, or if you're wearing pants with suspenders. Badassness levels will also increase exponentially if you're wearing business-like attire underneath - the nicer, neater, and more expensive the better. Heck, the Badass level increases even if you're wearing a sleeveless shirt. EXTRA bonus points if the coat is revealed to be weighted clothing.

Examples of The Coats Are Off include:

Anime & Manga

  • In Angelic Layer, Sai's angel Shirahime once shed her coat during a key battle.
  • Bleach:
    • When Captain-Commander Yamamoto fights he loses his haori to reveal his incredibly muscled chest and arms.
    • In the fight against Yoruichi, Second Squad Captain Soi Fon takes off her captain's coat, revealing her Special Forces uniform. Said uniform exposes the shoulders and back due to the fact that Shunkou, causing high spiritual pressure to accumulate at the shoulders and back, would blast away the fabric at said places.
      • And in the manga, this is a slight bit of fanservice as well. Unlike like in the anime, manga!Soifon wears nothing under her open-sided, low-cut special forces uniform apart from a thong, leading to flashes of side-boob as she fights.
    • When he decides Starrk's finally going to 'get serious', Kyoraku removes his colourful pink coat and throws it to Ukitake. Starrk had even said that it was hard to take Kyoraku seriously with his odd clothing. Likely also a necessary move on Kyoraku's part—the 'colour game' which ultimately kills Starrk works best with plain colours.
      • To elaborate, the game works as such that the attacker can only damage a certain color on the victim, and the damage is increased the more common the color is on the attacker and the less common it is on the victim. While Kyoraku was almost completely clad in black, Starrk's only black was on his hollow hole, making Kyoraku's attack incredibly damaging.
  • Both Piccolos in Dragon Ball. In the younger one's case, it makes even more sense as his cloak is weighed for training purposes.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist's Edward Elric (pictured above) takes off his coat when getting into serious battles, but he also inverted this at one point. After some downtime while hiding from the enemy, he made himself a new coat, even though it would allow him to be identified easily. Putting the coat on was his way of saying he was done running.
  • Similar to (and perhaps the inspiration for) the Gurren Lagann example below is one from G Gundam. After Domon tells her that he loves her, Rain breaks free from the Devil Gundam. As she's naked, Domon swiftly covers her with his cloak. They then destroy the Devil Gundam once and for all in a CrazyAwesome manner.
  • Hellsing:
    • Alucard gets stronger as he loses his coat; as the various pieces of clothing he wears act as a means to restrict his vast and considerable power, it's a Justified Trope.
    • Integra dramatically rips hers off in response to the Major's "Come, let us make war!" It would be a What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome? moment, except that it's awesome.
    • Also, the Captain in his fight against Seras. It's the first time we get to see his power as a werewolf. It's also the first time we find out that he wears no shirt under his jacket.
  • In Hyakujitsu no Bara, Klaus throws off his coat when he challenges Taki to fencing in front of the troops. Bonus points for the Shirtless Scene, Sarashi-like bandages, and being blasé about the fact he still was recovering from very serious injuries.
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha's Fate Testarossa does this with her Sonic Form, and later Sonic Drive.
  • There's a running joke among the Naruto fandom that any Akatsuki member who takes off or loses their cloak in a fight will be dead by the end of that battle.[2] However, that also means that whoever they're fighting is tough enough for them to play for keeps.
It should be noted that only three of them (Sasori, Kisame, and Kakuzu[3]) took off their cloaks intentionally. The rest lost theirs as a result of Clothing Damage, except for Hidan and Deva Pain who just had theirs ripped open. However, when Konan fights Tobi, Konan dies with her cloak still on (although it opens a little after she dies), while Madara survives despite losing his cloak.

Comic Books

  • A particularly impressive version of this is pulled off by Shadow the Hedgehog in Archie Comics Sonic the Hedgehog. In an alternate future where Shadow is king, an aged Sonic attacks him. Unfortunately for him, Shadow is still in his prime because he was created to never age. To illustrate this, Shadow throws off his royal cloak, and beats Sonic into the ground before it hits the floor.
  • Once The Punisher is ready to get messy he tends to remove his coat, revealing the black, skull-adorned T-shirt underneath.
  • Sin City--
    • Marv is very fond of his long coats, but in “A Hard Goodbye” he removes it at several points. Though removed for unrelated reasons (providing warmth and coverage for a naked woman, using it as a decoy), he tends to kick the most ass without it. Then again, considering just how many of the murders he commits and the beatings he gives are preceded by the words "That's a nice coat you've got there," maybe that’s not too surprising.
    • Likewise, Wallace, the main character of Hell and Back has no coat for the later part of the story for stealth purposes, resulting in much asses being kicked.
  • Mr. Pendulum in Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse not only increases in asskicking, he also increases in size.


Film

  • Blade does this right before going sword-to-sword with Drake in the third film.
  • Not a coat, but you can count on Bruce Lee to kick a lot more ass if his top is torn or removed.
  • Subverted in Bullshot. The Comedic Hero is taking off his coat to engage in the manly art of fisticuffs, only to be kicked in the groin while his arms are immobilized.
  • Fight Club: Tyler Durden's pre-narrator-annihilation disrobement.
  • It happens a few minutes before the final confrontation, but in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Clint Eastwood removes his longcoat to place it over a dying man, and instead dons the iconic poncho.
  • In Jackie Chan's Who Am I? the final fight features Chan in a tag-team battle with two skilled martial artists. When Chan uses the first one's jacket and tie against him, the second one sensibly removes his before he jumps into the fight.
  • Neo takes off his coat after the most iconic Bullet Time sequence in The Matrix. Morpheus also gets one of these moments in the second movie.
  • In the Mortal Kombat movie, Shang Tsung takes off his big longcoat just before facing off with Liu Kang.
  • In The Russians Are Coming, after the Chief has finally had enough of Fendall Hawkins undermining his authority and breaks his sword on his knee, the two men begin taking off their coats while everyone else tries to keep them from beating each other up.
  • Star Wars--
    • ' Qui Gon and Obi Wan dramatically take off their outer robes before facing Darth Maul, who also sheds his cloak.
    • Obi-Wan and Vader also do this right before their duel in Episode III. Probably the main reason this doesn't happen in Attack of the Clones is the fact that both Obi-Wan and Anakin already lost their outer robes before their fight with Dooku (and Dooku didn't take off his cape because it protects him with its magic).
    • Obi-Wan also drops his robe before leaping down to face General Grievous and his Mooks. The man must have left robes all over the Galaxy.
    • Asajj Ventress in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, who is always shown wearing a long skirt when not fighting. Because the animators found it too difficult to animate her skirt during fight scenes, Ventress always removes her skirt before engaging in a lightsaber duel with the heroes (in fact, when she escapes after losing she will always leave her skirt behind). She stops doing this altogether from Season 3 onwards, however, as by then Ventress actually stopped wearing a skirt permanently.
  • Neither Raven nor Tom Cody wear their longcoat during the sledge-hammer duel at the end of Streets of Fire. Tom Cody even slips his suspenders off his shoulders before the fight.
  • Doc Holliday shrugs off his coat as he raises his shotgun during the standoff at the OK Corral in Tombstone.
  • In Transporter 2, Frank carefully takes off his jacket, folds it and puts it on the hood of his car (declaring that he'd just had it dry-cleaned), before proceeding to wipe the floor with the teenagers that tried to steal his car.
  • River Tam in Serenity, just before clearing the bar. In epic slow motion and blue-filter lighting, of course.
  • In the 2009 Sherlock Holmes film, both Dr Watson and Dredger take their coats off before the fight in the laboratory.


Live-Action Television

  • In the "Al Capone gang vs. Jesse James gang" simulation of Deadliest Warrior, Al Capone sheds his longcoat in preparation for the fight with Jesse James. Unfortunately for him, Capone loses the fight when one of James' men shoots him through some jail bars.
  • Firefly's River Tam drops her jacket just before tearing into the patrons of the Bad Guy Bar.
  • In the Smallville season 9 finale "Salvation", Clark Kent disposes of his coat before proceeding to kick Zod's ass. In the rain.
  • The Fourth Doctor took off his coat at the end of the Doctor Who serial Meglos. He did it to turn the title character's scheme of masquerading as the Doctor back on him to infiltrate his base...and booby trap his superweapon to destroy the planet.


Tabletop Games

  • GURPS Martial Arts supplement included an optional rule intended to simulate this very trope called "Bulletproof Nudity". This rule gave characters combat bonuses if they were wearing less clothing. The key was that you couldn't just walk around in a thong, you had to normally wear appropriate clothing and take it off or have it shredded during the fight.
  • Long coats in Shadowrun often serve as armor, making exercising this trope stupid at best and suicidal at worst.


Video Games

  • In Alpha Protocol, just before the battle with Omen Deng, he dramatically sheds his Badass Cape.
  • In Squaresoft's The Bouncer, the Big Bad, Dauragon C. Mikado, wears a Badass Longcoat for most of the game, including when you first get to fight him. In the Final Boss Fight, he starts out wearing it, too, but after you knock enough health off of him, he tosses the coat and becomes a LOT stronger. In the True Final Boss Fight, he removes the suspenders, too, and fights you full-on shirtless.
  • In Deus Ex Human Revolution Adam Jensen wears a Badass Longcoat in his everyday life, but when going to serious assignments he leaves it home, wearing only a bulletproof vest and his cybernetic implants above the waist.
  • Averted by both Nero and Dante in Devil May Cry, and then completely subverted by Dante in Devil May Cry 3, where he has a badass putting-the-coat-on moment and proceeds to kill a small army of demons.
  • The moment you enter combat time in Fallout 2, the Deathclaw NPC Goris drops his monk-like robe to rip the enemy a new one, then puts it back on to hide his features from friendly commoners.
  • In the Heaven's Feel Route of Fate/stay night, Dark Sakura seems to kill Kotomine, leaving only his priest’s robes behind. But in the true ending, when Shirou goes to destroy Avenger, he finds Kotomine barring his path. This is the only scene in the entire game where Kotomine isn't wearing his coat, and it's also his most badass -- he manages to give a really long speech and nearly beat Shirou to death, despite the fact that his heart completely ceased to function hours ago.
  • Final Fantasy--
    • In Final Fantasy VII, Sephiroth walks around most the time in a Badass Longcoat, and most of the time he's still able to kick ass without breaking a sweat. In his final fight, he wears no coat, which gives him only a pair of pants and boots. The joke is, that fight is impossible to lose.
    • Auron of Final Fantasy X has his own iconic variation of this. In addition to the FMV at Luca, this is his standard fight-begin animation.
  • Kingdom Hearts II--
    • Mickey Mouse, of all people, does this with his Badass Longcoat after a pivotal scene.
    • There's also a scene of Riku throwing off his own Badass Longcoat after he's restored to his true form and joins Sora in the final battle.
  • King of Fighters--
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Ghirahim actually teleports his robe away before fighting Link. He later powers up and removes everything else as well, including his skin, revealing his true Chrome Champion form underneath.
  • In MadWorld, removal of a coat changes The Black Baron (stop starin') from a walking joke to the final boss. His hat follows suit without mention later.
  • In the first Mega Man X game and its remake Sigma tosses away his coat and spiked shoulder pads holding it before fighting X. Then he pulls out a GODDAMN LIGHTSABER. He does it again in X5.
  • Zero briefly wears a Badass Cape at the beginning of Mega Man Zero 2, and pulls it off, ready to kick ass when the Neo Arcadian military spot him.
  • Nearly every single coat worn in the Metal Gear Solid series. It is especially prevalent in the fourth game, as four characters (Old Snake, Raiden, Vamp and Liquid Ocelot) lose their coats to become even more Badass. Raiden in particular becomes twice as badass putting the coat back on during his 'I Am Lightning' moment.[4] Also happens to Volgin, the Boss and the Sorrow in Snake Eater, Solidus Snake and Fortune in Sons of the Patriots and Liquid Snake in Metal Gear Solid.
  • Resident Evil--
  • Skies of Arcadia: When Galcian, the Big Bad and Grand Admiral of The Empire goes off on top of a rail car to catch the two protagonists, he ditches his immense, requisite Badass Longcoat, revealing intimidating armor and a BFS.
  • Purge from Space Channel 5 Part 2 loses his coat before challenging you to the Final Dance-off.
  • In Street Fighter II, M. Bison does this with his cape before you fight him.
  • Wild Dog does this in every Time Crisis game.
  • In Yo-Jin-Bo, Bo sheds his cape (and allows it to be shredded) to gain the upper hand when facing off against Kasumimaru.
  • Throughout the Kirby series, Meta Knight removes his cape before dueling Kirby.


Web Original

  • In There Will Be Brawl, Luigi had worn his trenchcoat throughout the series. He took it off during the penultimate episosde, after Red dies in an explosion. Luigi covered his body using his coat and walked off to start the final battle.


Western Animation

  • Before the final showdown in Avatar: The Last Airbender, not only does Firelord Phoenix King Ozai take off his robe, he burns it to ash.
  • Used as a form of non-verbal Duck Season! Rabbit Season! in the Looney Tunes short "Big House Bunny": Bugs Bunny finds himself in prison locking horns with guard Yosemite Sam (here called Sam Schultz). Bugs bets that Sam wouldn't be so tough without his uniform and dares him to take it off and fight. Sam takes off his guard uniform while Bugs takes off his prisoner garb. Bugs then "decides" that Sam is tough enough and puts on Sam's uniform, while Sam puts on Bugs' uniform. Bugs then blows the whistle and the other guards beat up Sam and take him to a cell.
  • Samurai Jack tears off part or all of his kimono at least every other episode. Usually loses the top knot, too.
  1. ↑ Feel free to mentally substitute Badass Cape in this description as needed
  2. ↑ So far, this has been the case every single time.
  3. ↑ Four if you count Asura Pain.
  4. ↑ It must be explained that he did this after ‘’losing both of his arms’’.
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