History Main / InvisibleAnatomy

* ''TabletopGames/DungeonsAndDragons'' featured the Lumi a race of outsiders immune to most forms of decapitation sinse they lack necks.

** Onion lacks visible ears. This (among many other things) has caused fans to speculate that [[AmbiguouslyHuman he may not be human]], though later it's shown he is.

* In ''WesternAnimation/DaftPlanet'', nobody in the show has a neck. Rather, their heads just float above their shoulders.

** Steven doesn't have a visible ear canal. In "Catch and Release" he's shown cleaning his ears however he just seems to pass it over skin.

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

Compare ArmlessBiped, AnatomyAnomaly, FeatherFingers, FourthWallPortrait, FloatingLimbs, FingerlessHands, NoMouth.

* In ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'', characters have been shown that, without shoes on (Or in Big and Tikal's case, with sandals on), they don't have toes. Oddly enough, they do have five fingers. Also note that this only applies to the anthropomorphic animal characters, as humans do have toes.

* Many species in the ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' games, such as Goombas and Bob-Ombs. Goombella, introduced in ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'', especially stands out, as (to get information on the opponent you're facing in a battle) she frequently takes out a green book and turns the pages, despite her lack of visible arms. And despite the fact that a lot of tropes are [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in the game, neither she nor anyone else comments on this. And in ''Mario Baseball'', Goombas can swing a baseball bat with no hands.

* In ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'', characters have been shown that, without shoes on (Or in Big and Tikal's case, with sandals on), they don't have toes. Oddly enough, they do have five fingers. Also note that this only applies to the anthropomorphic animal characters, as humans do have toes.

** Female characters (including [[OneGenderRace gems]]) and a few male ones don't have their ears drawn if they'd be even slightly obscured by hair of headgear. In a bizarre extreme, Mr. Fryman's earliest appearances had his ears missing whenever he was wearing his visor, even though the visor hangs ''far'' above his ears.

* Franchise/{{Rayman}}, being the {{Trope Namer|s}} for FloatingLimbs, has visible hands and feet, but no arms, legs, or neck. And given his use of WhiteGloves, we can't even be sure he actually has ''anything'' besides his head and torso. In moments of boredom, Rayman has a tendency to remove his torso and bounce it like a basketball. ''Rayman: Raving Rabbids'' implies that he might have invisible legs. If he is wearing pants, you can clearly see ''knees''.

* Starting in late 2013 AMC Theaters has had some AMC Amazing spots before the film featuring creepy red spherical characters usually without eyes or limbs, living in a gray world. They appear to hop around instead of walk and like in ''WesternAnimation/VeggieTales'' and ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' have what I call "Phantom Limb Psychokinesis", that is they can manipulate objects without touching them, but only within the reach and strength limitations of actual arms and hands.

* Franchise/{{Rayman}}, being the {{Trope Namer|s}} for FloatingLimbs, has visible hands and feet, but no arms, legs, or neck. And given his use of WhiteGloves, we can't even be sure he actually has ''anything'' besides his head and torso. In moments of boredom, Rayman has a tendency to remove his torso and bounce it like a basketball. ''Rayman: Raving Rabbids'' implies that he might have invisible legs. If he is wearing pants, you can clearly see ''knees''.
* '' VideoGame/{{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). Creature without arms in Spore wield tools with their mouths.
** You actually get an achievement for finishing the creature stage without ever having given your creature legs. There's no similar achievement for arms, and you can add legs in the post-creature stage/pre-tribal stage final creature editor, because you get the achievement before that editor.
* Many species in the ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' games, such as Goombas and Bob-Ombs. Goombella, introduced in ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'', especially stands out, as (to get information on the opponent you're facing in a battle) she frequently takes out a green book and turns the pages, despite her lack of visible arms. And despite the fact that a lot of tropes are [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in the game, neither she nor anyone else comments on this. And in ''Mario Baseball'', Goombas can swing a baseball bat with no hands.
* Miis:
** The Mii characters built on Nintendo's Wii console have arms when created, but in ''VideoGame/WiiSports'', they don't have them. They just have floating sphere hands or boxing gloves. Any non-player Miis in the background will also lack ''legs''. Most games that use them in gameplay just reproduce the head on a single style of body anyway, and ignore the user-defined height and weight sliders. Referred to in [[http://www.brawlinthefamily.com/?p=702 this]] ''Webcomic/BrawlInTheFamily'' strip.
** This is also reflected in every game in ''VideoGame/StreetPassMiiPlaza'', in which the Miis have completely spherical, fingerless floating hands and, without legs, hover a short distance above the ground. This aspect is reflected in all human [=NPCs=] in the game.
* In ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'', characters have been shown that, without shoes on (Or in Big and Tikal's case, with sandals on), they don't have toes. Oddly enough, they do have five fingers. Also note that this only applies to the anthropomorphic animal characters, as humans do have toes.

* ''[[VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon FEAR]]'' nearly avoids the 'invisible third hand' and 'floating torso' phenomenon found in many shooters, arms and legs are required to climb ladders, swim and are seen flailing when the player is thrown though a window. Doors and buttons, however are used without physical contact. ''FEAR 2: Project Origin'' keeps the part with doors (unless you [[DynamicEntry bash or kick them open]]), but now adds animations of the player character physically interacting with buttons, levers, valves and keyboards.
* The characters of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' do not have noses on their faces. (Though sometimes in the PSP [=FMVs=] 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 ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII DS''.

* VideoGame/{{Dizzy}} from the eponymous games is an egg with a face, and apparently unattached boxing gloves and boots.
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' and ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' lets you pick up objects in front of you without putting them in your inventory. The effect is the same like in ''Half-Life 2'', except since you can change the camera to a third person view, you can see the object is literally floating in front of your character while your arms can be holding something else or nothing at all.

* The birds in ''VideoGame/AngryBirds'' have no visible wings or legs. Their anatomical lack became particularly noticeable when developers of the game were ask to design a mascot for the 2012 Ice Hockey World Championships, resulting in [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hockeybird_4515.jpg Hockeybird]], a creature that can play ice hockey with no limbs at all.
* In the ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' GameMod ''VideoGame/ASuperMarioThing'', the main character, Demo, has invisible limbs. However, she can still lift shells and such just like Mario could. The prequel fixes this by having her balance the items with her leg.
* In ''VideoGame/Stinkoman20X6'', 1-up, like his counterpart Homestar Runner, lacks visible arms, yet he can still climb ladders. So can Stinkoman, who has no fingers.
* In the ''VideoGame/HouseOfTheDead'' series, when the player(s) do something such as picking up an object, usually they don't even reach out for it. For example, in the first game: "This must be the security card." *card disappears*
* In ''VideoGame/ThetaVsPi7'' no one in the game has hands. Yet, somehow the bartender served all those drinks, the piano player plays that piano and Theta is able to play multiple instruments quite well.

** An ad for the series [[WesternAnimation/ThreeTwoOnePenguins 3-2-1 Penguins!]], made by the same studio, had Larry enter, look at one of the penguins, and yell offscreen, "Bob! They've got arms!"

* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' parodies this; Tom Servo's lack of arms doesn't prevent him from playing a bass for [[NotableOriginalMusic "Hike Up Your Pants"]]... nor does it stop him from actually ''twirling it around''. It's really more played with than done straight. Tom ''has'' arms and hands. They're just not functional.

NotToBeConfusedWith BarbieDollAnatomy.

* ''Comicbook/DoomPatrol'' 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.
* ''Rex The Wonder Dog'' -- it makes sense for him to not have hands, since he's, you know, a ''dog''... but [[http://www.superdickery.com/rex-the-wonder-dog-more-of-a-man-than-you/ they gave him a carbine]].

** 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 ''Webcomic/{{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>".

* Wally the Whale and his fishy friends of Webcomic/FruitIncest tend to just float and move objects without any limbs or even flippers. [[http://fruitincest.com/archives/win/ Lampshaded]] a couple of times, as even they don't seem to know how they do it.

Compare ArmlessBiped, AnatomyAnomaly, FeatherFingers, FourthWallPortrait, FloatingLimbs, FingerlessHands

* The Mii characters built on Nintendo's Wii console have arms when created, but in ''VideoGame/WiiSports'', they don't have them. They just have floating sphere hands or boxing gloves. Any non-player Miis in the background will also lack ''legs''. Most games that use them in gameplay just reproduce the head on a single style of body anyway, and ignore the user-defined height and weight sliders. Referred to in [[http://www.brawlinthefamily.com/?p=702 this]] ''Webcomic/BrawlInTheFamily'' strip.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{SpongeBob SquarePants}}'', Patrick Star has neither ears nor a nose, which is {{lampshade|Hanging}}d on occasion. ("I cannot believe what I'm hearing!" "How can you hear it? You don't have any ears!") This is actually a plot point in at least one episode, where Pat doesn't realize [=SpongeBob=] has bad breath on account of his noiselessness. There's also an episode where Patrick get's a nose surgically grafted to his face and he begins to enjoy all the wonderful smells of the world (before the conflict rears it's ugly head). He later gets ears at the end of the episode (we never learn how that turns out).

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Many animated characters, especially {{Funny Animal}}s, are missing certain anthropomorphic features- perhaps the art style is stylized to the point where [[PowerpuffGirlHands hands lack fingers]], some characters simply [[WebAnimation/HomestarRunner don't have arms]], or [[WesternAnimation/VeggieTales nobody is of a species that has appendages]].

Compare ArmlessBiped, AnatomyAnomaly, FeatherFingers, FourthWallPortrait, FloatingLimbs, PowerpuffGirlHands

* Franchise/{{Rayman}}, being the {{Trope Namer|s}} for FloatingLimbs, has visible hands and feet, but no arms, legs, or neck. And given his use of WhiteGloves, 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. ''Rayman: Raving Rabbids'' implies that he might have invisible legs. If he is wearing pants, you can clearly see ''knees''.

* ''VideoGame/{{Worms}}'' hold weapons in hands that mysteriously appear when they're not moving. Let's ignore for the moment that worms don't have hands, mouths, or eyes and can't jump or backflip. Said hands don't appear to be connected to their bodies in any physical way, just floating a set distance away.

* Franchise/{{Rayman}}, being the {{Trope Namer|s}} for RaymanianLimbs, has visible hands and feet, but no arms, legs, or neck. And given his use of WhiteGloves, 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. ''Rayman: Raving Rabbids'' implies that he might have invisible legs. If he is wearing pants, you can clearly see ''knees''.

Compare ArmlessBiped, AnatomyAnomaly, FeatherFingers, FourthWallPortrait, RaymanianLimbs, PowerpuffGirlHands