History PaperThinDisguise / AnimeAndManga

* ''Anime/AkazukinChacha'': One of the hobbies of AllPowerfulBystander Seravy (and occasionally his rival/love-interest Dorothy), whenever he's secretly watching from the sidelines. Ironically, everyone falls for it, except for Riiya , but nobody believes him anyway (or considering how powerful Seravy and Doroth are, it could be a case of "the Emperor's/Empress's new clothes"). Notice others using visual aspects of recognition, Riiya uses his nose, thus possibly is not fooled by any illusion magic if based on visual looks.

** She also manages to get away with this during an attack on a hotel by terrorists by hiding behind a pair of glasses. No-one notices her until she stands up and says who she is, despite being a princess, albeit one who hadn't debuted.

* ''Manga/SmokingBehindTheSupermarketWithYou'': The manga's central conceit depends on Sasaki genuinely not being able to tell that Yamada and 'Tayama' are the same person, despite their obvious physical similarity, both working at the same convenience store, Sasaki only ever meeting Yamada inside the store and Tayama in the smoking section outside the store, and the two apparently taking time out of the day to spread gossip about him so that one always knows what he's talked about with the other. Part of it seems to be that Sasaki has placed Yamada on a pedestal to the degree that he genuinely can't conceive of her doing the things Tayama does, like smoking, being sarcastic and openly flirting with an old man like himself. Yamada, on her end, is genuinely amused by his complete inability to realise it, and uses 'Tayama' to let Sasaki get closer and see her [[BeneathTheMask as she really is]].

*** ''Gundam 00'' also has a {{Meta}} example with BigBad Ribbons Almarck, who's played by "Noboru Sogetsu"...AKA Creator/TohruFuruya, [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam Amuro Ray]]'s voice actor. The pseudonym was ostensibly done to keep Furuya's return to the franchise from overshadowing the show's actual stars, but because his voice is so distinctive it was obvious from Day 1. Sunrise even drew special attention to it: [[spoiler:in TheMovie we learn that Ribbons was cloned from a man named "E.A. Ray"]], and one of the ''Anime/GundamBuildFighters Battlogue'' shorts has Ribbons battle Char (who gets annoyed by his voice) before Ribbons is abruptly transformed into Amuro, who dismisses any similarities between them as a coincidence.

*** [[spoiler:Luffy]] takes part in a tournament wearing some different clothes, a helmet, and a fake beard. It could be considered to be an adequate disguise -- although several people see through it from the start -- but not when he starts to [[spoiler: use his Gum Gum powers in the ring]], which should be a dead giveaway of who he really is... yet most people still do not recognize him!

** This is averted in a few episodes of "Black & White", as their black clothing, hats, glasses, and coats make good ways of disguising Team Rocket’s identity. This time, it would make sense for Ash & co to not recognize them.

** Usopp adopts the guise of Sogeking, and wears a mask and a cape. His outfit doesn't disguise much and leaves his big nose obvious. All of his team members think it's ridiculous, except Luffy and Chopper, who are clueless enough to fall for it. It's so obvious that when Sogeking's wanted poster comes out, Kaya and the Usopp Pirates back in his home town immediately recognize him as Usopp. However the rest of the town doesn't.

** ''Anime/YuGiOhVRAINS'' flirts with this frequently. Yusaku's VirtualReality avatar, Playmaker, looks basically the same as him but with somewhat different hair and FutureSpandex, and Emma's avatar, Ghost Girl, is basically Emma with inverted-color hair and [[MsFanservice bare legs and arms]]. This is simultaneously justified and made sillier by the fact that the avatars appear to be completely customizable, and many characters have avatars that look nothing like them (or aren't even human). Justified, in that it means Yusaku and Playmaker looking similar proves nothing to other characters in terms of them being linked, and made sillier, in that this means Yusaku could have made himself unrecognizable but ''chooses'' to look like himself but with blonde hair.

** During the original run, Demon King Piccolo not only produced demon armies that killed hundreds but on ''live TV'' threatened to destroy the world, removed the rule of law and deposed the World Government, holding them hostage. Three years later, his {{reincarnation}} enters the World Martial Arts Tournament wearing a turban to hide his antennae and calls himself Ma Junior ("ma" being Japanese for "demon", though the alias is written in kana). Nobody besides Goku and Tenshinhan suspects that this green-skinned fighter has any connection to the near-identical Demon King Piccolo until he takes off his turban and reveals his identity. And in the Majin Buu Saga of ''Anime/DragonBallZ'', 18 years after Piccolo declared his intent to TakeOverTheWorld and destroyed the arena, Piccolo competes in the World Martial Arts Tournament again '''calling himself Ma Junior and wearing the same clothes''', and only the announcer recognizes him.

** Suzuki Iruma is the only human living in the netherworld, all of the students, teachers and staff of the school and everyone else are demons, and he has to hide his identity as a human or else he may be eaten, the only disguise Iruma uses is a perfume given by his adoptive grandfather to remove his human scent, the other demons never realize he has none of the common demon traits: Pointy ears, horns, fangs, tail, wings, animal parts and colored skin. The justification is that demons are very diverse and there's always a demon missing one of those traits, it's just that Iruma doesn't have any of them, all demons can fly but they don't question much why he never flies with his wings and prefers to walk.

** A straighter example is Commander Beef. The only physical difference between Beef and fish-peddling Masa is that Beef wears a cape and a helmet styled after a fish. Commander ''Beef'' wears a ''fish'' helmet. And they both wear an apron with a fish on it. In one episode in the anime, Lan makes the connection and calls him out on it. He is then dissuaded by Masa showing up while he's confronting Beef. A couple minutes later, 'Masa' removes his face, showing the face of Sal in a disguise, who then comments that she is ''not'' doing that again.

* When ''Manga/InuYasha'' is in public in the present, he generally wears a baseball cap to cover his [[UnusualEars dog ears]]. Never mind his anachronistic clothing and sword, [[DoesNotLikeShoes lack of shoes]], [[AnimeHair waist-length white hair]], ''fangs'', and ''claws''. At one point someone comments he must be a cosplayer so maybe the paper-thin disguise isn't so bad.

* ''Anime/MegaManNTWarrior'':
** Subverted in an episode. What initially appears to be the character Maddy in a PaperThinDisguise turns out to be the aged mystic Yahoot in an extremely effective disguise, which just ''looked'' like Maddy in a transparent disguise.

** There's also his subordinates Black Rose and Mysteriyu. While Sal wears a Franchise/{{Zorro}}-like mask and cape as Black Rose, ''Miyu'' as ''Mysteriyu'' has the worst disguise of all of them wearing only a big red bowl with eye holes over her head. But where the two girls really play this trope straight that [[spoiler:They use the '''SAME NET NAVIS''' their civilian selves used in the N1 Grand Prix!]]
-->'''Maylu:''' They tried to fool everyone, but even a baby could tell who they were.

* In ''Manga/OnePunchMan'', Saitama enters a fighting tournament under Charanko's name while wearing a cheap wig that looks kind of like Charanko's hair but mostly just ridiculous. Since most people there don't know either Charanko or Saitama, the trope is only relevant with Sourface, who knows Charanko but still totally buys it. (He's clearly not the brightest person around; even when the wig falls off, someone who ''doesn't'' know Charanko has to tell him this is clearly someone else impersonating him.) At first, Saitama hides his face when Sourface is talking to him, but soon Sourface has just accepted that he's Charanko.

** In a Hoenn episode, Meowth and Jessie attempt to disguise themselves as Kirlia and Gardevoir, respectively, in an attempt to grab a Ralts that Ash and friends were taking care of. Ash proves that the Pokédex is disguise-proof by scanning the "Kirlia" and getting the data for Meowth instead. So much for that disguise.

** Suzuki Iruma is the only human living in the netherworld, all of the students, teachers and staff of the school and everyone else are demons, and he has to hide his identity as a human or else he may be eaten, the only disguise Iruma uses is a perfume given by his adoptive grandfather to remove his human scent, the other demons never realize he has none of the common demon traits: Pointy ears, horns, fangs, tail, wings, animal parts and colored skin. The justification is that demons are very diverse and there's always a demon missing one of those traits, it's just that Iruma doesn't have any of them, apparently all demons can fly but they don't question much why he never flies with his wings and prefers to walk.

** Suzuki Iruma is the only human living in the netherworld, all of the students, teachers and staff of the school and everyone else are demons, and he has to hide his identity as a human or else he may be eaten, the only disguise Iruma uses is a perfume given by his adoptive grandfather to remove his human scent, the other demons never realize he has none of the common demon traits: Pointy ears, horns, fangs, tail, wings, animal parts and colored skin, the justification is that demons are very diverse and there's always a demon missing one of those traits, it's just that Iruma doesn't have any of them, apparently all demons can fly but they don't question much why he never flies with his wings and prefers to walk.

* ''Manga/WelcomeToDemonSchoolIrumaKun'': Suzuki Iruma is the only human living in the netherworld, all of the students, teachers and staff of the school and everyone else are demons, and he has to hide his identity as a human or else he may be eaten, the only disguise Iruma uses is a perfume given by his adoptive grandfather to remove his human scent, the other demons never realize he has none of the common demon traits: Pointy ears, horns, fangs, tail, wings, animal parts and colored skin, the justification is that demons are very diverse and there's always a demon missing one of those traits, it's just that Iruma doesn't have any of them, apparently all demons can fly but they don't question much why he never flies with his wings and prefers to walk.

** In "[[Recap/DigimonAdventureE27VamdemonTheCastleOfDarkness The Gateway to Home]]", Agumon and Palmon infiltrate [[BigBad Myotismon]]'s castle by putting on wigs (and some necklaces in Palmon's case) and pretending to be street punks looking to join [=DemiDevimon=]'s ArmyOfThievesAndWhores. They even give their names as nothing more than [=PunkAgumon=] and [=ReggaePalmon=]. Of course, given the sorts of variants that Digimon species can and do come in, this stratagem actually ''working'' is a rather more justified example than usual.

** Subverted in "Holy Matrimony!", when Jessie and Meowth wear all black to become "invisible" and James' family pretends not to see them. The black outfits are based on the assistants in traditional Japanese theater, who are considered to be "invisible" by the cultural rules of the theater.[[note]]This is where the idea of ninjas wearing black came from; in plays that featured them, they'd wear black, which would make them "invisible" to the audience right up until they slit someone's throat.[[/note]] Of course, this is something a Japanese viewer would understand natively, but gets LostInTranslation when exported anywhere else.
** Subverted in another episode where Team Rocket decides to ''help'' the protagonists. They don their usual style of disguise, help them and then go on their merry way believing they fooled them... then Misty says goodbye by shouting "Thanks, Team Rocket!" Ironically, [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness that was their first attempt]] and they were disguised fairly well there. It didn't help that they started their motto before [[DopeSlap Meowth whacked them.]]
** Subverted in the Johto episode "The Heartbreak of Brock"; Misty is immediately suspicious when she sees the disguised Team Rocket, even taking off Jessie's disguise glasses to prove her suspicions.

** Subverted in "Fire and Ice" by [[LovableSexManiac Brock]] when Jessie pretends to be Nurse Joy. "My beloved Nurse Joy's lips actually move when she talks!" Brock is known to have the unique ability to tell all of [[InexplicablyIdenticalIndividuals the apparently identical Nurse Joys]] apart at a single glance, which is probably why he wasn't fooled.

* Subverted in [=SM059=], after Ash, Lana, and Mallow find Drampa, who's known for being nice to kids. They are met by Team Rocket, who disguised themselves as preschoolers, a baby and its mother. Ash and and his friends don't buy it; instead, they're [[BlueWithShock too shocked to even respond]], and neither does Drampa, [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere who decides to flee rather than deal with their nonsense]].

* Subverted in ''Manga/CastleTownDandelion''. In Chapter 21/Episode 8A, Kanade gave Akane a pair of normal glasses and ''claimed'' those can disguise the user's identity in front of others. Akane, which is [[ShrinkingViolet phobic of being in the center of attention]], took the chance to apply her RoyaltySuperpower -- GravityMaster to be exact -- to become "Scarlet Bloom," a MagicalGirl-sorts of superhero. This of course does not fool the populace, but the ''entire country'' decided to play along. Understandably, everyone calls her... "A...Scarlet Bloom."

* ''VideoGame/DinosaurKing'' has this being subverted, the [[TerribleTrio Team Rocket]]-esque bad guys show up at on a game show pretending to be 13 year olds. However the PowerTrio heroes not only see right through the "we're just really advanced looking for our age!" BlatantLies but pretty quickly figure out who they actually are.

** Subverted early on, which sees the reclusive Nagi donning a mask and calling herself "Mask the Money", using her vast wealth to get Hayate out of a jam. Hayate sees through the disguise almost instantly, but plays along for the sake of Nagi's pride. When he accidentally lets slip he thinks Nagi's mask is silly, she explodes in his face.

** Double subverted (or maybe just normally subverted): Garyu X is an incredibly thin disguise donned by the elder to compete in the 'age 20 and under' tournament, and of course everyone (except [[TheDitz Apachai]]) can see through it immediately. The big flowing beard? It's uh... part of his mask! Right! However, it doesn't matter because the referee is the bad guy and [[FlexibleTourneyRules decides to let him compete anyway]] for shits and giggles.

** Subverted by Natsumi, who is able to identify Kotaro right off the bat simply by his personality and hairstyle.

* Both included and subverted in ''Anime/OtogiZoshi'' in which the female protagonist spends half the first arc in male drag. It fools random grunts and obnoxious nobles, but Seimei, Sadamitsu, Urabe and some minor characters pretty quickly figure out that she's a girl wearing pants.

* Subverted in ''Manga/PhantomThiefJeanne'' where her hair color and style changes and her eye color. (And people STILL think she looks similar to Maron.