Coat Cape

To show how cool a character is all they has to do is wear their coat like a cape, as in not bothering to put their arms through the sleeves. This is often a trait of Japanese Delinquents or military leaders.

Don't expect them to slip or fall off, even up against powerful winds, explosions and any amount of running, jumping and acrobatics, unless it's for dramatic reasons.

Compare Coat Over the Shoulder. Not to be confused with Badass Longcoat, which often resembles a cape but is worn normally. And since we're here: Not to be confused with a cape coat, which is a modern design of cape with slits to put your hands through; or the Inverness and Ulster coats, two designs of coats with a short cape sewn on.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Lucifer in Angel Cop wears a white fox jacket over her shoulders.
• Kazuo Kiriyama does this in the Battle Royale manga; His gakuran's top is inexplicably long compared to his slacks, and stays on his shoulders even when he's subjected to explosions or jumps off a cliff. And although it starts out as a regular school jacket,◊ by mid-manga it starts doing things like this,◊ and then near the end it's basically a separate living entity that perches on his shoulders.◊
• Smile from Battle Spirits Shonen Toppa Bashin wears his jacket like this, probably as a sign of delinquency.
• Rantaro from Beyblade Burst wears his gakuran as a cape. Valt even calls him out on it. No one else even wears school uniforms.
• Black Jack is one of the older manga examples, his flapping coat being a big part of his signature look.
• Balalaika from Black Lagoon wears her Soviet military coat like this.
• Bleach:
  • Yamamoto wears his captain's haori over his shoulders like a cape. It only comes off when his fighting gets serious.
  • Kyouraku wears a woman's kimono like a cape over his captain's haori. He only removes the woman's kimono when fighting gets serious.
• In Brave10, Jinpachi wears his coat like this often. It gives him a certain pirate-y flair.
• Nakahara Chuya of Bungou Stray Dogs does this, possibly in attempt to make his shoulders look wider.
• Mikuni Souichirou of [C] – Control provides a good example, using a longcoat. He removes his coat for fights.^note He is not seen removing it.
• Digimon Data Squad gives Banchou Leomon this look, and it doubles both as a shield!
• Laxus Dreyar in Fairy Tail wears this look as part of his second outfit shown and later again during the Grand Magic Games Arc. In the anime, he is shown wearing his coat in that style from the start and losing it after the Festival Arc.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • Colonel Roy Mustang often does this before going into full-bore flesh-roasting badass mode.
  • Mustang's bodyguard/aide 1st Lt. Hawkeye also does this on occasion. In particular, in chapter 58, she is shown in casual clothes, wearing an overshirt in this manner.
  • Scar does this too on occasion.
• Common in Hellsing. Integra, in particular, is rarely seen otherwise.
• Germany and Greece of Hetalia: Axis Powers occasionally sport this look. As does Molossia.
• Howl in Howl's Moving Castle starts out wearing his jacket this way. He stops wearing the cape when Character Development hits.
• Ookuninushi from Kamisama Kiss always seems to sport this look. Tomoe does it too on certain occasions.
• Kill la Kill: Mako wears her Fight Club President uniform this way.
• Part of the Impulse Form of Fate's Barrier Jacket in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS.
  • Hayate in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Vi Vid and Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force.
• Taki from Maiden Rose does this on at least one occasion with his Badass Longcoat, with Dramatic Wind for added effect.
• In Miss Sunflower, the title character often wears a cardigan over her shoulders.
• Orga in Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans' second season will wear his old Tekkadan jacket on top of his nice suit.
  • Rustal Elion, the Big Bad of season 2, does this as well.
• One Piece:
  • Most of the high-ranking Marines wear their coats like a cape. Word of God says that they're kept in place by justice. Because justice never falls! Exceptions are really rare; one of the only Marines who doesn't wear it like a cape is John Giant.
  • Crocodile, one of the Shichibukai sanctioned by the government, also wears his fur coat on his shoulders.
  • Coats are also seen hanging off the shoulders of infamous Pirate Captains like Whitebeard and Blackbeard, who actively oppose the Marines' idea of justice. The only pirate captains who actually wore their captains' coat were Roger and Blackbeard after Time Skip.
  • Donquixote Doflamingo wears his feathery pink coat in this fashion as well.
  • In video game spinoffs, Luffy is frequently given a pirate admiral coat as an alternate costume that he wears like this.
• Seiichi Yukimura from The Prince of Tennis. A big deal is made of how he can play against Kintaro without dropping his jacket, so when Ryoma plays him shortly after, he cheekily constructs his first volley to force Yukimura to move his shoulders and knock the jacket off, to Yukimura's quiet irritation. In the sequel series, Yukimura no longer wears his jacket during matches he's serious about (though he still has it on like this during training and in between matches). Later still, there's a gag chapter where Yukimura devises a game he can't lose— the Yukimura Game, where everyone has to do each other's complicated tennis moves without dropping their jacket.
• Hibari Kyoya from Reborn! (2004) pulls this off all while whacking enemies with tonfas sometimes attached with whips. He still manages to keep his coat on at the end of the battle. Perhaps he actually pinned his coat onto his shirt? Either way, it gives more leeway to make his entrances more awesome with his sleeves flying about flashing his disciplinary committee badge, which he is the president of.
  • Also Xanxus from the same series. He manages to fly in the air with the help of his two guns while keeping his coat still on.
• Kusabi Mido of Rosario + Vampire wears a coat as such when confronting main character Tsukune. When he decides to get serious and Monstrel Out, however, his coat vanishes without explanation (though it may have just fallen off when his arm turned into an Ore Club).
• In Saki Shinohayu -dawn of age-, Chisa Sakane, club advisor for Shino and the others' middle school club, typically wears her suit jacket this way.
• Izana from Snow White with the Red Hair tends to wear his jacket this way when he's not wearing an actual cape or in a place where it is cold enough to warrant wearing the thing properly. He seems to stop after being crowned king.
• Mifune the bodyguard from Soul Eater wore a coat like this both in his first and last battle against Black*Star.
• Sharaku Hosuke in The Three-Eyed One gets one of these when he accesses his Superpowered Evil Side.
• Hajime has one in the original illustrations for Tsukiuta's Space Opera AU, Tsukino Empire, but in the stage play, it was changed to a cape to make it easier to swish dramatically.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • Yami has done this from time to time in Yu-Gi-Oh!
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Yuya also typically wears his jacket in this style.

Comic Books

• In Spirou & Fantasio, Zorglub likes to wear what looks like a short, fur-lined leather coat this way.
• Wonder Woman Vol 1: When Holliday Girl Virginia True is out on the town she wears her jacket draped over her shoulders, the easier to shrug out of if she gets in a fight.

Fan Works

• In The Butcher Bird, Yoshimura Kaneki eventually gets his hands on a Marine coat from the One Piece example above, and often wears it in similar fashion after modifying the kanji to read 'Retribution' (冥罰) instead of 'Justice' (正義).
• Unlike in canon, where Byleth wears some kind of odd hybrid between a cape and a coat, her cape in Fire Emblem: Three Houses: Fifth Path is actually a coat.
• In Pacific: World War II U.S. Navy Shipgirls, this is how Arizona and Dolphin put on their uniforms.

Films — Live-Action

• Claw does this in Inspector Gadget 2.
• The title character of Johnny English has this throughout the opening credits, an effect spoiled by him getting lost.
• Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean wears his coat with the right sleeve on and the left side as a cape. This is because his left arm has mutated into a crab's claw and it wouldn't fit through the sleeve.
  • And Captain Jack Sparrow gets a moment wearing his frock coat this way at the end of The Curse of the Black Pearl, when his crew drapes him in his effects in the final scene.
• Toht of Raiders of the Lost Ark wears his longcoat like this while digging for the Ark in Egypt.
• In the Ian McKellen adaptation of Richard III, a portrait of Richard (portrayed as a 1930's fascist dictator) shows him wearing a black leather coat like this. This is not just to make him look badass, but to conceal his deformity in what is essentially a propaganda picture.
• Kazuma Kiryu in Ryu Ga Gotoku wears his jacket like this near the end. The reason is pretty much so that it can be blown off by a helicopter so he will be shirtless for the dramatic final fight scene.
• General Hux in Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been shown doing this in preview images.
• Dark Lord Pink wears his black leather coat in this way as he marches toward the concert with his praetorian guard in The Wall.

Literature

• Sengoku Nadeko of Bakemonogatari wears her jacket in this manner. It's meant to represent shed snakeskin.
• In Hornet's Sting by Derek Robinson, one of the pilots wears his coat like this while pretending to be a Portuguese lord whose checkbook he found. Played for comedy, rather than badassery.
• In Miss Piggy's Guide to Life Piggy suggests wearing a coat in this manner in order to look important. She also recommends accessorizing with large sunglasses and a purse with a telephone inside. (The book was written in 1981, when only big shots had wireless phones.)
• In Shakugan no Shana, Shana can summon a magic Badass Longcoat that functions as both a shield and as storage for her other equipment. While she is introduced wearing it normally, she soon switches to draping it over her shoulders instead, possibly because the poofy sleeves of her new civilian outfit get in the way (and the coat's magic properties prevent it from falling off).
• The Wheel of Time:
  • Court fashion in Ebou Dar includes coats that are extravagantly embroidered and tailored to be draped over the shoulders — they're too small to be worn normally, which foreigner viewpoint characters find a bit silly.
  • Played with in one of the later books. Rand acquires a garment that's described as a cloak with sleeves. What distinguishes it from a coat at this point is unclear, though he chooses to wear it as a cloak.

Live-Action TV

• On The Monkees, Micky did it when he was pretending to be a big-time movie producer, along with using a cigarette holder.

Pro Wrestling

• This is how Wade Barrett arrives before a match. He sheds it while standing on the stage.

Tabletop Games

• Commissars in Warhammer 40,000 are often depicted wearing their jackets like this.
  • From the very same army, Lord Castellan Ursakar E. Creed, Governor Primus and defender of Cadia (and TACTICAL GENIUS!!!) is famously wearing a large, epic-looking one (read: in every single representation).

Video Games

• Azrael of BlazBlue: Chronophantasma wears one. His actually does have a strap across the collar to keep it from falling off.
• Concept art for Soma Cruz in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow occasionally shows him wearing his fancy fur coat over his shoulders, though it just as often portrays him wearing it the normal way.
• In Code Vein, "Hounds" type Blood Veils (armor) are worn as Coat Capes, and are actually intended to be worn as such, since the sleeves can transform into the eponymous hounds to attack enemies.
• Fumi from Devil Survivor 2 wears her longcoat like this.
• Mao from Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice. He has a chain around the collar to prevent it from falling off.
• Final Fantasy VI: My life is a chip in your pile. Time to ante up. You have just learned everything you need to know, personality-wise, about Setzer Gabianni.
  • He also says this line in his cameo in Kingdom Hearts II.
• Byleth in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, when wearing their default outfits. They have their coat sleeves on, but their sleeves only cover about halfway down their upper arm, with a long styled cut allowing the rest of the sleeve to hang back freely and give off this effect.
• Post-rework Swain from League of Legends wears a large, very heavy-looking coat without putting his arms through. This may make it easier (or perhaps even harder) for him to use his Red Right Hand.
• Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth: Yutaka Yamai wears his overcoat like this, presumably as a compromise between always being cold and needing to be able to remove it quickly when he gets into a fight.
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: As part of his Big Damn Heroes moment near the end of Act 5, Raiden shows up wearing his black leather duster as such, which is held in place by one of Snake's flak jackets. Justified, since by that point, he's lost both arms.
• Persona 4: Kanji. In Persona 4: Arena, Elizabeth ponders how it stays on, while Akihiko notes how impractical it is in fighting and tells him to take it off.
• Wulfric of Pokémon X and Y wears his blue coat like this. This is despite the fact that as an Ice-type trainer, that coat would really help out.
• Ujiyasu Hojo from Samurai Warriors 3. Masamune gains one in the fourth game.
• Chosokabe Motochika from Sengoku Basara is a pirate, so there was never really a second option when it came to how he'd wear his jacket. And as a bonus, he's not got anything underneath it either.
• Haruka from Senran Kagura uses a really large labcoat for this trope. In later games, she gave the labcoat to a Robot Buddy to wear, who floats right behind Haruka to give this illusion.
• Transistor: Grant Kendrell, leader of the Camerata, wears his scarlet blazer like this, pinned in place with two giant Camerata emblems.
• Azul Ashengrotto from Twisted Wonderland wears a grey overcoat on top of his dorm dress uniform to further the Sharp-Dressed Man image.
• Osoro Shidesu, the delinquent leader, does this in Yandere Simulator. She took it from a member of a group of thugs who tried to attack her one day.

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney:
  • Tyrell Badd in Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth. Extra badass points for it being full of bullet holes.
  • And Ichiyanagi Yumihiko (aka Sebastian Debeste) from Investigations 2.
  • And Apollo Justice after the courtroom bombing in Dual Destinies. It's a Tragic Keepsake from his murdered childhood friend, Clay Terran. They even use it to distinguish between Apollo's two mindsets over the course of the story! When he's without it, he's the usual Apollo everyone's familiar with. When he's wearing it, his disposition gets temporarily shifted to seeking to expose and bring down his friend's killer as revenge, even if it means turning on his co-workers. He does get better by the climax of the game, which is also when he stops wearing the coat.
  • The same goes for Apollo's adoptive father Dhurke in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice.
• Danganronpa:
  • Yasuhiro Hagakure in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc wears a jacket over his shirt. It's less to show off that he's cool, and more that he's not all there.
  • Kaito Momota in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony only wears his left jacket sleeve, leading the right side hang freely. This becomes a plot point in Chapter 5, when Shuichi must disprove Maki's assertion that it's not odd for the sleeve hanging out of the hydraulic press to not have an arm in it since it's his left sleeve.

Webcomics

• Bethany from Afterlife Blues always wears her Badass Longcoat this way; she often holds it in place when she isn't using her hands for something else.
• John Carson Junior from Blood And Smoke sports this.
• Sleepless Domain:
  • The delinquent-themed magical girl Outrageous Lime wears the jacket of her Future's Promise school uniform this way.
  • A guest comic turns Shrinking Violet Zoe into the comically edgy magical girl Hard Edge, who sports a tattered coat worn like a cape and held around her neck with a gold chain.

Western Animation

• Vittorio DiMaggio, the rarely-seen Don of the local Mafia on The Simpsons, wears a black coat cape-style over his suit. Since he's a self-described "old Italian stereotype," this may reflect real-life Southern European fashion.

Real Life

• In World War II, Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering was often photographed wearing his coat this way.◊
• Footage of peace negotiations between Russia and Japan aboard President Roosevelt's yacht in New Hampshire shows a Russian flag officer wearing his overcoat this way when boarding the yacht.
• In early 20th century it was customary for gentlemen to wear an overcoat outside regardless of the temperatures. Especially in Southern Europe it became customary to wear them in this manner to avoid excessive discomfort during the summer months.
• The pelisse is a light jacket worn over the left arm as part of the Hussar uniform. They were infamously impractical and a total liability against other cavalry. Naturally, every European army wore them, presumably because it looked very dashing.
• The ancient Medes and Persians wore their long kandys coats this way. Xenophon claims they were required to use the sleeves when the King was present, which may have been because the sleeves were so ungainly as to hinder assassination attempts. The Scythians made their own version with sleeves positioned in such a way that it wouldn't be possible to use them at all.
• Yuzuru Hanyu wore his team jacket as a cape on the practice ice at the Rostelecom Cup. He skated slowly enough for the jacket to billow out behind him dramatically and not fall off.

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