I've heard of Painted-On Pants, but this is just ridiculous!
A pretty standard form of fanservice (usually for sufficiently attractive female characters) is to have a character wear an outfit that draws attention to her navel, either by baring the midriff entirely or having an opening just large enough to reveal it. This trope accomplishes the same effect without actual exposure of the navel - instead, the outline of the character's navel is apparent through her clothes.
Relegated almost exclusively to fiction, this trope frequently carries the implication that the character's top is significantly tight. However, it is not unheard of for creators to do this for loose clothing. Expect to be Nipple and Dimed even in the case of the former.
Physics dictate that this trope almost never occurs in real life (unless the person has an outie), even with a Form-Fitting Wardrobe. This is because a tight wrapping follows the protrusions, not the concavities, of the body it wraps. In order for this to happen, the navel would need to create some kind of suction to pull in the shirt. However, a similar effect can be achieved via Sexy Soaked Shirt or otherwise wearing see-through garments.
Compare and contrast with Form-Fitting Wardrobe, Leotard of Power, Sensual Spandex, and Painted-On Pants. For related navel fanservice tropes, see Bare Midriffs Are Feminine and Navel Window.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Merry Nightmare from Dream Eater Merry has a visible navel outline when she wears a one-piece school swimsuit in the Beach Episode. Protagonist Yumeji complains of the swimsuit covering her midriff; Merry's bare stomach is perhaps the most emphasized part of her usual design, especially in the anime, which frequently displayed gratuitous close-up shots of her belly button for fanservice.
- Miyu Edelfelt in Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA has one in her Magical Girl attire.
- Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple: Miu's outfit of choice is a Leotard of Power that perfectly shows off (among other things) the outline of her belly button.
- Mount Lady sometimes sports one in My Hero Academia.
- Elizabeth's first uniform in The Seven Deadly Sins usually shows her navel outright (as it's chosen by Chivalrous Pervert Meliodas), but on the occasion that she's positioned in a manner such that it does not, her navel outline will usually still be visible through it.
Comic Books
- Power Girl often has this, depending on how much fanservice the illustrator intends to invoke.
- Wonder Woman: Both Diana and her twin Nubia have been drawn by certain artists so that their navel is visible through their costumes. With Nubia it was visible through armor.
Literature
- The spandex portion of Cecily Campbell's Chainmail Bikini armor does this in The Sacred Blacksmith.
- Steyr of Scrapped Princess sports this as part of her status as The Vamp, despite her dress being loose otherwise. Pacifica's armor also inexplicably shows an indentation where her navel is.
Toys
- Megami Device: Almost all kits have an option between a skin-colored belly plate or an alternate part matching the color of the girl's clothes to cover more skin. As the two plates are usually the same part, just in different colors, the "covered" belly plate still has the navel sculpted into it, resulting in this trope.
- 30 Minutes Missions: Rishetta and Tiasha, the first two kits released for the 30 Minutes Sisters line-up, have navels sculpted into their stomach parts despite their midriffs being covered. When those kits were retooled for Alka-Carti and Far-Farina respectively, the parts were recoloured to skin-tone to represent an exposed midriff.
Video Games
- Kaguya Nanbu, Xiaomu, Aschen Brodel, and pretty much every female character in Endless Frontier who do not show their belly button outright sport this. A source of Hypocritical Humor, given the latter's tendency to make fun of their castmates for showing their navels.
- Fate Series:
- Medusa in her typical attire from the sometimes has this Depending on the Artist. Her final ascension in Fate/Grand Order, which is embarrassingly revealing to her, always sports this.
- Scáthach plays this straight as a result of her Sensual Spandex.
- Altera's first ascension sports this, while her usual attire and other ascensions bare her midriff outright.
- Ushiwakamaru and BB in the non-bikini variations of their summer variants play this straight.
- Miyu Edelfelt in her second ascension, reflecting her Magical Girl attire from her main series.
- Tharja's Sensual Spandex shows this in her normal attire in Fire Emblem.
- Friday Night Funkin': Mommy Mearest features this in her Week 4 attire.
- In a rare case of this trope being censored, Fischl of Genshin Impact formerly had one in her usual leotard.
- Honkai Impact 3rd: A handful of the Valkyries have body-hugging battlesuits that create this effect, such as Kiana as White Comet, Fu Hua as Shadow Knight, and Hua in her original outfit as a MANTIS soldier in the Previous Era.
- While most magical girls in Magia Record with visible navels have them because of either baring their midriff or having a Navel Window on their outfit, main characters Iroha Tamaki and Yachiyo Nanami have outfits that are form-fitting enough around their middles for their navels to be visible.
- Metroid: Zig-zagged with Samus in her Zero Suit. As Samus taking her armor off to provide some amount of fanservice for faster completion times is a series tradition, the introduction of the Zero Suit in Metroid: Zero Mission changed the game, with Samus now canonically shown to have a skintight blue undersuit beneath her armor (or more accurately, the armor forms around the suit). However, since no one can seem to agree on whether the suit conforms to Samus' body shape, or if it is something with a static shape that she is simply busty enough to stretch, we get games where Samus in her Zero Suit does possess a navel outline
◊, such as Metroid: Samus Returns, Metroid Dread, or Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, or games where she doesn't possess one, like Metroid: Other M, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, or even its introductory game Metroid: Zero Mission. However, it is worth noting that the three listed former games are the three newest games the Zero Suit has made an appearance, so it remains to be seen if this is the standard design going forward.
- Metaloid Origin: Erika sports a Leotard of Power which prominenently features this trope.
- Shantae
- Trope image Vinegar of the Shantae series is a significant example; she is literally the only young female character who does not show her navel outright in a series whose calling-card is cute girls showing their midriffs. Instead, the outline of her navel shows through her top.
- Shantae herself has one in her Officer attire from Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, which is the only costume she's donned that does not bare her midriff outright.
- Street Fighter:
- Cammy White has had one since her introduction in Super Street Fighter II Turbo as a result of her Leotard of Power. It survived her censoring◊ in Street Fighter V but was considered for removal.
- R Mika did not have one in Street Fighter Alpha 3 but does in her new attire in Street Fighter V, despise her navel being the only part of her midriff her outfit actually covers.
- Cammy White has had one since her introduction in Super Street Fighter II Turbo as a result of her Leotard of Power. It survived her censoring
- Super Smash Bros.:
- Zero Suit Samus did not have one in Super Smash Bros. Brawl but does starting in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. Interestingly, this coincided with the introduction of her midriff-baring alternate costumes.
- Pyra also has one in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
- Tomb Raider:
- In Core Design's Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation and Tomb Raider Chronicles, Lara's navel is visible through her main outfit.
- Many of Lara's outfits in the first Crystal Dynamics trilogy prominently feature this, especially the Biker outfits from Tomb Raider: Legend and the Classic outfit from Tomb Raider: Underworld.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 3: The Lost Vanguard class outfit does this to everyone who wears it, both male and female.
Webcomics
- League of Super Redundant Heroes: You'd think at first that this trope applies to Distracterella's extremely skintight outfit... except there's a very good reason for that, since it isn't really an outfit but actually Body Paint.
