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Playing With / Shell Backpack

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Basic Trope: An anthropomorphic turtle, armadillo, or other shelled animal wears clothing only covering the front half of the shell, leaving the rest of the shell exposed like a backpack.

  • Straight: Arnold the armadillo wears a shirt and pants, but his shell clearly shows through the back of his outfit.
  • Exaggerated: Arnold wears several layers of clothing under his shell.
  • Downplayed: Spike, an anthropomorphic porcupine, wears clothing that has a few of his quills sticking out of the back - while not as impossible, it still does raise a few questions on whether or not it's easy for him to put on and remove his clothing.
  • Justified:
    • Herman the hermit crab can wear clothing like this because he's a real species that can remove his shell (or in the case of animals with ordinarily non-removable shells, Removable Shell applies to them for whatever reason).
    • Arnold has clothing specifically suited for him, which opens at the back like a hospital gown to accommodate his shell.
    • These clothes are made to compensate for the fact that, due to how they evolved, the front half of the shell is usually not as sturdy as the back.
  • Inverted: Arnold only wears clothing covering the back of his shell.
  • Subverted: ???
  • Double Subverted: ???
  • Parodied: ???
  • Zig-Zagged: ???
  • Averted:
    • Arnold doesn't wear anything at all, due to considering his shell enough of a Clothing Appendage.
    • Arnold doesn't have a shell (or has a shell that's flattened), so wearing clothing normally is no big deal for him.
  • Enforced: The character designers were worried that the viewers wouldn't be able to recognize Arnold as an armadillo, so they kept his shell in.
  • Lampshaded: ???
  • Invoked: ???
  • Exploited: ???
  • Defied: ???
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: "How in the world do most shelled animals in cartoons even put their clothes on?!"

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