History Main / AllegedLookalikes

** In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'', Sora takes on the appearance of a plastic figurine version of himself in the world Toy Box (Based on ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory''). However, he's immediately mistaken for Yozora, who turns out to be a character from the GameWithinAGame ''Verum Rex''. This is explained as Sora's enchanted clothing transforming him so he won't look out of place, as it does in every world he visits -- apparently, in Toy Box that means becoming a figurine of a character that's already known there. Young Xehanort shows up soon after and confirms that, yes, in this world, [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall Sora comes from a video game.]] The problem is that Sora looks ''nothing'' like Yozora; the only thing that looks ''kind of'' similar is their clothing. Fans have noticed that Yozora actually looks a lot more like Riku, another ''Kingdom Hearts'' character, but the narrative itself act as if Sora and Yozora are practically identical. (And in reality, Yozora's appearance was influenced by [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV Noctis Lucis Caelum]], who, by [[Creator/TetsuyaNomura the designer's]] own admission, could not be more different from Sora.)

--->'''Starlight Glimmer:''' Mine's more of a glimmer.\\

* Played for all kinds of laughs in ''[[VideoGame/{{Shantae}} Shantae and the Pirate's Curse]]''. Shantae, Risky Boots, Sky, and Rottytops are all mistaken for the missing princess of the Tan Line Temple and held against their will. Mind you, these are four [[MsFanservice very attractive women]], though with their different (and often fantastic) [[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation skin]] and [[YouGottaHaveBlueHair hair]] colors, they're not even particularly easy to mistake for ''each other''. The actual princess? Short and dumpy, not even slightly similar in appearance to ''any'' of the four. Risky threatens the High Priest with violence after realizing who she's being confused with. The townspeople only seem to notice after the princess returns (she was just shopping), and the High Priest remains confused even then.

* [[Creator/DCVertigo Vertigo Comics']] ''Moonshadow'' #9 has the Tittletat Twins, who are visually different (in height, weight, hair color and style, etc.) but claim to be identical in all those aspects. They were born of different parents in different years, but when they met they decided they were clearly twins. The protagonist decides to not discuss the subject with them.

* In ''Manga/DetectiveConan'', Shinichi and Kaito Kuroba (a.k.a. [[Manga/MagicKaito Kaitou KID]]) are said to be so similar that Kaito can disguise as Shinichi without one of his [[LatexPerfection signature masks]]. Problem is, because of [[OnlySixFaces the author's style]], just about anyone can pass as anyone with the right wig (and many of them actually ''have'').

* In ''Manga/YuGiOh'', no-one ever seems to see a difference between short, moe, [[TaremeEyes Tareme]]-eyed, soft-voiced Yugi and his not-quite-so-short, bishonen, [[TsurimeEyes Tsurime-eyed]], deep-voiced [[SuperPoweredEvilSide alter ego]]. Some fans have tried to explain the (apparently not so) obvious changes as audio-visual cues to the audience that do not actually exist in-universe. Since every once in a blue moon somebody ''will'' mention one of the changes in passing, this explanation has not been widely accepted. Maybe the others just can't stop staring at the hair. The manga averts this, actually. They all notice the switch between Yugi and his alter ego or at least they notice that he changed. It gets more ridiculous in Season 5, when the gang travel to Ancient Egypt. The anime adds a scene where the gang meet Atem's [[ShipTease childhood friend]] Mana. She promptly mistakes Yugi for Atem, but now there is not only a height difference but a difference in clothing and also skin colour.

* An interesting case happens in ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' because of the artist's style changes. [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders Part 3]] protagonist Jotaro Kujo is supposed to look identical to his grandfather Joseph Joestar in his 30s, to a point [[spoiler: Joseph's mistress Tomoko Higashikata mistakes him for her lover]] in [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable Part 4.]] Jotaro's appearances in every Part he appears in are all during periods of ArtEvolution, meaning that Jotaro never looks like Joseph in the slightest to the readers (unless you count Araki's recent redesigns, which suffer from an extreme case of OnlySixFaces).

* In the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' [[Film/HarryPotter films]], Harry is still said to have inherited his mother Lily's bright green eyes; they even changed [[spoiler:Snape's LastWords]]]] to "You have your mother's eyes..." The problem, of course, is that Daniel Radcliffe's eyes are bright blue, while Lily had brown ones. So not only did neither match the book, they didn't even match ''each other.''

That's when the goofiest similarity of all crops up, the Alleged Lookalike. This is when the cast has difficulty telling two characters apart, or otherwise notes physical similarities between them - but to the audience, they don't look any more alike than any other pair of characters. This can be a side-effect of OnlySixFaces, or GenericCuteness. It can also be a result of character design (having two characters who ''genuinely'' look identical can be confusing for the audience, unless [[TheDividual them being identical is the point]]). Due to the RuleOfPerception, most creators try to add something to make it always evident which is which. And in a live-action series, oftentimes the creators don't want to put in the work to either cast twins or deal with the complexity of ActingForTwo.

* Funny but somewhat viewer-dependent example in ''Goal of the Dead'': The soccer team has three Korean players, coincidentally even all named "Park". And can't distinguish them.
-->'''Trainer:''' ''[after one Park became zombie meal]'' Hey! Didn't we have three of them?

* In ''Manga/TheQuintessentialQuintuplets'', the Nakano sisters are frequently mistaken for one another due to supposedly looking and sounding almost identical. This would be fine enough if it weren't for the GenericCuteness seen with other female characters, in addition to the variant styles, cuts, and colors each sister's hair has. While they're all supposed to have the same hair color InUniverse, their different hair colors are [[StylizedForTheViewer meant to make it easier for viewers to tell them apart]]. The anime ups this by giving them all distinct voices, only getting around the confusion over who the bride is in the first episode's intro by muting her dialogue.

** Sonomi comments on how much Sakura looks like her mother, to the point of being surprised at the resemblance before she even knew who Sakura was. Yet there is no noticeable resemblance between them (Touya actually looks much more like their mother than Sakura does).

* In the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' [[Film/HarryPotter films]], Harry is still said to have inherited his mother Lily's bright green eyes; they even changed [[spoiler:Snape's [[FamousLastWords last words]]]] to "You have your mother's eyes..." The problem, of course, is that Daniel Radcliffe's eyes are bright blue, while Lily had brown ones. So not only did neither match the book, they didn't even match ''each other.''

* In the very goofy 1991 movie ''Film/MysteryDate'', everyone confuses Ethan Hawke with [=Brian McNamara=] (playing his older brother), despite the fact that the two bear next to no resemblance to each other. Seriously. They even claim to give Ethan Hawke the same haircut, but he still has that bowlcut style haircut he had in every movie he made in the early 90s. It's ridiculous.

* In ''Manga/TheQuintessentialQuintuplets'', the Nakano sisters are frequently mistaken for one another due to their similar faces. This would be fine enough if it weren't for the GenericCuteness seen with other female characters, in addition to the variant styles, cuts, and colors each sister's hair has. The anime ups this by giving them all distinct voices, only getting around the confusion over who the bride is in the first episode's intro by muting her dialogue.

* Similarly, in ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'', Yuya, Yuto, Yugo and Yuri, being dimensional counterparts of each other, are all said to look extremely similar, and are frequently mistaken for each other - despite having wildly different hair, voices, heights, eye-colors, clothes and mannerisms. Their [[DistaffCounterpart Distaff Counterparts]] (Yuzu, Ruri, Rin and Selena) get a similar treatment. For comparison purposes, [[https://66.media.tumblr.com/bab9c47b7d3bc0ae9ed3d000494dc4be/tumblr_obky51gJLa1u84ds5o1_1280.png here is a picture of all the lookalikes]].

* While [[Franchise/WonderWoman Diana]] and her sister [[ComicBook/WonderGirl Donna]] generally look similar the art usually does quite a good job of keeping them unique, with Diana a tad taller and with curly hair and a stronger jawline and Donna having nearly straight hair and a more petite nose and mouth. This made a ([[ContinuitySnarl/DonnaTroy short-lived]]) retcon to Donna's backstory in ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'' claiming she was the literal mirror image of Diana brought to life seem rather nonsensical, as even when the two were standing right next to each other in civilian clothes they are, even during this story, very noticeably different in appearance.

* In the 1993 thriller ''Suture'', half-brothers Vincent Towers and Clay Arlington are supposed to be near-identical, enough for them to switch identities. This despite Arlington being played by the solidly-built black actor Creator/DennisHaysbert while Towers is played by the angular white actor Michael Harris.

* ''Manga/SuperGals'': When Ran visited Taiwan for a study tour, she was mistaken for actress Vivian Lin, who apparently [[IdenticalStranger looks a lot like her]]. However, due to the series' OnlySixFaces art style, they look no more identical than any other pair.

* In ''Anime/DigimonFrontier,'' people marvel at the near-identical Koji and Koichi, who -- like Kagome and Kikyo -- only share points of similarity that ''everyone else'' shares due to the art style. It leads up to their being revealed as each other's long-lost twin. Fraternal twins ''do'' exist, but again, we get "they look exactly alike!" OncePerEpisode. The only noticeable thing that it can truly be chalked up to is that they're the only two of the main cast who have black hair (and even then their hairstyles are different) are and TsurimeEyes.

* ''Franchise/MortalKombat'': Originally, Kitana and her clone Mileena were an aversion of this but due to ArtEvolution their looks became more distinct. This made instances where Mileena was mistaken as Kitana in-universe seem very ridiculous.

That's when the goofiest similarity of all crops up, the Alleged Lookalike. This is when the cast has difficulty telling two characters apart, or otherwise notes physical similarities between them - but to the audience, they don't look any more alike than any other pair of characters. This can be a side-effect of OnlySixFaces, or GenericCuteness. It can also be a result of character design (having two characters who ''genuinely'' look identical can be confusing for the audience, unless [[TheDividual them being identical is the point]]). Another part to it is the RuleOfPerception; having two independently-acting characters who are ''actually'' identical tends to confuse the audience, so the show tries to add something to make it always evident which is which. And in a live-action series, oftentimes the creators don't want to put in the work to either cast twins or deal with the complexity of ActingForTwo.

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* In ''Manga/DetectiveConan'', Shinichi and Kaito Kuroba (a.k.a. [[Manga/MagicKaito Kaitou KID]]) are said to be so similar that Kaito can disguise as Shinichi without one of his [[LatexPerfection signature masks]]. Problem is, because of [[OnlySixFaces the author's style]], just about anyone can pass as anyone with the right wig (and many of them actually ''have'').

* In the 1993 thriller ''Suture'' half-brothers Vincent Towers and Clay Arlington are supposed to be near-identical, enough for them to switch identities. This despite Arlington being played by the solidly-built black actor Creator/DennisHaysbert while Towers is played by the angular white actor Michael Harris.

* Parodied in a ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' sketch called "Brother 2 Brother". It sees supposedly identical twins played by the very built Chris Hemsworth and much more average Taran Killam trying to pull a TwinSwitch in order to pass an exam. No-one is fooled and pretty much the entirety of the sketch consists of the teacher and students pointing out the physical differences between the two.

* ''Franchise/MortalKombat'': Originally, Kitana and her clone Mileena were an aversion of this but due to ArtEvolution their looks became more distinct. This made instances where Mileena was mistaken as Kitana in-universe seem very ridiculous.

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* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
** In "Triple Threat", Princess Ember (a dragon) has difficulty telling Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer apart, since they're "both purple ponies with purple hair", and they "both have cutie marks with sparkly things". Doubles as LeaningOnTheFourthWall as fans have often pointed out the similarity between the two names.

** In "Sweet and Smoky", Ember mixes up Fluttershy with Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie, even though they are all different colors and the latter two don't have wings.