Who Wears Short Shorts?

With her Daisy Dukes and a bikini on top, Miharu Hirano looks like she took inspiration from Katy Perry’s hit song, California Gurls. Her clothes are perfect for the beach, but they’re a strange choice for a martial arts tournament. Some of her fighting moves look awkward and clumsy, but that’s to be expected if you fight while wearing sandals. Miharu would rather spend time with her friends than hone her fighting skills, and her casual attire reflects her carefree attitude. She wears her tight cutoff shorts over her bikini bottoms, and you know it’s easy to get into her pants since she doesn’t even bother zipping them up! If I purposely walked around with my fly down, I’d be considered a creep. When Miharu does the same thing, we just assume that she’s a typical teenage girl who wants to have fun in the sun.

Pyra is a manifestation of a legendary weapon with apocalyptic power. She also happens to be a total babe. Pyra has dominion over flame, she creates massive fireballs out of thin air, and she actually enjoys slaving over a hot stove. Everything about her character revolves around heat (including her name), so it’s fitting that she wears hot pants. Conventional wisdom says that you should accentuate your strengths and hide your weaknesses, but Pyra is the exception to the rule. Her large chest garners a lot of attention, but she keeps her cleavage covered up. Meanwhile, her outfit is a lot more risque below the waist where her proportions are more realistic. She made the right call by choosing to wear a thong under a strip of red cellophane. If she wore slacks, it’s unlikely we’d be talking about her bottom half at all.

Scharlachrot is an artificial angel who was infused with celestial energy, but the institute that created her apparently couldn’t afford clothes. If the ripped Daisy Dukes that Scharlachrot wears were any shorter, they’d qualify as denim panties. They’re not much wider than her belt! Although most of her body is exposed when she fights, she’s covered by a cape during cutscenes and in most of the game’s official artwork. Scharlachrot doesn’t go out of her way to show off her body, so she likely wears her stripperific outfit for practical reasons. At one point, she’s given a proper military uniform but refuses to wear it on the grounds that it will impede her mobility. Scharlachrot’s sadistic smirk provides a window to her violent tendencies, but it’s her skimpy clothing that makes her look truly dangerous.

It’s debatable whether the tattered shorts that Velvet Crowe wears truly belong on this list. They basically look like a pair of normal pants that just happened to have been damaged during her adventures. Whether her cutoff shorts were accidental or intentional, they’re a perfect fit for someone like Velvet. The rest of her clothing is damaged too – along with her left arm – so it would be out of place if her trousers weren’t ripped to shreds. (If nothing else, her mangled attire distracts us from the aforementioned cursed mummy arm.) The haphazard cutoffs also work on a metaphorical level. Traumatic events transformed Velvet from a carefree girl into a vengeful woman, and her torn pants symbolize how her life was ripped apart. You can tell just by looking that she has been put through the ringer.

In Final Fantasy X, Yuna was a high summoner who embarked on a journey to save the world. In Final Fantasy X-2, she made an effort to reinvent herself after being freed from her obligations as a summoner. Many aspects of her personality were unchanged in the sequel, but Yuna now behaved like a fashion-obsessed, boy-crazy teenager. Her outfit included a lacey halter top, a cornflower sash, and various accessories, but her tiny denim shorts somehow drew attention away from her ridiculously low neckline. Even though her standard outfit was comprised of several articles of clothing, her legs were always on display. In a sense, the jean shorts were emblematic of Yuna’s maturity. Nothing says “liberated young woman” like a pair of shorts that are too small to cover your butt cheeks.

A feminist icon not unlike Rosie the Riveter, Cindy Aurum is an expert mechanic who proves that women can succeed in male-dominated fields. It’s apparent by looking at her that she isn’t afraid to break convention. While most mechanics are draped with heavy coveralls, Cindy wears what makes her comfortable. Her tiny jacket accentuates her cleavage and exposes her midriff, so it’s only natural that she’d wear tiny shorts that show off her thighs. Her clothing (or lack thereof) doesn’t hinder her ability to do her job, and it probably helps drum up business for her garage. Most of the main characters in Final Fantasy XV look like they were lifted from a generic emo pop band, but Cindy’s distinctive shorts make her stand out and have helped make her a darling of the cosplay community.

I’ve likened some of the short shorts on this list to denim panties, but Bullet’s ripped cutoffs are more akin to a denim thong. Her risque outfit leaves nothing to the imagination, and it earns her comical nicknames like “butt lady” and “butt floss.” Bullet takes exception to these labels, and she insists that she’s not trying to flaunt anything. When others point out that she’s wearing naughty hotpants, she explains that she wears the cutoffs for the sake of maneuverability. Even though they look like something a streetwalker would wear, Bullet tries to pass the shorts off as an official uniform of her mercenary troop. Others find it hard not to stare, but Bullet is blissfully unaware of how attractive her figure is and doesn’t even realize how revealing her outfit is until it’s spelled out for her in dramatic fashion.

Big anime tiddies are prevalent throughout the gaming world, but Reisalin “Ryza” Stout proves that thicc anime thighs are every bit as important. She would look amazing regardless of what she was wearing, but her impeccable fashion sense puts even more emphasis on her flawless figure. Ryza is a wild girl who longs for adventure, and her curvaceous thighs want to see the world just as badly as she does. Her tight red shorts can barely contain her shapely legs, and you have to admire the way they highlight the contours of her backside. Her short shorts and high boots are the perfect framing mechanisms for her exposed thighs, and it’s impossible not to notice her gams. Ryza looks like she shops at the same place as Pyra, and I hope the fashion trend has staying power. Everyone wins when a girl like Ryza throws on a pair of hotpants.

The reason why Poison is so intriguing is because her gender is ambiguous. Capcom’s official stance regarding this issue has been wildly inconsistent, and fans have been given free reign to decide for themselves. You can debate about how many x chromosomes Poison has, but her skimpy denim cutoffs leave little to the imagination with respect to her anatomy. The only thing hanging out of her shorts is her ass, and there’s not much room to facilitate any extra equipment. That said, it’s possible that she has the world’s most provocative jack-in-the-box hidden between her legs. In any regard, her torn cutoffs are the perfect compliment for her skanky tanktop and red heels. She’s the baddest bitch in gaming regardless of what she may or may not have tucked away.

Lara Croft’s khaki shorts aren’t exactly the most practical attire for raiding tombs, but she’s an empowered woman who refuses to let her environment dictate her fashion choices. She even wears the iconic shorts when she explores snow-covered mountains! Lara gets a lot of attention for her large breasts, but her short shorts serve as a constant reminder that she also has nice legs and a cute butt. This might sound superficial, but the success of Tomb Raider was largely dependent on Lara’s sex appeal. The only reason why Lara even exists in the first place is because a programmer at Core Design got tired of staring at a guy’s ass all day. Lara’s shorts highlight her femininity by design, and she would never have been recognized as an international sex symbol had she dressed more conservatively.