Magic Skirt

From WeeabooDB

In anime Magic Skirt refers to skirts worn by characters that defy conventional laws of gravity, most notably when the characters are performing acrobatics during the course of a fighting sequence or when falling.

Magic skirts are a technique used by Japanese animators to prevent pantyshots or otherwise indecent exposure from happening to female characters in the course of an anime. The technique involves drawing a skirt as though the laws of gravity or fluid dynamics do not to apply to it, for example if a female wearing a skirt jumps into the air during combat, when she returns back to the ground the air rushing up past her as she falls will not cause the skirt to flip up but rather it will stay perfectly in place or in some cases will manage to flutter in such a way that it does not manage to expose her panties.

Typically found in action shows, magic skirts often will go unnoticed by most viewers and are usually only pointed out by more seasoned otaku that are displeased by the appearance of a magic skirt in a show. This negative view of magic skirts can be the result of expected fanservice by the viewer or the fact that in many cases the girls possessing magic skirts are often wearing costumes or outfits that are already skimpy but because of the magic skirt do not cross the line to providing pantyshots. An additional point of contention that viewers have with the avoidance of pantyshots is that if the magic skirt appears during a falling sequence quite often the female will land in a compromising position (ie. with her legs spread, landing with her crotch on top of another character's face, or both) providing characters in a show with a pantyshot, but not the camera.

While most anime is aired very late at night in japan and aimed towards the adolescent male the large majority of anime avoids excessive fanservice unless it is one of the major premises of the title or source material, leading to the regular use of fanservice avoidance techniques like the magic skirt or steam.