Naked Camouflage

"If you want to survive, take off your clothes and get naked!!" —Naruse Chitose, Kyochuu Rettou, "Chapter 24"

A character in a given situation has to remove his or her clothes in order to avoid detection from the enemy. It could be to go undercover, avoid conflict, to let them lower their guard or even as a matter of survival. Others can use this on their victims to pass through unseen or obscure a target or hostage.

This is not to be confused with an Invisible Streaker, where a subject is actually invisible to the naked eye. Or Defeat by Modesty when their clothes are damaged and incapacitates them. Sometimes a character does this by sacrificing modesty as in Giving Them the Strip though usually it’s during combat. This can be classified as a subset of Dressing as the Enemy in certain situations during The Infiltration though minus any clothing.

This is due to the fact that the opponent is unable to see or register them as a threat or considers them as one of their own. It could also be that their undressed state allows the character to blend in the surroundings say with other naked people.

Examples of Naked Camouflage include:

Anime and Manga

• Fairy Tail has Flare Corona after the Grand Magic Games, follows Fairy Tail back to their guild, sneaking into the rebuilt baths with the rest of the female guildmembers. While bathing with her red hair facing the rest of the bathers, Flare is mistaken for Erza until she turns around.
• Kekko Kamen: The superhero of the manga operates in her birthday suit only covering her face in a mask.
• Kyochuu Rettou has this when a group of students trapped on an island filled with giant insects. When under attack by giant beetles, Naruse remembers from her entomology hobbyist friend Oribe Mutsumi that beetles lick the sweat off humans for minerals. She orders her friends to strip their clothes and wash themselves.
• Tama Kick has Ayane a detective going around investigating interested parties. The places she goes to are spas and topless beaches requiring her to strip to blend in.
• Lupin the Third Part II, in "Black Panther" to retrieve priceless emerald, Lupin and the gang have to inflitrate the Aegean Sea Club, which is a private beach of nudists.
• One Piece, the Strawhats try this in Wano hiding in a bathhouse, but eventually the Beast Pirates search the place. 
• Cutie Honey Universe has Honey Kisaragi painting her naked body to disguise herself as a statue. 
• Record of Grancrest War, is a variation of this trope in which Edokia Colorha and her mage Laura lead her men nude against an army of invaders. Somehow the act works and the Nords are confounded by the exhibitionists combined with the already existing rebellion. 

Comic

• Resident Alien has a serial killer that takes off his clothes for this very reason as witnesses are too concentrated on his junk rather than his face to identify him.
• DC Comics has Batman Confidential #17-18 where Batgirl chases after Catwoman to the entrance of the Gotham Hedonist Society, a nudist club. However its for members only but they could allow her a tour, but the catch is she has to remove her clothes. The guy at the desk doesn't suspect that she is actually a superhero and just assumes it to be a costume. The guests are none the wiser that a hero and villain are in their midst.
• God is Dead Issue #20 the city of Apollonia where Baldur and Apollo rule. The city only allows beautiful people in. The inspector has the band strip while he examines their bodies for any imperfections. Later issues reveal that among them are two Greek Gods disguised as mortals.
  • Baldur does this disguised as a male slave and kills Anasasi.
• A sub-trope of this exists in, Conan the Barbarian, in Conan: Island of No Return. One of the Cimmerian's female companions, Venya, strips naked and covers herself in cobwebs to impersonate a ghost to a bunch of rival grave-robbers in a tomb. Due to the location, poor lighting and her ethereal appearance the men buy it and run for their lives.
• In Yiu, an assassin takes out a naked prostitute after she uses her bio-metrics to open a vault door containing her target. She then strips her clothes and takes the other woman's role to get close to her target and shoot him.

Film

• American Burger a nerd pretends to be dead to avoid being killed by men who slaughter people for burger men. He maintains this even when his clothes are cut off and only the conveyer belt to the butcher. This tactic actually works and manages to convince the butcher he is Canadian this not fit to be made into an American burger.
• Cannibal Holocaust has Harold Monroe going naked before the Yacumo tribe in order to gain their trust and accept him in order to find out what happen to a band of American film crew.
• Freaks of Nature has this when aliens invade a town inhabited by humans, zombies and vampires. A trio realizes that the aliens can only see inorganic materials, such as their synthetic clothing. So they strip and run to the nearest house avoiding the aliens.
• Hideout in the Sun (1960) has two brothers that just robbed a bank hide out in a nudist colony.
• Garden of Eden (1954), war widow and pre-teen daughter leaves home of a tyrannical father-in-law in Florida, gets lost on a detour, and finds shelter at a nudist colony.
• The Beast That Killed Women (1965), Miss Johnson a police officer goes undercover at a nudist resort to kill a beast.
• Nature's Playmates (1962), Diana and her private detective boss are hired by a wife whose husband has gone missing. The wife believes that her husband is at a nudist camp in Florida so Diana and her boss must go undercover to try and find him.
• Diary of a Nudist (1961), newspaper editor Arthur Sherwood is on a hunting trip when he accidentally stumbles upon a nudist camp in the woods. He is very much shocked by this and decides to send reporter Stacy Taylor to the camp so she can write an expose on the camp and have it shut down.
• Sandy, the Reluctant Nature Girl (1964), a young woman finds out that her boyfriend has been lying to her about where he spends his weekends. She hires a private detective to follow him, and discovers that he has joined a nudist camp. She then goes for herself to see him.
• A Shot in the Dark (1964), Inspector Clouseau has to sneak naked onto a nude resort to find a witness.
• League of Extraordinary Gentlemen has the Invisible Man, in order to be seen he wears make-up and a trench coat. However during an ambush, he uses his drink to wash his face and strips of his coat to avoid gunfire.

Literature

• Beewitched by Hannah Reed has the main character going undercover to rescue her friend in a witch coven and she does so by going naked to blend in.
• Naturist, Red in Tooth and Claw by Stuart Pitsligo has scientists creating a virus that turns men and women into savage animals. The infection spreads when a subject is bitten and when they are they lose all higher mental functions and strip their clothes off. They attack any rational creatures or those with clothes. They are however docile to those that are naked as themselves.
• Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle has this when Ulysse Mérou and his companions go naked to be accepted by the native Sororians. They like them so much like this that when the trio try to wear clothes, they rip them apart. The men from Earth is unfortunate as they are mistaken for animals by the intelligent apes. One ends up being shot and is mounted in a Trophy Room, another has an episode People Zoo and another is placed in a lab.
• The Complex by Brian Keene has this when the survivors of a apartment compound are under threat by naked ticking men and women with weapons. To avoid being attack they remove their clothes, unfortunately not all of the ticking men are fooled and at the end of the book the heroes are mistaken for the enemy by the military unit quarantining the area and possibly shot.
• Star Trek Expanded Universe, has Star Trek: Buying Time by Robert Greenberger where the female crew members of the da Vinci must stop a Ferengi from altering time. They infiltrate Ferenginar possessing as escorts to their Tellarite comrade. However during that time female rights had not taken into affect and the women must follow local custom by going nude.
• The Family Tree by Sheri S. Tepper has the umminhi a culture of man living in a post-Earth where animals now reign as the dominant species. The umminhi are treated as mounts by the other intelligent races by choice as a way to repent for their ancestors crimes against nature. They maintain this guise unknown to the many races who assumed them to be naked animals until the prophesied time when a human from the past lifts their burden.
• The Prisoner of Zhamanak by L. Sprague de Camp has one of the two protagonists do this. Alicia Dyckman anthropologist has to dress like a native to avoid two bands of mercenaries after her. One for her head and another for her hand in marriage. Dressing like a native is easy since they go nude most of the time. The hard part is that she is human and needs to look Krishan. They wear body paint and have antennae on their eyebrows.
• The Silk and the Song has this when a band of rebels attempts to liberate a city that has many of their brothers and sisters enslaved as animals. However the humans enslaved in the city have fallen prey to a generational lie that the rebels are cannibals by their masters and attempt to capture them. Pressed between the aliens and a mob of naked slaves, the leader, Alan has his comrades remove their clothes and run straight into the mob to escape.
• The Woods Are Dark by Richard Laymond has a man whose family is dragged in the woods by a clan of cannibals. The head of the family, in order to save his wife and daughter goes natural to blend in. It works for a time but when he finds his wife strung up from a tree and tried to free her, he is exposed as an outsider. He gets a little too deep and actually becomes a savage leading into Going Native or Driven to Madness tropes.
• Through Darkest America by Neal Barrett Jr. has a couple escaping a town by hiding among a herd of human cattle.
• Pets series by Darla Phelps has a race of giants that view humans as pets. Contemporary belief is that humans are animals that just resemble humanoids. Due to the language barrier the aliens take it in stride. Those that are aware of the humanity' sapience are only the government and trappers. Trappers stalk lone humans and tranquilize them for capture. Once captured they make sure to remove all traces that they are civilized beings such as their clothes. With now way to communicate the humans have no rights and are at their masters' mercy.
• Halo: Primordium by Greg Bear has the leadership of the ancient human civilization stripping off their uniforms to escape identification from he Forerunners after they conquer Charum Hakkor. In the end the Didact singles them out.
• Stallions by Julian Masters has the planet Delta where a lost human colony has women rule as the dominant species. Men are regarded as a separate species and have regressed into a feral beasts on preserves. A male human from Earth sent to investigate the colony hides in the preserve as a naked animal.
• Granny Bares It All by Harper Lin, Ex-CIA agent Barbara Gold goes undercover after witnessing a murder of one of the residents at a nudist colony on the edge of town.
• Secret Bond (Jamie Bond #2) by Gemma Halliday and Jennifer Fischetto, has Jamie Bond a Distaff Counterpart of James Bond. Running her father's detective agency, she takes a new case to find evidence of a cheating husband leading her to nudist colony which she must infiltrate.
• Caught by a Clown by Sandra Crowley, has Stacie Monroe, searching for a man who impregnated the daughter of a local mob boss. The guy has disappeared along with some of the mobster’s money hiding in a nudist resort. Stacie having no choice goes to follow.
• The Freakshow by Bryan Smith, as two heroes infiltrating a vehicle that can cross dimensions by posing as naked slaves.
• The Order of the Crystal Skull by By Aurora Marc, a woman has to toss her clothes out since there may be a transmitter.
• Out of Control by Suzanne Brockmann, has two characters stripping down to avoid detection since their colorful clothes can expose them in the Amazon. One a woman strip down to nothing with only shorts while her partner remains in his boxers.
• The Naked Dead by Joe Janowicz, two cops pose as a couple to investigate a series of deaths at a nudist community.
• Phaze Doubt by Piers Anthony Alyc a long time member of a nudist world of Phaze is revealed to be a traitor to alien forces.

Live Action TV

• Lucifer in Orgy Pants to Work has Ella and the Devil go investigate, not as cops per say, a murder leading them to a nudist colony that allows no entry unless your naked. Turns out the killer is hiding among the naturalists.
• Relic Hunter: In Etched in Stone, Sydney and Nigel go undercover to a nude spa resort to retrieve a artifact in a midst of nudists.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has Ishka going naked to maintain the idea she is a submissive female. Year later her son Quark in Gender Swapped operation does this to prove he/she's female to a Ferengi vital to restoring Zek to power.
• Murdoch Mysteries, in "Murdoch au Naturel" to find a killer in a nudist camp Murdoch and the Canadian police send in a rookie officer under-dress to locate him.
• The Glades, in "The Naked Truth", the victim, Maggie Garret, apparently was a resident of a nudist colony. Secretly she was sent by a luxury condo development team to subvert the colony community that they wanted to buyout. Though she was sent there to do a job she grew close to the residents, but ends up getting killed by one of the jealous nudist residents.
• Simon and Simon in "The Bare Facts", where the brother have to infiltrate a nudist colony to find a missing contractor. There are armed guards around the colony so they sneak in the night in army fatigues but end up getting trapped overnight. In order to sneak out without arising suspicion, they take off their clothes and pass their painted faces as a mud treatment. They go back again, this time undercover as guests.
• NCIS, it was mentioned in a "Day In Court" that DiNozzo went undercover at a nudist colony to apprehend a pole dancer who stole from her boss who thought a nudist colony would be the perfect hideout.
• Chuck, in "Chuck Versus the Hack Off" Chuck and Sarah locate a virus in heavily guarded compound. They believe it to be a militant organization, but find it to be a nudist cult. Sarah takes the initiative and strips and tells Chuck to do the same.
• Sherlock (2017), Irene Adler does this to Sherlock Holmes when she meets him. Her naked body rendering him unable to make deductions.

Web Comics

• Safari Planet by Marc Borstel has this when Wild Safari Ltd kidnaps women for wealthy men to hunt. Wearing only leather harnesses the women are released into the wilderness of a jungle planet where they are hunted and raped by the tycoons. A pair realizes that the harnesses contain transmitters that track their location and immediately strip to nothing.
• Sluts in Training 3 by Erenischg has two bimbos making love in a barn with two ranch hands. The ranch is a People Farms where women are milked like cows. While fooling around two of the cows escape leaving the men to use the bimbos as replacements. Due to their nakedness they are mistaken as livestock, but have little choice to maintain the ruse as the rancher threatens that they will be assumed to be mistaken and then really be made into cows
• Hotties Next Door 8 by Predondo A Asian biker having escaped from being a sex slave with her fellow escapee tries to flag down a passing police car. However recognizing them to be dirty cops she tries to pass her undressed state as a result of a wild party in the woods. Though the cops see through it and capture her.
• Slave Clones by Fernando a thief trying to steal from a rich guy, so she disguises herself as Mail Order Sex Toys or M.O.S.T, pseudo humans that are organic androids. Only her plan backfires when her intended target ships her back because she is not a blonde and is sent to a demented sex dungeon instead. The manor owner doesn't realize she is human an assumes her to be an advanced model, until one of his slave breeders attacks her.

Western Animation

• American Dad: In Naked to the Limit, One More Time this deals with Roger wanting to walk around the house naked even with Jeff is around. To get around the issue of Jeff living with the Smiths and not having to deal with revealing that there is an alien living under their roofs, Roger pretends to be Jeff's imaginary friend. The Smiths go along with the charade until Klaus acknowledges Roger in front Jeff.
• Batman: Assault on Arkham has Killer Frost pose as a naked dead corpse to get through security.
• Rick and Morty has the Zigerions who are gymnophobic and are unable to tolerate seeing nudity. Thus Rick Sanchez removes his clothes to secretly talk to Morty.
• The Simpsons in Treehouse of Horror XVII where in The Day the Earth Looked Stupid, where the populace of 1930 Springfield in fear of an alien invasion due to a radio broadcast discard their clothes to disguise themselves as animals.