Hammerspace

Examples of Hammerspace pictured in a WikiWorld cartoon

Hammerspace is a fan-envisioned extradimensional, instantly accessible storage area in fiction, which is used to explain how animated, comic and game characters can produce objects out of thin air.

This phenomenon has existed in animation for years, dating back to early Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies animated cartoons. However, the term 'Hammerspace' itself both originates in and is generally associated with Japanese animation.

Origins

The phenomenon which later became known as "Hammerspace" has been occurring in animation for many years. Inexplicable production of items dates back to the very beginning of animated shorts and was a fairly common occurrence during the golden age of animation. Warner Bros. cartoon characters are particularly well-known for often pulling all sorts of things — guns, disguises, bombs, anvils, mallets— from behind their backs or just offscreen. However, this phenomenon was mostly just left to suspension of disbelief. Only recently have fans created a pseudo-explanation to explain (albeit jokingly) the phenomenon.

The term "Hammerspace" itself originates from a gag common in certain anime and manga. A typical example would be when a male character would anger or otherwise offend a female character, who would proceed to produce, out of thin air, an oversized wooden rice mallet (saizuchi) and hit him on the head with it in an exaggerated manner. The strike would be purely for comic effect, and would not have any long-lasting effects. The term was largely popularized first by fans of Urusei Yatsura, and later of Ranma ½. It is believed by some that the term "Hammerspace" itself was coined after Ranma ½'s character Akane Tendo due to her frequency to produce large hammers from nowhere.

Another series that may have lead to the term is City Hunter. One of the lead characters in City Hunter—Kaori—makes extensive use of the "transdimensional hammers" as they are sometimes called, as they are one of the two main running gags in the series; the other is the extreme lecherousness of the other main character—Ryo—which almost invariably leads to the use of said hammers. The City Hunter hammers also require more explaining in terms of storage, as they are often considerably larger than the characters themselves, and thus more likely to inspire questions like "where did she get that from!?". At the very least, City Hunter predates Ranma by two years, and already had an extensive fanbase.

Hammerspace in games

The theory of Hammerspace can also be applied to many video games, as game mechanics often defy those of the real world: for instance, a character might be able to carry a bike or a sword larger than himself without any sign of it before use, and inventory capabilities are commonly implausible. This is particularly visible in traditional adventure games (every item encountered can often be carried, or pull out a large item without any indication beforehand of where it was stored, such as in The Legend of Zelda) and RPGs (e.g. 99 Potions and 99 Hi-Potions in many Final Fantasies*, or the ability to carry 60 king-sized beds at a time in Final Fantasy XI). In this capacity, however, hammerspace is shown to have certain limits, as the inventory can contain 99 potions and 99 high potions but not 100 potions and zero high potions.

In the Tomb Raider series, Lara Croft's backpack - the size of a handbag- is able to hold dozens of firearms, rocket launcher included, ammunition for same, several medical kits, the archeological prizes she finds (including pieces of stone and metal), as well, presumeably, as the tools, ropes, and torches she is seen using in the cut scene animations between levels.

In shooting games such as Doom or the Grand Theft Auto series, the player character can carry almost anything from small guns to big guns at a time. However, modern FPS like Halo or Call of Duty lack hammerspace in order to maintain realism (the two latter games only allow player to carry two weapons)

Another example involves Solid Snake from the Metal Gear Solid series. Snake is seen to hold various weapons such as handguns, machine-guns, and grenades. While some of those can be explained by the various holsters on his suit and by his backpack (in Snake Eater), weapons like Stinger Missiles and RPGs remain too big to carry around normally.

Closer to Hammerspace's original comedic usage, Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon has its protagonist Roger Wilco cram a full-sized ladder into his pocket. The concept is expanded upon in Space Quest VI: The Spinal Frontier when Roger encounters a ladder, with the narrator remarking "Now how do you think you're going to carry around a six foot ladder?"; when he pushes the ladder into his pocket, the narrator says "You take the ladder and put it in your pocket. Ouch!"

Similarly, in Leisure Suit Larry 2 Larry conceals a beverage container the size of a trash can in his jacket.

In The Secret of Monkey Island, Guybrush Threepwood famously pulls a 6 foot long q-tip from his pants. His "inventory space" is a running gag in the series.

Amy Rose, Sonic the Hedgehog's self-declared girlfriend from the Sonic series, produces the Piko-Piko Hammer (her primary weapon) from hammerspace - sometimes more than one, as in Sonic X when she throws nine or ten hammers at Eggman's aircraft, one after the other. Various characters also pull Chaos Emeralds out of hammerspace from behind their backs.

There are several mods for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion that allow the player to summon a door to enter another area for unlimited storage. One of them is even called "Dimensional Pocket", that being a possible reference to "Doraemon".

In the game Earthworm Jim, Jim often pulled his "Pocket Rocket" out of his pocket, even though it was even bigger than he was.

In the game God of War 2 you can pull various weapons out of hammerspace, including wings, a spear, and eaven a hammer (how redundant)

In the Pokémon game series there was a limit to the max number of different items at once while others were kept in storage in a PC. In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, however the PC storage was removed and literally every item owned was held at all times.

In the Super Smash Bros. game series, items appear out of thin air for usage, and the character Princess Peach pulls the character Toad (nintendo) out of hammerspace to use as a sheild

One other example is the entire Broken Sword series. Starting with the traditionally animated original and continuing through to the 4th fully 3D rendered episode, unlikely hero George Stobbart has always exploited Hammerspace probably more than most characters have. His obsession with picking up just about everything he can find from clown noses, to golf clubs, to crowbars and literally hundreds of other items doesn't seem to prevent him from being able to store all his treasures inside the inner pocket of his jacket. You can never own enough junk.

• An example which perhaps belongs in "Similar Concepts" (Below) is seen in the Resident Evil series. Characters are allowed a limit load and must decide what to carry. Excess items may be saved in trunk-like storage boxes sited throughout the game, usually near save points. However, these items may be retrieved, stored or swapped as required from any other storage box in the game, regardless of their location, indicating that all the boxes in fact access the same space.

Similar concepts

Impossible item carrying doesn't need to be inexplicable. Some fiction settings address the matter by any of various means, creating what isn't Hammerspace but can work in much the same way.

• Numerous comical shows play the absurdity of the situation for laughs by deliberately drawing attention to it, an act known as "lampshade hanging." [1] For instance, in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon The Super Globetrotters, one of the main characters (Louis "Sweet Lou" Dunbar) stashes his inventory in his comically oversized afro, and Marge Simpson has likewise been seen to pull large and/or heavy objects (such as the Simpson family savings jar) from her hair. Similarly, Harpo Marx of the Marx Brothers produced unlikely items from his coat, most famously a candle burning at both ends in the classic Horse Feathers, an ability mimicked by the character Jerry from the sitcom Parker Lewis Can't Lose. Inspector Gadget's hat contains an infinite number of gadgets, though it is never explained how he can fit the gadgets inside the hat. In the popular Japanese manga and anime Doraemon, the character Doraemon has a "dimensional pocket" attached to his front from which he can pull all manner of strange Chindogu. The sketch comedy show All That featured a character based on this concept named Baggin' Saggin' Barry, who could produce anything (even an airplane) from his unreasonably baggy pants, as does Bill Smith in his "Adventures with Bill" segment on The Red Green Show.
• Spaces that are larger on the inside than on the outside are common, in fact this is the most common extra-dimensional storage space variant among live-action media. These can be whole houses, such as Snoopy's doghouse in Peanuts, which features a billiards table, a Van Gogh painting and a basement. Smaller ones can even be carried, such as a backpack in Robert A. Heinlein's novel Glory Road which is about the size of a house on the inside. Other examples include the "4 Dimensional hypercube" with its apparently-infinite storage capability in The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, and Oscar the Grouch's standard-sized garbage can on Sesame Street which houses not only Oscar but all of his pets, including an elephant ("explained" in Elmo in Grouchland with a portal to another world). One of the most famous examples would be the TARDIS in the BBC television programme Doctor Who, which appears as an old-fashioned police box on the outside but has many rooms within, including a kitchen, swimming pool, sleeping facilities, toilets and a large main control room. The Doctor frequently describes the TARDIS as "bigger on the inside", and has also demonstrated that his pockets are bigger on the inside in one episode of the programme, although it may have been intended as a joke on his part.
• The Storage Boxes of Resident Evil would fall into this category, in that they can store items and amounts of items larger than their apparent capacity, as well as the space being accessable from different locations. These boxes have a finite space capacity (one item per space, with a limited number of spaces): However, it is practically impossible to advance in the game and save enough equipment to fill the whole box.
• In Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, the Unseen University is frequently said to be much larger on the inside, and you can apparently wander forever in the multi-dimensional Library while the central glass dome remains overhead. The series also features The Luggage, a living trunk that walks on hundreds of little legs and can store an enormous amount of materials while instantly opening to what is needed while keeping what isn't hidden. Pratchett further expores the idea of L-space, in which he proposes that all libraries existing in all universes in all times occupy the same dimension; Ergo, it is possible to travel via libraries to other times and places This explains why some people can get lost in libraries, and certain second hand bookshops appear to have strange little doors at the back, whilst their owners wear outmoded clothing. The equation is as follows: Knowledge=Power=Energy=Matter=Mass, which distorts space.
• In the Russian novel series The Labyrinths of Eho, the main character acquires a talent to reach his hand anywhere he can't see it to retrieve items from other dimensions, from hot cups of coffee to pink umbrellas. A similar ability is demonstrated by Merlin son of Corwin in The Chronicles of Amber series by Roger Zelazny.
• In the film Mary Poppins, Mary's handbag is larger on the inside; it is large enough to contain a full-sized coat stand.
• The 2006 movie UltraViolet features technobabble "flat-space technology."
• Animorphs and Transformers use extra-dimensional storage areas to explain changes in mass and parts lost in shapeshifting. It has also been used to explain the oft-questioned disappearance and re-appearance of Optimus Prime's trailer during transformation. In honour of this, many fans have unofficially dubbed this extra-dimensional space "Trailerland".
• In the video game Star Trek: Voyager Elite Force the main character Alex Munro is seen several times in cutscenes to pull weapons or other items from what is called a transporter buffer. A similar concept is used by characters in Beyond Good & Evil (video game).
• In the Touchstone/Disney pictures film The Nightmare Before Christmas, Jack Skellington shows an example of hammerspace near the end of the movie when he stuffs Santa's hat inside of his jacket, though he may actually have stored it inside of his ribcage.
• In issue 12 of Roman Dirge's Lenore, Lenore has no idea where the gun she used to shoot Mr. Gosh repeatedly, came from.
• In Count Duckula, the character Nanny is able to pull any object out of her sling.
• Characters in the manga Naruto can create scrolls which either contain or summon items, ranging from weapons to familiar animals. In addition, they are able to perform summonings which causes sometimes impossibly huge animals to appear out of thin air. While this is a normal part of ninjutsu in Naruto, the effect is similar to hammerspace.
• Plankton of Spongebob Squarepants once pulled out a golden spatula he claimed was hidden in his "Secret Compartment".

• Sosuke Sagara of Full Metal Panic! would usually produce a fire-arm out his school outfit that could in no way have been discreetly hidden; this would lead many characters around him to yell something close to "How did you hide that?!".

• Max, the unclothed rabbit from Sam & Max, often produces a weapon (such as a Luger) out of nowhere. His partner Sam often wonders at this; the response is normally 'None of your damn business, Sam.'

• Hiruma from Eyeshield 21 seems to be able to pull numerous automatic weapons out of thin air, even while wearing a football uniform, without even showing a bulge. However, this can mainly be explained by his devil handbook, as it also provided him with a tank and fireworks before.

• The concept of Hammerspace is mocked in the Timon & Pumbaa episode Clip Hangers, in which the title characters try to find out what's "behind our backs", pulling an increasingly large and ludicrous assortment of objects (a piano, elephant, yacht, etc.) out from behind them.

• In the first (Indigo League) season of Pokémon, Misty usually pulled a mallet out of nowhere, usually to hit Ash or Brock.

• In Bounty Hamster, Marion the Hamster can pull incredibly large things out of his cheeks, seemingly in infinite quantities.

• In Jūken Sentai Gekiranger, the Gekirangers are said to put their battle costumes and weapons in a dimensional pocket.

• The role-playing game Tales from the Floating Vagabond uses this concept in the form of a "schtick" (a singular special ability each character can have) called "The Trenchcoat Effect." Similarly, Toon has a schtick called "Bag of Many Things". Further, the titular restaurant, the Floating Vagabond, is explained as having a hyperspace drive hooked up to it so that no matter how many people are sitting at the bar, there will always be an open stool.

• In Phantasy Star Universe, Ethan Waber's inventory, in the Story Mode, is explained by an item that affixes to his armor, where all collected and unequipped items are transported to for storage.

• In the anime and manga Hellsing, the paladin Alexander Anderson can pull bayonets out of his cassock and use them to impale vampires and place Bible pages on walls , doors , and windows creating a Holy barrier. The number of blades and pages he carries seems to be unlimited.

• In the manga and anime Ranma 1/2, the character Akane Tendo has a tendency to pull a large object or hammer to hit someone, most often Ranma Saotome. It is never discussed or even mentioned where she manages to find these objects, and she sometimes not shown producing said object.

• In the manga and anime City Hunter, Kaori Makimura uses hammerspace weapons when she needs to stop Ryo Saeba and his perverted habits. Usually they are at least 100-tons hammers. Sometimes it is discussed where she manages to find them, and a wardrobe with dozens of hammers inside has been seen in her home.

• Most role-playing games based on Dungeons and Dragons include a magic item called the bag of holding, in which a large number of items can be stored. The items are placed in a small "nondimensional space" inside the bag. There are a few other similar items, such as the portable hole.

• The 'Moo-ma and Moopa' episode of Channel 4's Black Books shows two of the characters escaping from a boring dinner at a restaurant, by sliding under the table, to discover a fully stocked -and staffed- bar to drown their sorrows. It may be imagined that same applies under the other tables.

• In the Kingdom Hearts series the protagonist Sora eternally makes a giant key called the Keyblade appear out of something similar to hammerspace.

• In the series Love Hina uses hammerspace a lot.In Vol.3 of the manga Mutsumi Otohime pulls out a inflatable Life-raft to use as a boat to her home. However she has no backpack or anything that could possibly hold it. Keitaro Urishima evens comments, in same the panel, where she has carrying it.

Commercials

Television commercials over the years have used hammerspace:

• A Kit-Kat ad campaign from the late 80s involved a man and a woman in two seperate commercials deciding they wanted something to eat. The woman pulls food items out of her purse, while the man pulls them out of his pants pocket, and the items they pull out before pulling out a Kit-Kat bar were items that, in real life, couldn't easily be stored there (i.e. the woman pulls a fully intact birthday cake out of her purse, while the man pulls a large hamburger out of his pocket).

Notes

• The term Hammerspace is often used synonymously with magic satchel; however, Hammerspace is an actual extra dimension where items are stored, whereas a magic satchel uses magic to either contain these items or to access Hammerspace itself, similar to the way The Doctor (from Doctor Who) uses sufficiently advanced technology in his space-time machine the TARDIS to achieve the same results. In The Runaway Bride, he notes that his pockets are also bigger on the inside.
• More often than not, non-animated occurrences in film or television are explained as a plot hole rather than Hammerspace access, and dismissed due to suspension of disbelief. Examples include the live-action Highlander TV series, where the sword-wielding Immortals often have their weapons readily available despite their lack of a suitable container or article of clothing in which to carry a concealed sword.

See also

• Cartoon physics
• Magic satchel
• Portable hole
• Bag of holding
• L-Space (Discworld series)

References

• Universal comedy anime rules. Retrieved on October 22, 2006.
• Hidden Objects: The Hammerspace Phenomenon. Retrieved on October 23, 2006.

External links

• Hammerspace on Urban Dictionary
• Hammerspace on Everything2