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It's like a...fluffy...thingy. It floats around their head and past their shoulders and down to their waist. I see it a lot. The two characters with it who come to mind are Guren from Shounen Onmyouji and Elsie from The World God Only Knows, but there are others with the same accessory. I'm just curious as to what it is. Attached is Guren with the...thingy.enter image description here

toyoko
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This is actually a culture/belief thing, so it is a real thing. It occurs in many Asian countries, like China and Japan. Here is a picture of it in real life:

enter image description here

Basically, it is a silk scarf, a really long one. It is not only used by gods; in the ancient times, dancers and women performing in front of people with some sort of power (such as money or governing) would usually wear this. When people in real life wear it, it obviously won't be like that; it would be like a normal scarf, as you can see from this picture:

enter image description here

In there the scarf is floating around the woman: this is to bring out her aura and beauty.

That's the basic idea, though I might have missed certain details. If anyone is reading this and think I didn't put down the correct answer, please add on. Hope this helps.

Gao
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Dragon
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They're a type of shawl or scarf called "hagoromo" (yes, like the Naruto character). They supposedly stay upright and flowing with divine energy. In reality, they're just normal, thin silk ribbons.

Jacob
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    While I was able to confirm the validity of this answer, a reference to your sources would be appreciated. – Makoto Sep 04 '20 at 15:18
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They're called Tenne somewhere around the bronze age where Japan had an influx of Buddhist culture. http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/drapery-robes-japan-buddha-statues.html

Dijohn Le
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As the previous answers noted, they are a Buddhist accessory, and the style originated in India.

In ancient India before colonisation, there was a type of fabric from Bengal called muslin, which was fabled to be lighter than air, and coveted by emperors of Persia, China, and south-east Asia, and monarchies of Europe. The thread counts on Bengal muslin reached over 1,000 (for comparison, modern clothing is around 50ish), and fabric research is currently only able to make fabrics with thread counts of around 400.

Bengal's muslin and cotton industry made that area of India alone hold around 20% of the world economy of the time, so when the British wanted to start its own cotton industry, they banned Bengal muslin, cut off the thumbs of the weavers, and the cultivar of cotton needed to make this special Muslin has gone extinct and the practice has been lost to history. It was also see-through like what is usually shown in anime (like Aqua's raiment in KonoSuba), and I'm sure in some cases it was made stiffer to be able to stand like they show in anime.

F1Krazy
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Demos
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  • Regarding the British cutting the thumbs off of the weavers, it is a bunch of nonsense. Here is a BBC article about Dhaka muslin. You will see that the scarfs were definitely made of this fabric, and it's airy sense of nature, which is now being produced, but only 70% of the dna sequence has been achieved unfortunately not 100%. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210316-the-legendary-fabric-that-no-one-knows-how-to-make – Angel Dec 22 '21 at 03:24
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Sometimes translated as 'feather mantle', celestial scarves etc theyre not an anime invention but comes from the cultural/ belief system of Buddhism/ Hinduism. You see it in the Deva's or demigod/ divine beings representations of those cultures in India, China, Japan and much of South Eastern Asia. Its so symbolic of those divine beings attire that the emperors, nobilities and court dancers tries to emulate but of course the mortals' scarves dont float in an arc around their heads like the divines. They just wear it draped around the waist, hanging on the forearms. The court dancers use really light, airy ribbons to emulate the floating qualities when they perform their dances. Thats why you see the Chinese traditional dancers use brisk movements and throw their scarves/ ribbons around.

Apart from the floating, ethereal quality of the cloth, it is also believed by some the celestial beings depends on it to gain the ability of flight. There are folk tales of a celestial maiden that lost her ability to fly back to heaven after her hagoromo (those mantle/ scarves thingy) got stolen. The hero (peeping tom) happened upon a group of the maidens as they ascended to frolick in a pond/ waterfall (yes ikr dont they have more beautiful waterfalls and pools in heaven) and stole the hagoromo of the most beautiful one. After searching for quite some time fruitlessly, they had to abandon her and returned to heaven. Different versions of the story either had the hero asking her to marry him in exchange for the scarves itself or his help in searching for it. Either way, they were married happily for quite some time but one day the celestial maiden found the hagoromo, put it on and ascended back to heaven, leaving her tearful husband and children behind.

Kenzo
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