Strong Family Resemblance

Those Saiyan genes must be pretty damn strong...to give them all the same haircut.

This is an extremely common practice in animation where, to establish a familial relationship, a child looks more or less identical to one of his or her parents. Frequently occurs when a show uses garish or outlandish designs, where subtlety and fine physical detail are already lost, and we need a quick visual aid that other characters may not seem to notice.

This is probably born out of the Economy Cast mindset of a single character for a single role, since we're not given clues to what the other parent might look like and thus shouldn't think about it. Predictably, this trope is less frequent when the child has a non-twin sibling who can't also look identical, although occasionally the difference is to show they're not related by blood.

Often, if a family is the stereotypical four-member "nuclear" one, the son might resemble his mother, or the daughter her father, in an attempt to mix things up. Another common variant is to make the father and the son/the mother and the daughter look nearly identical, but with the other parent's hair or eye color. Also, if there's a Tomboy and Girly Girl (especially if they are sisters), expect that the tomboy will resemble her father more and the girly girl will resemble her mother more.

Some will go as far as to make the parents look similar. It's usually done innocently, often in children's shows where the offspring are seen first, but the possibility of Incest Subtext can be shady to older fans.

Compare Uncanny Family Resemblance (for flesh-and-blood people), Identical Grandson. Contrast The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter, where you'll find yourself relieved that Strong Family Resemblance isn't always the case. A subtrope of this would be Hereditary Hairstyle.

No real life examples, please; Real Life people are not cartoons or drawings. We have Uncanny Family Resemblance for the flesh-and-blood examples of this.

Examples of Strong Family Resemblance include:

Anime and Manga

• In Jungle wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu, Hare looks exactly like his mother Weda enough that the school doctor initially confuses him for a girl. In a huge irony, the school doctor turns out to be his father.
• Likewise, Fuyuki's mother Aki in Keroro Gunsou looks mostly like him, and was Lampshaded in a Fountain of Youth episode with predictable results. (The fiery-tempered Natsumi, meanwhile, gets stuck with red hair).
• While not very closely resembling her half-sisters at all, Urd of Ah! My Goddess is a dead-ringer for her own mother, Hild. If it weren't for Hild's slight height advantage, different hairstyle, and slightly larger bust they could pretty easily be mistaken for one another.
• In Sailor Moon, Usagi and Chibi-Usa are very similar (except for the hair colors), and the few glimpses we get of parents have them looking nearly identical to their daughters. Minako and Usagi's entire families are copies of each other, which wouldn't be so jarring if the 'newer' plot didn't force Usagi to resemble her mother in a past life, meaning she doesn't look like her modern family at all.
  • The parody manga Parallel Sailor Moon introduces daughters of the four Guardian Senshi, who look exactly like their mothers and have the same names.
• Ichigo of Tokyo Mew Mew looks like her mother, Sakura. She's basically just Ichigo's head on a sliiiiiiiiiiightly more mature body.
• In Please Teacher, Mizuho and her mother look very very similar. so much so that Kei confuses the two of them on more than one occasion with embarassing consequences.
• In Lucky Star, Konata Izumi is basically a clone of her mother, with her father's skin tone and mole. It's obvious enough that the Hiiragi twins mistakes a picture of her parents together for Konata and her dad, and that leads to some interesting questions. The same is true of all the mothers seen in the series. The Hiiragi twins' father gets more onscreen time than their mother, but since all four offspring in their family are daughters, they all resemble the mother.
• Girl-type Ranma, color of hair and eyes aside, is almost identical to her mother. Unfortunately for him, Nabiki decides to point this out at the most inopportune moment, specifically when he's trying to pass himself off as Akane's cousin in order to avoid fulfilling a rather nasty ritual suicide pact.
• Subaru and Ginga Nakajima of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha look like splitting images of their mother. Subverted when it's later revealed that they were experimental cyborgs that Quint rescued and then adopted partly because they looked like her. Doubly subverted when it's even later revealed that Quint is their genetic mother... in the cloning sense, since the illegal researchers had somehow gotten hold of Quint's DNA and used it to create them.
  • In a more typical case, Nanoha herself ends up looking rather similar to her own mother Momoko when she grows up.
  • Lutecia looks very much like her mother Megane, particularly in her hair color and style.
  • Subaru looks almost exactly like her adopted sister Nove, who was also cloned from Quint, with only her hair color being different, to the point where someone she has only just met immediately guesses that they're related.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Ed and Al (pre-transmutation, anyway) both look a lot like Hohenheim, especially Ed.
  • Also, anime!Envy in his true form.
  • Also Armstrong family males (and some of the women).
  • In the finale family photo, Ed's and Winry's unnamed son looks uncannily like Daddy, down to the shit-eating grin. Baby Daughter looks to take after Winry, as she has Winry's eye and hair colors.
• Akira Maeda from Cromartie High School is "renowned throughout Japan for his startling resemblance to his mother", as it's put in the manga. His friends keep confusing the two of them. They were also played by the same actor in the live-action adaptation.
• Very common in Dragonball Z. The most obvious example is Goten, who looks(and acts) like Goku when he was a kid; this is Lampshaded in the games where he and a younger version of Goku appear. Goten may have initially been created to fill the 'young Goku role' left as the real Goku was too aged and Gohan was evolving into his own character, but that didn't work out too well. Since not every child in the series has such a strong family resemblance, it's also removes lingering doubts that the often absent Goku isn't his father...
  • Similarly, the few times we see Vegeta's father, he looks pretty much like Vegeta with a few minor differences: brown hair, a slightly sturdier build, and a goatee.
  • As seen in the pic above: Goku's father Bardock is nearly identical to his son, except for scars and a slight difference in facial shape.
  • Incidentally, the resemblance is "second son identical to his father": Goku is Bardock's second son while Goten is Goku's second.
  • More like "second child identical to one of the parents". Bra looks exactly like Bulma, and is her second child with Vegeta.
    • Interestingly enough, Gohan's hair resembles that of his father's older brother Raditz when it's ankle-length on Namek, though it does manage a Goku-ish shape during the Cell Games.
    • Makes you wonder if Vegeta had an older sibling.
  • The 2006 special reveals he has a younger brother who looks like a much younger version of him.
    • Or what Gohan's second child, if a son, would look like...
  • Apparently this all has to do with Saiyan genes. It's a form of identification to tell the weak Sayains from the strong ones easily through facial features and whatnot.
  • Krillin and Android 18's daughter Marron looked like Krillin with pigtails as a toddler. As a young woman, she resembles her mother.
• Variation: In Yes! Pretty Cure 5, Komachi and her older sister Madoka look nearly identical (to the extent that, when several characters meet Madoka for the first time, they mistake her for Komachi). Their mother has never appeared, so whether she looks the same as well is unknown.
• In Mahou Sensei Negima, when Negi magically ages himself up, he's virtually indistinguishable from his father. When he travels into the magic world, the resemblance is a bit of a plot point. Naturally, the strong resemblance, combined with the fact that Negi's mother has barely even been mentioned, leads to a number of Epileptic Trees concerning Negi's possible origin. The identity of his mother was later revealed; personality wise he resembles her quite strongly, although he's much more upbeat.
  • Negi's cousin also looks like her aunt (Negi's mother).
• Azumanga Daioh, the manga, doesn't show us any of the girls' parents (unless you count Chiyo's dad) but in the show, we get a brief glimpse of Kaorin's mother, who is basically a slightly taller Kaorin in an apron. We're also told that Tomo and her father had the same hairstyle at some point.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has a weird version with Lordgenome and Nia, who look nothing alike as they are in the series, but as this video made after the end of the actual series shows Lordgenome used to be a Cute Shotaro Boy and basically a male version of Nia. Seriously.
  • Rossiu also looks uncannily like the priest of his village at the very end of the series, leading to WMG as to whether or not they're related.
    • In the episode Rossiu joined, I'm pretty sure that it was stated that the priest is his father.
    • Actually, he was more likely referring to the priest as "Father" because that's what people traditionally directly refer to priests as.
    • Does anyone other than Rossiu call him father?
• Naruto, especially after Art Evolution, looks just like his father, Minato Namikaze (the 4th Hokage).
  • Most of the Konoha Twelve look like younger versions of their parents, especially the Ino-Shika-Cho trio. Hinata's mother, who was only shown in a flashback in the anime, strongly resembles her after the timeskip.
  • In Chapter 498 Naruto meets his mother Kushina and at one point she mentions Naruto has her face and Minato's hair.
  • Mikoto Uchiha is literally Sasuke with long hair. True to form, she's incredibly pretty.
    • The Uchihas, expecially the ones whose first names we know, all look the same, to the point that they can only be distinguished by little details in their faces/had such details added so we can tell them apart. Subtract the little lines around Madara's eyes, over Izuna's upper lip or on Itachi's cheecks and you get Sasuke.
  • Gaara's mother Karura and uncle Yashamaru have essentially the same face and hair.
  • Gaara and Kankuro both look a lot like their father while appearing somewhat different themselves; same goes for Temari and their mother.
• In Detective Conan, Yuusaku Kudo and his son Shinichi look almost exactly the same (Yuusaku has glasses and a funky mustache, Shinichi has a cowlick and a pointy rat-tail). The same goes for Kaitou KID and Shinichi; even though nobody knows whether or not they're related.
  • Actually, a huge plot point in a case of the fifth season. The detective Yusuke Sakata, whose father died in strange circumstances 20 years ago, confronts a Serial Killer. Much to his shock, the Serial Killer starts referring to him as "Instructor Inaba" and babbling in horror about how "the prank went too far". Said prank, obviously, refers to the death of Sakata's dad Inaba, which he and other five people caused. Yusuke, who had become a policeman to investigate what went on with his father, became a Serial Killer himself, catching and murdering the other culprits while keeping the other murderer alive and hidden while planning to kill him last and frame him for all the deaths. All to punish those who robbed him of his dad when he was a little boy. And on the other hand, this was also Yusuke's perdition: at some point Heiji and Conan saw a picture that included all of the victims plus other two persons whom Yusuke had still not killed... as well as Inaba. This lets them notice how physically alike Yusuke and Inaba were, identifying Yusuke as the killer.
• In Pokémon, the Nurse Jennys are revealed to be identical even when young -- identical to the adult specimens, that is.
• Brilliantly carried off in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Initially you can't see any resemblance between Shinji Ikari and his father Gendo Ikari—but then in episode 5 Shinji briefly puts on a pair of Gendo's old glasses and later in episode 21 you get to see what Gendo looked like when he was younger. The resemblance is disturbingly striking, without the two of them looking like lazily designed age-clones.
  • Ritsuko Akagi, as it turns out, shares quite a resemblance to her mother Naoko, as seen in episode 21 where we learn that she wasn't a natural blonde - save for her characteristic mole on her cheek, Ritsuko would look a lot like her mother when she's older if you were to superimpose her original hair colour over her current one. Much like the Shinji-Gendo similarity above, this is intended to be a display of Not So Different, and rather disturbingly so - even her hair and clothing styles become more like Naoko's as she gets older, not to mention her sleeping with Gendo just as her mother had done.
  • And of course, in the most disturbing example and the most loose definition of family resemblance, Rei Ayanami shares a striking resemblance to the woman from whom she was at least partially cloned - Yui Ikari, Shinji's mother. Which makes her Shinji's half-sister... sorta.
• The way the nations in Axis Powers Hetalia are related can be a little confusing, but England and Sealand are most certainly related. Sealand looks like a younger, more hyper England.
  • If Germany were to grow his hair long, he'd be identical to his ancestor, Germania. His older brother, Prussia, also shares a certain resemblance with them, though his eye and hair color sets him apart.
    • Muss up Germany's hair and he ends up looking just like Prussia in the webcomics.
    • Depending on whether or not you believe that Germany is related to the Holy Roman Empire, or is the Holy Roman Empire, you can't deny that HRE looks like a younger Germany, and that Germany bears a resemblance to the sketch of teenage HRE when his hair isn't slicked back. Meanwhile, in North America, Canada and the U.S. look identical to the point that poor Canada is often mistaken for his more noticeable brother. Fanon has it that they're twins. South Italy looks to be a darker, meaner, and slightly taller version of North Italy, and is otherwise completely the same. Several of England's relatives apparently share his eyebrows.
    • Don't forget that both Italies strongly resemble their grandfather Ancient Rome.
  • In the Slavic side, Russia and his older sister Ukraine look pretty similar: they're both tall, light-haired, a little pudgy and with similar features except for Russia's nose. If we add their genderflipped versions, the similarity is even stronger: male!Ukraine is basically a more insecure Russia with blonder hair, while female!Russia is a long-haired and more smily Ukraine.
  • Subverted with Switzerland and Liechtenstein. They're not exactly siblings (more like adoptive sibs, though it's easy to infer they're at least distantly related due to being Germanic), but they look almost exactly alike. And even more when Liech cuts off her braids.
  • Also subverted with Cyprus and Greece. He does look like a younger and slimmer Greece... but lacks his trademark Idiot Hair.
• This is the case for the Laforets in Baccano!!, where you can probably pick out one of them from a sea of Loads and Loads of Characters on the basis that they're all nearly identical to their father, Huey.
  • The only Huey-descendants who don't resemble him being his great-great-granddaughter, Claudia, who looks like a female version of her great-grandfather Claire, and his son by Monica, Luchino, who looks exactly like his mother.
• One Piece: Robin and her mother Olivia; Robin ends up being identical to her as an adult, with the exception of different hair colours.
  • Also, Vivi and her mother Titi. It's so striking that during Vivi's coming of age ceremony, her father almost mistook her for a spitting image of Titi. If you want to check it out for yourself, here's what her mother looked like when she was young. ^{[dead link]}
  • Monkey D. Garp, Luffy's grandfather, looked almost exactly like Luffy did ^{[dead link]} when he was a kid. Even now you can see the resemblance, as Garp looks like a much older and brawnier Luffy. Averted with Dragon, Luffy's dad, who doesn't really look much like either of them.
• In Angel Densetsu, Kitano looks a lot like his father. Which is very sad for him.
• Ciel from Black Butler already looks almost exactly like his late father, Earl Vincent Phantomhive, and will definitely be a carbon copy of him once he's older. He was shown as an adult in the 'Ciel in Wonderland 2' OVA and the resemblance was striking.
  • And considering Sebastian has taken the appearance of Earl Phantomhive, except for the eyes, this could raise some interesting questions when he's older.
• In Full Metal Panic!, interestingly enough, Sousuke Sagara is shown to look almost exactly like his beautiful Missing Mom in his backstory. No wonder Even the Guys Want Him.
• Clannad has Nagisa and her mother Sanae. Later on, there's Nagisa and her daughter with Tomoya, Ushio.
• Prince of Tennis. Kaidou Kaoru looks almost identical to both his younger brother Hazue and his father Shibuki, with the two of them essentially being older and younger versions of him. It's actually kind of creepy...
  • And fucking hilarious.
    • The notes to Shin Tenipuri make the resemblance between Kaoru and Hazue even stronger since Hazue plays tennis too and will apply to Seigaku Junior High once he's old enough, meaning that he actively aims to be more like his older brother.
  • Kunimitsu Tezuka looks a lot like both his father Kuniharu and his grandfather Kunikazu in the manga. Much more the latter than the first, though, as Kuniharu is a Nice Guy but both Grandpa and grandson are The Stoic.
  • Though more subtle, Ryoma definitely shares his father's eyes and intensity.
• It's revealed about 4/5ths of the way through Macross Frontier that Alto Saotome is pretty much a clone of his Missing Mom Miyo, Hime Cut and all, in boy-drag. That explains a LOT.
• Mizuho from Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru looks exactly like his mother.
• Pretty much the same case with Joey Jones from Heroman, except unlike with Mizuho's case, Joey's looks aren't Lampshaded at all.
• In Fruits Basket, Akito and Ren look almost exactly the same—except for Ren's long hair, and um...assets. Also, Ayame and Yuki have been mistaken for each other [by a minor character], and when we get a short glimpse of Shigure's parents he looks exactly like his mother.
  • A picture of Ayame when he was in high school seems to just be a palette-swaped Yuki with longer hair.
• In Game X Rush, Memori is an almost exact younger male clone of his mother, to the point where Ken mistakes the latter for the former.
• Souma Saiki of Sakura Gari looks like his dead beautiful mother, Abigail, to the point where all he has to do is grow out his hair and wear her shawl to look exactly like her.
• The Babies Ever After scene at the end of Digimon Adventure 02 played this unsettlingly straight, right down to the last child. Between that and the conspicuous absence from the reunion of any spouses who aren't former Chosen Children, it's a popular snark among fans dissatisfied with the ending to suggest that they all just cloned themselves.
• Miharu and his mother, Asahi. To the point that most non-fans simply assume that the two on this volume cover are Miharu and his own reflection.
• In Bakuman｡, when Akito Takagi and Moritaka Mashiro look through a yearbook that Moritaka's uncle Nobuhiro "Taro Kawaguchi" Mashiro had, they realize that Miho Azuki's mother, Miyuki Haruno, looks quite a bit like Miho did when she was in high school. Moritaka also looks very similar to a younger version of his uncle.
• Mirielle Bouquet of Noir looks almost exactly like her deceased mother, Odette, and this winds up being a plot point later.
• In Stitch!'s reunion episode with Lilo, it's revealed that the series was a Time Skip all along and Lilo had an identical looking daughter in the time that's passed since they went their separate ways.
• In Soul Eater, even at thirteen Black Star resembles his father rather strongly, although this flashback was based on Sid recalling what White Star was like because his son's behaviour had become so similar.
• Victorique of Gosick is so identical to her mother that just wearing a different hat is enough to throw people.
• The women of the Misaka family of A Certain Magical Index and A Certain Scientific Railgun all look very similar. Well, saying that is unfair considering over nine thousand of them are clones of Misaka Mikoto, who herself looks much like her mother.
• Rukia in Bleach has an uncanny resemblance to her older sister Hisana. This is Hisana. For that matter, she and Byakuya look alike despite not being blood-relatives.
• Shuichi from Wandering Son looks a lot like his older sister, Maho. When he grew his hair out into a bob they looked near identical. Makoto also looks a lot like his mother.
• Yukari from Family Compo resembles her dead sister quite a lot. When she asks her nephew to move in with her family he's captivated by their resemblance.
• Kei in Houou Gakuen Misoragumi looks almost like a younger version of her father.
• Louise from The Familiar of Zero, compared to her mother Karin during her younger days... (That's from the Karin Side Stories.)
• In Fairy Tail Hoteye, the man with the polygonal face, mentions he had a missing younger brother, who is later revealed to be the even more polygonal Wally from a previous arc.
• Not only does Shobu of Duel Masters look almost exactly the same as his Disappeared Dad (Animation Anatomy Aging the only real difference), but the two even dress the same.
• K-On! has the Hirasawa sisters, who resemble each other to the point where the younger sister (almost) successfully passed herself off as the older sister once. After that, the resemblance is lampshaded and Played for Laughs on occasion.

Comic Books

• Sarah Stacy, the identitical daughter of Spider-Man's Gwen Stacy. It led to intense squick.
  • It's worth noting that in most Elsewords where he's a father, Peter's children end up looking a lot like MJ or Gwen. The exception being Spider-Girl, where May looks like both of her parents (and has her Aunt May's eye color!). The trope's played straight with BenReilly's son, instead... although somehow only MJ has noticed the resemblance.
• Regardless of Marvel Universe continuity, Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver looks like an aged-down clone of his father Magnus aka Magneto. Pietro's twin, Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, looks very much like the twins' mother Magda, ranging from 'Really A Lot Alike' to 'Her Younger Clone' in resemblance. Given the odd family dynamics through their 30+ years of history, this sometimes seems a little strange.
  • This continues to the Scarlet Witch's 'children', Wiccan and Speed, who are (male) Expies of Wanda and Pietro respectively, down to powers and costumes.
• The artists for Archie Comics apparently strongly support this. For example, whenever Betty fantasizes about her and Archie being married with children, their kids look like miniature clones of them. They don't even bother giving the son(s) their mother's hair color.
  • Even the company's Sonic the Hedgehog title bows to this. Sonya and Manik, Sonic and Sally's future children who appear in flashforward stories/scenes, look exactly like their mom and dad, even though their parents, being of different species, would be more likely to have "mutant hedge-squirrel babies".
• The Dalton brothers in Lucky Luke are identical except in height, and their resemblance to Ma Dalton is so strong that the shorter brothers can pass as her just by shaving and putting on a dress.
• In the Disney Ducks Comic Universe, most adult members of the Duck and McDuck families are basically Donald with accessories (beards, hairdos, bows ect.). The same can be observed when you compare Huey, Dewey and Louie with all other Duck and McDuck kids.
• Sharon Carter, erstwhile girlfriend to Captain America, strongly resembles her aunt (World War II resistance fighter and Cap's wartime girlfriend) Peggy, though the two were originally written as sisters before being retconned into being niece/aunt.

Films -- Animated

• In the Disney film Meet the Robinsons, Wilbur is virtually a male clone of his mother, Frannie.
  • On that note, almost every (biological) member of the family sports the "family cowlick"...on both sides of the family. That's convenient.
• In Sleeping Beauty, Aurora looks remarkably like her mother.
• Marie from The Aristocats basically looks like a younger version of her mother, Duchess.
• According to Pixar, the redneck boy that attacks Randall Boggs in the trailer home at the end of Monsters, Inc. actually has the same model as the animatronic boy in the training room at the very beginning of the film. Also, said boy's mother is essentially another model of the boy, but with a bun placed on his/her head.
• Played straight in Ariel's Beginnings. Queen Athena looks exactly like Ariel with Green Eyes.
  • In the sequel, Melody looks like an ideal blend of her parents.
• The Queen (Rapunzel's mother) from Tangled has brown hair and Green Eyes. And so does Rapunzel herself.
• Subverted in The Lion King II where despite having a black mane and Green Eyes like you-know-who, Kovu is not the son of Scar.
• In Snow White a Tale of Terror, Lilli looks so much like her mother as to be a symbol for her continued lingering presence in Frederich's heart.

Live-Action TV

• Dinosaurs did this with the daughter resembling and acting like the father and the son resembling and acting like the mother. The third child didn't act or look like anyone in the family; in one episode, it was revealed that he was Switched At Birth, ending up in a "Family is the people you love" Aesop and a parody of the Reset Button, with the doctor who confirmed the switch jumping out of a cloud and proclaiming "Science was wrong!"
• Occurs on Glee. Thanks to actresses Lea Michele and Idina Menzel looking near-identical, no one bought that Shelby was just the director of Vocal Adrenaline and not Rachel's birth mother. "Dream On" finally confirmed it.
• Everyone in Paul Pfeiffer's family on The Wonder Years has black hair and glasses, kind of like Milhouse's family on The Simpsons. Milhouse is also based on Paul in appearance and as the protagonist's best friend.
• It's possible that the only reason Jonathan Taylor Thomas was hired for Home Improvement is that he looks so similar to Tim Allen.

Literature

• Harry Potter is frequently - make that at least once every book - described as looking like a miniature copy of his dad James, only with his mother Lily's Green Eyes.
  • The Weasley family can be counted on to have bright red hair and freckles, while ladies of Fleur Delacour's family, thanks to a veela grandmother, are all blonde, willowy, and gorgeous (leading to much speculation of what Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour's daughter will look like).
  • Also remarkable are the Malfoys, who are all pale and blonde - even Narcissa Malfoy née Black (to be fair, she is actually related to her husband).
  • Throw in Bellatrix and Andromeda, Tom Riddle and his father, Dumbledore and his brother - I'm sensing a pattern here, are you?
  • Though the Epilogue doesn't go into detail, it is implied Harry's middle son Albus Severus and Malfoy's son Scorpius look exactly like their fathers. All we know about Harry's other kids is that they do not have his Green Eyes.
• Meet the Abhorsens of the Old Kingdom! Notice their unnaturally pale skin that tends to burn in the sun and their black hair. And also meet their cousins in the Charter bloodline, the Clayr, who are all Dark Skinned Blondes, and almost exclusively female.
  • In the first book, it is all but stated that the Abhorsen have the colour drained out of them by walking in Death, with the changes noted in Sabriel by the midwife. Of course, that doesn't explain Lirael.
• Henry from The Time Traveler's Wife is noted to look a hell of a lot like his mother. Despite her status as a Hot Mom, this doesn't work as well for him as one might think as it's very difficult living with a father trying desperately to forget his wife's death when you constantly remind him of her.
  • And then there's Alba, who looks exactly like Henry. Which, this being Niffennegger, is history repeating itself; Alba reminds Clare painfully of Henry after his death.
• In Edgar Rice Burroughs's The Gods of Mars, John Carter is haunted by the familar look of a fellow prisoner. Perhaps he should have looked in the mirror more often.

The youth's face had haunted me. Where had I seen him before. There was something strangely familiar in every line of him; in his carriage, his manner of speaking, his gestures. I could have sworn that I knew him, and yet I knew too that I had never seen him before.

• In Kushiel's Legacy books, innumerable instances: the entire House Shahrizai has unusually dominant genetics, coined the "unmistakable stamp", House L'Envers has violet eyes that show up with alarming frequency, and the two princesses look like their parents, but with the eye colors swapped.
• In the Gemma Doyle Trilogy, Gemma has enough of a resemblance to her mother to really freak out multiple characters.
• In A Song of Ice and Fire, a member of any given noble family is immediately identifiable by various distinct features. The Targaryens all have violet eyes and silver hair, the Lannisters are all blond(e) with Green Eyes, the Tullys all have auburn hair, the Baratheons all have thick black hair, the Manderlys all resemble walruses, the Mormonts and the Umbers all look like bears, the Florents have huge ears, I could go on. This becomes a massive plot point early on: Whenever a Baratheon has a child with a Lannister, the child always inherits the Baratheon black hair. The Baratheon king's bastards all have his black hair. But the children that the king's Lannister wife has given birth to? All blonde.
  • Plus, Ageon Targaryen VI dyes his hair blue while in hiding. He doesn't need to bother with his eyes, as the hair distracts from them so much.
• Oliver Twist apparently resembles both of his parents so strongly that people who never even knew of his existence can pick him out as their child.
• In L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero's Daughter trilogy, Theo is in fact taken for his father by his own sister. He had after all stop using magic to keep himself from aging. Caurus realizes he's not Prospero only by his aura—whereupon he deduces that it's a seeming and an imposter, and Mab has to throw himself between them to keep him from attacking.
• The Ashkevron family in the Heralds of Valdemar series. One character even comments, "The Ashkevron family look tends to breed true, and when it doesn't, the poor thing generally runs off to Haven."
• In the Dresden Files, once Thomas reveals to Harry that they're related, Harry frequently compares and contrasts their looks. Nobody else seems to notice, not even Harry before he found out.
  • Harry notes that all of the Raiths are impossibly beautiful, and at least somewhat similar. That subconscious awareness saves Murphy from being Fed on at one point. Recurring examples: contrasting Thomas and the reigning Lord Raith, and comparing the Raith sisters.
  • Maggie Dresden looks a lot like her mom, Susan Rodriguez.
  • Molly Carpenter takes after Charity a lot. In more than just looks.
  • Averted with Lily, despite being the new "Summer Lady". It's because she was the closest Summer vassal when Harry killed Aurora.
  • Murphy's sister looks a lot like her.

Newspaper Comics

• Zippy the Pinhead and his two identical children, Fuelrod and Meltdown.
• In Blondie, Dagwood and his son Alexander look like identical twins. On the other hand, his daughter Cookie looks a lot like her mother Blondie, the only real difference being their hairstyles.
• Arlo from Arlo And Janis and his son look nearly identical.
• Jon Arbuckle from Garfield resembles both of his parents while his brother Doc Boy looks like his father.
• Although the characters in Peanuts have Only Six Faces, only the Van Pelt family (Lucy, Linus and Rerun) have half-circles around their eyes all the time.

Video Games

• N and Ghetsis in Pokémon Black and White. A sage of Team Plasma suggests that they may not be related.
  • The mother of the player character from the same game practically looks like an adult version of Hilda, the female protagonist.
  • Pokemon in general invokes this with the parents. Ethan and Kris look like their Gen 2 mother, and Lyra looks like the remake redesign of her. Dawn looks like a younger version of her mom with longer hair, and Lucas looks like her but with a darker shade of hair. May looks like the Hoenn mother and Birch, and Brendan possibly looks like Norman.
• Bowser, the arch Nemesis of Mario from the Super Mario Brothers, has got eight children. 7 don't resemble him that much. But his youngest, Bowser Jr. might as well be a clone of him. He looks absolutely identical to his father's younger self from the Yoshi games , or Mario and Luigi: Partners in time. He's also got the same personality.
  • Rosalina actually resembles her dead mother as revealed in the subplot of Super Mario Galaxy.
• Potentially subverted in Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, where Fate and Maria look strikingly alike but the plot only tells us they went under similar 'treatment' as kids. Whether they were siblings seems to be a (deliberately?) hanging detail, although they do have an potential ending together.
• The Ace Attorney series has Kristoph and Klavier Gavin, brothers who are eight years apart but look almost identical.
  • Also done in a much subtler, but very interesting way with the von Karmas and Edgeworth. Franziska and Miles don't resemble Manfred physically (and the 2nd shouldn't, being adopted), but if you look at each of the three character's animations and mannerisms, they are varients of all of Manfred's tics. The more noticable ones are the Finger Wag, the clentching of the sleeve, the fist-pound on the desk, and the bow/curtsy.
• Revolver Ocelot of the MGS series looks more like his mother when he's younger and more like his father when he's older.
• Every Princess Zelda is related to each other and every Princess Zelda looks almost identical to every previous Princess Zelda. (except for her hair being a few shades darker in Twilight Princess) Exspecially jarring in Spirit Tracks, where Princess Zelda might as well be a clone of Tetra (Who was the Princess Zelda of The Wind Waker), who supposedly ruled less than a hundred years prior to her.
• Knights of the Old Republic has Carth Onasi and his son Dustil: it's patently obvious they decided to save themselves some development time, removed the permastubble from Carth's facial texture and called it a day.
• Bubble Bobble, as if it wasn't confusing enough.
• Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility/Animal Parade does this for some of the rival kids and your own children. While some of the rival kids (like Heath and Angie) have a plausible combination of their parents' features, others are... less subtle. Vivian especially is more or less her father in miniature, only with longer hair. Your own kids look exactly like you, only (in Animal Parade) with your spouse's hair and eye color.
  • A milder example is in the A Wonderful Life series, where your child always inherits their hair and eye color from whoever you marry. In the girl version, at least, this troper recalls Takakura mentioning that your son is "the spitting image" of your husband.
• This is Isaac, the hero of the first Golden Sun. This is Matthew, his son and the hero of the DS sequel Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, which takes place thirty years later. "Spitting image" doesn't begin to cover it. In fact, when various outlets previewed Dark Dawn at E3 2009 (before Matthew's name and familial relations were revealed), several of them mistook his character to be a redesigned Isaac. Bizarrely, his resemblance to his mother is the one noted in-game, even wise ancient thing that met his father need to be told who he is.
  • In all fairness, the character who comments on Matthew's resemblance to his mother never canonly met Isaac and wouldn't have had that point of reference.
  • This is also present to a lesser extent with Garet and Tyrell being another father-son pair.
  • Also, Alex and his bastard son Amiti. Noted by NPCs enough times that by the end of the game, the only person who doesn't seem to realize this is Amiti himself... and even he's starting to catch on, if you read his mind right after the final battle.
  • While it's not as extreme as Matthew or even Tyrell, both of Mia's children bear a strong resemblance to her. This led to some confusion with her son.
  • Not a physical similarity, but Eoleo seems to share his elemental affinity, snarky attitude, strange mental tangents, and tendency to hang out with Kid Heroes with his great-grandma Obaba.
• In Ratchet and Clank Future A Crack In Time, Alister Azimuth instantly recognizes Ratchet as his late friend's son by the fact that he looks almost like his teenage clone. Afterwards, Azimuth continues to dwell almost obsessively on the similarities, to the point that he occasionally seems to assume they're the same Lombax—or gets irritated by the fact that they're not.

Azimuth: Ask yourself this: how relevant is the past when it can be changed? Your father would have said, "Not very."
Ratchet: That's him.

• In Mass Effect 2, Samara and her daughter, Morinth, are completely identical in appearance. This is to Morinth's advantage if you decide to recruit her; she is able to perfectly impersonate her mother, with only Kasumi (and, of course, Shepard) ever finding out the truth.
• Bayonetta is implied to look exactly like her mother, down to her outfit of choice.
• In Tomb Raider: Legend, we get a look at Lara Croft's mother Lady Amelia Croft, and hot damn now we know where Lara gets her good look from. Amelia is basically a more dignified, less action girl-looking Lara.
• The Devil May Cry series has Sparda, twins Vergil and Dante, and if you tilt your head and squint a little, Nero.
• Tekken frequently uses this trope, the most obvious being Kazuya and Jin. Jin differs from Kazuya only because he has a fringe like his mother, Jun.
• Alistair of Dragon Age has a face very similar to that of his half-brother Cailan, as lampshaded by Anora, who is uncomfortable with the idea of marrying Alistair, because he looks so much like her dead husband.
• Between the two Fire Emblem Elibe titles, Eliwood and his son Roy in their teenage years (Eliwood at 17, Roy at 15) look disturbingly similar to the point of near-identicality; it doesn't help that they even wear almost the same clothes and it takes looking up their full official artwork to see any significant difference between them. Pretty much the biggest difference is that Eliwood was thinner and wore longer sleeves, neither of which can really be gleaned from ingame appearances.
  • Fire Emblem Tellius also has this with Ike and Soren, who both resemble their respective mothers in hair and eye color. Mist also resembles her father.
• In what is part this trope and part Uncanny Family Resemblance, in Back to the Future: The Video Game, Marty runs into his grandfather, Artie McFly, who looks and sounds just like George McFly (both being based on Crispin Glover's performance in the film). Artie's father, William, is once again played by Michael J. Fox, who had previously portrayed him in a photo shown in the third film (even though Marty himself is actually voiced by AJ LoCascio). This leads one to believe that if the pattern continues, since Marty's son will end up looking like Michael J. Fox, his grandson and great-grandson will look like Crispin Glover, and so on. Also, Kid Tannen is basically just Biff with a moustache and zoot suit.
• In the first EP of Umineko no Naku Koro ni, Genji remarks that Battler looks a lot like Kinzo used to back when he was young. He is not wrong. This is taken further when Battler's hair turns white in Twilight of the Golden Witch and he cuts it short, taking the "damn-near" out of damn-near identical.
  • This is also played for tragedy with Beatrice II, the daughter of Kinzo and Beatrice Castiglioni. Her mother died in childbirth, causing Kinzo to fall into despair, and as she grew older Beatrice began to look more and more like her to the point that Kinzo believed she was her mother's reincarnation. This eventually led to him forcing himself on his own daughter.

Webcomics

• In Gunnerkrigg Court, Antimony is nearly identical to her mother, Surma; apparently the only traits she inherited from her father are her small nose and straight hair. This is potentially plot-relevant, as Kat doesn't have a Strong Family Resemblance to either of her parents.
  • Kat does resemble her parents, especially her mother when her hair gets longer. It's just normally cut too short for the curls to show.
  • It is indeed plot-relevant: Antimony and her mother are descended from fire spirits, whose very life essence is passed down from one generation to the next.
• In Platinum Grit, siblings Kate and Andre Provocski have faces that are drawn almost identically. Several members of the Mac Connor family share a recognisable "blonde and bland" look. And the lead character Jeremy Mac Connor looks so uncannily like his uncle that it just has to be relevant.
• In Order of the Stick, General Tarquin, the father of the identical twins Nale and Elan, is drawn as looking the same as his sons except with white hair (brown in flashbacks), and other characters note that he looks much like Elan and Nale.
• In General Protection Fault, Nick looks like almost exactly his father, but doesn't have a mustache and his hair is not yet gray.
• Kell and Sheila are cousins, but look enough like each other that they can pass themselves off as each other well enough to fool their own families.
• Homestuck loves playing this with clone and Timey-Wimey Ball shenanigans.
  • After John creates the paradox clone babies of the kids and their "parents", it's pretty easy to see how similar everyone looks, especially between John/Grandpa and Jade/Nanna. Similarly, in the flashbacks to Grandpa and Nanna as thirteen-year-olds in 1923, again they look near-identical to modern-day John and Jade, the only real difference being Nanna's hair compared to Jade's.
  • Becquerel was created partially using Halley's DNA, and so looks almost exactly like Halley except without a visible face.
  • According to Word of God, had all twelve trolls successfully grown to adulthood, they would have looked identical to their Famous Ancestors; conversely, when we see the Handmaid as a six-sweep-old, she is literally identical to her descendant Aradia save for her attire. This was pretty much the entire point: Word of God goes that the ancestors were pretty much a look at what the trolls would be like in most respects had they grown up, though admittedly that's overlooking some glaring differences on their part.
  • The baby guardians in the ectobiology lab already bore a strong resemblance to the four kids, but in Act 6, sprite-mode Jake and Jane bear an exceptionally strong resemblance to John and Jade respectively, with only minor outfit differences distinguishing them, and Lalonde looks just like Rose except for her shirt and her Mom-style hair curl.
• In the Mega Crossover fancomic Roommates Jareth (even more so in his Dark form) and his father. They look alike, dress alike (Painted-On Pants rule), have similar modus operandi and even share a Catch Phrase or two... but for some reason no Hereditary Hairstyle in sight (Jareth has Eighties Hair his dad is a Long-Haired Pretty Boy).

Web Original

• The animated online epic Broken Saints: Take a look at Gabriel Dunn. Now take a look at the young man from the West in Chapter 14 Act 1.
• In the Gaz6231 adaptation of Half Life Full Life Consequences, Henry Freeman has the same model as his father, who turns out to be John Freeman.

Western Animation

• In Dexter's Laboratory, Dexter and Dee Dee are an interesting variant where they each visibly inherited different traits from their parents. Dee Dee has blonde hair like their father while Dexter inherited his mother's red hair and his father's Expressive Nerd Glasses.
  • One scene took things a step further and showed where they each inherited their personalities from. The mother was shown tirelessly whipping up recipes in the kitchen with meticulous scientific precision before the father burst into the scene and started wrecking things like an idiot.
  • Dexter's grandfather is another, less frequently seen character, who is nearly identical to Dexter in everyway, except being old and pruning. In fact Dexter's grandfather is exactly the same as old Dexter from previous episodes.
    • "Hi Grandpa!" "I'm not grandpa!"
• Billy from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy looks an awful lot like his dad—big nose, beady Black Eyes and all.
• In The Magic School Bus, Arnold's cousin Janet basically looks like a female version of him. She has the same hair style, also wears glasses and sports a feminine version of his regular outfit.
• Obligitory Avatar: The Last Airbender example: Zuko would look EXACTLY like a younger version of his father... if it weren't for his trademark scar given to him by said father. Word of God is that Ozai was pretty much designed to look like an older Zuko, which explains why he's way prettier than a lot of people expected such a despicable Big Bad to look.
  • Also, when Azula is shown not wearing makeup, she bears a pretty strong resemblance to her mother, Princess Ursa.
• Milhouse's parents were introduced in The Simpsons, both looked very much like him, meaning that they also rather improbably looked very much like each other. This has led to some pretty uncomfortable questions from fans. (And Bart, in one episode). Considering that the "Lemon of Troy" episode revealed that Mrs. Van Houten is from Shelbyville, and that the Springfield/Shelbyville rivalry came about because Shelbyvillains wanted to marry their cousins...yeah.
  • It sinks into Uncanny Family Resemblance territory with the introduction of at least one of Milhouse's grandfathers and his two grandmothers in different episodes, who of course look all the same. By the way, one of the grannies is Italian and the other (most likely) Dutch.
  • Milhouse even lampshades is parent's resemblance in a later episode where he casually admits that he thinks they might be brother and sister.
• Batman Beyond has two of these: first, Terry's younger brother Matt looks almost identical to him, something the show's creators actually joke about on the DVD commentary (the lack of resemblance to either of their parents is best not delved into here, considering the later explanation is supposedly something of a Sure Why Not Retcon). Second, when Big Bad Derek Powers' adult son appears at the end of the first season, the facial resemblance is strong enough it's pretty clear that they're family even before dialogue actually states it.
• Kim Possible's mom Ann looks almost exactly like her daughter, just older, with shorter hair and blue eyes instead of green.
• In the cartoon Back to The Future one of Doc Brown's kids—specifically, Verne—was able to pass himself off as Doc Brown's younger self during a trip to the past (his eye color even changes from his usual blue to Doc's brown). Ironically, a different, earlier episode had his sibling Jules claiming Verne had to be adopted because he bore no resemblance to the rest of the family (Jules, it should be noted, sort of resembles his mother Clara).
• Storm Hawks: Aerrow looks exactly like a young Lightning Strike, but with a different hairstyle. That is pretty much the only difference.
  • They also have different eye colors. Aerrow's are green, Lightning Strike's are brown. But yeah, that's pretty much it.
• Averted to an extent on Daria. Quinn and Daria have appearances unique from each other and their parents, though Daria looks uncannily like her Aunt Amy.
• Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated is almost parodying this trope.
  • Velma resembles both parents a little.
  • Daphne's parents look like older versions of Daphne and Fred.
  • Shaggy looks like both of his parents, and vice-versa.
  • Fred, on the other hand, looks nothing like his father. Which is one of the first hints that he isn't his real father.
• In Phineas and Ferb, Stacy's female relatives in Tokyo all look like clones of her. Her little sister, Ginger, also looks almost like her.
  • Additionally, every male on Ferb's side of the family, parents, grandparents, uncles, cousins, etc., all have the same tall, thin face and squarish nose. Ferb and his Grandfather are pretty near Identical.
• In Gargoyles, Angela his a near-dead ringer to Demona and has a spot-on match to Goliath's skin and hair color, and Elisa notices it immediately.
  • Let's not forget Elisa, her siblings,and Alex, the son of Xanatos and Fox . Elisa resembles her dad, her brother looks like their mother, and the their sister resembles both of their parents. Adult Alex looks like David with Fox's bright red hair. (Of course, he was All Just a Dream anyway, so who knows if he will actually look like that?)
• In The New Batman Adventures, Tim Drake looks exactly like the mugshot of his dad Steven "Shifty" Drake.
• In Totally Spies!, the girls' mothers looked more and more like them with each appearance.
• In Recess T.J. looks like his mom, Gus resembles a younger less rugged version of his dad and he also has a presumably great grandfather who looked just like him as a kid, Vince looks like his dad, Mikey looks like his mom, and Gretchen resembles both of her parents.
• As revealed in the show Jungle Cubs, Hathi Jr., the baby elephant from Disney's The Jungle Book, actually looks exactly like his mother Winifred when she was still a calf.
  • Colonel Hathi (Hathi Jr.'s father) from the same series for some reason looks exactly like his father-in-law (Winifred's father).
• In the episode of Family Guy where Peter Griffin accidentally kills his (fake) father and discovers that his real father is from Ireland, it's revealed that Peter looks exactly like his real father right down to the fact that they both wear a small pair of glasses that are the same width as their eyes, a white shirt, and green pants, are both fat and are idiots, but Peter lacks his father's beard.
  • Mort, Muriel, and Neil Goldman all resemble one another.
• Chum Chum from Fanboy and Chum Chum has a female cousin Muck Muck, who looks exactly like him, except with pigtails, eyelashes and a different outfit.
• The original My Little Pony "Baby" characters looked exactly like their mothers, except for less markings on their hide.
  • Twilight in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic resembles her mom to a T.