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Hammerspace (also known as malletspace) 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.
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This phenomenon has existed in animation for years, dating back to early Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies animated cartoons.
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, matches, 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 (okine) 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 the fan perception that she has a tendency to produce large hammers from nowhere. In the original manga she much more frequently uses her fists and/or objects that were pictured in the nearby scenery. The anime makes more use of hammers as a comedic tool, however.
Another series that may have led 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.
Another series that made extensive use of hammerspace was Kodomo no Omocha, where the mother of the main character would pull toy hammers of varying sizes to tap her daughter on the head to forge breaks in her ranting and offer a chance to glean understanding and wisdom. Trope-laden webcomic Okashina Okashi – Strange Candy also features Hammerspace, this time named directly as such, accessible by weapons nut Petra.
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 sword larger than himself without any sign of it before use, and most video game characters can carry an implausible number of tools or other objects. This is particularly visible in traditional adventure games and RPGs, a notable example being The Legend of Zelda. Early first person shooters tend to have the player character carry an entire arsenal of weapons (with full ammunition) without any visible drawback such as loss of pace or fatigue.
Many humorous adventures make gags on space in item inventories. In Space Quest series (III and VI), its protagonist Roger Wilco crams a full-sized ladder into his pocket. In Simon the Sorcerer, Simon similarly obtains a ladder at one point, which he stores in his hat. In The Secret of Monkey Island, as a recurring gag, Guybrush Threepwood usually barely fits an oversized item in his clothes, from a 6 foot long q-tip to a huge figurehead, or even a monkey (which is shown moving underneath his coat). At one point early in The Curse of Monkey Island, he makes a "yikes" face after sheathing a bread knife down his pants. A similar concept is evident in Sonic the Hedgehog, most notably in the person of Amy Rose, who actually materializes hammers from Hammerspace. Characters from the Kingdom Hearts series are also capable of materializing weapons from thin air and making them disappear again, notably in the case of main character Sora and his Keyblade. In Crashlands, Flux seems to have endless space to put his stuff. In New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the player has endless space to put his/her items.
Although there are numerous examples from the genre, Hammerspace usage is not just limited to adventure games. In The Sims 2 and The Sims 3, the Sims make extensive use of Hammerspace, regularly pulling items out of their back pockets which could not possibly fit there. Examples include rakes, hairdryers, watering cans and bags of flour. In addition they have seemingly limitless personal inventories in which they can carry around almost anything, from a mobile phone to a sports car, without actually having anywhere to store it. These items are also occasionally pulled from the back pocket when used in game (as in the case of mobile phones). Although both games are supposed to mimic reality in many ways, they do still retain cartoon-like elements; Hammerspace was probably implemented to prevent Sims having to trek to a storage shed/closet/drawer etc. every time they wanted to use a certain item, something which would no doubt have been both boring for the player and impractical in terms of gameplay.
Similarly, in the sandbox game Minecraft, players can hold 44467.2 metric tonnes (49016.69 tons) of gold (the densest real-life material that exists in the game) in a hyperspace inventory, having no in-game effects, such as slowness or loss of hunger, as if an empty inventory were the same as a full one. In reality, even one block of most materials in Minecraft would weigh hundreds or thousands of kilograms, and the player can carry up to 2304 blocks in their inventory. Since some blocks can be converted into multiple blocks of another type, it is possible to carry enough material to build an entire city in one's inventory invisibly.
In the Super Smash Bros. games, Princess Peach is said to pull a Toad out of hammerspace for a blocking move.