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Our heroine is a tomboy — rough and tumble, as interested in fashion as she is interested in watching paint dry. However, in the reboot or in the doll, she becomes a girly girl. Often complete with princess dress or at least a Pimped-Out Dress, tween fashion and long hair, often with hair decorations.
Notice that the girl is often aged up — from little girl to tween. (Ironically, tweens are often less feminine than little girls — tweens are at the stage of life where the dresses and cuteness are ditched for a more mature style.)
Compare/contrast Fan Service Pack. See also Chickification. Also unlike Chickification, this trope doesn't necessarily mean she becomes weaker. The trick is that the girl becomes more dainty-looking, but keeps at least a good part of her core personality underneath the skirts and make-up. This trope and Chickification DO NOT OVERLAP, take any examples of Chickification to the page itself.
If becoming girlier is portrayed as better or worse than being more tomboyish, then you've got some Unfortunate Implications on your hand. Almost always overlaps with Hotter and Sexier.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Sora from Digimon Adventure went from dressing as a tomboy and into things like soccer, to Digimon Adventure 02, where she started dressing girlier, switching hobbies to the more traditionally "feminine" sport of tennis, and in the end grew up to be a fashion designer. Cue the fandom bashing her and falsely accusing her of Chickification, even when Sora ALWAYS was more of a Team Mom figure than a super tomboy.
- An interesting variation occurs in the manga Ice Revolution when karate champion Masaki arranges her own Girliness Upgrade by switching to figure skating, which she views as a prettier, more feminine form of athleticism. She manages to secure her macho father's support only by proving that a "girly" activity like figure skating is a physical sport every bit as demanding as karate. (And it is.)
- Happens to Itsuki in Heartcatch Pretty Cure as part of her Character Development. She starts out hiding her love of stuffed animals and desire to doll up in cute clothing behind a masculine exterior, out of a desire to be a respected martial artist like her Ill Boy twin brother Satsuki. After joining the Fashion Club (and later, becoming a Cure herself), she learns that it's alright for her to enjoy both martial arts and cute things (helped by how Satsuki is operated on and begins to physicaly get better), and eventually she grows her hair out a bit and starts wearing the female uniform during the finale.
- When she was younger, Hungary was a Cute Bruiser Bokukko who thought she was a boy. As she grew up, she graduated to a Team Mom who wears frilly dresses and flower Hair Decorations. No matter what the fandom says about Chickification, she actually Took a Level in Badass while becoming more feminine and maternal: tenchically speaking, as a Team Mom Meido Hungary is physically stronger than she used to be as a Cute Bruiser Bokukko... only that she looks girlier when she does so.
- Fairy Tail: Mirajane underwent this process before the story begins; Lucy is shocked to learn that Fairy Tail's resident Team Mom and Yamato Nadeshiko used to be bitter rivals with Badass Action Girl Erza. It's explained that this happened due to the disappearance of Mirajane and Elfman's younger sister, Lisanna.
- Attempted in a Ranma ½ episode, where Ukyou Kuonji decides to try wearing the girls's uniform and acting girlier. Problem is, she isn't doing it either for self-improvement or to try new things, but almost exclusively to appeal to Ranma — an it's pretty clear that she's uncomfortable in this "new role". And since Ranma doesn't catch on anyway (in fact, he and Akane appear to be weirded out), Ukyou decides to stop forcing herself to act in a way that doesn't reflect her real self.
Comics
Film
- Mulan: Zigzagged, no matter what the "feminist fans" say. The title character actually doesn't loathe THAT much to put on dresses and make up, and even seems to enjoy putting them up. Her problem is less with femininity in itself, but more with feeling that she cannot be a good wife like her good-hearted but traditional family thinks it's the best for her
 . After spending almost the whole movie as a Sweet Polly Oliver Bifauxnen, she ultimately sets down in wearing her hair down and dressing in a simple and cute dress. Thing is, since she is a member of the Disney Princess, she almost exclusively shows up in the pink dress◊.
- Brave: Pretty much every doll of Merida, a Fiery Redhead and Badass Princess with Quirky Curls and Wild Hair, looks far more well-groomed and ladylike than she really is. The Disney store model◊ is closer to the original, but the Mattel collection◊ barely resembles her. Also, her formerly simple dresses are now Gem Encrusted, and her Cool Horse, Angus, a massive Clydesdale in the movie, is shrunk down to pony size◊.
- Don't forget the fact that most her dolls are wearing the silk blue dress. You know, the one she hated for being painfully restricting and impractical.
Live-Action TV
- In Smallville, Chloe gradually goes through this in season six and seven, ever since she starts dating Jimmy Olsen. In worse episodes it borders on Chickification. Like the opening scene of Quest. Sleeper may count - fans seems divided on whether it is So Bad, It's Good or is a one-episode Dork Age.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: Actually reversed with Counselor Troi in the sixth season, when hardass substitute captain Jellico orders her out of her informal and rather revealing jumpsuits and into a standard Starfleet uniform.
- iCarly devoted an episode to this, with Carly trying to help Sam become more girly. She was back to normal by the end of the episode, because Status Quo Is God.
- Also inverted it in an episode where Carly tries to stay with Spencer. Carly turns herself into a punk chick with full black clothing, metal spikes and chains, and a streak of blue hair.
- Hannah Montana generally did this to Lily as the show wore on. When she first showed up, she was a skateboard riding tomboy, by the end she's as girly as Hannah.
- Claudia Brown on Primeval mostly dressed in business suits and casual clothes. Her replacement (long story) Jenny Lewis arrived always wearing full makeup, the latest fashions and high heels. Subverted in season 3 when Jenny starts wearing more practical clothing. Subverted again when we see her in season 4 and she's back to wearing dresses all the time.
- Skins seems to be headed down this road with Franky Fitzgerald, despite the fact that much of her previous acclaim was due to her uniqueness as an androgynous female character who still attracted male attention. It's not helped by the fact that the show's explanation is full of Unfortunate Implications about her "growing confidence" automatically leading to girlier clothes, and it's come with personality changes, too (becoming much more self-centered and flirtatious than she was in her previous series).
- Played with in an episode of Laverne and Shirley where Laverne tries to attract a guy by dressing and behaving in a more feminine manner. It doesn't change who she is inside, and she ultimately decides she would rather be herself.
- Patricia on House of Anubis. She's the cool goth who says what she thinks, does what she wants and scares the rest of the students in all three seasons, but come season 2 her personality started to soften up overall. What happened? Well, she met Eddie and started to turn a bit nicer.
- Not to mention the whole near death mystery stuff and the power of friendship. If those things can't begin to chip away at someone's icy shell, nothing can.
- A rare Super Sentai example: Mako Shiraishi from Samurai Sentai Shinkenger starts off as a Lethal Chef. By the time her cooking skills come out better as the series progresses, she might fit in this trope.
Professional Wrestling
- Chyna already had gone through plenty of Fail Polish by the end of the year 2000. Then all of a sudden when she entered the women's division her ring gear became more feminine and she lost weight as well as wearing dresses and high heels backstage.
- Natalya Neidheart suddenly got very pretty at the end of 2010 where she was seen dolled up to the nines any time she wasn't wrestling. Her partner Beth Phoenix got in on this around mid-2011.
Toys
- Kit of the American Girl doll line is mentioned to despise pink and, in the books is the Tomboy to her best friend Ruthie's Girly Girl. For the most part, her line has kept this, but when The Film of the Book came out, her blue school outfit and pajamas were both slowly phased out for girlier, pinker outfits that would be much more in-character for Ruthie to own... despite Ruthie herself getting her own doll and line of clothes.
- Troll Dolls- cute gender neutral toys have now become fashion loving tweens called Trollz.
Video Games
- Kairi from Kingdom Hearts is rather tomboyish in the original game, but becomes more feminine (with longer hair, a pink outfit, and whatnot) when a year passes in Kingdom Hearts II.
Western Animation
- Rainbow Brite: Rainbow Brite's 2009 doll redesign includes thinner waists, longer hair, and more sparkle.
- Dora the Explorer: Princess Dora doll, and new Dora dolls that feature an older Dora with longer hair, a headband, a dress, and tights. Although it's not unreasonable, given that she's now "Tween Dora" and has aged a few years.
- Strawberry Shortcake: Updated from a round cupcake to a cute tomboy to a long haired strawberry blond tween.
- In the first of the My Little Pony TV Specials, Megan looked like someone who could reasonably work on a ranch, with jeans, boots, a gingham shirt, vest, and a Tomboyish Ponytail. In later G1 My Little Pony works, she has frilly blue overalls, a white shirt that's slightly puffy, and her ponytails is longer and wavier and tied with a pink ribbon.
- This happens a lot with the toys based on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Tomboys Applejack and Rainbow Dash sport Tareme Eyes and come with pink frilly hair accessories. Applejack's hat is notably absent from almost all toys. Pinkie Pie's tangled mess of a mane is perfectly groomed, and several Princess Celestia toys are pink even though the box art depicts her as white.
- If the character designs are anything to go by, the upcoming Equestria Girls spinoff DVD is going this route as well.
- There was an attempt to do this with The Powerpuff Girls a while back. They did the standard Girliness Upgrade: Make the girls taller and skinner, had them wear makeup, gave them "girlier" hair. These versions were placed on things like makeup bags, and they had more emphasis on "girly" activities like shopping and makeup. It didn't seem to stick although it's hard to find anything on the internet regarding that. For reference, here's the◊ redesign.
- Reportedly, Craig McCracken was not pleased with this at all, so there's little wonder it didn't stick.
- This was parodied in a timeskip episode where the girls grow up to become shopping obsessed valley girls. They end up trying to hit on the Rowdy Ruff Boys when Townsville is under attack.
- Gwen from Ben 10 was this after the time skip. Her original series incarnation was a sharp-tongued 10 years old smart girl with slightly tomboyish characteristics (mainly martial art skills, short hair, and temper). Her Alien Force incarnation, while retaining the intellectual personality and remaining a competent Action Girl, has an obvious more feminine appearance, is less of a Deadpan Snarker and more calm and responsible, becoming something of a Team Mom, and has a All Girls Want Bad Boys relationship with Kevin. In some episodes she is pretty much just a Satellite Love Interest to Kevin.
- Lola Bunny from The Looney Tunes Show. She went from being a no nonsense Action Girl that hated when people called her "doll", to an airheaded Valley Girl that only seems to exist as a Satellite Love Interest to Bugs.
- Opinions vary on whether this is for better or for worse, as her lack of wackiness was considered extremely out-of-place by some viewers of Space Jam, and she was something of a Flat Character.
- Invoked in the Mike, Lu & Og episode "For the Love of Mike". When tomboy Mike's increasingly dirty methods of trying to keep Haggis and Baggis Cuzzlewit away only make them more attracted to her, Mike decided to do the opposite and girls herself up with a pretty dress, lipstick and perfume. It works.
Real Life
- Joan of Arc's image in media is often given this, portraying her as a Lady of War and often with Badass Longhair. In reality, Joan was a downright Sweet Polly Oliver who wore men's clothes for several reasons: not being seen as inferior by the troops, not having privilege over them, avoid possible rape attempts, etc.
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