She Cleans Up Nicely / Anime & Manga

• Pai in the first chapter of 3×3 Eyes. When she first appears, she has just got to Shinjuku, Japan, from an unknown place in the Himalaya and it shows, as Yakumo even notices how dirty she is. Then the crossdresser of Yakumo's gay bar give her a much-needed offscreen makeover, causing Yakumo to stare at her jaw-dropped.
• Daimakaicho Hagall from Ah! My Goddess. When she first meets Hild, she's dressed in rags and looks like she's destitute. Hild takes her as her apprentice, gaining a tremendous boost in beauty and status.
• Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka uses this. All of the girls dress up and appear, getting a vague response from the main character. Then his sister shows up (late to the entrance) and he's dumbfounded. She's squicked by this, and he's berated by his fiancée (part of the first group).
• Deunan of Appleseed stunned everyone when she turned up for Hitomi's birthday party in a stylish dress, specially designed by Muiccia Prada
  • It was even lampshaded by one of the people present. Not surprising, considering the vast difference from Deunan's usual tomboy-ish looks.
• Kakeru from Area no Kishi notices this when he reunites with childhood friend Seven. She appears far more feminine than he remembered from their days in elementary school.
• Nadja Applefield from Ashita no Nadja embodies the trope whether dolled up via Leonardo and Thierry or wearing her Gorgeous Period Dress inherited from her Missing Mom. When said gown is destroyed by Rosemary, with help of Grandma Anna Nadja sews the intact top part into a new dress.
• In Berserk, Casca, who usually goes around in men's clothing, short hair and non-Stripperiffic armour, is seen for the first time in a very nice, feminine dress upon Griffith's brief triumph after defeating Midland's king's rivals. Guts' priceless blank stare upon seeing her dressed this way is one of the series' very rare Funny Moments.
• Blue Ramun: Randy serves as the priest/healer of the Lezak district and Jessie's mentor, but his normal look more closely resembles a bum than a man of the cloth — unkempt Perma-Stubble, wrinkled priest robes, bad posture, and a tendency to be drunk before noon. While he slacks off when it comes to daily prayers and personal appearance, he takes his duties to the community seriously. When Randy is called upon to officiate ceremonies like weddings or funerals he puts in the effort to shave, slick back his hair, and wear a clean uniform.
• Bocchi the Rock!: Hitori usually wears a plain pink tracksuit, but whenever she wears clothes that actually suit her, her friends and bandmates agree that the band could potentially sell themselves on her looks alone, if Hitori wasn't so cripplingly shy and anxious. In one episode, Niijika and Kita also gush over how adorable she looks in a school uniform.
• Used in a somewhat weird way in the seventh Case Closed movie. When Kazuha and Heiji were little, they visited Kazuha's family in Kyoto. Little Heiji ran off to a temple, and while waiting for him little Kazuha was dolled up in a kimono and got her hair done by her relatives. Little Heiji then saw her playing under the Cherry Blossoms, but didn't recognize her... and "that girl from Kyoto" remained in his memory as "his First Love". Since the movie had a subplot in which Heiji was searching for the anonymous girl he once liked, it means Kazuha was jealous of... her dolled up little girl self. And Heiji didn't find out until the end of the movie, when he heard Kazuha sing a song that the "girl from Kyoto" was singing when he saw her.
  • Played straight when Conan sees Ran in a sweet lolita pink dress. He was getting ready to snark at her and Sonoko for putting on such clothes while in a case, but when he actually sees Ran he's completely starstruck, complete with Luminescent Blush.
• City Hunter: Kaori has sometimes put on a long wig and fooled her partner Ryo Saeba. In episode 137, an old friend of her buys Kaori fashionable clothes, and, with her wig, starts successfully dating Ryo at night. "Cinderella" was even the French title.
• Subverted in Code Geass, where Nina Einstein is all dressed up in the pre-wedding celebration but is still much more confident at work as a scientist, which is demonstrated by comparison to matter. However, played straight with Milly Ashford on the same occasion and Cecile Croomy earlier, who both wear backless dresses with a Navel-Deep Neckline.
• Faye from Cowboy Bebop is not a slouch in the looks department to start with, being Ms. Fanservice for the show. But when circumstances in "Ballad Of Fallen Angels" call for her to drop her usual trashy outfit and do up not only her hair but also makeup and wardrobe to pass for a high-class opera patron, the effect on her is impressive. Too bad the Big Bad was waiting for her with a bunch of goons anyway.
• Miranda Lotto in D.Gray-Man. It was a shock for most readers when they saw her for the first time. Only for Miranda to become like this after she gained her Innocence and self-confidence for the first time in her life.
• Daily Lives of High School Boys have Nago—not that she had done that, but a convex mirror shows that she will look quite cute if she loses some weight.
• Den-noh Coil: During the Festival Episode where everyone is wearing traditional outfits, the boys really take a liking to seeing the girls, including Isako (who's seen for the first time with her hair down), all wearing kimonos.
• Emma: A Victorian Romance: Emma is convinced to attend a ball, and is shown to clean up nicely when she wears a ball gown and no glasses in comparison with her usual maid outfit and glasses.
• Louise in The Familiar of Zero. Saito always thinks Louise is cute (physically, anyway), but her attitude is less tsun-tsun and more dere-dere at parties.
• Full Metal Panic!:
  • In one episode of Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, Kaname does this to Sōsuke while posing as an older, married, and sexually frustrated woman. It works amazingly. She also pulls it with a kimono, shocking everyone.
  • In The Second Raid, Melissa Mao also does it, donning a slinky dress for an undercover operation (on top of still kicking ass while wearing it).
• Cagalli had this trope deliberately invoked on her in the Gundam SEED first season. Twice. She wasn't really amused in any occasion.
• Gundam 00:
  • Louise Halevy puts on a nice pink kimono while visiting Japan. In the second season, she makes a really beautiful Elegant Gothic Lolita during a ball.
  • Tieria Erde not only dresses up really nicely for the same second season party, but mixes this with Wholesome Crossdresser.
  • Setsuna also cleaned up nicely in that same ball. Seeing him in a black suit was a very, very nice surprise.
• Happens during a Fancy Dinner scene in GUN×SWORD, with Wendy borrowing a fancy dress, taking her hair out of pigtails, and using makeup. Her dinner companion doesn't even recognize her at first. In context, his surprise may have a lot to do with the fact that she looks older—like a young woman rather than a child—than she does in her usual clothing.
• Not that Chizuru in Hakuouki wasn't already cute, even when disguised as a boy, but her dolled up as a meiko◊ in the OVA caused several of the captains, including Saitou and Hijikata, to stop and stare.
• Kurumi in Haou Airen fits very well in a Qipao and in a bridal gown.
• During the Greece Arc of Hayate the Combat Butler, Hayate winds up trying to pay back Hinagiku to show his appreciation for all her help. To do so he takes her out to a very fancy restaurant and tries very hard to put aside his troubling plot-related thoughts to ensure that she has a wonderful evening. He needn't have bothered as Hinagiku showed up a moment later wearing an elegant dress and looking literally stunning. As in Hayate's thoughts just stopped and he wound up staring at her for a few minutes until she brought him back to reality.
• In HeartCatch Pretty Cure! episode 23, everyone's got their eyes on Itsuki after she first transforms into Cure Sunshine and later, when she first debuts in female clothing during the fashion club's trip in episode 25.
• Liechtenstein, Ukraine and Hungary from Hetalia: Axis Powers. The first looks very cute in a blue ballgown, the second is quite a babe in her national dress, and Finland got a picture of the third wearing a very elegant Pimped-Out Dress during the Hetalia Bloodbath 2010.
  • Taiwan also looks very pretty in traditional clothing.
  • Not to mention the usual Shorttank Wy looks adorable all dressed up.◊ In that same picture, all the male micronations (save for Nikko-Nikko) clean up alongside her, and they all look quite handsome.
• Isao from Inside Mari is a scraggly looking hikkikomori with Messy Hair and a permastubble. When he decided to get a part-time job he cut his hair and shaved his beard. It ended up making him look considerably younger.
• In Kamisama Kiss Tomoe has this reaction to Nanami after she gets some fashion help from Himemiko.
• Kimi ni Todoke: normally Sawako's look wavers between scary or rather plain (except when she smiles from the heart). After a surprise makeover and a butterfly hairclip from Yano and Chizu, though, she broke the pretty barrier.
• No one recognizes her, but Sanae Dekomori in Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions! actually turns out to be pretty good-looking when she has her hair down and acts like a normal person.
• My Hero Academia:
  • Aizawa is normally a scruffy, bleary-eyed layabout who looks like he's been sleeping under a bridge. When he absolutely has to appear before the media, he shaves and puts on a suit, to the point that his students barely recognize him.
  • My Hero Academia: Vigilantes: Inverted. Koichi has an encounter with "vigilante idol" Pop Step where they foil a villain together. Later, a scruffy and plain-faced girl barges into his apartment, and it's not until she puts her makeup on that he recognizes her as Pop.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • Asuna, once she lets her hair down and stops being overly violent for a bit.
  • In the ball-related manga episodes, all of the girls dress up very nicely (including Kaede and Setsuna, who wear tuxes instead). And so do Negi and Koutarou.
• New Game!:
  • In Chapter 23, Kou is forced to wear dressier clothes and do her hair for an interview. Aoba and Rin remark that she looks really cute that way.
  • In Chapter 44, Rin, who wears nice but relatively casual clothing, wears a suit to a meeting with a client, and Aoba's impressed at how nice she looks.
  • In the fourth volume Yun reveals she was pretty dorky when she was in school, complete with Opaque Nerd Glasses. The present-day version of her is quite a cutie in Elegant Gothic Lolita fashion (and no glasses).
• Not Love But Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy: It may just be the way she's drawn, but when Y-naga dresses up to go to a restaurant, she changes from her usual gonk to a beautiful woman.
• Koala in One Piece was found by Fisher Tiger's crew, starting out like this◊, understandable since she was previously a slave. After spending some time with them, she looked like this◊. Hatchan even lampshaded how she has changed.
• Ouran High School Host Club's Haruhi cleans up nicely in the first chapter/episode going from frumpy and disheveled to a Bifauxnen. She's also dolled up during the Christmas ball to help get two fiancés back together, complete with a wig, dress, and makeup. She complains about it and states that her face feels heavy with all the makeup, and that it's hard to walk in the heels the boys gave her.
• In another male example, Brief from Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt cleans up very nicely after he pulls up his hair. Despite the angels hating on him at first and didn't mind him dying from the villains, when he changes into his Bishōnen form he ends up having sex with Panty.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • The tomboyish Misty dons a kimono for the Summer Festival; the sight of her actually renders Ash speechless.
  • In one episode, Ash and company meet a girl who dresses and acts tough. At the end of the episode, the girl dresses in a more feminine manner and Brock reacts the way he usually does around beautiful girls, which prompts her to resume her boyishness.
  • In Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon, Professor Kukui is completely stunned when his fiancée Professor Burnet shows up in her wedding dress.◊ The kids have a similar reaction to seeing Kukui in his tuxedo alongside her a few minutes later.
• In Powerpuff Girls Z, Kaoru/Buttercup gets her hair done and is dressed up nicely in the episode where she gets a crush on a guy with big muscles. She looks so different that the Professor and his son Ken didn't even recognize her. Momoko/Blossom and Miyako/Bubbles even managed to teach Kaoru manners.
• Subverted in Private Prince, where female lead Miyako looks extremely good but is terribly uncomfortable and trips over her high heels and long dress... in front of Will, the lead male.
• Madoka, of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, is considered to be fairly plain (by the show's standard, anyway). Upon her Abstract Apotheosis, she looks properly majestic (though the hair and wings certainly help).
• Ranma ½:
  • Akane gets Ranma but good twice, at the start and conclusion of the final story arc, when he sees her in a wedding kimono (first instance) and then in a Western-style wedding dress. Of course, she dresses up in fancy dresses whenever she can and usually does look pretty good, it's just that those two are the most prominent.
  • Also Ukyō in the Episode "Ukyō's Skirt, The Great Girly-Girl Gambit". Ukyō looks so stunning in a Fūrinkan girl's uniform that Kunō promptly decides to start courting her as well as Akane and "the pigtailed girl". Even Ranma only recognizes her because she's still carrying her giant spatula. Unfortunately for her, while all of the other guys at school wanted to date her, Ranma still didn't seem to get that what she wanted was to try and give their relationship a boost. Between that, and the fact it ended up in a contest where Ranma got beaten up by all of the other guys, she stopped wearing it out of remorse. She does occasionally dress up in more feminine garb, though the series has something of a Limited Wardrobe for her. She only wears the girl's uniform one other time, in her final appearance, and lampshades it in the original Japanese.
  • A male example occurs with Ranma, in a brief storyline in which Kodachi brings him as her date, to be compared to her rival's date. When said rival sees Ranma for the first time, he'd just been run over by a herd of cows and hardly looked his best. When he shows up at the actual date, cleaned up and looking awesome in a suit, the rival actually is impressed.
    • In the same arc, Akane becomes very offended when the rival insults Ranma. So, she helps make him look handsome for the date and mentally lampshades this trope while doing it.
    Akane: I'll show her! When you dress Ranma up, he can be plenty cool!
• In Record of Lodoss War Deedlit, wearing an extravagant white gown, walks down the stairs with Parn, who is having a LOT of trouble looking her in the eye. Subverted slightly as he spends most of the ball ignoring her advances and swooning over a famous hero.
  • And Deedlit herself is so uncomfortable with the Pimped-Out Dress that she whines quite a bit at first, too.
  Deedlit: Ah, this dress is so tight! Seriously, I don't know how you court ladies can wear these things ever day...
• Oscar in The Rose of Versailles. She dresses like a man every day of her life, except one, at a ball, where she decides to go as a woman, in order to impress Fersen. It works in a kind of way, but before it worked even more on her manservant and future lover André. The idea of Oscar in dress makes him furious in manga, burst into laughter in anime... but in both, he stops and looks amazed when Oscar showed up at the top of stairs in her white odalisque dress. And so were the guests at the ball later.
• In the first chapter of Rurouni Kenshin, Kenshin remarked how different Kaoru looked in her formal, feminine kimono compared to when they first met and she was wearing her scruffy dojo uniform.
  • At the end of the anime-only Shimabara arc, the tomboyish Misao puts on a cute and frilly dress and uses a Parasol of Prettiness. Sanosuke doesn't recognize her.
• The girls in Sailor Moon started to invoke this in season 1 before formalwear became common. Usagi generally wears her school uniform, but she decks out in a princess gown to infiltrate Princess Dia's ball; both dub Lunas admit she looks great, and her dad photographs her while thinking she's someone else. R has it played to a horrifying effect when Prince Dimande captures Usagi, depowers her, and dresses her in the Neo-Queen Serenity gown swhile she's unconscious. Usagi is understandably creeped out as Dimande watches her rouse with a Slasher Smile.
• Inverted in Seiyu's Life!. When Yui Horie first shows up in Episode 5, she looks like she just got out of bed. The dissonance between that look and how she looks in public appearances is enough for Ichigo to have to call her Hoi Yurie just to process it.
• Played straight in the Sekainohate de Aimashou chapter "Prom Boy" except the "girl" in question is actually a reluctant involuntary Gender Bender.
• Played for Laughs in episode 85 of Shugo Chara! Doki. The Guardians go to a fashion event, so the girls wake up early to pick stylish outfits for the occasion. However, Nagihiko shows up a little late, and once he arrives, the others are in shock when they see him in clothes that manage to be even more stylish than the girls'◊, complete with Bishie Sparkle. His justification makes the scene even funnier.
  Nagihiko: I couldn't decide what to wear, so I ended up running behind.
  Amu: And it looks like we have a winner...
• Skip Beat! leads to this reaction pretty much every time Kyoko dresses up. This has to do with the fact that she rarely wears even a minimum of makeup, and that her attitude changes, especially when she's dressed for her acting roles. When Sho saw her dressed up as an angel for his music video, he could do nothing but gawk at her in stunned silence.
• Even Amy Rose has done this on Sonic X, complete with the reaction from Sonic himself.
• When Maka of Soul Eater shows up in Soul's soul, wearing heels and a black ballgown. he's rather shocked. Also in chapter 111 during the battle.
• Steins;Gate - The Sagacious Wisdom of Cognitive Computing #3 reveals that Okabe is capable of turning Kurisu into a red-faced, panting wreck of hormones with the right clothes.
• Inverted in The Story Between a Dumb Prefect and a High School Girl with an Inappropriate Skirt Length. Student Council President Yamato Nadeshiko is introduced dressed in a skirt, baring her midriff and with her hair down. At the end of the chapter, she unfolds her skirt, braids up her hair, and puts her glasses back on for her normal look (though she's quite good-looking like that too).
  • Played straight in the beach trip, where Kogori doesn't even recognize her when she wears a bikini and lets her hair down.
• Shiraishi of Tanaka-kun is Always Listless was somewhat a friendless nerd with a slovenly appearance when she was in middle school. To improve her social standing in high school she striaghtens up her appearance, to the point that she's now the School Idol.
• It is noted at several points in Tomo-chan Is a Girl! that socially challenged Heiress To The Dojo Aizawa Tomo is an application of a hairbrush and someone else picking her outfit away from being a very lovely (if not particularly petite) young woman.
• In Touko-san Can't Take Care of the House, when Akari moves in with Touko, a friend of her mother's, Touko strikes her as a slob, with messy hair and loungewear. As a result, Akari is stunned when Touko comes to breakfast wearing a business suit and glasses, and with her hair neatly done.
• In Urusei Yatsura: Ryūnosuke, who is easily the most manly character in the show, has an episode dedicated to her struggle to become feminine. She really only wished to wear a sailor suit, but ends up wearing Audrey Hepburn's iconic Ascot dress from My Fair Lady. Before◊ and After◊.
• Hitomi in Vision of Escaflowne. When she borrows one of Millerna's Pimped Out Dresses, Van can't help but spend the entirety of the dinner conversation just gawking dumbly at her (or Dope Slapping Merle for getting in the way of his gawking dumbly at her).
  • There is also when Dryden, who while never ugly usually prefers the scruffy and disheveled look, dresses up for his wedding. He proves he can look quite genteel and even more handsome.
• Continually subverted in The Wallflower — whenever the guys trick/force Sunako-chan into some proper clothes, Kyohei knows she's still the same person, and is (frustratingly) not quite cognisant of any attraction to her no matter how good she looks.
• It was a lot of work, but Utako in Wasteful Days of High School Girls basically turned from◊ a fat girl to one of the most photogenic girls in her grade◊. It is also noted, though, without makeup she is still kind of plain.
• Masane from Witchblade looks rather good when she gets dolled up for a party. Unfortunately, her personality and manners are exactly the same.
• In Yotsuba&!, even rival Manchild Jumbo is impressed with Miura's traditional dress and performance at the autumn matsuri.
• Anna from Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL has come close to yandere status in her relations with Yuma, and a rare female case of Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up. Her tomboyish nature is even more evident in the original Japanese, where she uses "ore" (俺) when referring to herself (this is a pronoun that is predominantly used by males and very seldom used by females). Except at her mentor's wedding, that is. The flashback shows her in a nice white dress, and she pulls off the look quite well.
• Downplayed in Yuri!!! on Ice with Yuri Katsuki. While he's far from unattractive, there's a huge contrast with how he looks when he's wearing his glasses and his bangs are down with when the glasses are off and his hair is combed back.
• Taken to ludicrous extremes in Zombie Land Saga with the main characters who are all, you guessed it, zombies. They may have bandaged and stitched up blue-green skin and sunken red eyes, but whenever Kotaro uses his hollywood-learned makeup skills on them, they take on the appearance of living girls. The girls frequently comment on how pretty they look.

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