History Main / DoppelgangerAttack

** ''Anime/DragonBallKai'' Cell Saga, episode 88 "Showdown! Cell vs. Goku". Cell uses Tien's "Multi-Form" technique to create multiple versions of himself. When they all attack Goku at the same time, they force him to flee. Goku tricks Cell into spreading out the copies and defeats each of them individually.

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* In ''Manga/AliceAcademy'', Misaki Harada's doppleganger Alice allows her to create multiple versions of herself.
* While she's generally more likely to use it for [[ConMan scams]] than for combat, Ryoko of ''Anime/TenchiMuyo'' is able to create solid "shadows" of herself.

* ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'':
** Kaede Nagase, in addition to the usual illusionary swarm, when she limits her duplicates to four or so all of them are fully tangible and devastatingly effective combatants. Her student and main lead's [[TheRival Rival]] Kotaro has also shown to be proficient at it, though not to the extent of her ability. Oddly, Nagi, the DisappearedDad of series lead could do it, while not being eastern or showing any skill in ninjutsu. RuleOfCool indeed.
** Negi can also do it, summoning a bunch of doppelgangers when he fights Evangeline. Later on, he turns it UpToEleven by summoning a ''thousand'' decoys. Made of [[ShockAndAwe lightning]]. [[RuleOfCool Just because]].
*** Negi's initial spell actually summons elemental spirits and "clothes" them in a copy of his body (presumably just because his incantation didn't specify otherwise). The divergence from this trope is that the copies are separate beings which only ''look'' like him and don't think, act, or fight anything like he does. Since they were pursuing Evangeline, none survived long enough to make this evident, though she selected her defense based on the distinction.
** Haruna Saotome's can use her ArtImitatesLife pactio to duplicate anything her incredible art skills can draw... including herself. Which can create even more copies...

* One of the Zoalords from ''{{Manga/Guyver}}'' can hide himself in "imaginary space", where he cannot be harmed by anything in "real space". From there, he can project up to three "shadows" in "real space": the copies look identical to the original, but are intangible, invulnerable and capable of firing homing ball of plasma, which ''are'' tangible and more than capable of harm. The drawbacks of this technique is that he can safely use it only for ten minutes at a time, and that [[spoiler: someone who possesses the same ability could also enter the same "imaginary space" and attack him directly]].
* An early character in ''Manga/HunterXHunter'', Kastro, fought Hisoka with a Nen ability he called "Double", allowing him to create a perfect copy of himself. It worked for a time but Hisoka worked out its flaws. The main flaw was that the double did not display battle damage or accumulate dirt making it easy to recognize over a prolonged battle. It was also a bad choice in technique for Kastro in particular, as his natural abilities in Nen were ill-suited to the conjuration and manipulation Double required.

* During his first guest appearance on ''WesternAnimation/SpiderMan'', Dr. Strange magically generates numerous copies of himself to confuse and attack Baron Mordo's brainwashed cultists.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'':

* In ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'', Mirage's Hall of Mirrors ability surrounds her with a ring of holographic clones to distract and attack enemies.

** The reworked version of Wukong changed his first ability into one that spawned a duplicate of himself that attacks enemies for him, switching it's weapons depending on whether or not the player is using melee or ranged weapons.

** [[spoiler: Vergil also does this in ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'' in the final battle.]]

** Series/KamenRiderDecade's Attack Ride: Illusion card does much the same; he even uses it to counter Knight's Trick Vent in one episode. He also gets a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome thanks to this in TheMovie. When faced with a three-on-one fight against [[Series/KamenRiderBlack Black]], [[Series/KamenRiderV3 V3]] and [[Series/KamenRiderSuper1 Super-1]], Decade counters their [[FinishingMove Triple Kick]] by combining the Illusion card with his Final Attack Ride, performing a Triple Dimension Kick all by himself. Later in the series, [[SecondRider Diend]] gets his own version of the Illusion card.

** Some characters, like Tenshinhan/Tien, Piccolo, and Cell can divide their bodies into weaker physical copies to employ special fighting strategies. Piccolo also uses it to spar with himself when there's no suitably strong partner available.

** The [[BonusBoss Unknown]] from ''Birth by Sleep'' does this too, in case you thought his attacks weren't hard enough to dodge already.

* Morrigan of ''VideoGame/{{Darkstalkers}}'' does this with one of her ultimate moves in a few of her [[VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom fighting game appearances.]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqJqYfQwtpg Darkness Illusion]], specifically.

* Several bosses from ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' use a variation of this, most notably Agahnim from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'' and Meg from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime''.

* In ''Manga/BusoRenkin'', the villain Moonface's Buso Renkin, Satellite 30, allows him to create 30 versions of himeself, each one representing a phase of the moon with a head of the corresponding shape. FWI, the new moon one is headless.

* An early character in ''Manga/HunterXHunter'', Kastro, fought Hisoka wuth a Nen ability he called "Double", allowing him to create a perfect copy of himself. It worked for a time but Hisoka worked out its flaws. The main flaw was that the double did not display battle damage or accumulate dirt making it easy to recognize over a prolonged battle. It was also a bad choice in technique for Kastro in particular, as his natural abilities in Nen were ill-suited to the conjuration and manipulation Double required.

* In the film ''Film/SkyHigh2005'', an African American cheerleader named Penny Lent has the ability to duplicate multiple copies of herself. In the final act of the movie her and the other antagonists [[spoiler:help Royal Pain (who is revealed to be Gwen) turn everyone at homecoming into babies and are only stopped when the sidekicks defeat them. Penny herself is defeated after her she is ignorant of Layla's power and becomes trapped in vines. She and the rest of the villains are placed into jail at the end of the movie.]]

* [[spoiler:Jin Mo-Ri]] of ''Webcomic/GodOfHighSchool'' uses this in conjunction with his MagicStaff to wipe out 99.7% of an invading angel army in less than thirty seconds.

* In ''Manga/BusouRenkin'', the villain Moonface's Busou Renkin, Satellite 30, allows him to create 30 versions of himeself, each one representing a phase of the moon with a head of the corresponding shape. FWI, the new moon one is headless.

* One of the bosses in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}'' uses a Doppelganger attack as her gimmick. You have to hit the real one, or else any attempts to use magic will result in a nasty counterattack (her copies reflects magic). The solution: [[spoiler:fight her on a full moon -- the fakes have no shadows. Or watch carefully when she taunts you afterwards.]]

* One of the defining characteristics of the Protopet in ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankGoingCommando''. It can very quickly go from one, to seven, to forty two, and by the time you've killed half of them, the remaining half have probably already spawned the number back to its upper limit.

* Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}: [[RobotGirl Aradia]] builds an army of her doomed time travel clones in order to fight her session's [[FinalBoss Black King]]. [[spoiler: They don't do much good against Jack, though.]]

* Hong Meiling, a boss of ''VideoGame/MegaMari'', returns in Patchouli Castle alongside a clone of herself that's equal in strength.

* This applies to Kisuke's Haze and Phantom Secret Arts and Momohime's Flash Secret Art in ''VideoGame/MuramasaTheDemonBlade''.

** Same rules apply with Vergil's Devil Trigger in ''DmCDevilMayCry'', minus the second player controlling the doppelgänger. This is also the last phase as the FinalBoss in Dante's story.

* This is done by the [[spoiler:Deathjester]] in ''VideoGame/SeikenDensetsu3''.
** Grand Divina's Double Magic is not, as the name suggests, a doublecast but instead splits Angela in two, doubling the enemy's pain. This is also the Nightblade's skill.

* The earliest example in ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' is the Shadow Clone Jutsu. Unlike the normal Clone Jutsu that simply creates an illusionary copy meant to distract and confuse the enemy, Shadow Clones are much more tangible and independent they can hurt their targets if they land a hit, but they tend to be really fragile and die with one good hit. It's considered a DangerousForbiddenTechnique because each clone receives an equal fraction of the original's chakra in addition to however much is used to cast the jutsu, and it's possible to die of chakra exhaustion from making too many. If you've got nearly bottomless chakra reserves like Naruto, however, that risk is all but gone.
** There are other solid clone jutsus too, mainly in the form of "X Clone Jutsu", where X is an element like water or sand, with varying levels of similarity to the original. The advantage is that they tend to be much harder to destroy than their shadow clone counterparts. Their disadvantage compared to the Shadow Clone Jutsu is that the user needs to ''have'' a supply of the element in question on hand (ie to make Water Clones you need to be near a river or lake and for Sand Clones you need to be near a beach or desert...or do like Gaara and carry a huge gourd full of sand wherever you go). For just a handful of clones, that's rarely a problem. Creating ''[[MesACrowd thousands]]'' of them like Naruto sometimes does with Shadow Clones, though, is implausible even if you've got a near-bottomless supply of chakra like Naruto.
** Pain also has the ability to make copies of other Akatsuki members out of living people, which are essentially the same except with only the percentage of chakra put into it. Once again, the advantage is that they are much hardier than normal clones and function in mind identical to the originals. The weakness is that they're limited in scope by the amount of chakra given to them (Itachi's clone outright states he can't use the Mangekyou Sharingan despite possessing 30% of the original's reserves).

* This is one of the advanced ninja skills in ''Manga/{{Naruto}}''. All ninjas learn how to make [[DoppelgangerSpin illusionary copies of themselves]] with the "Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Jutsu)". Naruto himself uses a much more powerful version, the "Kage Bunshin No Jutsu" ("Shadow Clone Jutsu"), which makes copies which are solid, albeit fragile. This version is also more chakra-expensive, which isn't a problem for [[SealedInsideAPersonShapedCan Naruto]].

** There are other solid clone jutsus too, mainly in the form of "X Clone Jutsu", where X is an element like water or sand, with varying levels of similarity to the original. Their disadvantage compared to the Shadow Clone Jutsu is that the user needs to ''have'' a supply of the element in question on hand (ie to make Water Clones you need to be near a river or lake and for Sand Clones you need to be near a beach or desert...or do like Gaara and carry a huge gourd full of sand wherever you go). For just a handful of clones, that's rarely a problem. Creating ''[[MesACrowd thousands]]'' of them like Naruto sometimes does with Shadow Clones, though, is implausible even if you've got a near-bottomless supply of chakra like Naruto.
** Pain also has the ability to make copies of other Akatsuki members out of living people, which are essentially the same except with only the percentage of chakra put into it.

** The Crimson Prankster in ''Franchise/KingdomHearts 358/2 Days'', combining this trope with DualBoss.
** Xemnas can briefly create clones of himself to attack the heroes during his final fight. This is particularly annoying when he traps Sora in an HP-draining beam and control briefly switches to a GuestStarPartyMember - you have to get to Sora and free him, but Xemnas keeps sending clones of himself to stop you.
** [[{{MasterOfIllusion}} Zexion]] from ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsChainOfMemories Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories]]'' and ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'' Final Mix can make clones of himself to attack the player.
** Larxene's "Absent Silhouette" in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'' Final Mix can also do this - there's a reaction command where Sora grabs one Larxene, spins her around and throws her into another, fusing them together again.