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Sizeshifter
aka: Sizeshifting

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Mario gets a Super Mushroom.

"You're still a little man, Banner. Now, knock it off or I'm gonna squish you."
Giant-Man, Ultimate Avengers

A very specific type of superpower. The character has the ability to change their size. Usually, this starts off one way, such as only being able to shrink or grow. Eventually, this starts to seem a little lame (unless the change comes with added Super-Strength, or other Required Secondary Powers in order to offset that pesky Square-Cube Law), and they probably end up being able to do both with an upgrade of some sort, or a Hand Wave about training.

In the case where outfits don't follow suit with the character, most particularly in shrinking, it's likely to cause Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing. Also, it's best to not even try to think about those pesky conservation laws, they don't exist as far as Sizeshifters are concerned. Though for those stories that do care about Equivalent Exchange, it's sometimes done by way of a Physical Attribute Swap, where one character "steals" height from another.

Perhaps needless to say, tabletop RPGs created to handle playing in the superhero genre usually include both powers. Fights between characters of massively disparate sizes can also seriously challenge a game's usual combat rules, which usually assume roughly human-sized opponents facing each other as the unspoken default and whose designers may not have stopped to consider how to address questions such as "can I climb/fly into my giant-sized opponent's ear and knock him out from there?"

Compare Make My Monster Grow, where a character makes a monster grow to great heights, and Shameful Shrinking, where the size change is more metaphorical than real. Supertrope to Hulking Out, where the size shift happens due to anger.


Examples:

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    Advertising 
  • A commercial for the Turkish laptop model Casper Nirvana features Turkish pro basketballer Ersan Ilyasova facing off against a competing team by himself. Then he splits into four guys, which makes the main guy on the opposing team smirk with a look that says, "Nice trick, but we can still take him." Then the Ilyasovas all grow to ten feet tall, with the opposing team just gaping up at them. Then they play basketball.

    Anime & Manga 
  • Attack on Titan: All titan-shifters can do this as a matter of course, but special mention goes to the Colossal Titan, Bertholdt Hoover, who can go from a regular-sized human to an absolutely gigantic titan that's bigger than the 50-meter tall walls.
  • Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: This is one of Nezuko's abilities as a demon, first demonstrated shortly after she's transformed when she grows larger to attack Tanjiro. She mostly uses it to make herself toddler-sized in order to fit into Tanjiro's cabinet, but occasionally uses it strategically (by shrinking herself out of the way of an attack).
  • Dragon Ball:
  • Fairy Tail:
  • A power of the Guyver Gigantic, growing into the massive Gigantic Exceed. Useful when one of your enemies turns into a Kaiju. It's implied that not only does it increase the Guyver's physical size but also increases the power of the Giga-Smasher and the Gravity Orb. To the point where Sho considered using gravity orb to create a small black hole (an extremely difficult and almost uncontrollable feat when previously done by Guyot) to be the less destructive option than the Giga-Smasher Exceed!
  • Kirara of Inuyasha can alternate between her housecat-sized form and her battle-ready form, which is roughly the size of a horse.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
    • Stardust Crusaders: Kakyoin and Polnareff shrink their Stands down to enter Joseph's body to expel Steely Dan's Lovers out.
    • Golden Wind: Squalo's Stand, Clash's size changes depending on the amount of water/fluid it teleports into. A glass of water or a stream of tears makes it no bigger than a human tongue, while Venetian canals make it at least as big if not bigger than a regular shark.
  • Ira Gamagoori from Kill la Kill nominally lacks an actual ability to grow larger, but his apparent size fluctuates so massively (a character can be as tall as his chest in one shot, then standing like a bug on his shoulder the next), it's functionally as if it were an actual superpower. It's usually correlated to how riled up he is at the given moment.
  • Lyrical Nanoha:
    • Reinforce Zwei and Agito are Fun Size Living Weapons who have the ability to grow to the size of young children. They normal only use it when they're off duty, since the mana drain makes it impractical for use in combat.
    • In ViVid, Fabia Crozelg's bat devil has the ability to grow big enough to swallow multiple mages whole at the same time. Her trident devil can also grow as big as the bat devil.
  • The three main characters in Ultimate Girls have the ability to grow to 100 feet tall.
  • Mazinger Z: Several Mechanical Beasts had the ability to changing size. The first of them -Bicong O9- showed up as soon as episode 12.
    • Great Mazinger: Marquis Yanus could change size, although she and her Humongous Mecha became smaller instead of bigger, since she was a spy and by dwarfing her mecha to human size she could blend in with the humans.
  • My Hero Academia has Mt. Lady, a super heroine who has the ability to grow to giant size. However, she lacks precise control over her growth: she can only shift between her regular height (162cm/5'3") and her giant height (2062cm/67'7") with nothing above, below, or in between those two sizes.
  • Employed by the Akimichi clan in Naruto as part of their clan jutsu, being able to increase the size of their whole body or just specific parts (usually their arms or chest). Choza is the first one to turn into a giant onscreen and has spent most of the ninja war fighting in this form, and Choji uses it a couple of times as well.
  • One Piece:
    • Two filler characters have this ability, both of them giants who ate the Mini Mini no Mi, which gave them the ability to shrink at will. One, Blyue, only appeared in a game, while the other, Lily Enstomach, appeared in the Z's Ambition filler arc of the anime.
    • Canonwise, Luffy can turn giant while using Gum-Gum Giant in his Awakened form known as Gear 5.
  • SSSS.GRIDMAN has the titular hero and Assist Weapons, with Gridman normally a large 70 meters. In order to access his Super Mode, they have to reduce their output, bringing Gridman down to 50 meters so he and the Assist Weapons can combine into Full Powered Gridman. This ability is seen again in SSSS.DYNɅZENON, with Gridknight visibly reducing his size to combine with Dynazenon to form Kaiser Knight Gridknight.
  • That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: Ranga develops the ability to change his size after Rimuru gives him a name; he starts out massive, but later shrinks to merely larger than average for a wolf for practicality.

    Asian Animation 
  • Cattus from BoBoiBoy Galaxy has the ability to get bigger, thanks to his robotic collar, Bellbot. Bellbot has the ability to shrink objects as well.

    Comic Books 
  • Mighty Man, from Amazing Man Comics, has the ability to change his size.
  • Ant-Man and company (Black Goliath, Stature, The Wasp, and Yellow Jacket) of The Avengers. Started out only being able to shrink. Later gained growth powers. The original Ant-Man, Hank Pym, invented Pym Particles which enable this exact power, and allow anyone who can get their hands on them to use it. Said particles were used, among other things, to create a super-villain prison where all the villains were 6 inches tall. Needless to say, there was a breakout.
  • Astro City:
    • Natalie Furst of the First Family and Max O'Millions of Honor Guard can make themselves grow to enormous size.
    • Wolfspider can shrink to the size of his namesake.
    • The Hanged Man can change his size at will; he's been seen several times to grow tall enough to tower over the city.
  • The Atom of the Justice League. Since the power comes from his belts, anyone who gets their hands on one can use it, much like the Pym Particles. As a consequence, there have been a few successors to the name, as well as an Evil Counterpart, Dwarfstar.
    • DC's original shrinking guy, Doll Man, had the not-too-impressive ability to shrink to about six inches... though he retains his full-sized weight and mass, resulting in a measure of super strength. There's a modern Doll Man, as well, but he's permanently tiny.
    • The Atom is an impressive version of this power set. Rather than gaining the ability to grow, he eventually gained the ability to shrink down to subatomic levels, opening up possibilities available to almost no one else. In addition, he can alter his molecular density, which enables him to glide on a low setting or have the equivalent strength of his regular size on a high one.
    • Another member of the Atom legacy, Atom Smasher of the Justice Society of America, has the ability to grow. Unlike the Pym Particles, this is accomplished by his bones and muscles actually breaking and reforming as he enlarges. He also can't grow much larger than two or three times his original size.
  • Brother Power the Geek: After returning from his long sojourn in outer space in Swamp Thing Annual #5, Brother Power gained the ability to alter his size at will.
  • Little Cheese, from the Animal Superhero team Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew!, is anthro mouse who can shrink himself to the size of a real mouse.
  • Golden Age supervillain The Claw could shift between a six-foot tall man and large enough to dwarf New York City.
  • Elasti-Girl of the Doom Patrol.
  • In El Sulfato Atómico, the first story of the Spanish comic Mortadelo y Filemón, the title agents are tasked to recover a sulfate that makes insects grow to gigantic size.
  • Short-lived Excalibur member Micromax.
  • Tara and Garganta from Femforce both have the ability to grow to giant size.
  • Titan from Justice Machine can grow up to 30 feet tall.
  • Colossal Boy and Shrinking Violet of the Legion of Super-Heroes. In the '90s version of the team, Colossal Boy died and Violet gained his growing powers, rechristening herself LeViathan. In the '00s version, Colossal Boy lives and Vi has been renamed Atom Girl.
    • In the Threeboot ('00s) version, Colossal Boy prefers to be known as "Micro Lad", as his actual ability is to shrink to human size from his normal sixty-foot-tall size.
  • Miss America, who was originally created for Military Comics but later became part of The DCU, has the power to shrink.
  • Micro-Might from PS238. Shrinking means her body increases in density, increasing her strength and durability. However, if she gets too dense, she's unable to move.
  • Robin (1993): Micro is a thief who can shrink small enough to fit in an ear canal and seems to keep the same strength he has at his normal size.
  • Bea from Sami The Samurai Squirrel can switch between regular bee size, and to being roughly the size of Sami.
  • Mr. Mystic, from The Spirit Section, has the ability to change size.
  • In Superman and Supergirl stories:
  • The Transformers Megaseries tries to explain how Megatron shrinks when he transforms into a gun. He's using mass-displacement technology to convert some of his mass into energy, which violently discharges from him as he transforms. It doesn't explain how he gets the mass back when he returns to his robot form, however.
  • Maul from Wild C.A.T.s (WildStorm). Interestingly, his intelligence decreases as his size increases, and if he gets too big, he becomes too dumb to remember how to turn back.
  • In Wildguard, Jack Giant and Blaction Figure had growing and shrinking powers, respectively.
  • Tinkabelinos, rebel faerie princess in Wisdom, can shift from a tiny fairy to a normal-sized woman with a big gun.
  • Wonder Woman:
    • The Olympians can appear as several stories tall or at a regular human height as they please.
    • Wonder Woman (1942): The aliens known as Gremlins (as humans cannot pronounce their proper name) are usually a little less than a foot tall but can shift to be nearly as big as their primary tormentors the Ytirfliks. This size shift cannot last a full ten minutes and permanently damages their mental and physical state, making it difficult for them to remember much of anything and cutting their life shorter the more they do it so most do not.
    • Among villains, one of the best known examples is Wonder Woman foe Giganta. However, she didn't develop this ability until she appeared in Super Friends, making the current version of her something of a Canon Immigrant.
  • X-Men: This is a noticeable part of arch villain Apocalypse's shapeshifting powers, especially in X-Men: The Animated Series. Usually he'll just settle for towerering over his opponents, but on occassion he increases his size to such a degree that it becomes Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever.

    Comic Strips 
  • Calvin and Hobbes: In an early transmogrification arc, Calvin asks Hobbes to turn him into Pterodactylus, so that he can terrorize the neighborhood. After a false start that results in him transforming into a chicken, Calvin gets his wish — but given that "big dinosaurs give [Hobbes] the willies," he's smaller than he would have liked.
    Calvin: Say, when did you transform yourself into a 200-foot colossus?
    Hobbes: I didn't. Why?

    Fairy Tales 

    Fan Works 
  • DNMC: Clu can affect the size of any inorganic non-Dust object, from hats to bits of his weapon Vorpal to vehicles making them small enough to fit in his pocket or big enough to crush someone easily, which he incorporates into his Confusion Fu.
  • In Son of the Sannin, in addition to his canon abilities, Choji develops a reverse version of his clan's signature jutsu, which allows him to shrink.
  • Truth and Consequences: The Turtle Miraculous can grant one the ability to turn into a giant known as the Jade Colussus. However, few wielders apparently ever unlock this, with Nino implied to be the first in generations.
  • Vow of Nudity: While not as frequently used as her Humanshifting, Spectra is also able to change her size between Small and Medium, either keeping her usual features or when impersonating a shorter race like gnome or halfling.
  • Your Alicorn Is in Another Castle: In "Inevitability Frames", "size-switching" is mentioned, which by name and context, implies it's this.

    Films — Animation 

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • Ant-Man has two iterations of the titular character (Hank Pym and Scott Lang), The Wasp (Janet Van Dyne), and Yellowjacket (Darren Cross), who all wear special suits which utilize Pym Particles, allowing their wearers to shrink and grow at will. The film also presents a clear danger to the ability: shrink too far, and you can go subatomic and enter a whole other dimension. At the end of the movie, Hope Van Dyne is given her own Wasp suit.
    • Civil War also features Scott donning the Ant-Man suit, however this one is an upgraded version which allows Scott to grow giant, (a nod to Giant-Man from the comics).
    • Ant-Man and the Wasp, naturally, has Scott and Hope team up.
    • By the time of Hawkeye (2021) Clint has arrows with Pym particles. He uses one to turn a regular arrow into a giant arrow, while Kate Bishop similarly uses one to turn a rampaging van into something the size of a matchbox car.
  • X-Men: Apocalypse: En Sabah Nur can change his size at will, on a mental battlefield, anyway.
  • The Godzilla franchise's Captain Ersatz of Ultraman, Jet Jaguar, who appeared in Godzilla vs. Megalon and hasn't been seen in a movie since.
    He must have reprogrammed himself to be able to increase his own size!
  • In Kingsajz, sizeshifting is achieved by drinking a Magic Potion. The formula for it is kept top secret, but two of the characters (independently) figure it out.
  • Averting this was a major goal in the Transformers Film Series, mathematical calculations were made to try and make the robots match the overall mass of their vehicle form. This resulted in selecting certain vehicles to make for larger characters, Optimus was a long nose Peterbilt semi because otherwise his robot form would not be much larger than a heavy duty truck. The Transformers franchise has otherwise been very inconsistent with this, switching between regular Off-Model animation problems and being an explicit ability of all Cybertronians, as Megatron could turn into a handgun used by other Decepticons and Soundwave turned into a tape player that could be handled by regular people.
  • The Witch Files: During her fight with Brooke, Claire uses magic to temporarily become a giant.
  • When the Killer Robot from Zathura first shows up, he's only twelve inches tall, but a few seconds later, he enlarges himself into a nigh-invulnerable killing machine that's twice as tall as Walter.

    Literature 
  • Dreamspeaker: The sisiutl is a two-headed snake that seems to change size based on how much its prey is afraid of it.
  • Piers Anthony's A Golem in the Gears features a character named Rapunzel who, due to her heritage as the distant descendant of Jordan the Barbarian and Bluebell Elf, can grow or shrink to any size she wants.
  • Wizards from Sorcery! have access to the BIG spelll, which increases their size for a certain time period (usually for a fight).
  • In The Stormlight Archive, inkspren can alter their size in the Physical Realm, but not their shape.
  • In Worm, identical twins Menja and Fenja have this ability.
  • Gesta Danorum: Young prince Hadding is hit on by the giantess Harthgrepa, who wants him to sleep with her. First Hadding rejects her because of her giant size, but when Harthgrepa reveals that she can change her size at will and can easily scale down to human size in order to have sex with him, he gives up his objections.
  • Beware of Chicken the Spirit Beast pig Chunky/Chun Ke has the ability to change his size, he mostly uses it to play with children and provide a napping spot for his friends. Oddly, only cultivators and other Spirit Beasts seem to really notice the size changes.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Crash Mc Larson on The Aquabats! Super Show! can grow to an enormous size, but it's controlled by his emotions, which he's not very good at controlling, which makes them rather unreliable.
  • El Chapulín Colorado can shrink to insect size thanks to his Chiquitolina Pills.
  • The Misfits of Science had Dr. Elvin "El" Lincoln a really tall guy who could shrink.
  • Justin Stewart of Power Rangers Turbo, a ten-year-old Child Prodigy who was the blue ranger, shifted to adult size when he morphed for some reason. He shifted back whenever he removed his helmet, oddly enough. It was almost like he could only maintain his shifted size in situations where he'd be played by a stunt double. This may have been inspired by Kou from Gosei Sentai Dairanger, who is also a child who grows to adult size in his ranger form.
  • The Vader Monsters of Denshi Sentai Denziman can grow giant or shrink themselves to only centimeters tall at will.
  • The short lived comedy series Small And Frye had a detective who could shrink to 6 inches tall, often at inopportune times.
  • Most heroes of the Ultra Series, who are giant-sized but able to shrink themselves to microscopic sizes. However, you rarely see them shrink due to the size of most of their enemies. Additionally, many of the evil aliens are able to make themselves gigantic to fight the Ultra heroes.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • The overwhelming majority of Kaiju Big Battel's roster have size shifting powers. Those that don't are either permanently giant or have some other way of counteracting the giant sized monsters.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Ascetics in Against the Dark Yogi can learn siddhis for making themselves larger or smaller. A sufficiently skilled and prepared ascetic could conceivably become as large as the world itself or as small as a mote of dust.
  • In Changeling: The Dreaming, the cantrip Worms and Giants may be used to shrink or enlarge its subject, producing riding mice for hedge knights, shrinking artisans down to do truly fine detail work on shoes or making table knives into impromptu swords. It's pointed out that, unlike most cantrips, repeated castings do stack, making possible to create truly humongous or tiny results, albeit for a brief period of time.
  • Changeling: The Lost:
    • There exists a Kith (sub-type) of the Ogres known as Gargantuans; their particular gift as Changelings is called Spurious Stature, which enables them to grow to enormous size for a brief time. Given the somewhat more subdued nature of the New World of Darkness, this is less extreme than most examples of this type, though a newly escaped Gargantuan can grow to the size of a gorilla or grizzly bear depending on their power. Supplementary material implies that their size-changing power is a consequence of their reduced power on Earth; supposedly, some Gargantuans remember being of perpetual giant-size in the domain of the Fae.
    • The multi-kith rules also make it possible for other sorts of Ogres to do this as well, or any possible Changeling, depending on what's house-ruled in.
  • Dungeons & Dragons
    • The wizard spells Enlarge Person and Reduce Person, which do exactly what it says on the tin. Also Righteous Might for clerics.
    • Originally introduced in the 1st Edition Oriental Adventures sourcebook (and then seen again in Complete Arcane) are the Giant Size and Minute Form spells. Even a Squishy Wizard is going to hurt when she's hitting you with a tree.
    • Psionic characters have the Expansion power, which achieves the same effect. It has the added bonus of working on non-humanoids just as effectively as humanoids and even allowing the target to grow even more. There is, of course, an opposite that causes the target to reduce in size.
    • The race of spriggans from early editions of the game were gnome-sized normally, but could grow to the size of ogres as a racial ability. Duergar, a Lawful Evil dwarf subrace, can do similar later, but only when they're not in sunlight.
    • Holliphants are celestial beings that look like fluffy elephants winged elephants the size of small dogs that can grow to the size of woolly mammoths in order to better fight evil..
    • This is the core ability of the 5th Edition Rune Knight, who have the magical ability to grow to large (and eventually) huge size for a short time.
  • Princess: The Hopeful: The Royal Stature Charm grants Princesses this power.
  • Sky-Scraper in Sentinels of the Multiverse has this power, although it's specified to be uncommon among her people (and very useful when she was in La Résistance). Mechanically, both of her variants have three character cards - tiny, normal and huge - and many of her cards switch her main card to the appropriate size.

    Theater 
  • Clarence Willard of Ripley's Believe It or Not stage show could somehow shift his body so that he appeared to grow several inches.

    Toys 
  • Toa Bomonga and Toa Norik of BIONICLE fame wear a Mask of Growth and Mask of Diminishment, respectively. Notably, however, the shift in size doesn't change their other parameters like strength, which for Bomonga means he can't out-muscle other giant foes and needs to rely on clever maneuvering instead of a straight on brawl.
  • Transformers: The original Generation One toy of the spy Punch/Counterpunch had 3 configurations: his car mode (shared by his Punch and Counterpunch modes), his Decepticon Counterpunch form and his Autobot Punch form. As Punch, his transformation left him with a smaller robot mode than Counterpunch, further making it easier to believe that they were two different individuals. More recent toys (e.g. the Power of the Primes toy) unfortunately don't duplicate that aspect.

    Video Games 
  • In Alice in Wonderland for the Commodore 64, Alice can shrink and grow using consumable mushrooms that respawn every once in a while.
  • In Alice: Madness Returns, once Alice finds a pool of liquid, she can change to a smaller size as long as you hold LB. This has several benefits: The ability to get through keyholes, the ability to see clues left by the Insane Children, the ability to (better) see (nearly) invisible platforms and Snouts, the ability to escape certain attacks, and the ability to heal in Shrinking Violets (or, in a New Game Plus, heal even without them as long as you're wearing the Classic costume). In Queensland, she eats some cake in order to grow, after which she's able to crush the Executioner, then go on through a sequence involving the ripping of tentacles, the squashing of hearts, and the elimination of hundreds of now-relatively-tiny Card Guards. After squashing the last heart, she drinks from what is essentially a bowl to her, then shrinks, stepping over the wall as she does.
  • Asura's Wrath:
    • Asura's Master, Augus, who has a blade that has this power.
    • Wyzen, the first of the Seven Deities that Asura deals with, is this as well, at one point growing larger than the very planet itself. Unfortunately, this proves to be a wasteful use of his immense power, and Asura is able to destroy him through applying Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs to the finger he's trying to crush him with.
  • Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance: Red Magnus is this. His first skill allows him to enlarge his arm for an attack, and later on he can enlarge himself for a belly-flop from orbit. His ultimate skill? Grow large enough to crush planets in his hand! And that's not getting into his Overload Skill, which makes him bigger and gives him a stat boost, alongside enhancing the range of his unique skills, or his Combination Attack with Usalia or Zetta.
  • Donkey Kong 64: Tiny Kong can shrink in size with Mini-Monkey, while Chunky King can grow in size with Hunky Chunky.
  • Dragalia Lost: Apparently, all fairies in this universe gain this ability at a certain age, in a process called “metamorphosis.” With that said, Notte is the only one who actually seen to utilize it. They have three sizes: their tiny, pre-pubescent form, their human-sized form, and their large form, which is about the size of a dragon. It seems as though most fairies, namely, Meenee and Jinlorda, prefer to stay in their human-sized form.
  • Ginger Beyond The Crystal: When he's wearing the Mouse Outfit, Ginger can shrink himself down to mouse size, which allows him to fit into small entryways he couldn't get through otherwise. He can return to normal size as well, obviously.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
  • Mutant Night has blue dots that could make your titular character enlarge some thirty times in size. In his enlarged state, your Mutant can simply trample all over enemies and obstacles without getting harmed, although after a short while the giant effects will wear off.
  • Pokémon Legends: Arceus: It's explained in the beginning that all Pokémon innately have the ability to shrink in size, which is how Poké Balls work. Most can't do it at will with the exception of the handful capable of learning the move Minimize, but the Poké Ball somehow causes the shrinking effect to activate. The shrinking itself does briefly change the Pokémon into pure energy before it returns to a tiny physical form, much as evolving, form changing, etc. can change a Pokémon's mass to be greater or lesser. This was previously stated in the Pocket Monsters Encyclopedia, which never made it out of Japan.
  • In Sable's Grimoire, pixies like Sable’s roommate Tix are normally small enough to take showers in a kitchen sink, but they can grow to human size using magic. They mainly use this power to mate with humans, preferring to stay in their smaller forms otherwise.
  • Shark! Shark!: The yellow fish grows in size every time it eats enough fish to garner 1000 points. It can grow only up to five times.
  • Skullgirls: Umbrella's Level 3 Hungern grows huge and suddenly wraps his tongue around their opponent’s ankle as they dangle helplessly upside down and drags them into his mouth, doing decent to devastating damage.
  • In Sky Blazer, the boss of the Tower of the Tarolisk grows when you attack its eye, making it harder for you to dodge as it rolls along the walls of the arena.
  • South Park: The Stick of Truth: At one point, the New Kid has to use their shrinking power so they can be inserted into Mister Slave's rectum, and travel through his intestines to his stomach to disarm a nuke.
  • In Spud's Adventure, obtaining a diamond card will allow the player to grow for a brief period of time, granting invincibility and crushing anything in their path in the process.
  • Star Gladiator's Gore Gajah and Luca are able to either grow or shrink through the use of Plasma Magic.
  • Super Mario Bros.
    • The main gameplay mechanic of the series, the platformers in particular (with some exceptions). Playable characters don't have a life meter, instead health is determined by their size. If they're normal-sized (Super Form) and take damage, they shrink down into a "small" form, where another hit kills them and they need a Power-Up to return to normal size. Later games have actually played around with this, the many examples below:
    • Mario, of course. Firstly he had the Super Mushrooms that made him grow. Then in New Super Mario Bros. a Mini Mushroom was introduced which shrunk him to fit into tiny spaces and Walk on Water, as well as a Mega Mushroom which made him even bigger than with the Super Mushroom.
    • Super Mario Bros. 2 being a revamped version of Doki Doki Panic has a Life Meter where the playable characters can take two hits but in order to connect the game to rest of the series, they shrink when they have one hit point left.
    • Although New Super Mario Bros. series seems to continue the adjustment first seen in Super Mario Bros. 2, that the "big" size is actually their normal size; Mario and friends shrink when they get hit and then need to use a Super Mushroom to return to normal.
    • Super Mario Bros. Wonder presents an unusual variation as one of the Wonder Flower effects: Your player character's torso stretches out, making them very tall. Crouching during this effect will return you to normal size, and you'll become tall again when you stop crouching. In a more standard example, Bowser Jr. alters the sizes of himself and the player in his first fight, first making himself small and the player large, and then the opposite afterward.
    • Bowser had occasionally became a giant in some games, and Rosalina actually has the ability to grow to the size of a planet!
    • Wario Land's Wario, in symmetry with his redder counterpart — but he also loses most of his hair when he shrinks.
    • King Boo, as of Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, gained this ability. Unlike most others in the series, it seems he can use it at will.
    • In the Paper Mario games — well, the first two — both Mario and enemies can grow, increasing their Attack. Some enemies have attacks that shrink Mario and/or his partner, reducing their Attack.
      • In Super Paper Mario, the Starman makes the character who touches it change to his/her 8-bit version and grow to almost the height of the screen, temporarily allowing you to plow through enemies and breakable blocks.
    • A few of the spin-off games actually give Mario the ability to grow in size at will - Though he can't stay his new size for more than a couple of seconds with this method.
    • Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga has an interesting play on this trope: Luigi can make Mario shrink down to fit into small passages by hitting him on the head with his hammer.
  • In Super Pac-Man, Pac-Man could eat a Super dot and temporarily become enormous. The super-sized Pac-Man was much faster and could pass through locked doors and ghosts without a problem.
  • Diana from Symphony of War is already a very big Amazonian Beauty, but she eventually gains the ability to turn into a massive Titan when she goes into battle.
  • Touhou Project:
    • Suika Ibuki's most famous use of her density manipulation comes in the form of her 'Missing Purple Power' spellcard, which causes her to roughly triple her size. Fanon depictions sometimes show her becoming a literal 50-foot oni and beyond. What makes this even more noticeable is the fact that Suika is one of the shortest characters in the series at normal size. She also has the shrinking variation: She can generate mini-Suikas which are roughly 3 inches tall.
    • Shinmyoumaru is an exclusive example of this. However, she doesn't just make herself bigger. She makes her bullets AND THE PLAYER bigger, too. Very bad in a game in which you have to dodge bullets.
  • In La Statuette Maudite de l'Oncle Ernest, we see that Uncle Albert created a liquid that shrinks objects and another that makes objects bigger.

    Web Animation 
  • The Wrath of Giga Bowser:
    • Upon its creation, Giga Bowser is smaller than even Bowser was. As it turns against its creators however, it can be see visibly growing larger. It then keeps becoming bigger and bigger throughout its rampage, to the point where, by the time it reaches the Stadium, a single one of its claws is larger than its former self.
    • During the climax of the video, the capsule given by Dr. Mario turns out to contain dozens of Super Mushrooms, which allow Roy and Mr. Game & Watch to grow to match Giga Bowser in size and defeat it for good.

    Webcomics 
  • Boltrin of Dragon Mail can grow once per day.
  • El Goonish Shive:
  • Fillbert: Fillbert can grow larger at will.
  • The aptly named Giant Girl from Giant Girl Adventures has the ability to grow in size.
  • Heroes Unite/Heroes Alliance: The Flea has this ability.
  • Heroine Chic has the character of "Huge," a superhero and later minor villain whose powers enable him to grow in size.
  • I Log In Alone: Su became tiny after becoming Jung's supporter. She can grow to human size using mana.
  • In Jupiter-Men, the monster chasing Quintin and Jackie in the opening scene is the size of a bus. Later scenes show that it has the abiltiy to shrink down to a size that lets them fit through the flaps of a grate. It's the size of a komodo dragon when the twins encounter the monster for the first time.
  • The Order of the Stick:
    • Durkon occasionally transforms into a fifteen-foot-tall dwarf when in dire straits. (Based on D&D spell Righteous Might, see above.)
    • Presumably like all gods, Thor can appear of whatever size he desires. When seen next to mortal souls, at first he's absolutely gigantic, the mortals looking like fleas on top of his boot. Then he shrinks down to more manageable dimensions, ending up the size of a tall human. Later, his father Odin is seen doing the same size-shifting.
  • In The Secret Report, the dragons can become Kaiju size if they want to, though usually chose not to. Oh and also they come from outer space.
  • Vittoria of SERGOM can do this.
  • In Tower of God, beings that are too large to fit in buildings designed for humans can be given the ability to shrink themselves to Super-Deformed size. Rak gains this ability, and uses it in combat, shrinking to make himself a smaller target and then growing large again when he needs greater strength and leverage.
  • Ophelia from White Dark Life has this as a demon that represents the "excess" of gluttony and can even use it on objects. However, she needs food to make things grow bigger than their normal size.

    Web Original 

    Western Animation 
  • Ickis of Aaahh!!! Real Monsters is normally a little Ugly Cute bunny-like monster, but can balloon up to an impressive height when scaring humans.
  • Jake from Adventure Time can grow more than ten times his size, as well as shrink down to pocket size. It helps that he's also a Rubber Man.
  • In Barbie and the Secret Door, the more magic Malucia's wand drains, the larger its headpiece becomes.
  • Ben 10:
  • Dexter's Laboratory:
    • Capital G of the Justice Friends could use this power. Only seen twice, neither time helpful.
    • One episode involved Dexter having to watch over his sister's imaginary friend, a jolly dragonish creature named Koosalagoopagoop (or Koosy for short) who can change size at will.
  • Cassie from Dragon Tales had a tendency to shrink to about a foot tall when upset.
  • Meteor Man from The Galaxy Trio has the ability to change the size of any part of his body.
  • Mogo, a one-episode antagonist from Generator Rex, is a mongoose that can grow or shrink down thanks to being an E.V.O.
  • Big purple Mego of Kim Possible — "He's a shrinker."
  • The Magic Key: “Lug And The Giant Storks” features a magical pool of water which causes anything and anyone submerged in it to (temporarily) grow to giant size. Kipper uses it in order to become big enough to fight off the titular space storks.
  • The titular heroes in Mecha Builders have the power to temporarily shrink or grow depending on the needs of the situation at hand.
  • In Miraculous Ladybug, the Mouse Miraculous's Self-Duplication power comes with the side effect of shrinking the user and their copies down with each one they make.
  • Susan from Monsters vs. Aliens becomes this in the TV series as she gains the ability to change her size from that of a normal person to a giant at will.
  • Rick and Morty: In "Childrick of Mort", Reggie the Zeus god shrinks to almost Rick's size to fight him on an even playing field, but after he beats Rick up, he grows giant to make an example of Rick in front of his kids.
  • Samurai Jack: With his powers as the "Shapeshifting Master of Darkness", demonic Big Bad Aku can assume any size he wants. His Shapeshifter Default Form of a tall black humanoid in particular has varied from person-sized to skyscraper-sized.
  • Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Globgor has this ability. He can become a huge giant or he can be roughly the size of baby.
  • Steven Universe: Amethyst can shrink so small that her Gem takes up at least as much of her body as the rest of her.
  • From The Super 6 comes Elevator Man, who can grow or shrink when he presses a button on his belt.
  • Apache Chief from Superfriends has the power to grow in size. Considering he's wearing a loincloth, we hope he's wearing some undies.
  • Bumblebee's animated version on Teen Titans (2003) can shift between regular human size and bumblebee size.
  • A number of Transformers from Transformers change size when they transform, most famously Megatron (Walther P-38) and Soundwave (tape player).
    • Other examples include Cyclonus, who transformed from a robot slightly taller than his boss Galvatron into a starship Galvatron could pilot. The Autobot Triplechanger Broadside can transform from robot to jet or to aircraft carrier, which he once weaponized in a fight with Devastator by flying upwards in jet mode, and then transforming into aircraft carrier mode to crush Devastator underneath him. Decepticon Triplechanger Astrotrain is bigger than most of his comrades, but his shuttle has a big enough interior that in the Movie Devastator was able to form inside him.
    • This has carried on to other Transformers series, the most notable between Transformers: Animated and Transformers: Prime with characters like Prowl and Arcee, who both transform into motorcycles but whose robot modes are much larger than their vehicle modes.
    • Also in Animated, Shockwave can change size even while in the same form. This is part of disguise as an Autobot, because Autobots are on average much smaller than Decepticons in Animated.
  • Rubilax from Wakfu is tiny in his default (true) form, but the more he is hit the bigger he gets. In season 2 Anathar copies this power.
  • In WordGirl, Eileen a.k.a. the Birthday Girl slowly starts to grow and become green in color whenever she doesn't get what she wants, culminating in her becoming a giant. She reverts to her normal size once she does something generous.
  • Xiaolin Showdown:
    • Dojo can change at will between a garden snake-size Sleep-Mode Size and an airplane-sized serpent that transports the team around.
    • The Changing Chopsticks shrink any user to the size of a grain of rice. And if used with the Reversing Mirror they actually make the user grow.

 
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Alternative Title(s): Sizeshifting

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Bee worrying about Blitzo

Bee-Lzebub might be the literal sin of Gluttony, all for enabling people to gorge themselves, and throwing wild ragers for people to get drunk at, but as soon as she realizes something's wrong with Blitzo, she confronts Loona about it.

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