Voluntary Shapeshifting / Anime & Manga

• In Berserk there is Isma, who is a half-mermaid. She can change her shape, and look like a human as well as a mermaid. This power is seemingly common to mermaids.
  • Even the demonic apostles can change their shape at will, and switch between human and demonic form.
• Grey from Black Clover. Her epithet is "master of transformation magic", using it to transform into others because she's terribly shy about her true appearance. She can also make other things disguise as other stuff, which Gauche notes is a rare occurrence.
• Momose from Bloody Cross. She mostly uses it to make herself look like a friend/ally of one of her enemies so she can get close enough to surprise attack them.
• Blood+ has the chiropterans. They can assume both a human form and the shape of any human being.
• The main protagonist of BNA: Brand New Animal is able to do this. While most beastmen can only shift between a human and beast form, Michiru is a tanuki and thus can uniquely shapeshift her form; stretching her arms, ballooning her tail, etc. Later on, she starts getting more creative by massively increasing the size and mass of her arms and morphing her legs into a cheetah's hind legs to run faster. While she accidentally morphs back into her human form, she decides to stay in her beast form out of convenience and comfort.
  • Turns out she got the ability from her friend Nazuna, whom is a shapeshifting fox, masquerading as Ginrou.
• Atsushi, the main character of Bungo Stray Dogs, has the ability to transform into a tiger.
• It's implied that all of the demons in Chrono Crusade have shape-shifting abilities. They all have at least two forms: their true demonic form, and a more human-looking form they seem to use when mingling among humans, and possibly to conserve energy as well. Chrono himself has a third form: a small, child-like version of his human form that he took on to save as much energy as possible.
• All characters with Youma blood in Claymore have some degree of shapeshifting ability. Full Youma and Awakened Ones (aka Voracious Eaters) usually have a human form and a monstrous form. Several of them also display the "rubber-band limbs" kind of shapeshifting. Claymores themselves exhibit a series of progressive changes when they tax their powers.
• Cutey Honey has the ability to transform into... various alternate versions of herself. In the 1990s Reboot, she transforms into a giant SPIDER, thus proving her full capabilities as a shapeshifter.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Puar and Oolong both have the ability to shapeshift. Puar doesn't seem to have any major limitations but Oolong can only change for five minutes before having to take a one minute rest. This is due to being kicked out shapeshifting school for stealing his teacher's panties.
  • A large variety of the villains can do this. The most notable case being Frieza, who can transform up to 3 times to increase his power.
  • Saiyans have a variation of this power as they can become gigantic monkey-like creatures known as Oozaru. To most Saiyans, this is an Involuntary Shapeshifting as they have no control of this form. Vegeta, however, is trained to not only create an artificial moonlight, but can keep his sanity while as an Oozaru, making him much more dangerous.
• Expecting to Fall into Ruin, I Aim to Become a Blacksmith: Neko-Sensei, being a parody of the Cat Girl trope, is a human sized house-cat, who occasionally shapeshifts into a human. She teaches this ability to the protagonist Kururi, who ends up Becoming the Mask as a housecat for a few hours, resulting in him eavesdropping on Eliza and starting an incident that sees them exchanging letters and secrets. He also uses it later to infiltrate a group of hostage takers, and to go King Incognito in his domain.
• Elfman Strauss and his siblings Mirajane and Lisanna from Fairy Tail share a magical ability called "Take Over". It allows them to take the form of other beings, like beasts (Elfman's "Beast Soul"), animals (Lisanna's "Animal Soul") or a demon (Mirajane's "Satan Soul").
• Animals who undergo evolution into a human form after eating the titular Power-Up Food in The Fruit of Evolution are eventually revealed to be able to change back into their original form at will. They can even selectively change parts of their body, such as Salia (who began her life as a Kaiser Kong) turning one arm from a human's into a gorilla's.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • Envy. It finds it most useful to change into people, but isn't limited to that; its "true form" is...let's just say you don't want to meet it down a dark alley. Heck, its true form wouldn't even fit in a dark alley.
    • This is ironically taken advantage of by Roy Mustang when they fought to the death. Because of its large size, it allowed Roy to constantly bombard it with high powered but inaccurate shots that would hit it anyway. Given that Envy was a mass of human body parts and was heaviy drenched in bodily fluids, it did not matter if Roy only just barely grazes it, anything about it could be set on fire. Ironically it is the inhuman form that brought about its downfall.
      Mustang: I can't believe you'd give me a bigger target! Did you honestly think that greater size would be an advantage?
    • It also crosses over into Shapeshifter Weapon. As it puts it (as it turns its limbs into a sword and a snake), it's not human, so why should it limit himself by fighting like one?
  • Sloth from Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) has limited forms of this, due to her water powers. While she can't change her basic appearance, she can make small changes in things like her hair color and clothes, which she uses to keep her cover as Juliet Douglas.
• Nurarihyon from Gantz combines this with From a Single Cell: the capacity of his shapeshifting ability is so potential, he is almost impossible to kill. Actually, by just trying to do damage to him, he is impossible to kill. Only when he can't see the attack coming, are his regenerative abilities hindered. Nurarihyon can also transform into pretty much anything imaginable from an old man to a gigantic naked body of a woman formed by countless naked bodies of women.
• In Hime-chan's Ribbon, Himeko uses the titular ribbon to shift her shape into that of another (real) person. The catch? They wear a pendant that resembles the ribbon.
• Shippo from Inuyasha can do this.
  • As can Naraku, though he uses it less for impersonation (as the hero would probably sniff him out) than for sprouting enormous amounts of Combat Tentacles whenever he needs them. In terms of size, he can be anything from mountain-sized to a minuscule dormant form that can be sufficiently hidden in a fold of skin.
  • Sesshomaru can also transform. You can usually see him in his human-like form, but a few times he turns into a huge, white demon dog. He is much stronger in this form, but even in his human form he is already one of the strongest youkai.
  • An arc of a story has a moth-youkai named Gatenmaru, who has morphed into a human form and was the leader of a group of human bandits.
  • Miroku meets already at the beginning of the series a female mantis-youkai, who had taken the form of a young girl to lure him into the trap.
  • Another story arc has a bull-hanyou. He is an involuntary shapeshifter, and looks like a human during the day, and like a youkai at night. The fact that he has a human father and a demonic mother strongly implies that bull-youkai can their shapes also changing and how humans can look.
  • Many fans support the theory that even wolf-youkai can switch between their human-like and their demonic form, even if one has never seen such a transformation in anime or manga.
  • In general, the ability to transform into a human-like form is a feature of really strong youkai. Sango says early in the series that the strongest and most dangerous youkai are the ones who can look like humans.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Diamond is Unbreakable has Mikitaka Hazekura, a guy (or alien) with a stand (or alien powers) that allows him to transform into almost anything. He seems to be able to combine his strength with those of other people: when he turned into sneakers for Josuke to wear, he notes that their strength combined is what made them able to move away so fast. Although he can transform into almost any object, he is unable to transform into complex items like machines or something that requires more strength than his own to operate (i.e., dynamite) and copy the appearances of other people (he claims it's because all humans look the same to him).
  • Stardust Crusaders has minor villain Oingo, whose Stand, Khnum, allows him to change his appearance at will, as long as the result is human. He can't change his clothes, but he can transform his hair into a hat. Rubber Soul has a similar power (and he can imitate clothes too), however, his Stand, Yellow Temperance, is a Blob Monster that's constantly hungry, so he hardly can keep up the act.
• Tomoe and Mizuki, Nanami's two familiars from Kamisama Kiss, are shown capable of shapeshifting at will. Mizuki is only shown to be able to transform from his normal human form to a white snake. Tomoe, on the other hand, is a Little Bit Beastly Kitsune who is shown to be able to transform himself and other people into just about anything and anyone he damn well pleases.
• Aside from the examples mentioned under Animorphism, Lyrical Nanoha also has the cyborg Due, who can reshape her appearance for long-term infiltration missions.
• Yamimaru of Millennium Snow is usually a bat, but he can transform into one of two human forms for a few hours per day. He can also switch freely between the two forms.
• Monster Musume:
  • Suu the Slime Girl is capable of shifting into various forms, including an accurate (clothed) impersonation of Kimihito, and can do rather accurate vocal impressions of the other characters. She can also transform into clothes to disguise other extraspecies characters as humans. However, since she's mostly unaware of human mannerisms (or at least of their cultural purposes), she tends to have an Uncanny Valley effect on other characters.
  • Doppel the Doppelgänger^note Well, she's not technically a true doppelganger since she doesn't shapeshift into and stalk people, but she's called so In-Universe because they didn't have a word for what she actually was. can change her form for infiltration and surveillance purposes. She reveals that her transformations are only skin-deep and don't include Power Copying; so, for example, when she transforms into the friendly neighborhood Arachne girl she doesn't have a spinneret and has to use a rope to perform bondage. Like Suu, she can transform her hair into clothes, and as such is also a Technically Naked Shapeshifter.
  • Luz, the Miko Kitsune girl, is capable of transforming herself, and uses her powers to hold a Magical Girl Tokusatsu stage show. Unlike the previous two examples, Luz is incapable of changing her clothes, and has to rely on Rachnera to make new costumes on the fly when she transforms. When Luz starts going unexpectedly off-script, Rachnera is unable to keep up the costume-making, leading to an epic Wardrobe Malfunction.
• Musuko ga Kawaikute Shikataganai Mazoku no Hahaoya: This is the special power of Valentine, the demon idol. Initially she can even transform into inanimate objects, but after Merii fixes her voice she says that the power has grown weaker. Even then she can still assume the form of any person, human or demon, that she wants.
• Naruto:
  • The Shapeshifting Technique is a very basic ninjutsu that can turn the user into people, creatures, and objects of the same size or smaller. It can also let them fuse with and transform another living being, including a much larger one. It's implicitly only skin deep, instantly coming undone when the user is damaged and demonstrating little effect on physical ability (it's given a large summoned creature claws; that's pretty much it). It's mainly used for deception, though disguising as other people tends to fail because the Imposter Forgot One Detail. Turning into objects has a better success rate.
  • Other ninja have specific forms of shapeshifting that are more specialized, but better for fighting and other purposes. Orochimaru in particular has converted himself into a serpentine Rubber Man. He also has a more drastic form of disguise where he tears off the victim's face and wear it on yourself.
  • Special note should be given to the Jinchuriki, who (when influenced with the chakra of the tailed beast inside them) slowly turn into the tailed beast. Naruto's is explicitly detailed, showing him gain the fox aura and whiskers, then shape, bone, muscles and sinew, and begin to grow fur by the time he reaches 8 of his 9 tails.
• Nyanko-sensei/Madara in Natsume's Book of Friends. Aside from being able to go from Sleep-Mode Size (a Maneki Neko) to his true form (a gigantic wolf spirit) on command, he changes into a human girl once in a while when being a cat is inconvenient. He also took Natsume's form once to keep Natsume's family and friends from realizing anything had happened when Natsume was trapped in a magic jar. This was not entirely convincing. To be fair, it was probably deliberate when he slipped up with Tanuma.
• Eve Nueschwanstein from NEEDLESS has the ability "Doppelganger", which allows her to morph her body into any shape or form, but this power is offset by a constant need for calories to balance the drain this power puts on her body.
• The slime sisters from Negima! Magister Negi Magi seem to have this ability. Some demons also appear to have some abilities along this line, though the primary example had features (horns -> hair) that showed up regardless.
• The alien characters of Nyaruko: Crawling with Love! can all do this, but almost universally stick with human forms not only as a courtesy to the human cast but because, as Lovecraftian beings, their other forms would drive ordinary people insane. Normally this just means the heroic aliens changing into their combat forms, like Nyarko's Kamen Rider-inspired Full Force Form; the worst we get in this regard is her brother Nyar-O, whose combat form is the Bloody Tongue, a giant black creature with a tongue for a head.
  • The original light novel shows a bit more, establishing that Nyarlathotepians have the racial ability to reshape the facial features of their human form; Nyarko makes her face look like a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo version of Nanoha Takamichi to prove to Mahiro that she's an alien. In the anime he just takes her word for it, mainly because she just saved his life by putting her hand through the chest of a horrifying monster.
• Magical Girls in Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo can use their powers to change shape. Among forms used are ravens, a mean looking dog, and an adult form of the girl.
• One Piece has quite a few shifters in the cast. Mostly because the Devil Fruits' powers more often than not involve altering the user's body in some way. The Devil Fruits come in three kinds, all of which have shifters amongst them.
  • The first class are the Paramecia, which gives the user superhuman powers of some sort, which may or may not include some form of shapeshifting.
    • The most literal version of this trope is the Mane Mane no Mi which allows the user to copy the body of anyone whose face he has touched with his right hand (or can remember his appearance). To change into a certain person, he touches his right cheek, and to change back into himself, he touches his left. The catch? He can't imitate clothes.
  • The second class are the Zoan, which allow the user to transform completely or partially into an animal, or an hybrid form between the user's original species and devil fruit's target species.
    • A special example of this type is Tony Tony Chopper, a reindeer who ate the Hito Hito no Mi which allows him to turn into human and have human intelligence. In addition to the basic three natural forms he can shapeshift into, he can acquire four others through the use of the "Rumble Balls" he invented. He takes this further after a Time Skip, in which he claims to have been able to change the seven forms he can transform into, and on a side note reveals he now only needs the Rumble Ball for one of the seven.
  • And the third class is are the Logia, which allows the user to generate, control or become a particular element. All of the users of Logia Devil Fruits are Elemental Shapeshifters by definition, with the exception of the Yami Yami no Mi
• In Pokémon Heroes, the Pokémon Latias commonly shapeshifts into the human Bianca; the only differences between the pair is that Latias does not wear the beret and is voiceless. Her version is unlike Ditto/Mew's as here it is that the Latias can be seen in her true form with a pair of thermogoggles owned by Annie and Oakley.
• Pretty Cure is positively full of this:
  • Several Mentor Mascot characters, especially in the most recent years, are able to change into human form, most notably all four main mascots from Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and its sequel GoGo, as well as pre-Heel–Face Turn Siren/Ellen from Suite Pretty Cure ♪, who could also change into other people. As if that wasn't enough, Pop from Smile Pretty Cure! is a Ninja with the ability to change into anything the situation calls for.
  • Villainous characters were no stranger to this, either. Two of Futari wa Pretty Cure's first Quirky Miniboss Squad (and all three of the fourth) changed their appearances on occasion — Poisony, in particular, used at least four different disguises, one of which was a convincing impersonation of Honoka. And in Yes! Pretty Cure 5 the shift from human appearance to animalistic combat form happens nearly Once an Episode.
  • And while it's certainly not on the same scale, all of the Magical Girls in the franchise undergo some kind of physical change when they transform, ending up with longer hair at the very least.
• Ahiru from Princess Tutu is somewhere in between Voluntary and Involuntary Shapeshifting. She turns back into her duck form when she quacks—which she sometimes does on purpose, but also accidentally triggers when she responds in shock by quacking. (She can also stop the transformation if she slaps her hand over her mouth in time, however.) She can turn into a girl using water, and finally into a magical girl at will as long as she has her pendant.
• The beautiful Playboy Bunny Melona from Queen's Blade has this ability, and uses it for both deception, and combat purposes.
• Rage of Bahamut: Genesis has the Nephilim Amira. She can freely switch between her angelic form and demonic shape.
• Rebuild World: The Rebuild Institute Tyke Bomb Haruka, due to a Nanomachine Super Serum derived from Lost Technology, is able to freely shapeshift between being a group of spider like monsters with an Energy Weapon, or two extra versions of herself, capable of Pulling Themselves Together and regenerating From a Single Cell. She also disguises herself as furniture in a Sensor Suspense scene.
• Sgt. Frog: To date, Sumomo, Pururu, and Miruru can all take on human form. It's suggested that this is a uniquely female privilege — or maybe another excuse to draw cute human girls...
  • In Pururu's case, it's actually a Class A Pekopon suit only usable by Class A invaders, while the Keroro platoon is considered class F. Although never directly shown in the anime, it's actually a mechanical suit that has hidden rocket boosters around its body in the manga.
• The Morphs from Shadows House are tiny black fairies that can shapeshift into animal, but the result is jet-black and featureless. Shadows are the result of Morphs imitating humans. Their newfound human intelligence causes them to forget their Morph origins.
• Weapons in Soul Eater are otherwise-normal humans (besides their titular taste for corrupted souls) who can each transform into one of a variety of devices, including but not limited to scythes, guns, knives, shurikens, and chainsaws. The catch: Most cannot fight by themselves, and require a Meister to wield them.
• Jin Tachibana from Talentless Nana can shapeshift into any animal as well as other people, including perfectly imitating their powers. He has two restrictions: 1.He can only shapeshift into Talented and 2.He can't shapeshift into dead people. And as it turns out, Jin Tachibana is not his original identity.
• Tenchi Muyo!:
  • Zero (later Ryoko Hakubi) and (sort of) Washuu, and in the spinoffs there are: Ryoko Balouta of Tenchi Muyo! GXP, Doll/Mexiah of Tenchi Muyo: War on Geminar, and even Kei in Spaceship Agga Ruter.
  • Ryo-Ohki has the ability to transform into a spaceship; after absorbing Mass she can also transform into a full-sized human female (possibly) covered in brown fur (it's hard to tell), a small sized human/cabbit form, her spaceship form, and her default cabbit form.
  • In Tenchi Universe there is also Ken-Ohki, a white cabbit able to also transform into a spaceship.
  • In Tenchi in Tokyo, Ryo-Ohki displays the ability to become various mecha.
• Origami Cyclone of Tiger & Bunny can shapeshift into anyone he's touched. We find out he can also do inanimate objects later in the series when he turns into a wanted poster during a manhunt.
• Yami in To Love Ru (that is an Expy of Eve from Black Cat). She has Prehensile Hair which she can transform into anything and she is a living Shapeshifter Weapon. She is also able to change parts of her body into animal-like features that gives her extra capabilities, growing a pair of white feathered wings from her back similer to an angel, to enable her fight. She can also turn her legs into a fish tail similar to a mermaid with gills that lets her breath and swim better underwater.
  • The sequel To love Ru Darkness introduce Mea and Nemesis, other two "Living Weapons" similar to Yami (and more prone to use their powers for pervert things):
    • Mea can alter the shape and size of her body or parts of it, like making her breasts bigger. Mea can also alter her size to copy the form and appearance of anyone (eg: Tearju), similar to shapeshifting.
    • Nemesis can alter her appearance and reshape her body to look more adult-like and even change her appearance to look exactly like other people. She can fully transform into animals, even those much smaller than herself, such as a crow or a cat. She can also grow a pair of butterfly wings that gives her the ability to fly.
• Tanuki in The Eccentric Family are able to shape shift at will, in varying degrees of proficiency, just like their mythological counterparts.
• Female protagonists Tomoe and Mio in TSUKIMICHI -Moonlit Fantasy- are a dragon and a Giant Spider in their true forms, respectively, but spend much of their time in the bodies of beautiful human girls. It's even noted that Makoto, the male protagonist, and their love interest, is hesitant to actually bed them because he knows what they really look like — although he does ultimately surrender to their feelings.

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