Morphic Resonance / Anime & Manga

• Attack on Titan: Most Titans retain at least some of their looks from before they were transformed. Notably, the Kawaii/Peering Titan looks almost exactly like his human self (an Eldian restorationist), and Connie holds up a picture showing the eerie resemblance between the House Titan and his mother. This is also used as Foreshadowing for the identities of the Titan Shifters. The Rogue/Attack Titan retains Eren's hair and eye color, the Armored Titan has Reiner's short blonde hair and distinctive Heroic Build, the Colossal Titan has Bertholt's eye color, and the Female Titan looks pretty much exactly like Annie would if she were 15 meters tall, had her hair down, and didn't have any skin.
• Ayakashi Triangle:
  • Garaku is the tsukumogami of an paintbrush. While a humanoid instead an Animate Inanimate Object, his hair resembles the bristles at the end of brush, especially when poking out of his hat.
  • Though Une is currently a floating mirror, she used to look like a human oiran and temporarily reverts to that form in the present. Her human form has the same eyebrows as her mirror form, wears lipstick the same color as its mouth, hair similar to the clouds around it in shape and color, and the handle sticks out of her head like a hairpin.
  • When Matsuri is turned into a cat, his fur is long, silver, and spiky just like his hair as a human.
• Berserk:
  • Apostles tend to carry signs of their humanoid form into their demonic form, and vice versa. Typically, their humanoid form has a few tells (sharp teeth, strange proportions, animal parts, wings), while their demon form maintains their human face somewhere on its body (for instance, Grunbeld, who turns into a dragon, has his human face on the tip of his nose).
  • When Griffith incarnates as Femto, one of his primary features is the demonic hood he wears, which is very similar to the helm that he wore as the leader of the Band of the Hawks. Explained in the deleted chapter, where he specifically asks to the Idea of Evil to "give him wings", implying that he chose exactly his demonic form.
• Black Clover: In both her human and bird forms, Nero/Secre Swallowtail has her horns and slanted eyes. Even her black dress in her human form resembles feathers.
• Cyborg 009: 007 can turn himself into anyone, but he always retains his decided pronounced belly button, and reverts to his original form if it is pressed.
• Digimon:
  • C'mon Digimon: Deathmon always keeps the same face no matter what it transforms into.
  • Metamorphmon's eyes are always off compared to whatever it turns into in Digimon V-Tamer 01.
  • Digimon Frontier has Susanoomon, the combined form and Mind Hive of all ten Legendary Warriors. It has Agunimon's blue eyes and red Facial Markings.
  • Splashmon of Digimon Fusion can transform into anyone, but all of his disguises have his purple eyeliner.
• Doraemon: The titular character have one of his gadgets, the Animal Cookies, which allows anyone who eats them to turn into any animals they want based on the cookies eaten, but they'll retain some of the user's features - notably, animals Nobita changed into will have eyes shaped like Nobita's glasses. Said cookies plays a major role in What Am I for Momotaro with Shizuka, Gian and Suneo eating the cookies to become Momotaro's (actually a disguised Nobita) companions - the pheasant, ape and dog. Shizuka's pheasant form keeps her pigtails, while Suneo's dog form have his pointed mouth.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Played with. Envy shapeshifts for missions in order to instigate conflicts and gain intel, so they only appear as other characters. When their true form is revealed, it turns out they were doing this the whole time. Envy actually looks like a monster with black hair, an alchemic pattern on their forehead, and no discernible gender — all traits they have in their preferred form (albeit in a more attractive way).
  • Subverted in the 2003 anime, where they actually closely resemble Hohenheim, their father whom they hate. As such, they create a preferred form that looks nothing like their real body.
• Fushigi Yuugi: Chichiri does an impeccable impersonation of cold, calculating Nakago...except he brings his own propensity for going Super-Deformed. Hilarity Ensues.
• Gintama: A story arc has Gintoki transformed into a cat by a curse, but he retains his curly silver hair, dull eyes, and voice. Katsura suffers the same fate, but it's downplayed in his case, as he only retains his hair color and eye color and isn't readily identifiable until he uses his Catchphrase.
• Gundam Sousei: In a meta example, this Dramatization of the creation of Mobile Suit Gundam depicts the show's voice actors as looking like their characters. This varies between people: Shūichi Ikeda looks like an older, black-haired Char, while Tōru Furuya looks exactly like Amuro.
• Hell Teacher Nube:
  • An accident with a magical artifact temporarily shoves Miss Minako's soul into Miss Ritsuko's body, resulting in a mishmash that calls herself "Miss Rinako". Her appearance is a combination of both women right down to the outfit and hairstyle.
  • Whenever Nube is completely taken over by the Oni Hand, he looks nothing like Baki, the actual Oni sealed in his hand, but as Nube himself with monstrous features.
  • Hayame the mermaid, who has several distinguishing features in her true form (such as webbed hands, large gills on her ribcage, and fin-like ears,) keeps her exact same face and hairstyle as a human.
  • Subverted with Tamamo, the yohko. This type of kitsune steals human skulls for his own use, which grants him the exact appearance of whoever the previous owner was (up to and including hairstyle.) This causes some discomfort when the fiancée of his last victim shows up, thinking that her missing fiancée has finally come back from his hiking accident.
  • A mystic tree in the school's playground releases insects that have a heavy resemblance to whoever sticks their finger in a knot and gives it some blood. As in, when the girls tried it, they got butterflies and moths that looked exactly like them but with wings. However, these insects quickly degenerated into horrifying "halfway" states. Nube settled the commotion down by producing Nube-faced Hercules beetles complete with gloved Red Right Hands that subdued the monstrous bugs.
  • The spirit of bedridden Ayumi, who attends school via astral projection, still wears her glasses even though a projection wouldn't need them. She clearly does this to preserve her self-image, since she, Tamamo, and Nube (who taught her how to project) can modify their projections at will, to the point they could be blobs of ectoplasm if they wanted.
  • The Oni Siblings are all over the place: Baki's human form is heavily muscled, has wild hair, and prefers intimidating clothes like biker jackets and chains, and he closely resembles his original shape. Zekki's human form is a wispy bishonen that is nothing like the huge and horrific monstrosity of his Oni appearance. Minki looks exactly the same whether human or Oni, just minus the horn and the monstrous right hand from the latter form.
• Inuyasha:
  • Shippo always keeps his tail. See the mention of the kitsune in the Myths folder below.
  • Naraku, much to his frustration, retains the spider-shaped burn scar that marks him as part-human. The latter is so persistent that ripping the skin from his back or burning it off (which his Healing Factor enables him to do without any long-term consequences) will only result in his skin growing back with the mark intact. The same applies to all of his detachments.
• Jewelpet: Magical Change: The Jewelpets can turn into humans by using their Jewelwatches while Airi's pendant gives them a boost in magical power. Their human forms all retain some features from their pet forms, primarily relating to their color schemes, but they do keep some other physical features as well; for example, Ruby as a human wears a ribbon in her hair similar to her animal form's rabbit ears, Labra wears her bear ears as an accessory, Peridot has tufts of hair on the sides of her head that look like her Ear Wings, and she and Sapphie both keep their dog tails.
• Kaiju Girl Caramelise: Whenever Kuroe Akaishi transforms into Harugon, not only do her eyes stay the same, the horns she sprouts resemble two spiky tufts of hair she has as a human.
• Little Witch Academia: Akko's signature spell is one that transforms her into various animals. They all retain her top knot.
• Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: Played for Laughs in the Hot Springs Episode when everyone imagines what Kobayashi would look like if she was a dragon and all their Imagine Spots keep her head unchanged.
• Monster Musume: Regardless of whether she's in blob, child, or adult form, or mimicking another person or object, Suu always has her antenna, though she can at least conceal it when forming a perfect imitation of someone else.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Graf Herrmann keeps his horns when he's pretending to be a human. To be more accurate, his horns turn into a strange, curving hairstyle that look like his horns.
• Nyankees: The cats' human designs have elaborate clothes and hairstyles that mimic their true forms. For example, Ryuusei's star-shaped belly patch appears as a star-shaped patch on his jacket, and he still has the torn left ear in both forms.
• Ojamajo Doremi: As witch apprentices, the main characters can turn into pretty much any animal they want. However, no matter what form they assumed, their fur will always be of the girls' signature colors and Doremi will always end up with her trademark Odango Hair somehow, even if the animal in question doesn't even have hair. Likewise, Hazuki somehow never loses her glasses upon transforming.
• One Piece: This rule holds true for all characters who have eaten Zoan-type Devil Fruits, which allow them to turn into specific animals. Usually, they keep their headgear, if any, and often their hair. The most prominent example is Kaku, who has a long, rectangular nose, and whose giraffe form has a long, rectangular snout (and whose body is even more box-like).
• Pokémon Adventures: Latias is able to refract light in order to resemble a human woman, using it in a variety of situations. Every time, her hairstyle is red and has a pair of fin-like extensions resembling the coloration and head fins of Latias as a Pokémon.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • There was an episode with a Ditto owned by Duplica who had this problem — it could turn into anything, but it always kept its own face, which usually looked downright ridiculous. It is eventually stolen by Team Rocket, who flat out threatened the poor thing, eventually teaching it to make a perfect transformation. Duplica returned in Johto with a second Ditto with yet another transformation issue — it could transform perfectly... just not its size when it came to big Mons. Duplica eventually decides that she'll make it her goal to try and capture an entire team of Ditto with various transformation quirks.
  • The un-transformed face, however, has since gone on to become a characteristic of all Ditto in the anime and other adaptations.
  • In the Johto-arc episode "Hocus Pokémon!", Ash is transformed into a Pikachu for a few minutes. As a Pikachu, he still had the same eyes and hairstyle.
• Pretty Cure:
  • Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure: When Kome-Kome shifts from her fox form to her human form, her human form still has pale pink hair and fox ears.
  • Hirogaru Sky! Pretty Cure: When Tsubasa shifts from his bird form to his human form, he retains the little feather on his head, in the form of a curly cowlick.
  • Wonderful Pretty Cure!: The human Cure Wonderful's pigtails resemble the ears of her dog form.
• Princess Tutu: Ahiru's duck form has a sometimes disturbingly human face and retains her trademark hair-style. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that her human form retains the trademark feather-style of her duck form.
• Ranma ½: Most of the transforming characters retain some of their regular characteristics.
  • Some are minor and make sense, like Ranma retaining his hairstyle because there's nothing in the transformation that would require undoing his braid.
  • Genma's panda form has round black circles around the eyes, looking very much like the glasses he never part with in human form. Of course, it's not like real pandas have such markings, ranging from bead-like to perfectly round.
  • Ryōga retains his Cute Little Fangs as P-chan, though that's nowhere surprising for a piglet. His trademark bandanna also almost always end up tied around P-chan's neck, and then returns to his head when changing back. Which made the "Charlotte" collar that was put on his pig form unusual, because it stayed on his neck (despite the collar being small and, unlike the bandanna, very tight) when he reverted to human.
  • Shampoo's cat-form markings match the clothes she wears most of the time, and her fur is an unusual shade of pink and purple in the anime. She also always keeps the bell-like, round hair decs tied to her bangs.
  • Mousse keeps his fringe of hair as a duck, as well as his Opaque Nerd Glasses. The glasses don't shrink, however — he owns a second pair sized for his duck form (this can be seen clearly in the manga, book 10 chapter 5).
  • An Imagine Spot where the characters envision Happōsai changing into a tiger, a monkey, or a snake, has them all imagining animals that clearly have Happōsai's features.
  • Rakkyōsai's tiny ponytail and swirly spiral markings on his cheeks remain in place whether he's a child or a tiny old man.
  • A monkey thrown into Nyannichuan, which had a very unique and nearly-human look compared to the rest of Takahashi's monkeys, retains her basic facial appearance as a human.
  • Weirdly, Rouge's translucent pants disappear whenever she becomes Asura and come back when she reverts, even though her lower body (and the rest of her wardrobe) doesn't change at all. Her waist-length hair also disappears, though that may simply be due to how hard it would be to draw long hair for one head with three faces.
  • This has also caused no end of controversy as to what the extent of curses' transformation really is. The common consensus is that cursed characters transform into "what they would look like" in the alternate form, and this is proven right by the Musk Dynasty saga (wherein another Gender Bender victim of Nyannichuan looks nothing like female Ranma, but like a female version of himself, and various animals thrown into the spring also have unique appearances and the similarity between two Nyannichuan victims is described as so rare it's actually a plot point), but muddled by the Phoenix saga (where the Phoenix people "somehow" manage to create a spring which does turn you into an exact duplicate of the original).
• Sarazanmai: Whenever the three main characters turn into Kappa, they still retain their hairstyles and Enta still wears his glasses. Reo and Mabu still have their hair and eyes as well, along with Reo keeping his sharp teeth and Mabu keeping his own glasses.
• Slayers:
  • Filia's human and dragon forms share a similar hairdo and a pink bow.
  • This is actually true of both dragons and mazoku who transform into humans. Xellos, for example, keeps the color scheme of black and purple between human and swirling cone forms.
• Transformers: Cybertron: As per usual the Transformers' keep their existing colors when they scan new modes. Additionally, their weapons and their Cyber Key slots and components impose themselves on the new form.
• Urusei Yatsura: Kitsune transforms into the other characters by essentially becoming slightly more human-like, putting on the same outfit and hairstyle as the person he wants to turn into. It never fools anyone (since he often doesn't lose the tail), but everyone plays along since he's so cute.
• Wolf's Rain: Played with. It would have made perfect sense for the wolves' fur color to match the hair of their human forms, but the colors are reversed for Kiba. Having black hair in his human form actually makes a lot of sense — it makes his skin and eyes stand out a lot, so it's not too much of a stretch that the guy with light eyes and pale skin is really a white wolf.
• The Wonderful World of Puss 'n Boots: Lucifer the ogre sorcerer keeps his crown, necklace, and beard whenever he shapeshifts. Though not always, sometimes the color of his clothes appear as the fur color of whatever animal form he takes, such as a purple cat or a large mouse with green-tinted fur.
• Yaiba: Averted with Yaiba, as some of his transformations made with the Gold Orb are complete, but played straight by Shiro Amakusa who retains his whiskers and sometimes his collar while transforming.
• Yo-kai Watch Jam The Movie: Yo-kai Academy Y - Can a Cat be a Hero? (and its spinoff series Yo-kai Watch Jam - Yo-kai Academy Y: Close Encounters of the N Kind) features human versions of several Yo-kai Watch yo-kai. They still look a lot like their yo-kai versions, such as Jibanyan's red Anime Hair resembling cat ears.