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  • Many Shoujo related stuff. They may not always keep the wings, but the wings will always show up in their Magical Girl transformation or something. And of course, wings are decorated on their accessories, weapons, and battle outfits as well.
  • Air Gear: When Minami Ikki discovers the wing road and later on the storm road, his motif is often depicted as a set of wings. He can also literally summon a pair of wings from his Air Treks whenever he enters the Wing road.
  • Used in Angelic Layer, where the most powerful Deus had an Angel that could spontaneously grow wings. By the end of the series, so could the protagonist - but only in the anime.
  • Armitage III: The upgrade that Armitage receives at the end of the OVA plays with this, as the wings (and the subsequent mobility they provide) is half of the upgrade. Even Armitage finds them to be a little pretentious.
    Armitage: It's a little too angelic for my taste.
  • Subverted in Battle Angel Alita: Last Order. In the ZOTT Finals, Alita grows a pair of enormous, angel-like wings with damascus blades instead of feathers, which seem to hamper her more than anything else. Her actual thoughts shortly after growing them? "Seriously though, what's with these wings?! They're in the way! Why did I grow them in the first place?"
  • When Griffith becomes a Godhand at the end of Berserk, he takes on a rather sleek demonic form with batlike Cape Wings known as Femto.
  • Black Clover:
    • Asta's Black Asta form comes with vastly increased speed, power, and control of the anti-magic in his blades. It also gives him a devil wing on his right side, a horn, turns the right side of his hair black, and a red devil eye.
    • When Yuno combines with Sylph, he gets a massive power boost to his Wind Magic, complete with a crown, a crown like bracelet made of mana around his left hand, and eventually a sword made of pure mana. He also gains a fairy like wing on his back.
    • Noelle's Valkyrie Armor form has her gain a boost to her magical power and speed, with wing-like ornaments that jut out from her lower back and help her to fly through the air.
  • Bleach: This trope is often combined with One-Winged Angel for final-form powerups.
    • Byakuya Kuchiki manifests an aura in the shape of a pair of wings when he uses the "Final Scene, White Imperial Sword" attack of his Empathic Weapon.
    • Toshiro Hitsugaya gets a pair of ice wings when he unleashes his bankai.
    • Uryu Ishida gains a single wing of light when he unleashes his ultimate power. It's later stated this was an incomplete form of an even more advanced Quincy technique, which can produce two wings.
    • Ulquiorra's bat wings.
    • Tosen's fly-like wings in his resurrección and Aizen's brief butterfly-like wings when fused to the hogyoku.
    • Ginjo gets some weird-ass dragonfly wings when he unleashes his full power. The anime made them bright pink.
  • Parodied in Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo: Bo-bobo, after showing off the powers of his new jacket when fighting Wild Wister, says he can grow even stronger, and sprouts wings....out of his afro.
  • The Fly card in Cardcaptor Sakura initially causes wings to grow on Sakura's sealing staff, which she then can ride like a Flying Broomstick. But early in the Sakura Card arc, she changes the card to instead grow wings on her back, letting her fly alone and leaving the staff free to be used with the Sword card. Kero is completely astonished that she was capable of this.
  • The protagonist of Clover deploys an Arm Cannon from his prosthetic arm at the end of the story. It has wings for no particular reason.
  • In Code Geass, the ninth-generation Knightmare Frames, the Lancelot Albion and Guren SEITEN both sport glowing, angel-like wings made of green and red energy, respectively.
  • In Day Break Illusion, another magical girl series, Ginka gains red and blue wings (and even a halo!) in her Tenebrae form.
  • It's probably easier to name the Digimon who don't get wings (or at least some form of flight) as they reach their highest levels of power. Though Digimon does have a bit of a trend that the more wings you have, the more powerful you are. Example; Angemon, (six wings), Magnaangemon (eight wings), and Seraphimon, (ten wings).
  • Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure. During the final battle, after the limiter is removed, Zinv gets Lighthawk Wings and runs out of bubble gum.
  • In Fairy Tail, when Wendy obtains Dragon Force, she grows white feathers on her back that resemble wings, which makes sense considering that the Sky Dragon Grandine (who taught her her magic in the first place) actually has a more bird-like form than most Dragons, including feathery wings.
  • In GaoGaiGar, both J-Der and King J-Der have a utility called Plasma Wing. It basically gives the mecha 10 peacock-tailfeather-shaped wings, that allow them to travel much faster, and are fueled by raw determination. King J-Der only uses its Plasma Wings once, however, as part of its special attack, J-Phoenix, where it sets itself on fire and rams the enemy.
  • In Guardian Fairy Michel, Michel's most common power-up is the ability to grow wings.
  • Various machines in the Gundam multiverse have wings in various forms, mostly Mid Season Upgrades:
  • Hellsing: Alucard and Seras are both capable of sprouting shadowy wings when they wish to quickly move from point A to point B without interference. However, they still can't cross running water without help.
  • In a more comedic example, England from Hetalia: Axis Powers grows a pair of white, feathery wings in his Britannia Angel form.
  • In Hyper Speed GranDoll, Hikaru's final power-up, Gran Master, comes with wings.

  • In the climax of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency, once Kars uses the power of the Red Stone of Aja to reach his ultimate form, he grows a pair of wings. Sort of a subversion though, since the wings weren't an inherent part of his powerup— one of his new abilities was shapeshifting, and he created the wings for the specific purpose of chasing down Joseph's plane.
  • In K: Missing Kings, Anna gets Hot Wings after Awakening as the new Red King.
  • Both Yayois in Koi Koi 7, who have wings in white and black, respectively. The pink-haired Yayoi made a Diving Save with hers, and the silver-haired Yayoi's wings were mostly limited to the OP to show that she meant trouble.
  • Lyrical Nanoha:
    • Hayate sprouts six black wings when she unisons with Reinforce, and Signum gains wings of fire when she unisons with Agito.
    • While Nanoha herself doesn't do this, her staff Raising Heart does, the number and size of the wings it sprouts for any given spell are a good rough indicator of just how much someone's going to get hurt. Subaru's Mach Caliber has Gear Excellion, which is a blue version of Nanoha's and she uses it against her older sister Ginga, who's been Brainwashed by Scaglietti as a Number.
    • Admiral Lindy sprouts wings when receiving Mana beamed from Arthra's main reactor. It's more of a side-effect, a sign of the ship's massive output, as the wings are made of excess Mana, rather than what she directly uses for her magic. It's also a Mythology Gag to the original Lyrical Toy Box story that evolved into Nanoha, wherein she's a fairy.
  • Both Arika and Ninaof My-Otome grow wings during their final battle.
  • Once they turn into their mecha forms, the Mashin of Magic Knight Rayearth each have enormous wings based on their animal forms. Selece has draconic wings, Windam has bird wings, and Rayearth the wolf has fire wings. Oh, and in Part II of the manga, Mokona gains angelic wings when it reveals itself to be the Creator.
  • Mazinger Z: One of the many Mid Season Upgrades that the titular Humongous Mecha gets is the Jet Scrander, a Jet Pack with huge, red Razor Wings.
  • Rin Asougi in Mnemosyne sprouts a pinkish-white pair of wings after becoming the new Guardian of Yggdrasil. It may be interesting to mention that there are "normal" Winged Humanoids (appropriately called "angels") in the series but their wings are bloody red in color.
  • Michel in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch starts out with four wings. After killing the Black Beauty Sisters and stealing their Life Energy, he's got six.
  • Naruto:
    • In the "Rescue Sasuke" arc, Chouji uses a number of food pills during a battle to give him power boosts. The third one instantly converts all his body fat into chakra, which blaze from his back like glowing blue butterfly wings (Chouji means "butterfly"). He is later able to summon the chakra wings without taking the red pill.
    • Also Sasuke's Curse Seal Level Two, though instead of being angelic they're more of a cross between bat wings and webbed hands, and he can't fly, just glide and use them as shields.
  • Setsuna's pactio card in Negima!? (second season) gives her large, beautiful white wings with which to fly around slicing the Monster of the Week. Does not apply in the main manga, as she (as a half-crow demon) has the power to pull out from the beginning but largely does just fine without them.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion:
    • Rei Ayanami gets a set of six wings in End of Evangelion. Suitably, her wings become so large, they can cover the entire earth.
    • Unit 01 and Shinji gain wings of pure energy when exiting the Geofront explosively, giving it a Seraph-like appearance. Except it doesn't really help, as he finds outside the reason why he fought—the last person who he thought alive who he loved—turns out to have been eaten, that being Asuka.
    • Unit 01 also sprouts six energy wings in the opening, even though that never occurs in the show itself (until the movie, anyway). Also, Adam sprouted quite a few wings...probably six too, before it initiated Second Impact, wiping out half of humanity and messing up the World's Ecosystem permanently.
    • A more straight example appears in Rebuild of Evangelion after Eva-01 merges with Rei and the remains of Zeruel (who had been given a very epic ass-kicking from Shinji) and grows wings of energy.
  • The Thriller Bark arc of One Piece had Robin showcasing a power where she can use her Hana Hana abilities to makes wings. The downside is that she can only stay in the air for five seconds. The wings are made of body parts after all.
  • In Phantom Thief Jeanne, Jeanne got a large wings in the final of the anime.
  • In Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl, during the Sinnoh Grand Festival where Zoey battles Nando. Mismagius used Psywave to give Leafeon an awesome set of glowing Hard Light wings.
  • All spirits in the world of Polyphonica have wings by default; the more they have, the more powerful they are. A great majority of them are two-winged, but one of the most powerful, Corti, has six.
  • Prétear, Pretear's final form White Pretear has huge translucent butterfly wings.
  • Very common in the Pretty Cure franchise:
    • Since Fresh Pretty Cure!, every movie features the lead Cure getting an upgrade with wings which later appear in the final of each TV series, but that said upgrade includes the entire group.
    • In the second Futari wa Pretty Cure MaX Heart movie, the main characters got wings, new hairstyles and new costumes.
    • In the first Yes! Pretty Cure 5 movie, the team becomes Super Precure 5 and grows butterfly wings. In the second, the leader becomes Shining Cure Dream, with feathery wings. The butterfly wings appear in the final of Yes! 5 GoGo again.
    • In Fresh Pretty Cure! Cure Peach becomes Cure Angel with angel wings. In the final episode of the series, everyone becomes Cure Angel.
    • Averted in HeartCatch Pretty Cure!, where the the wings of their Super Mode are already featured before the movie was aired and the ultimate upgrade in the series is something completely different.
    • In Suite Pretty Cure ♪ movie, Cure Melody becomes Cure Crescendo Melody with two pairs of golden wings. The group gets this upgrade later in the final episode.
    • In Smile Pretty Cure! movie, Cure Happy becomes Ultra Cure Happy, the group gets the Ultra upgrade in the final episode. However, Ultra Cure Happy's wings are much larger in the movie than in the series.
    • The Pretty Cure All Stars movies give every Cure new wings in the final battles.
  • Kaoru from Psychic Squad gets angel wings when she faces off against one of Mio's clones combined with a bulldozer. The show's second opening theme is titled "MY WINGS", and plays up the wing symbolism further by showing the entire trio with wings.
  • Puella Magi Madoka Magica: The eponymous character gets a pair of wings in her Goddess form. Later, Homura inherits this power. At an unspecified time in the future, her wings turn into a disturbing black tattered wings-thingie.
  • All Tennyo, save for Akira and Ryo, in Rakugo Tennyo Oyui, have a pair of glowing wings on the back of their magical girl outfits.
  • Reborn! (2004): After Byakuran finishes finishes his little Exposition about Ghost, he shows off the flames Ghost absorbed as wings.
  • Sailor Moon:
    • Sailor Moon has wings during her second transformation; for about 3 seconds before they disappear in a burst of feathers. She also has wings on her Eternal fuku, but these appear to be purely decorative along with her Frilly Upgrade. Later on, when it's time for the final battle, she grows real wings. Her opponent, Sailor Galaxia, grows demon wings.
    • In the manga, Moon, ChibiChibi, the Starlights, and Kakyuu can grow wings and fly in space, apparently.
  • In Saint Beast, all angels have wings, but most can't use them. Among the characters that can, however, are Rey, who gets functional wings bestowed on him at the Day of Benediction ceremony as mediated sort of power-up, and Luca an Amnesiac God, whose wings appear under duress.
  • Saint Seiya:
    • Every single time (particularly in the movies) Seiya's Cosmo burns bright enough to make him a real threat to the latest Big Bad, he summons the Sagittarius armor to him to replace the Pegasus Cloth. The wings, golden halo, and bow and arrow seem designed to inspire an angelic symbolism.
    • The Divine Cloths of the Saints are more powerful and winged versions of their normal armours. Especially notable with Shun and Shiryu since, while the other three bronze saints have winged animal motifs, Shiryu's symbolism is all based on the (wingless) Chinese dragon and Shun's patron constellation is a human princess. Yet, god cloth equals wings.
    • In Saint Seiya Omega and Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold, the new Bronze Saints and the original Gold Saints respectively get Omega cloths and god gold cloths with brand new wings.
  • Nodoka of Saki, when she's channeling the Nodocchi personality that allowed her to become the top online Mahjong player, will be depicted as sprouting wings from her back.
  • The Samurai Pizza Cats had a Mid-Season Upgrade with robot bird booster packs, which granted them flight capability and some increase in power.
  • Wings are very prominent in Sekirei, where a kiss from an Ashikabi is required to "wing" a Sekirei, granting them greater power. More a case of "wings give you power", but still a good example.
  • In Shugo Chara!, Amu and Utau's most powerful forms - Amulet Diamond and Seraphic Charm - both have very large wings that enable them to fly in pretty formations. Utau's prove useful, as the feathers purify all the X-Eggs in the area.
  • Soul Eater:
    • Maka demonstrates her new-found power (special 'Grigori' soul plus Death Scythe partner) by producing wings on Soul for them to fly with. Cute but unimpressive at first, Soul Resonance transforms them into large, angelic ones. They were only cute and unimpressive because Maka demanded cute wings. She later grows out of that line of thinking. It was also down to her and Soul disagreeing on the image of wings. Maka wanted 'cute angel', Soul could not imagine 'angelic' in relation to Maka, and the conflict makes them crash. The compromise resulted in the little wings they got when flying with Kim. As per usual, their mutual feeling and badassery allowed them to up the ante to fight Gopher. As with the black blood, the rather cool wings shown in that fight might well end up the norm.
    • Much earlier on, the result of consuming the souls collected by Nidhogg enables Crona and Ragnarok to grow wings. Kid appropriately calls them the "black dragon".
    • Hiro grows a pair of wings made of light while holding Excalibur.
    • Gopher's own grigori soul allows him to grow wings (though not physical ones) to fly, but unlike Maka's they are black which she puts down to magic, presumably Noah's influence.
  • Sword Art Online: In The Movie Ordinal Scale and the Alicization anime, when Asuna uses Yuuki's Mother's Rosario, she grows a pair of angelic wings.
  • Both Ameri and Yumina receive wings during the course of events in Tayutama. Yumina's wings are angelic and golden, so they're clearly good. Ameri's are dragonlike and black, so they are clearly bad.
  • Tenchi Muyo!, where Tenchi and Juraian warships have the Light Hawk Wings.
    • Much like kitsune mythology, the number of Light Hawk Wings shows how much power one has up to nine wings. Three is the highest a mortal can possess; ten wings are worn by gods and goddesses. Tenchi's not mortal, as the final (current) episode of the OVA shows that Tenchi's now sporting five of those things. Ryoko (as the daughter of a goddess) will also be able to have ten of them when she reaches full maturity (if Tenchi gives her back her other two power gems, that is), but given that she hasn't done so yet after 5000 years, who knows how long that will take.
  • In the Trigun anime finale, Vash's and Knives's Angel Arms are unleashed to the maximum level, and spontaneously sprout wings.
    • In the manga, Vash and Knives growing feathers and wings is a sign they're activating their powers as Plants (and that normal humans should run for their lives). At one point the former loses control and morphs into a bizarre feathery creature that seems made up of nothing but wings, struggling not to kill everything around him.
    • Trigun Stampede gives the same two characters wings in the finale of the first season, but takes a different tack, with only a single wing each. Vash's wing comes from his left shoulder and is dark and twisted, while Knives's emerges from his right and looks clean and metallic.
  • The Crusniks in Trinity Blood sprout wings in their more powerful forms.
  • Violinist of Hameln: Hamel sprouts wings while delivering the final blow to Kestra. It was the first time his angel blood showed. The wings disappear soon after.
  • In Umi Monogatari, Urin appears with a pair of butterfly wings after she awakens from a literal cocoon. In the final episodes the wings grow huge and colorful.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh!: Capsule Monsters, Yami Yugi gains wings after using the Duel Armor to merge with his monsters. Usually, these monsters either have wings themselves or can fly on their own.

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