Shapeshifter Guilt Trips in Anime and Manga.
- Akame ga Kill!: Zank the Beheader reads Akame's mind and uses an illusion to make himself look like the person she loves the most, her sister Kurome. To his shock, Akame doesn't hesitate to strike him down.
- Amatsuki: The Yakou uses the bodies of Kurotobi's former teachers to stop him, Ainezu, and Kanzo from attacking.
- Ayakashi Triangle:
- Shirogane pulls a more benign example on Suzu: He shapeshifts into her crush Matsuri’s male form to beg for more food. She fully knows it’s an illusion, but finds it too frustrating to endure.Shiromatsu: Please, Suzu? I need... your dango...
Suzu (thinking): (trembling) Don’t whisper in my ear! - A corrupted baku attacks Suzu in her dreams with a copy of Matsuri, playing on her fears that Matsuri would see her as a dangerous ayakashi. This backfires horribly because while Suzu doesn't want to fight a copy of Matsuri, she'd gladly do sexual things to it without the small restraint she shows to the real thing.
- Shirogane pulls a more benign example on Suzu: He shapeshifts into her crush Matsuri’s male form to beg for more food. She fully knows it’s an illusion, but finds it too frustrating to endure.
- Bleach:
- The hollow Grand Fisher has a lure on his head. By reading his target's psyche, he can transform that lure into the person the target cares about the most. He impersonates Ichigo's dead mother early on in the series.
- Later on, an Arrancar also impersonates Kaien Shiba, Rukia's mentor, to great effect. This particular one happened to be the 9th Espada, Aaroniero Arruruerie. In both cases, the impersonator had eaten the impersonate-ee.
- A Certain Magical Index:
- The girl in the dress can make people feel in their hearts that she is someone else, usually a loved one. Shiage Hamazura is unable to attack her when she makes him feel that she is Rikou Takitsubo, his girlfriend. The girl in the dress notes that some people will attack her harder if she tries this, because by perceiving her as a loved one, they believe they have been betrayed and become enraged. When faced against Accelerator, she retreats, reasoning that the Ax-Crazy psycho would react that way.
- This happens twice in the series' New Testament Vol 6:
- Shizuri Mugino gets confronted by what seems to be Frenda Seivelun, who she had killed back when she was a bad guy and had been feeling guilty about ever since. "Frenda" orders her to atone for her sin by dying, then moves to attack her. At the last second, Mugino snaps out of it and fights back. Her hunch that it wasn't actually Frenda was right, it was a shapeshifting man who wanted to play on Mugino's guilt to weaken and then kill her.
- Teitoku Kakine makes an army with his Dark Matter that looks, sounds, and acts like the Misaka Sisters and turns them on Accelerator. Accelerator, who had sworn to protect the Misaka Sisters and is eternally guilty about killing some back when he was a bad guy, falls into despair and almost lets them kill him. Mugino steps in and saves him. Drawing on her experience with the fake Frenda, she reminds Accelerator that they're just Kakine's puppets, not the actual Misaka Sisters, which restores his will to fight.
- Dance in the Vampire Bund: One of the assassins sent after Akira in vol 4 pulled this. It worked perfectly when he took the form of Graham, a colleague whom Akira killed under as yet unknown circumstances, but then she(?) twisted the knife and tried to extract information by taking the form of Mina. Big. Mistake.
- Dragon Ball Z: Whenever Buu absorbs someone, he takes on their physical traits and mannerisms, which makes for an unnerving fight if the person fighting is a close friend or loved one.
- In Dragon Knights, Sinistora takes the form of the dead Crewger, sending Rath spiralling since Rath is currently possessing Crewger's dead body.
- Fairy Tail:
- A variation of this is used by Monsieur Sol against Elfman in the anime. He uses his earth powers to create clones of Elfman's sister Lisanna, who all begin angrily accusing him of killing her.
- Much later during the Tartarus arc, Natsu, Lucy, and Happy are going up against a demon named Franmalth who can turn into creatures whose souls he's absorbed, be they human or otherwise. He turns into two of Lucy's Spirits to invoke this on Natsu, who can't bring himself to hurt the already much-abused Aries and gets sucker-punched for refusing to attack her. Luckily, Franmalth next tries to use Taurus, who is much more capable of taking such a hit.Natsu: Now you I can hit!
- Envy of Fullmetal Alchemist positively loves this.
- In a pivotal moment, they use this to kill Hughes by transforming into a replica of the wife he adores, which makes poor old Hughes freeze just long enough to get shot. It's really clinched by his facial expression: he knows it's not Gracia, but he still can't make himself attack "her". And given Envy's regenerative powers, it wasn't really necessary either, it was just For the Evulz.
- In one encounter, Envy is about to be stabbed by Ling Yao, so they alter their appearance to that of Lan Fan, who has just been driven away to get medical attention for a severe injury she attained while protecting Ling, causing him to freeze up and enable Gluttony to swallow him. Brotherhood takes this a step further than the manga, having Envy appear as Lan Fan in her current vulnerable state; bandaged and without her left arm, her mask gone revealing a hurt expression. Though admittedly, that was because in the anime adaptation they'd only seen Lan Fan unmasked as the anime cut out their earlier fight with her, so it was due to this rather than due to any extra ruthlessness.
- In Envy's fight against Mustang near the end of the manga: Mustang finally gets to confront Envy about who murdered Hughes. Envy responds by shape-shifting into Gracia Hughes, and laughing at how easy this made killing Hughes. Mustang is not amused. During the fight, they end up in some narrow corridors, and Envy takes the opportunity to appear in Hughes's form. It does make Mustang momentarily flinch, but unfortunately for Envy, the whole reason Mustang was after them was because they had murdered Hughes, and the reminder only served to piss him off even more. It was a Curb-Stomp Battle to begin with, and that stunt only made things worse for Envy.
- Hilariously, Envy is something of a Hypocrite regarding their use of this trope, referring to it as a cheap trick and taunting opponents when they fall for it, but then turns around and tries to invoke What the Hell, Hero? on the ones that don't.Envy (to Mustang, while disguised as Hughes): What's the matter with you?! You didn't even hesitate to incinerate your best friend!
- During his climactic fight with Ed at the end of Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), Envy cycles through the forms of everyone who's been either hurt or killed as result of Ed's actions. He tries to psyche him out by turning into Dr. Marcoh, his mom/Sloth, Hughes, and Mustang (which only makes Ed attack him harder). For the most part it only makes Ed angrier (pointing out he killed Sloth when she tried it), and he even goads Envy into showing his original (human) form. Let's just say it was one family reunion Ed was not expecting, and the shock allows Envy to line up a fatal blow.
- Variation in Getter Robo Armageddon, where an Invader (who can infect humans and turn them into more Invaders) attempt to guilt-trip the Shin Getter team by coating itself in the reformed bodies of not-quite-dead victims. This successfully prevents the Shin Getter team from attacking it - but its not quite so useful defending against Ryoma and the Black Getter, who simply do not give a fuck.
- In Gonna Be the Twin-Tail!!, Fox Guildy creates a mindless duplicate of Tail Red and uses it as a shield. The original cannot bear to attack it, but Tail Blue smashes it without hesitation. Fox Guildy is shocked and asks how she could attack her own friend. Annoyed, Tail Blue says she isn't stupid; Tail Red is standing over there and she saw Fox materialize the duplicate.
- In Heaven's Lost Property, Chaos shifts in and out of the forms of Nymph's friends while beating her up and berating her. Nymph objectively knows that the being before her is Chaos and not her friends, but it doesn't matter, she's too traumatized to fight back. When Ikaros tries to attack Chaos, she shifts into Tomoki, and Ikaros is fooled even though she saw her transform before her eyes and obeys Chaos until Astraea intervenes. Later, when Ikaros is about to throw Chaos into the sea, Chaos turns into Tomoki again and begs her to stop, but this time, Ikaros points out that Tomoki is an excellent swimmer and wouldn't be worried about the sea.
- In High School D×D, as a last ditch effort to save herself, Raynare takes on her human disguise Yuuma Amano. Issei cannot strike her in this form, so he walks away and leaves it to Rias, who kills her without hesitation.
- Inuyasha the Movie: Fire on the Mystic Island: Inuyasha manages to get the better of the Kikyo clone during their fight, but can't bring himself to finish her off; the real Kikyo proceeds to show up and kill the clone herself before berating Inuyasha for letting himself be tricked by the fake.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- Stardust Crusaders: Cameo uses his Jerkass Genie Stand to manipulate Polnareff into this by reanimating his dead sister and Mohammed Avdol (who died defending him), blaming him for their deaths. Luckily, the real and alive Avdol appears to save the day, and Polnareff wises up to take down the fake creation of his sister.
- Steel Ball Run: This is the basis of Axl Ro's Stand, Civil War. It conjures images of things people "sacrificed" (read: abandoned or destroyed) and feel guilty about, which merges with their body and kills them.
- Nabari no Ou: Played for Laughs in an omake where Tobari is unable to attack Fuuma when he takes Raimei and Miharu's forms. It fails when Fuuma takes Kouichi's form, though.
- One Piece:
- Mr. 2 Bon Clay uses this as a desperation attack against Sanji. However, Sanji beats him up anyway as he's impersonating Usopp. Bon Clay is about to give up till he carelessly switches to Nami, which paralyzes Sanji with lust. Bon Clay comments, "It can't really be that easy, can it?" He toggles his face-switching power on and off to cure his disbelief, and then uses the form of Nami against Sanji because Nami looks just too cute for him to hit. Sanji only turns the fight around when he realizes Bon Clay has to return to his original form while actually attacking.
- A less funny example happens during Wano when Kanjuro uses his power to create a replica of Kozuki Oden and convince Kikunojo not to attack him. He's successful and stabs the young samurai. She expresses her regret to Kin'emon for not being able to stop him.
- In Pokémon Adventures, Essentia does this when it looks like she's otherwise beaten; her sudden transformation into X surprises his Kangaskhan long enough for her to land a good hit on it before trying to run off.
- Played with in Magi: Labyrinth of Magic. The villain Aum Madaura can brainwash people into seeing her as their mother; Hakuryuu falls under her spell and fights his friends for her. We get Flashbacks as this is going on about how his evil uncle/stepfather killed Hakuryuu's father and brothers and corrupted his mother afterward. Unfortunately for Aum Madaura, Hakuryuu's memory eventually reaches the point where he remembers that it's his mother who was actually Evil All Along, and he decapitates her.
- In Project ARMS, one of the cyborgs that Hayato fights tries to trick him by impersonating Ryo. In this case, it was done to trick Hayato and not guilt him. After Hayato figures out the truth and impales him, the cyborg takes the form of Hayato's dead mother before dying.
- Parodied in Ranma ½, when the Cat Demon possesses Genma, thinking that Ranma wouldn't attack him. Ranma's response: "IT'S EXORCISM TIME!" To explain further, it really didn't help that Genma forced Ramna to fight a giant cat since, no matter how weak a demon it was, Ranma is utterly terrified of cats. Right before booting his son towards said terror, Genma says that it's a martial artist's job to defeat demons, no matter what. Ranma repeats that right before beating up his old man.
- In Saint Seiya, Lyumnades Kaza did this thrice on-screen (plus a couple off-screen times). First in a battle against Cygnus Hyoga, taking the form of Aquarius. Then against Pegasus. Then in battle against Shun by transforming into his brother; it didn't work at first. He did it again when Shun was getting the upper hand, and it made Shun doubt enough for Kaza to beat him. Finally he did it against Shun's brother Ikki by transforming into Shun. But as Ikki was a Anti-Hero, it didn't work.
- Better yet, Ikki beats Kaza by transforming into him, and Kaza whines that he's unable to hit his own image. This shows how cowardly he is, because this wouldn't have worked on any of the heroes.
- It's implied it could have worked had Kaza transformed into Esmeralda, Ikki's long lost love.
- Dougan in the Saiyuki Requiem movie absolutely adores doing this; so much so that it becomes pretty much the premise of the entire movie. For Sanzo he changes into his mentor Koumyou as well as his teammates Sha Gojyo, and Son Goku. For Goku he changes into Genjo Sanzo. For Sha Gojyo he changes into Hakkai and induces stabby death onto him. And for Cho Hakkai he shapeshifts into both his dear sister/lover Kanan
as well as his friend Goku.- Various enemies try this in the Saiyuki manga as well. Usually to not much effect since the main characters can be positively gleeful about beating up doppelgangers of one another. On one memorable occasion they start beating up a doppelganger of Gojyo before realising it's not him (they did have reason to be angry with him at the time, though).
- The Sorcerer Hunters manga had a variation: We eventually learn that Body Surfing demon Almond Rassel had been trapped in the body of Apricot, the Missing Mom of Carrot and Marron. In the final battle, Almond has to fight Onion Glace (Carrot's Crouching Moron Hidden Retired Badass father), and plays his current body for all it's worth. Onion has no problem attacking Almond's clones, but can't bring himself to attack the real body of his wife. His solution: grab on to Almond and stab them both with his boomeranging Big Freaking Axe, which he aimed at himself.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- In Yu-Gi-Oh!, Dartz projects the images (and voices) of Yugi's soul-stolen friends onto his Mirror Knight monsters to intimidate Yugi out of attacking them. Seto Kaiba doesn't care and attacks them without hesitation. In the original version, Seto says it's a willing sacrifice to save the world. In the dub, Seto thinks Dartz just reprogrammed the holograms to show their friends to throw them off their game. Regardless of the version, destroying the Mirror Knights merely frees their friends' souls instead of destroying them.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Trueman throws Austin O'Brien off his game during their duel by shapeshifting into Austin's father and using a replica of his father's deck (but with some of Trueman's own cards in it). Trueman also plays on Austin's guilt by bringing up an incident where his parents were trapped in a burning car and he chose to save his father first (even though his father was able to save his mother, Austin was filled with self-loathing that he didn't choose to save her). Austin still puts up a valiant fight, but he eventually panics and makes a mistake that causes him to lose.
