"Actually, leadingpowerfoligists theorize that as you become more powerful, you become more monstrous, and then sharply become humanoid again. They call it theBishonen Line." —Karn,Adventurers!

As the power of an evil creature increases, they become more of alarge, disfigured abomination --until they cross the Bishonen Line, beyond which as they gain more power, they (re)gain humanoid form.

A possibleIn-Universe justification for this is that what's increasing is not only the creature's power, but also how much theycontrol that power—the monstrous, oft-visceral features are the result of power pouring out without restraint. Once the creature manages to get a grip on their abilities, they can suppress the giant-scary-monster aspect of their abilities while freely accessing the kick-ass part. In some cases, this concept will be alluded to via the creature starting torevert to its monstrous form as it is harmed and loses control over itself.

On some cases, this could also be viewed as the creature beingFunctional Genre Savvy. For example, a huge monstrous abomination cannot physically participate in the impressive martial arts stuff that aFighting Series is built around, so if it's in one of those, it gains an advantage by reverting to a humanoid form that will fare betterKung Fu Fighting.

This trope is also fueled by several out-of-universe factors. One, for example, is theRule of Perception: You can only add so muchhorrid detail to a monstrous creature before the design becomes busy and adding extra eyes, putrid tentacles, etc. just does not make that much of a visual impact any more. The only possible way left to get the audience's attention and signal "major change" is, paradoxically, to take all the monstrous features away. Also, drawing or rendering an ever-expanding monster is taxing in terms of resources; this is a particularly important consideration in animation or sequential art, where the same thing must be drawn over and over again—so much so that in those mediums, you can probably expect the humanoid form to appear in more episodes than the monstrous form.

See alsoMonstrosity Equals Weakness, aSuper-Trope of this, where more monstrous characters will be inherently weaker / less important than humanoid ones;Sculpted Physique, which may be applied to "cosmetically" or grotesquely;Monster Lord, where this trope divides leaders andmooks inside a race of monsters; andHumanoid Abomination.

CompareThe Man Behind the Monsters for an exogenous demonstration of this, andCrystal Spires and Togas, which is more or less this trope applied to entire civilizations.

Not to be confused withBishounen Train Lines.

General

• TheUncanny Valley has shades of this, namely how halfway along the progression to a more humanlike form, the increased anthropomorphism actually makes something seem more monstrous, after which it suddenly becomes passable for a human being.

Advertising

• This commercial has two men dueling over the last beer by progressively turning into something more powerful and intimidating. The first guy starts by becoming a masked wrestler. The second guy responds by becoming a gorilla. The first guy then becomes anExpy ofConan the Barbarian. The second guy then becomes a robot that looks like a cross between aTerminator and Robosapien. Then, the first guy becomes a hot blonde babe. Guess who won the duel?

Anime & Manga

• InSeimaden, the ruler of the demon world is Laures, an impossibly beautiful man. Demons lower in rank than himself are attractive but more bestial. Mid-rank demons are horrible monsters. But Laures' assistant and servant Tetiyus, a low-rank demon, is almost as beautiful as his master.
• Dragonball Z features countless examples:
  • Saiyans initially reach their highest power by transforming into mindless giant apes, but later reach a power level where their hair just turns blonde and spikier (Super Saiyan 1). Super Saiyan 3 is a very mild subversion: the most prominent change is that a Saiyan's hair gets extremely long, but he also has his eyebrows vanish and hisforehead grow, producing a Neanderthal-like look.
  • Frieza's intermediate states are larger and more monstrous than his delicate-looking final form. His second form looks to a large extent like a much bigger version of his first, plus his horns become bull-like (allowing them to gore an opponent, which he does in fact do). His third form looks like an even freakier version of theQueen Alien, except in Frieza's standard two-tone purple color scheme. His final form, though, looks almost human (aside from the tail, reptilian/alien ears, and prehensile feet), and even seems downright unimpressive, even to the other characters, until he starts kicking ass. He bulks back up when powering up to 100%, though.
  • Frieza's brother Cooler has afifth form, which is bigger and muscular than any of Frieza's, but streamlined, sort of like a cross between Frieza's third and fourth.
  • Cell's initial form looks like some kind of a reptile-insect hybrid. His second form is slightly more humanoid, but bulkier and even more monstrous. His ultimate form, shorter than the last one, looks a lot like a very chiseled bishounen wearing reptile/bug armor. This might be justified because Cell transforms by absorbing the Androids, who are made from and resemble normal humans.
  • Majin Buu's final form is that of a boy ("Kid Buu"), as opposed to the hulking Fat Buu and the muscular Super Buu. Unlike most examples, Kid Buu isn't technically hisstrongest form, but it's still the mostdangerous. Fat Buu represented a fusion with the bulky and pacifistic Great Kai, which in turn tempered Buu's desire for destruction. Super Buu fused with a bunch of warriors, and put offwiping out humanity for as long as possible so he couldget a better fight out of the heroes. Kid Buu was weaker than any of the above, but he destroyed planets with the glee of a child destroying someone's sand castle.
  • Janemba of the post-Buu movie originally was a giant yellow marshmallow man, but became a sleek, muscled demon of human shape and size in his powered-up form.
  • InDragon Ball GT, the Super Saiyan 4 transformation initially turns Goku into a giantgold ape (the same as before but in Super Saiyan mode), but when he reaches full power, he reverts to a very buff humanoid with some fur. Arguably, SS4 could be considered the Bishounen Line of Super Saiyan transformations. Super Saiyan mostly gets spikier hair, Super Saiyan 2 gets really spiky hair and bigger muscles, SS3 gets bigger muscles, huge hair, and the face tends to get less human (emotionally, but it changes physically as well), then Super Saiyan 4 goes to the same as the normal Saiyan but with red body fur and marks under the eyes. Super Saiyan 2 also has a Bishounen Mode effect with False SS2: Vegeta and Trunks get more and more buff until they're too slow and can't quite focus their power, thenGohan breaks through to true SS2, which is spiky hair and muscle tone instead of bulk.
• Bleach
  • Hollows start out as 7–10 foot monsters, get bigger until they reach the size of a skyscraper (Gillian-class, Menos level), then get smaller (past Adjuchas-class, Menos level), until they are the size of normal humans. At this point, the Vasto Lorde-class Menos—who are so powerful they are basically humans with masks—are only speculated on (a handful of characters whomight be Vasto Lordes have been introduced, but it's not been confirmed), but the Shinigami are rightfully terrified of the idea of one deciding to attack.
  • As of now, we have seenthree Vasto Lorde classes in full;Barragan,Harribel, andthe disturbingly adorable Ulquiorra. Surprisingly, all three have been docile in their own ways; Barragan did nothing, Harrible didn't like fighting, andUlquiorra couldn't eat others.
  • Aizen does all kinds of bad things to this trope. He starts off as a bishonen, evolves into a featureless humanoid, evolves into a DIFFERENT bishonen with a hint ofOne-Winged Angel, then goes properly OWA in the wrong order, starting with the 'angel' and finally ending in 'bizarro'. It's not so much the Bishonen Line as the Bishonen Scribble.
  • Averted with Yammy, who never seems to cross the Bishonen Line. He just keeps getting bigger and bigger with each power level. This is probably the reason whyhe's so weak even if he's deemed the strongest espada #0, as Byakuya and Kenpachi were able to beat him without too much effort, both of which were given quite a bit of trouble with espada #7 and #5.
• Yu Yu Hakusho has an interesting take on this trope. Most of the antagonists on the show are in a human form but the ones that are fought during the Saint Beast and Dark Tournament arc seem to follow this. During the Saint Beast arc, the four leads have to fight the Four Saint beasts and each one looks more human than the last going from Genbu (the giant talking rock), Byakko (the giant white tiger), Seiryu (the giant blue humanoid dragon) and finally their leader Suzaku the most human looking out of the four and the absolute strongest and most sadistic. Then in the Dark Tournament most of the more humaniod opponents are shown with varied levels of strength. Take the very first round against the Rokuyokai team. Roto who fought the Bishonen Kurama was the weakest and looked much less human than the stronger Rinku, Zeru and Chu who was the strongest. This is somewhat averted though with the Younger Togoro who gets less human as his power increases. Also based on theRandom Power Ranking of demons, we start from very animalistic and brutish E and D Class demons to the semi-humanoid C Class with all shorts oftechnicolor hair then taking a huge jump inBishonen with the B Classes who's only differences from humanity is their height or a hair of a different color, leading to a downgrade where the A Classes look like grotesque alien freaks, and finally ending with S Classes which could be best described as humans with the occasional horn, extra ears or different hair/skin tone.
• Digimon does this quite often. In fact, a pretty good way to tell if a Digimon's reached their perfect or ultimate form is by how human they look.
  • Palmon/Lilymon is a perfect example of the trope, going from short, cute plant-monster to giant cactus with boxing gloves to beautiful, pink humanoid.
  • Or just compare either Agumon line (Small Dinosaur > Big Dinosaur > Even Bigger Cybernetic Dinosaur > 7 ft-ish semi-reptilian knight).
  • Zig-Zagged inDigimon Frontier, however. In this series, the characters turn into the Digimon, and start out with the "Human" spirits, which... well, are generally all humanoid-looking. However, then they attain their"Beast" spirits, which are generally more powerful, harder to control, and... look more primal and animalistic. However, then two of them gain higher forms by combining several of the spirits together, all of which are back to being humanoid. It should be noted, however, that several of the "combined" spirits created for the card game, which never appeared at all in the anime, were more animal-like than humanoid, making the results varied.
  • More Zig-Zagging inDigimon Savers, Agumon and Gaomon's ultimate/mega forms are by far their largest, but also most humanoid.
  • Most series will subvert this if villains have an evolved form. Myotismon's inDigimon Adventure has him go from a human-sized vampire to kaiju-sized demon. Similar with Lucemon inFrontier, whose final form is a giant dragon controlled by an insect-like creature.
  • It's actually discussed inDigimon Tamers, as the Four Holy Beasts and the Devas, wanting to differentiate themselves from their human creators as much as possible, took on giant animal forms. Vajramon is scornful when Renamon crosses the line as Taomon, and Zhuqiaomon is disgusted by the partner's Ultimate forms (though that's also because they actually merge with humans).
• The Akuma fromD Gray Man start off looking like round things with cannons; by level two they could look like pretty much anything; by level 3, they resemble humanoid armored creatures. When they reachlevel 4, they resemble a freaky angel-like child with three halos and fairy wings. Straight out of theUncanny Valley.
• The demons ofInuyasha don't transform in stages, but there is a visible progression in power; small demons, larger demons, monstrously huge demons, and then the most powerful, who can generally assume a human-like form, much as the title half-demon hero's father (as shown in the third movie), as well as his full-demon brother. Another example would be the referenced father of a monstrous-looking half-demon named Jinenji, a horse-demon, who was said to be a handsome man. Exceptions exist, but size is a general indicator of power, with the most powerful obviously able to hop the Bishonen Line at will. One character notes that while many demons are huge and horrific, the ones that take human form are often far more dangerous.
• Soul Eater has Mosquito's transformations where he reverts his body to the form it was some number of centuries ago, getting progressively stronger as he goes further back: his 100-years-age form has an enormous upper body like a gorilla, his 200-years-ago form is streamlined and slightly feline, and his 400-years ago is a handsome young man (who can turn into a swarm of bats). Technically he had an even stronger form (from 800 years ago) that's even more monstrous than any of the others (including insect-like eyes)but it was quite easily defeated possibly before Mosquito even finished transforming.
• Mobile Suit Gundam 00
  • Alvatore, the monstrous mobile armor piloted byBig Bad Alejandro Corner, has a "true form" of sorts in the Alvaaron, an angel-like mobile suit hidden in said armor.
  • That case is a subverio, Alvatore was much more powerful in terms firepower.
  • Gundam Virtue/Nadleeh. An extremely bulky and heavily-armored Gundam housing a smaller, but more powerful unit.
• Bishojo line: When aClaymore overuses her Yoma power, she becomes an ugly monstrous inhuman drooling creature that likes to eat guts. Except more powerful ones, who start to maintain some degree of sentience (though still like to eat guts). And the strongest (such as Abyssal Ones) having rather glamorous forms, the ability to take a completely human form and being very intelligent and manipulative.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion
  • After sixteen monstrosities that get weirder with each new one, Tabris the 17th Angel is revealed to beaWhite-Haired Pretty Boy who also goes by the name of Kaworu Nagisa.
  • Of course the 18th Angel ishumanity as a whole. You don't get any more humanoid than that.
  • Rebuild of Evangelion subverts this withZeruel. It eats Eva-00, and mutates into a humanoid form that's even bigger than he was in its monstrous form.
• The Bishonen Line inChrono Crusade works similarly to the one inInuYasha—Weaker demons tend to look likeEldritch Abominations, while the strongest ones tend to look likeBishonen with wings, horns, and other cosmetic extras.
• Rob Lucci inOne Piece uses his devil's fruit ability to turn into a giant leopard-man, but one of hiskung-fu techniques is the ability to shrink himself down to normal proportions, making him much more agile.
• InFullmetal Alchemist, theBig BadFather first appeared in the form of Hohenheim, a handsomeolder man. He then reverted to a formless blob with too many eyeballs, until Chapter 104 where he finally settled fora teenage Hohenheim.
• Followed byZatch Bell, save for the fact that very few characters actually transform there. Weakest mamodo opponents encountered at the beginning mostly look like humans with cosmetic differences, then much less human-like mamodo, up to and including gigantic dragons, make their entry, yet the first twoBig Bads, Zophise and Zeon, look like humans with cosmetic differences, and the final one, Clear Note, is virtually indistinguishable from a human, save from his monstrousBattle Aura. Then subverted, when he is revealed to have anOne-Winged Angel uber-form after all.
• An heroic example inNaruto: Both Naruto and Killerbee areJinchuriki, they can transform into huge demons, but their most powerful incarnation is being human-sized with just the power of the demon surrounding them.
  • Another heroic example is Sage Mode. Jiraiya's imperfect Sage Mode gives him a goatey, warts, webbed fingers and other toad-like features. The only physical changes Naruto gains from perfect Sage Mode are toad-eyes.

Films -- Animation

• InFinal Fantasy VII: Advent Children, the already dangerously bishonen Kadaj becomes evenmore bishonen andfar more powerful when he briefly becomesSephiroth.

Films -- Live-Action

• InScott Pilgrim vs. the World, the final boss actually has three forms. The first of which isSuper Gideon Graves, which is Gideon grown to twice his normal size, the second of which isGigadeon Graves, a giant mutated monstrosity fought within Gideon's own subspace and the last of which is...Gideon Graves, fighting unaugmented with only his pixel katana.

Literature

• InMaster of the Five Magics byLyndon Hardy, the Demons have a hierarchy of power. The least powerful are near human, but they grow larger and more bizarrely monstrous as they become more potent. The Archdemon, however, has the form of a lightly built human male. Interestingly enough, a demon's physical power has very little to do with his rank: a demon's rank is based on his ability to make others submit to his will. Each demon has a different method, some inflicting pain on others, others use pleasure, or despair, or any number of other emotions. The Archdemon, however, can use ALL of these abilities, drowning his opponent in an ocean of conflicting emotions.
• The Divine Comedy: Souls become less and less human in appearance as Dante makes his tour of the afterlife, going from Hell to Heaven—from physically human in appearance in Hell and Purgatory (though the damned often have their human formsdisfigured and transformed in horrific ways) to ethereal faces in the first sphere of Heaven, shining balls of light with discernable eyes in the second sphere, and beautiful but featureless balls of light in the third through ninth spheres—but when he reaches the Heavenly realm entirely beyond physical existence, the Empyrean, everyone is entirely human again.
• InLois McMaster Bujold'sThe Sharing Knife series, the monsters of the series are known as "malices," creatures of sentient destructive energy which drain the life force of all surrounding creatures in order to build horrific, misshapen forms, and which grow geometrically stronger the more they feed. Over the series we see several different monstrous forms of malices: a werewolf malice that fed on wolves, a flying malice that fed on bats...but the most advanced and most dangerous of the malices they fight is one that has consumed so many human lives that it has developed a stunningly beautiful, superhuman form.
• Codex Alera has a Bishoujo Line example: The Vord queens start out fairly insectile, then go through a marginally more human look before eventually graduating to a"green Kitai" form that tries forCute Monster Girl butfalls a little flat.
• The Dresden Files
  • The Gruffs follow a Bishonen Line. The first ones we see—the youngest of a group of related faeries—are goatlike but about the same size as humans. The next group we see are physically similar to the first ones, but are bigger andare carrying submachine guns. The third time we see one, this one works solo, and he is even bigger than the last group; he has to bend almost in half just to fit through a door. He is large enough for his size to noticeably reduce his maneuverability. The final one is powerful enough to have defeated three high-ranking Council wizards, but he is only five feet tall and definitely more human-shaped than any of his brothers.
  • The Denarians play around with this trope. Nicodemus, the most powerful, is always in human form, while the second most powerful, Tessa, can become a praying mantis. The other Denarians take a variety of forms, withRosanna and Deirdre among the most humanoid.

Live-Action TV

• In the series finale ofPower Rangers Jungle Fury, the restored Pai Zhua masters summon a higher level of the powers that the Rangers use. It turns them into furries. At the climax, however, the Rangers summon thehighest level of power, reaching a level never seen before. This involves unmorphing and throwing CGI fireballs.
• The seriesSuper Sentai counterpart subverted this, the seriesBig Bad Long's true form is a giant quadrapedle-multiheaded dragon, one of the franchise few non-humanoid monsters.
• Anubis onStargate SG-1 does this. For most of the series, his appearance is that of a cloaked figure, revealed to be a dark, shadowy form of energy. When said shadow-being loses the forcefield containing it, Anubis then takes to possessing various human hosts (seemingly "burning them out" in the process). His "final form" (at least, the last time we see him) is a creepy fat guy in a wafflehouse.^[1]
• Lucifer onSupernatural. Now, all his forms are human, but he rules over the world in Sam's body in theBad Future episode.
• Mayor Wilkins onBuffy the Vampire Slayer became totally invincible while still human, but with a 100-day time limit—after that, he stepsbackward across the Line to become a huge, powerful, but destructible snake demon.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons
  • Asmodeus, king of the Nine Hells and most powerful Archdevil of all, is most commonly encountered looking like "an unprepossessing humanoid with red eyes, horns, and well-tailored robes." Recent sourcebooks have increased his height to thirteen feet, though. (But it is mentioned in a few books that his true form is some kind of monstrous, serpent-like beast.) This example is pretty clearly based on certain depictions of Satan. Lucifer was traditionally both the most powerful and the most beautiful of angels, at least prior to his Fall. (And, in some versions, he retains both qualities even afterward.)
  • D&D also has the slaadi, extradimensional spirits of Chaos which, as they get more powerful, get bigger and scarier—until you get to the Death Slaad. Although vastly more powerful than all the others and the only slaad that'snaturally evil, death slaadi are human-sized and shaped. Sorta this trope without the "Bishonen" part. And then they leave the trope with theEpic Level Handbook White and Black Slaad—the white are gigantic and the black are vaguely froglike...things made of pure darkness.
  • Many lines of extraplanar beings follow this rule. for example theLawful Neutral Modrons: the lowest have basic geometric shapes with eyes and arms; the higher you rise in their ranks, the more humanoids they are.
  • Daelkyr ofEberron, the ultimate rulers of the plane of madness, lords and creators of monstrosities such as beholders and mind flayers, resemble "perfectly formed athletic human males, possessing unearthly beauty."
• Shows up occasionally in theWarhammer Fantasy Battle andWarhammer 40,000 universes with certain daemons and Chaos-possessed folk, mostly involving Slaanesh.
  • Generally proceeds like this: the weakest or stupidest daemons are entirely inhuman and animalistic. Daemonic foot-soldiers are bestial humanoids, but lack intelligence beyond basic tactics. Greater daemons are gigantic bestial humanoids that are basically avatars of their respective god and can lead entire armies of their ilk - depending on the god they might also be dangerously intelligent. Daemon princes are humans raised up to daemonic level - they're on par with greater daemons, but generally more humanoid and more dangerously intelligent. Finally in Warhammer 40,000 there are the Daemon Primarchs, who were demigods before they were raised to daemonhood and are now some of the most dangerous beings in existence. They can assume human or indeed any form seemingly at will, and will kill almost anything that gets in their way.
  • Daemonic possession usually inverts the line - as the daemonhost becomes more dangerous, its form becomes less and less human until it reachesOne-Winged Angel status. If the host is destroyed the wrong way, though, the daemon proper might emerge crossing the Bishonen Line.
  • Larger Tyranid creatures become bipedal, but never cross the Bishonen Line. The Magus of a Genestealer Cultdoes cross the line, appearing almost entirely humanoid but being one of the most dangerous and inhuman members of the cult.

Video Games

• Omega from theMega Man Zero games starts off huge in his first form, then becomes even bigger in his second, and finally reverts to a much smaller form...which just happens to beZero's original body. As the trope states, he is infinitely more powerful in this form than he is in his others. He's actually a departure from series norm, which tend to be small, agile humanoids followed by a giant monstrous form. However, in early games, the humanoid is more dangerous than the monster, since Zero's most powerful weapons are close-range, which is harder with the boss's speed. Later final bosses show greater damage and reach on their attacks. (Compare Ragnarok-Weil to Copy X or Elpizo.)
• Played straight and averted at the same time for all the dragons' Super forms inDragon Seeds. They evolve from Baby, to Adult, and to Senior, gradually becoming more complex and massive each time, with one dragon type even becoming aharrier! From there, they can branch off into two categories: Old, where they retain their Senior form, but lose a bunch of stats and only live for a few more days (dragon years), and Super, which plays the trope straight, and they revert into a more humanoid form that looks relatively small, but becomes biologically immortal and ungodly powerful. So powerful, in fact, that you can't do anything else with the dragon but defend the title of World Dragon Champion (assuming you did get to that point) and duel against another player.
• Nintendo realized inThe Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker that the humanoid Ganondorf was a far more compelling character and thus a better arch-enemy than his boarlike bestial form Ganon, so they saved the duel with Ganondorf forlast, following a battle with a giant transforming puppet version of Ganon. InTwilight Princessthey did it all over again, giving the big mantwo human phasesafter you'd already dealt with his bestial form.
  • Tingle's as well. CompareMajora's Mask,Wind Waker,Rosy Rupee Land, then crosses it inTwilight Princess.
  • The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword'sThe Imprisoned starts off as a giantArmless Biped covered in black-red scales with only a mouth and legs. Its second form grows arms, and its third form grows a tail, as well as the ability to levitate.Once it absorbs the Goddess Hylia's soul, it achieves its true form Demon King Demise, which pretty much resemblesa cross between Ganondorf andAkuma.
• Final Fantasy
  • InFinal Fantasy VII, mad scientist Hojo seems mostly normal in his weakest form, except for strange movements and a slightly greenish tint to his skin. Defeating him in this form allows you to fight Helletic Hojo, a huge and ugly mutant. When Hellectic Hojo is defeated, he becomes Lifeform Hojo N/A, an eerily-beautiful humanlike creature draped in white.
  • Final Fantasy VII did it again, with the iconic Sephiroth—he starts as a mutant, turns intoTHEOne-Winged Angel withOminous Latin Chanting—and then, in his final form, becomesHimself With His Coat Off. However, this final scene is more symbolic than anything else. It'simpossible to lose against shirtless Sephiroth...
  • Final Fantasy VII:Crisis Core does this too, withGenesis Avatar, a hundred-foot-tallEvangelion-esque monster knight, as the first form, and the final battle with Genesis being a straight sword duel after he'sinexplicably reverted to his normal and non-decayed form. Gameplay-wise this may or may not be an example. The Avatar is going to be along and tedious, if not difficult, fight regardless of what you do. The human form can and will mess you up...provided you go into melee. It can bestunlocked by magic, making the fight something of a joke.
  • Final Fantasy VII:Dirge of Cerberus is also guilty, with Nero. He transforms into the huge and malformed Arachnero, and then into the human-sized and pretty Gorgonero.
  • Vincent as well. His controlled Chaos form in the final area is stronger and looks more human than his earlier uncontrolled or partially controlled Chaos form.
  • So doesFinal Fantasy X-2: Trema, the residentBonus Boss of Via Infinitio, a dungeon full of increasingly ugly monsters, a perfectly normal-looking Unsent.
• Kingdom Hearts
  • The final boss ofKingdom Hearts II first fights in his original black-cloaked form, then changes into an armored knight on a throne which is itself on the head of a robot dragon; after several fights against said dragon and knight, the final fight is against him in a recolored version of his original outfit, with an upgraded version of his original fighting style.
  • While Heartless, as a rule, grow more massive and horrifying the stronger they are, the most powerful of them all,Ansem/Xehanort's Heartless, is visually indistinguishable from aWhite-Haired Pretty Boy normal human, though he's the exception to the rule. However, while the usual NobodyMooks of thePlayStation 2 sequel aresomewhat-inhuman beasts, with a few massive Nobodybosses, the frighteningly powerful Nobodies that make up Organization XIII are visually indistinguishable from normal human beings.
  • Before Xemnas however, was Marluxia. The first fight is straight up against him, using his ownflower magic and wielding aSinister Scythe. The second has him on a sinister, large, floating mech withscythes for arms. The third fight takes place on top of the remains of said mech, only this time Marluxia has a creepily beautiful angel-like familiar wielding a giganticscythe backing him up and basically doing all the fighting for him.
  • InKingdom Hearts coded, the digitizedSora's Heartless first takes the form of aDarkside with glowing tattoo-like markings, but after taking a beating transforms intoa dark copy of Sora, then finallythree dark copies of Sora.
• Ryu, the protagonist ofBreath of Fire 3, can transform into various dragon forms. His strongest form, Kaiser, is identical to his human form, except recolored gold. When you use that form's Kaiser Breath attack, however, he temporarily changes further into a gigantic dragon. This example is more justified than most, however, because the Kaiser form is just so frickin' huge that having Ryu fight permanently in it would fill up half the screen.
• InBrave Fencer Musashi, the Wizard of Darkness is originally a massive, horned demon-man; he changes into an even more monstrous green beast, then finally into a white-skinned humanoid slightly larger than Musashi.
• Eve's final form inParasite Eve is a rareBishoujo Line example, having gone (over the entire game's course) from normal actress to 8-foot pale seductress with a serpentine lower body to taking up a good-sized room while preggers with the Ultimate Being to 20-foot floating monstrosity covered in grasping arms tofunctionally nakedFragile Speedster harpy-thing.
• The characters ofBloody Roar tend to avoid this trope, since turning into animals is the whole point, but a few characters get pastthat point.
  • Cronos, one of the potential final fighters, turns into a very nonhuman penguin when he powers up a little. Turn on theOminous Latin Chanting, however, and he can transform into a phoenix that looks like a human with a beak and feathers before he kills you.
  • Uranus is an even better example, as she first turns into a fearsome chimeric beast with her normal powerup, but her strongest form looks like her normal one, just glowing.
  • Uriko also exhibits a degree of this. In the original game, as theFinal Boss, her beast transformation consisted of going from a little girl to a full-grown woman, sprouting cat ears, and her hair turning green. Later, when she's less powerful, her beast form, although still less animalistic than the others, is noticeably more feline. She also exhibits going to theOne-Winged Angel again, as in the first game, her ultimate form is a grotesque chimera.
• Shadow Hearts
  • The original game features this. Although Yuri's fusion souls are all roughly human-sized, they generally get more bizarre or monstrous as they get more powerful, with the second-most-powerful, Amon, being a hulking, monstrous demon with a blade on one arm. However, his most powerful, the Seraphic Radiance, is just him, glowing white, with black wings and mystic-looking tattoos.
  • Even more so inShadow Hearts: Covenant. Yuri's low level fusion forms look like 'elemental' costume swaps of his normal body. His stronger forms include a giant armored knight, a beastly rock monster, and a sea dragon, all much larger than a human. Amon, as usual, is a big, muscular demon, and Dark Seraph looks like a black-winged,almost completely naked, but otherwise fairly normal Yuri.
• Devil May Cry
  • In the original, prior to the third fight withNelo Angelo, he reveals his true face (identical to Dante's, as he's his twin brother, Vergil). He still has blue skin and glowing eyes, but he's more human than before, and has some new, infuriating attacks.
  • If you count the Despair Embodied ofDevil May Cry 2 as a second form of the immediately preceding boss, as someFanfic writers do (it's not made clear in canon), this would apply. This does not occur in the other games of the series.
• InViewtiful Joe,it is revealed that Captain Blue, Joe's movie hero, is in fact the true villain of the piece. He transforms into his monstrous "King Blue" form that is so large, Joe must face him in hisHumongous Mecha "Six Majin". After the battle, Joe jumps to the nearby platform to commence the final battle; Blue appears again, much younger and more muscular than he ever was before. After being defeated, he reverts back to his older, overweight form.
• Tales (series)
  • Dhaos fromTales of Phantasia fights you as is, then turns into his presumably truealien form. After beatingthat, though, he returns to being a humanoid, albeit very tall, suited in white, and sporting angel wings.
  • Granted, that form was only put into theRemakes.
  • The final boss ofTales of Hearts fuses with the core of a giant planet-eating parasite to fight you, has a big magical lump of flesh for an ally, and can summon monsters, walls, and spikes from the room itself to attack you with. After beating that, you enter his mind and fight his "true self", which is him with a bunch ofpower crystals, a silly collar...and powerful spells, a tough defense, and aLimit Break.
• Baten Kaitos
  • The final boss fight is againstMalpercio, whose body is a hideous frankenstein made up of the body parts of various dead gods. After he's beaten, though, Melodia combines with him, turning him into a more humanoid figure with wings on his head.
  • Another example isGeldoblame. When exposed to the power of the End Magnus, he transforms into a grotesque tentacled...thing, which still ends up beingThat One Boss for many players. He appears to die after that, butis somehow able to come back during the ending cutscenes for round two. There, he "simply" appears as a giant version of his head protruding from the ground andis easily dispatched by one Guardian Spirit attack.
• InTreasure of the Rudra,Mitra fits the theme, as she starts as a statue-like being, then a giant half-human, half-serpent monster, and then assumes a smaller, more humanoid form for the final battle.
• Castlevania
  • In the original PC Engine version ofCastlevania: Rondo of Blood (and the prologue sequence to its sequel,Castlevania: Symphony of the Night), Dracula's second—and final—form is agiant, fire-breathing, bat-winged reptile, which you fight in anAmazing Technicolor Battlefield. In the PSP remake featured inThe Dracula X Chronicles, however, he assumes his human form again for the final round after you've defeated the lizard.
  • InSymphony of the Night andHarmony of Despair, Dracula's final form is a massive dragon, but Dracula's human form is visible slouching in the center of it.
  • Graham inCastlevania Aria of Sorrow has aOne-Winged Angel transformation, with him sitting comfortably within what appears to be two giant pale womenjoined at the eyes and ribs. Dracula in general, with Dracula's incaration here as Soma Cruz, later in the series, being by far the bishiest.
  • Lampshaded inCastlevania: Lords of Shadow, where the bestiary mentions that vampires become more human-like as they become more powerful.
• Metroid
  • At the end ofMetroid Prime, the title character turns from a demonic giant black arachnoid into what appears to be the mixture of an octopus, a normal Metroid, and a human face. While practically easier than its previous form, it cannot be hurt by weaponry not based on the substance it feeds on and produces (Phazon). Samus did have the ability to use that material, but anyone else would have been screwed.
  • The trope is played even straighter with what happens after you defeat Metroid Prime's second form though: it turns into a Phazon clone of Samus' armor.
  • Also, at the end inMetroid Prime 2, the Emperor Ing goes from being what resembles a giant eye, to gas spewing shell, to a much larger version of the basic Warrior Ing, which isn't humanoid at all, but would be this trope from an Ing's point of view.
• In the episodic computer gameTime Runners, the main character (a teenager from Earth) travels through time and dimensions to fight monstruous "Chronodemons": a robot, a cyborg, a sentient spider, a necromancer, a mutated human and a zombie pharaoh. For the final duel, is pitted against the creator of the Chronodemons: an exact lookalike of him.
• Used in, of all things, the DS version ofNicktoons: Globs of Doom withBig Bad Globulous Maximus, who goes from a gooey cyclops meteor taking up the entire screen to a flying slime man the size ofSpongeBob SquarePants.
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: In the boss fight againstOcelot, he slowly regresses in his mind to hisBishonenyounger days. However, since this is only in his mind, he remains looking like an old man, and only his movements become more 'bishounen'. Note also that the Life Bars change as well!
• The fianl boss ofCastle Crashers is an evil wizard who first fights you by controlling crystals on a throne, then fights you on foot with a magic wand, then bloats up like a balloon and drops magical bombs, and finally becomes an enormous bat creature. When you defeat that, he regresses back through his balloon form to his normal form, where he summons agigantic sword for one final battle.
• InZone of the Enders there are gigantic battleship-sized Orbital Frames, but the most powerful Orbital Frames ever made are comparatively small and bipedal. They get more powerful when theylose a lot of their armor and look even more human-like.
• Wesker in theResident Evil series, in a rare out-of-boss-fight example. Despite being essentially a man in a trenchcoat with red eyes, he's more powerful than all the horrific genetically-engineered monsters in the series.Heseals his fate by goingOne-Winged Angel for theFinal Boss fight of RE5, which allows you to (presumably) finally kill him for good.
• Phantasy Star IV
  • The Dark Force appears multiple times. First, as a monstrous head and shoulders attached to the satellite, and second in the form of a giant spider with the same head. Then it hides inside the form of a human archaeologist with dark magical powers, allowing it to hunt for the Aeroprism. When the party finds the Aeroprism, he transforms into the third Dark Force, which is a humanoid demon much smaller than either of the others.
  • Even more the case with the Profound Darkness. First form:a collection of mouths and red eyes on a blob of purple flesh. Second form, it's got green-gray armor, plenty of appendages, but only one mouth and not as many eyes. The third form? A giant gray human female with bony wings and seven eyes in symmetrical positions on the thighs, wings and forehead; if you hadn't seen the prior forms, you'd probably take them as gems.
• The Elder Scrolls
  • The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind:Big Bad Dagoth Ur spreads his influence via the corprus disease, which drives its victims insane and causes horrible tumorous growths. For most this means becoming a grotesquely deformed zombie, but the higher echelons of the hierarchy are able to control these transformations, to the point where Dagoth Ur and his immediate underlings look completely humanoid except for the occasional extra eye (or pair of nipples).
  • Inverted inOblivion with vampires. The longer a vampire goes without feeding the stronger they become in vampire abilities, and thus the more vampiric they look, eventually causing townspeople to freak out and guards to attack.
• Hunters fromPrototype are massive, ugly hulks. Leader Hunters are even larger, even uglier and even more powerful.The Supreme Hunter, on the other hand, while impossible to call handsome, is still slightly better-looking than the previous two, not that much bigger than Alex, and predictably even more powerful than Leader Hunters. Alex himself is also bordering on physical godhood by endgame, though he usually looks like a normal human.PARIAH looks completely human, and as far as the Web of Intrigue can say, is capable of single-handedly wiping out all life on Earth.
• ManyPokémon get more humanoid as they evolve; Abra to Alakazam, Torchic to Blaziken, Mareep to Ampharos, just to name a few examples. Some subvert this, such as Togepi.
• MS Saga, the failedGundam RPG, exhibits this with the final boss'sHumongous Mecha. He starts the fight in theAlpha Azieru fromChars Counterattack and, when that's destroyed, uses theG-System to turn it into a black version ofWing Zero Custom fromGundam Wing.
• InSpectrobes theKrawl start off as relatively small monsters, growing in size slowly with each passing boss until the final boss who is relatively large, basically the largest enemy of all (to say nothing of your ally Tindera). Immediately in the second game you are introduced to thehigh Krawl who are human shaped Krawl. but then this trope is subverted as thehigh Krawl allgoOne-Winged Angel. but then this isDoubly Subverted withthe final boss(s) who are all massive and only grow larger untilyou face the ultimate Spectrobe, whom youcant defeat. then this trope issomethinged by theTrue Final Boss beingKrux, a human.
• InThe World Ends With You, whenSho Minamimoto becomes part Taboo Noise, he basically just loses hisNice Hat and gains anotherblack hand; much more human than his originalnoise form, and he becomes, in his own words, strong enough to rival the Conductor.
• Street Fighter II: the Sonic Boom user was Guile who has a very angular face, chiseled jaw, and huge flattop. ThenStreet Fighter Alpha came and Guile was replaced with Charlie (except for SFA3 Console) who wears glasses and has a more handsome face. ThenStreet Fighter III gave us the bishonen Remy.
• TheBig Bad ofNoitu Love 2. For phase one of the boss fight, she's a blobby sphere with legs. For phase two, she transforms into a bat-winged human, and grows so big that only her head and shoulders fit on-screen. For phase three, she loses the wings and shrinks down to only slightly larger than the protagonist.
• Mirelurks evolve like this inFallout 3. Standard ones are basically giant bipedal crabs, then there are nukalurks and hunters, with extra crap on their shells, and this culminates in Mirelurk Kings, which look like mutated humans and attack withPsychic Powers rather than tackle attacks. Bonus points for them resembling Frieza and Cell. Mirelurk Kings are actually a separate species than other Mirelurks, being mutated versions of turtles, making their differing appearance justified in a weird way.
• Persona 4
  • Around early July,Teddie, after recovering from his ordeal with Shadow Rise and Shadow Teddie and poking into the real world, he talks about how he's grown on the inside. And he has, literally: when he takes off his bear costume, we see not empty space, buta blonde, blue-eyed bishounen.
  • Inverted withwith Izanami, who starts the fight as a woman in a strait jacket and a massive skirt, before revealing her true form, a monstrous, multi-limbed, rotting...thing with what's left of Izanami's upper body from the last form on top...which is also rotting and unpleasant to look at.
• Ramirez inSkies of Arcadia does this when after going through hisOne-Winged Angel phase,by fusing with the gigas Zelos, he crosses the Bishonen Line once his second form is defeated and resembles something of a silver angel with his original human form clearly visible.
• The first time you fightDragon Quest VII'sBig Bad, the demon lord Orgodemir, he first starts out as a humanoid creature (with pointy ears and wings), but halfway through the fight, he goesOne-Winged Angel and becomes a monstrous demon centipede with new attacks and higher stats to use on you. When you fight him at the end of the game, though, he starts out as a palette swapped version of the centipede, and halfway through the battle, he crosses the bishonen line, becoming a palette swapped version of his original form with much more powerful attacks and stats. He then further changes into a hybrid of the two forms before changing into his final form, which is just loaded withSquick.
• The final boss ofDeadly Premonition first mutates into a bloated version of himself, then into a giant wall-crawling lizard-thing with backwards hands, and finally into a giant version of his normal self. Subverted from the norm for this trope becausehis normal form is a goofy-looking fat man in overalls.
• TheBig Bad ofLunar 2, Zophar, takes a giantEldritch Abomination form when you first seen him. When you fight him for the first time, he looks decidedly...prettier, even when he goesOne-Winged Angel on you. Both forms are also nowhere near the size of his original form, which he actually turns into the game' final dungeon.
• InChrono Trigger,Lavos actuallysubverts the Bishonen Line. His colossal bug-like exterior is actually a protective shell guarding his true humanoid form, which, probably thanks toAkira Toriyama, happens to look a lot like Perfect Cell (see the trope picture above). However, upon defeating this form, the LavosCore reveals itself to be a shambling monstrosity, the end result of Lavos' attempts to achieve biological singularity.And, in actuality, the core is a tiny pod floating beside said monstrosity.
• Asura's Wrath hasMantra Asura, a form stronger than his previous six armed f.orm and berserker forms, but instead of becoming more monstrous, he instead Grows 1000 arms that merge in to bigger gauntlets It's also played around with in the same game, as thatVlitra's Core, while a humanoid boss, exists at the same time as theOne-Winged AngelOrochi form of Vlitra on the Worlds Surface.
• Reversed inHalf Minute Hero's Evil Lord 30, in which the Evil Lord increases his magic power by "getting sexier", for which he must go to a beauty spa.

Web Comics

• Adventurers! is the Trope Namer, as seen above. Khrima goes from a human sorcerer, through two progressively monstrous forms, and then takes on his final form, which is far more human.
• Homestuck: This is seen with the prototyping of the Black Queen's Ring in the Kid's Sburb session. The Black Queen starts as a carapaced humanoid, until John enters the Medium. As he prototyped his Kernelsprite with a maimed harlequin doll, she loses most of her left arm, gets a scar over her right eye, and has a jester's hat sprout from her head. Then, Rose's dual prototyping gives her cat cheeks andCombat Tentacles. Then Dave's prototyping gives her crow wings and a sword (it starts out in her torso, but she can remove it at will).Then Jack kills her and takes the ring, and all this applies to him. Then, with the final prototyping of Becquerel, Jack loses the "hat", cat cheeks, and tentacles, in exchange for a canine head andgod-like powers. He can bring back all the other stuff at will, though. This would seem to be a side effect of prototypinga First Guardian; when the trolls prototype with dead monsters and a frog statue, the Black King and Queen of their session retained features from all 12 prototypings and wind up looking completely monstrous.
• Spacetrawler: After Yuri becomes a cyborg, she starts constantly upgrading herself—her cyborg implants become increasingly bulky and inhuman, until she eventually looks like some kind of robot spider. Martina forcibly downgrades Yuri to her baseline cyborg form. Then Yuri upgrades herself to her most powerful form yet, aa self-styled death goddess—and she looks like her human self with a different skin color.

Western Animation

• In the fourth season ofJustice League,Lex Luthor ispossessed by the intelligent supercomputer Brainiac, who turns his body into a hulking, half-machine, betentacled monstrosity with a robotic "face" on its abdomen, containers sticking out of his back, and tentacles coming out of his arms. Then they "merge completely" into one being with the power to remake matter with a thought, and become...green-skinned Lex Luthor wearing gold armor and a Brainiac tattoo on his forehead. This "complete merger"just gets broken off and then phased out byThe Flash.
• Shows up inSpongeBob SquarePants, of all places. In "The Two Faces of Squidward", Squidward receives plasticsurgery ^{[dead link]} and after trying (and failing) to undo it, he comes out likethis.
• InBen 10 Ultimate Alien, Ben 10,000's most powerful form just happens to be...himself, not having any alien features. In this form (called "Ultimate Ben"), he can use the powers of all the aliens in the Ultimatrix without having to transform into them.
• InWakfu, Rushu at first looks huge, demonic-looking, and brimming with fire. Histrue form is a much smaller cyclopean humanoid demon that is actually even more powerful than his giant form. The only opponent strong enough to force him to fight in this form isGoultard, the demigod son of Iop himself.

• Trope
• Pages with Broken Links
• Rule of Perception
• Japanese Media Tropes
• Personal Appearance Tropes
• Bishonen Line