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The result of combining Grand Theft Me with Evil Is Sexy. Any villain who possesses the body of the heroine (or any female, really) is contractually required to spend time posing in front of mirrors, wearing scanty clothing, and sometimes even groping herself. This often occurs when the villain in question is herself female and has been without a normal body — or at least an attractive one — for an extended period of time.
Naturally, this is an opportunity for rampant Fan Service, to an even greater extent than the standard form of Evil Is Sexy.
Compare Man, I Feel Like a Woman. This overlaps with Power Perversion Potential. Contrast Shapeshifting Seducer.
Anime and Manga[]
- In the last Ranma ½ OAV, a vengeful doll spirit swaps bodies with Akane and then tries to seduce/kill Ranma.
- The manga also featured a mirror spirit who, upon taking Ranma's female form, immediately barges out of the house in a tiny cocktail dress, ready to get it on with the next attractive guy she can find.
- In a bizarre instance of self-awareness, when female Ranma (posing as "Ranko") is forced to go bra-shopping with Nodoka and Akane, she gives up and tries on a few bras, posing to herself in the mirror and nodding appreciatively. Naturally, this is when the sales attendant at the store chooses to trip and send hot tea flying into Ranma's booth.
- Dante in the 2003 anime version of Fullmetal Alchemist attempts to seduce her ex, Hohenheim, in this manner, after taking over the body of Lyra, her beautiful maid and student.
- And his son Edward. Or rather, she tried to preemptively seduce him by making him fall in love with Rose, the girl whose body she was planning on stealing next.
- When Grace O'Connor downloaded herself into the new body of a combat cyborg in Macross Frontier, fondling her boobs (which were considerably bigger than her previous ones) was first thing she did.
- Code Geass: Empress Marianne does this when she enters C's World, doing a little posing, spinning, and curtsying. Slightly different from the normal application of this trope, as she wasn't testing out a new body, but getting used to her old one, since she's been using a young girl as a Soul Jar for a long time, and only in C's World can her detached spirit manifest its true form. Did I mention she's very hot and...did this to her son, Lelouch?
Comic Books[]
- An issue of Spider-Girl, complete with mirror.
Araña: What do you think of my sexy new body, Miguel? |
- Sistah Spooky from Empowered did this after getting the perfect body from a Deal with the Devil.
Film — Live Action[]
- Ghostbusters: When Dana Barrett becomes possessed by Zuul, she dresses seductively and flaunts her body when interacting with male characters (Peter Venkman when he arrives for their date and later Louis Tully when he is also demonically possessed). .
- In The Hidden, the body possessing space alien villain starts out only possessing the bodies of men. The first time it possesses the body of a female stripper, it spends some time exploring the differences.
- In The Hot Chick, when Rob Schneider and Rachel McAdams' characters switch bodies, one freaks out and panics, the other gets a job as a stripper. Guess which is which.
- There's the not-at-all-gratuitous "alien learns to put on a bra" sequence in Species.
- There's a non-bodyswapping example in Stardust, where the witch Lamia is very happy with her youthified self, and strips off in front of a mirror to get a better look. Her sisters are there too, looking on in envious admiration.
Literature[]
- In Second Apocalypse, Aurang gets to do this once.
- Aran'gar, alias Halima, alias Balthamel, from The Wheel of Time, a formerly male Forsaken who was reincarnated into a female body. S/he puts hir cleavage to good use.
- In "I Will Fear No Evil", Heinlein posits a brain transplant from a 95 year old man to a 23 year old, very pretty girl. At least at first, he (she?) spends time in front of the mirror admiring his new, female body.
Live Action TV[]
- In the Doctor Who episode "New Earth", Cassandra does it to both Rose (exposing some cleavage with the use of a Wonderbra) and, in a rare example with a male body (but no undoing of anything), the Doctor. Which leads to the following memorable line.
Cassandra: Goodness me, I'm a man. Yum. So many parts. And hardly used. |
- Later on, in "Let's Kill Hitler", Melody regenerates into the body of Alex Kingston, and promptly checks out her breasts, her butt, and her hair.
- A non-sexual version occurs in "The Doctor's Wife" as a Funny Background Event with Idris touching and squeezing her face, then trying out expressions in the mirror until the Doctor gets annoyed and stops her.
- Quite an entertaining scene in a Farscape episode in which all the main characters switch bodies, and John in Aeryn's body starts examining it rather closely. Of course, Aeryn in someone else's body walks in. He tries to excuse himself by saying "I'm a guy!", and Aeryn threatens to break his legs (never mind that they're hers) if he checks out anything else. The really funny part comes at the end of the episode where, when John apologizes, Aeryn implies she, too, experimented. In a rather hands-on manner.
- In the Bottom episode "Hole", when faced with imminent death, Eddie has a spontaneous conversion to Buddhism so he can reincarnate:
Richie: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me get this straight. You have taken the ancient wisdom of Buddhism and perverted it into a dastardly scheme whereby you take over the brain of a supermodel just so as you can get a quick ogle at her norks? |
- After body-swapping with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of the first things Faith does is take a long bath just to check out her "new home"; later, she acts flirtatious toward any male in sight. (Not that she didn't do similar things in her old body.)
- Smallville:
- A rare male version happens when Lionel Luthor body-swaps with Clark.
- A more traditional example occurs when a gang of ancient evil witches possess the three lead females. The reaction of the witch who gets Lois is, "I'm gorgeous! Look at these!"
- This tends to happen to Sam a lot in Supernatural. Meg's reaction to being in his body is to dramatically flex her muscles; she then spends the entire episode enjoying her handsome new body, "fine packaging" and all. It then happens to Sam two more times in season five, once with a teenager who wanted Sam's life, and once with Lucifer
- Quantum Leap has a few more male versions. The "Evil Leaper" does this at one point; also, Sam looks appreciatively in a mirror when he is handsome hitman Frankie.
- Occurred in Charmed, episode 3x09 'Coyote Piper', where Piper is possessed by an ancient evil spirit (one of several over the shows' run). After modelling in front of the mirror in what's almost a dominatrix outfit, the spirit knocks Piper's husband Leo unconsciousness, then goes to Piper's High School Reunion she was holding at her club, and proceeds to do a sexy table-dance for the all men (and a few of the women) present on top of the bar. Barefoot. For about 5 minutes.
- A non-villainous example occurs in Dollhouse when Margaret (a middle-aged woman) is uploaded into Echo's younger body.
Theatre[]
- Variation in Into the Woods. The witch had been transformed into an old crone body for a while, and after that curse is broken, she has a whole song in which she shows off her actual appearance, which is youthful and good looking.
Web Comics[]
- Girl Genius has the Other doing this to Agatha, starting around here and continuing intermittently through the end of Volume 6. (Consider that this is a mother *ahem* appreciating her daughter's body and wince.)
- Judging from his expression, Tarvek agrees with you.
- When Torg and Zoe switch bodies in a Sluggy Freelance filler arc, Torg shows off Zoe's body to the entire Internet via webcam. Zoe, upon getting her own body back and looking in her closet: "Care to explain why none of my clothes have been worn?"
- It should probably be pointed out that this filler arc was also done by Phil Foglio.
- In Eerie Cuties, this is Nina's first action after borrowing Layla's body.
Western Animation[]
- In one episode of Totally Spies, the Villain of the Week's contraption was something that allowed people to change their physical attributes by switching their own with someone else's. A really hideous lady tried it out with Alex, and then the lady walked away, checking out her new reflection in a mirror.
- Blackarachnia's debut in Beast Wars mostly fits this. Though she isn't taking anyone's appearance in particular, she has just upgraded from a simple protoform. After her introduction, she can be observed doing random kicks and poses in the background while Megatron talks.
- Not a full body, but Rarity's new wings in My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic