It must be a strange time to be a gender bending anime. It is a topic often portrayed with some levity in anime fiction, but has become a rather contentious issue in reality.
Perhaps that is why creators simply don’t make so many gender-bender anime anymore. However, even with many mixed opinions of it, some LGBT anime fans have found comfort in gender-bending anime even with its propensity for being comedy.
However, no matter your personal thoughts on gender bending anime, one should simply not just pretend that they don’t exist.
It is, if nothing else, one of the more creative anime sub-genres, after all. Though not without its own tired tropes, too.
If you are looking for gender bending anime series to enjoy, we got anime recommendations!
This list covers both dressing as the opposite gender and actually physically switching genders.
Best Gender Bending Anime
Ranma ½
Although old now, Ranma ½ remains one of the more prominent gender bender anime series of all time.
In it, the titular Ranma fell in a cursed hot springs and now will turn into a girl when splashed with cold water. Being splashed with hot water will turn him back to a man.
It adds an interesting element to this martial arts comedy that makes it feel unique.
Ouran High School Host Club
This series follows a girl who ends up being mistaken for a boy and being forced to work for a secret host club at her wealthy private school.
Over time, the boys there realize she is actually a girl and it becomes more of a romance anime.
However, Ouran High School Host Club is distinctly lovable for how casual the main character is about being mistaken for, and being treated like, a boy. She is even considered an LGBT icon in some circles.
She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man
Hoping on the popularity train of online games, She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man features the “what-if” question of what if you were changing your character to see what they’d look like as a girl, then got trapped on that character.
It isn’t the most innovative of anime by any means, but it has all your standard gender bender jokes.
Kampfer
If your gender bender anime hasn’t had enough ecchi in it, then get ready for Kampfer.
This anime follows a boy who gets transformed into a girl, but not just a girl, a Kampfer.
These Kampfers are separated into teams and it is deemed they need to fight each other to the death for reasons I can only attribute to wanting to animate more boob jiggle.
There is much in the way of boob jiggle.
Himegoto
Fleeing from loan sharks who want to collect his parent’s debt, a boy is saved by the student council who kindly paid off his debt.
Unfortunately, nothing is given for free and instead they want him to cross dress and be their servant for the rest of high school.
The Ambition of Oda Nobuna
The Ambition of Oda Nobuna asks the age-old question of, “what if your favorite samurai were cute anime girls?”
Really, it is a wonder this hasn’t been done more.
Of course the modern man that gets sent back to the era saves the day all the time because… wish fulfillment.
Mayo Chiki
In Mayo Chiki, the main character is traumatized by his mother and sister so much so that he breaks out in hives if a woman touches him. So naturally, he becomes the one to discover that the butler of the headmaster’s daughter is actually a girl.
In return for keeping her secret, she offers to help him with his phobia. Rom-com shenanigans ensue.
Kenka Bancho Otome: Girl Beats Boys
After living in an orphanage, the main character meets her twin brother who informs her that they are part of a yakuza family.
He offers to switch places with her, which means he dresses as a girl and she dresses as a boy and enters a school full of the most fierce delinquents.
As you can guess, she bends those tough bros to their knees more so with shoujo heroine goodness than flying fists.
Maria Holic
Maria Holic is one of those staple gender bender anime series because it really fleshes out its characters even if it does have a rather basic school life sort of plot.
The main character goes to an all-girls school to fall in love with a girl since her fear of men gives her hives when she is near men.
She does fall in love with the titular Maria, and she soon discovers that Maria is actually a boy.
Kashimashi
After being rejected, a ridiculous catalyst sees a boy killed and reconstructed as a girl by aliens who thought the effeminate Mister was a Miss.
Kashimashi certainly starts off silly, but it actually turns into a pretty nice gender-bent romance anime.
Gonna Be The Twin Tail
Gonna Be The Twin Tail is both gender bender and and Super Sentai parody.
In it, a boy obsessed with twin tails becomes a gender-bent twin tail warrior who must defend Earth from aliens that came to take twin tails.
That’s all there is. It is a lovely comedy, if not expectedly repetitive.
Otoboku: Maidens are Falling for Me
Otoboku takes the tired plot of being forced to crossdress to attend an all-girls school and, well, it doesn’t do anything new with it.
It does, however, do the tired old plot very well.
It becomes a gender-bent yuri harem anime that doesn’t have much of a plot, but progresses character plots nicely throughout the show.
If harems are your thing, this actually does a really nice job with it.
Princess Princess
The entire premise of this show is built around an all-boys school having a tradition of having attractive first-year students dress up as women to be school idols / be ogled.
Princess Princess is definitely one for the yaoi fangirls, but it leans more on comedy than the barest hints of shounen-ai that are there.
Birdy the Mighty: Decode
This is one of the rare gender bender anime where the gender bending plays a big role, but there is tons of plot beyond it.
In Birdy the Mighty, the main character is killed as a hostage by a space fugitive. Panicking, the space detective Birdy integrates his consciousness into her body, now they both share a body and a job as an officer for the Federation.
Cheeky Angel
Oh, you know the old tale.
You make a wish to become a manly man to a genie, but it turns out they are a reverse genie who only grants the opposite of the wish so you end up as a girl.
Who hasn’t had that happen to them, right?
Simoun
The gender bending element in Simoun is more just a part of the in-anime universe rather than part of the plot.
In Simoun, everyone is born female and they then choose their gender when they become adults. As only females can pilot the ships that defend their city, the main characters remain female, but the show keeps the options on the table.
Magical Girl Ore
What do you do when you have two pretty trope-tired genres? You combine them and make something dumb, but fun!
Magical Girl Ore combines gender bending with magical girls. The main character becomes a magical girl to save her crush, but her body is weak, so it enhances her by changing her magical girl form into a buff guy in a dress.
Kokoro Connect
While gender bending often hamfists some drama on in there, Kokoro Connect is all about the drama.
It has members of a club start randomly switching bodies one day for no obvious reason. This causes secrets to start pouring out of all of them.
It is a lovely character drama and has about as much explanation for the body swapping as any gender bender typically does.
I My Me! Strawberry Eggs
Having a hard time finding work as a teacher, a young man is refused a job at a middle school because the principal won’t hire men. However, his landlady suggests that he crossdress in order to get hired.
The rest of the series keeps to the traditional shenanigans of having him keep his gender a secret and having others fall in love with his female persona.
Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches
Unlike some of these other body-swapping anime, the body switching in Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches is only part of the series.
The titular seven witches are all girls that posses different powers that are activated by a kiss, one of the first powers he discovers is being able to switch bodies with a girl.
As this girl is “the main girl” of this light harem anime, you see her power most at play.
Aoharu X Machine Gun
This series is very much akin to Ouran High School Host Club.
The main character is a girl who dresses like a boy for her own unique set of reasons. However, instead of being forced to join a host club, she is forced to join an airsoft team.
Life With an Ordinary Guy Who Reincarnated Into a Total Fantasy Knockout
While isekai anime, a sub-genre now so full of tropes it is desperately seeking innovation, has dipped its toes into gender swapping with series like in Saga of Tanya the Evil where a man is reborn as a girl, Life With an Ordinary Guy Who Reincarnated Into a Total Fantasy Knockout is more full-on gender-bending.
This isekai anime sought innovation by turning a normal guy into a girl, transporting her and his best friend to a fantasy land, and doing typical isekai adventure things.
A big part of the comedy comes from his best friend hating women and struggling not to fall in love with him because he is the guy he still admired on the inside.
Back Street Girls
After messing up a job, three yakuza men are ordered by their boss to go to Thailand, get a sex change, and become an idol group.
That’s it.
That’s the show.
It is “hard yakuza men in the body of cute girls” comedy, and peak weird anime plots.
Onimai: I’m Now Your Sister!
Oh, silly little sisters.
One day, you’re a shut-in older brother, the next day after your little sister slipped you something, you are a middle school-aged girl.
Onimai has the gender swapping be part of the little sisters NEET rehabilitation plan. The anime actually gives a solid glimpse on the problems that women face that men don’t quite grasp. It is most notable for being one of the rare anime to acknowledge periods exist.
That said, while the main character is a gender-bent adult, it lingers on his child body in ways that can, for lack of a better term, be pretty sus.
Reborn to Master the Blade: From Hero-King to Extraordinary Squire
Many gender-bending anime series have an element of fantasy to them, but only a handful take palce in a fantasy world.
Reborn to Master the Blade follows a dying Hero-King who laments that leadership made him put his martial studies on hold. He asks the goddess that once gave him her boon to reincarnate him so he can live a warrior’s life this time.
However, he was reborn as a woman.
While Reborn to Master the Blade does have a bit of your standard gender-bending ecchi that comes from man-to-woman scenarios, it is nice to see that the Hero-King doesn’t feel held back by having a woman’s body.
Ayakashi Triangle
This series is distinctly an ecchi action anime following a boy who took his grandfather’s place as an exorcist ninja in order to protect his childhood friend who is an ayakashi medium, making dangerous ayakashi drawn to her.
One day, while saving her from an attack by the King of Ayakashi, the monster’s last effort before having his powers sealed was to gender-bend the exorcist ninja so he couldn’t carry out a lewd youth romance with the girl.
This is definitely one you want to watch either censored or uncensored, depending on the type of person you are.
Wandering Son
I thought it might be nice to end the list on a serious note.
Gender bender anime often comically dances around serious gender issues, but not this one. Wandering Son dives head first into its dramatic exploration of its two trans main characters.
If you are perhaps coping with your gender issues through anime, this can be a helpful one.
Do you have more gender bender anime recommendations? Let fans know in the comments section below.
y-yamada kun.. I want to switch bodies… and we need to cook
lets do it