A minor di-llama.
A type of transformation in which, most likely due to a curse, spell or potion, portions of your body start to turn into that of a creature until the whole body is changed. The order can vary depending on what animal or on the work. Often happens with a Forced Transformation. Can lead to Stumbling in the New Form if, for example, one leg gets changed but the other doesn't, leaving the victim with an uneven gait until the change is complete. Will also frequently result in Hide Your Shapeshifting as the character transforming progressively hides more and more of their body as it changes.
See also Partial Transformation, when the transformation stops at just part of it, and Slow Transformation.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- Stone Ocean: Ungalo's Bohemian Rhapsody causes stories to be brought to life, anyone who has familiarities with them immediately has their bodies transforming one part at a time until they've become the character and fill the role in the story.
- Steel Ball Run: Dr. Ferdinand's Scary Monsters causes people to turn into dinosaurs when wounded, at first causing their skin to harden, emit scales, sharp teeth, and become more dino-like until they fully transformed.
- JoJolion: Tsurugi undergoes the Hereditary Curse once it begins effecting him, with each part of his body turning to stone the longer he tries resisting the curse.
- Princess Knight: In the 36th episode of the anime adaptation, Hecate uses her Voluntary Shapeshifting abilities to turn into a white cat in this manner.
Asian Animation
- Lamput: At the end of "Back to School", the docs' transformation from children back into adults is slow, with different body parts on them being affected one by one. Skinny Doc's eye grows, then his left arm, then his right leg; Specs Doc's belly grows, then his head; Skinny Doc's eyes shrink, Specs Doc's eyes grow, and after a few more painful changes, they're back to normal.
Films — Animated
- In Bartok the Magnificent, Ludmilla drinks a potion that amplifies your inner self ten times and slowly transforms into a dragon. First she grows a tail, then her hands grow bigger and grow claws, then her breasts grow to a ludicrous extent, then her lower body transforms, her arms grow, she balloons to an enormous size, she sprouts horns, and finally her face turns into that of a dragon.
- Beauty and the Beast (1991): Happens at the end when the Beast returns to his human form. The hands change first, then the feet change, and his head changes too. We aren't shown anything else, though. The Enchanted Christmas shows a flashback showing the prince's transformation into a beast, where the only part that's completely shown are his hands.
- In Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, this happens to Wallace, when he becomes the titular Were-Rabbit.
- Kuzco's transformation into a llama in The Emperor's New Groove. The ears change first, then his neck changes, followed by his right hand, face and left hand. We don't see anything below the waist, however. It carried on into The Emperor's New School, where this would usually happen to anyone who sampled Yzma's potions.
- Pinocchio (1940): Bad boys turn into donkeys in this manner. The first sign of the transformation is a donkey bray replacing a normal laugh, then the ears change, followed by the tail sprouting from the back. This is followed by the head, arms and legs changing before the final stage of losing their ability to speak.
- Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night has the infamous scene where Pinocchio is turned back into a puppet with different parts of his body become lifeless wood. This scene was trimmed or cut from most TV airings.
- In Spies in Disguise, the spy’s body parts shrink down to a tiny size one at a time before he fully transforms into a pigeon.
Films — Live-Action
- This happens to Sex Machine in From Dusk Till Dawn after he's bit by a vampire. First his teeth start changing, then his hands...
- Happens to Scrappy when changing into giant form in the first live action Scooby-Doo (2002) movie. One of the few to deal with ill-proportioned transformations.
Literature
- The Adventures of Pinocchio: Pinocchio and the other boys spend time in the Land of Toys, a place without school and rules where they can play all day. After a long time, Pinocchio wakes up with donkey ears first, and when he finds out the same happened to his friend Lampwick, they laugh together at the absurdity. But their amusement is short lived once they completely turn into donkeys and are sent to be sold to owners who are unaware of their true identity.
- Although using a shorter time frame than most examples, shapeshifting in Animorphs works this way. For added fun, the process is randomized every time. With practice, they can exercise some control over which part turns into what first (Jake manages to start a wolf morph just enough to change his throat to change his voice, Cassie impresses the Andalite sharing her brain by making Hork-Bajir arm blades appear in sequence). Turned into an artform by Andalites (who call it morphdancing).
- Goosebumps: The book called Chicken, Chicken where two kids slowly transform into chickens over the course of a few days.
Live-Action TV
- Ang Lihim ni Annasandra, a Filipino fantasy TV series (fantaserye), has this when Annasandra turns into a boar and back.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In "The Dark Age", Jenny Calendar is possessed by the demon Eyghon. At first the transformation is just in her attitude, becoming sexually forward (which an off-his-game Giles attributes to an earlier head injury), but quickly turns scornful, then growly-voiced with some forehead distortion. When she later returns, she's in full-on pointy-ear, big-forehead glowy-eyes mode.
- Godai initially transforms into Kuuga this way, until he figures out his henshin pose, in Kamen Rider Kuuga.
- Odd Squad: In "The Odd Antidote", Ms. O gets sprayed by an odd plant which causes her body to slowly transform, one odd bit at a time, including parts such as giant ears, a lion tail and a pair of feathery wings.
- In the first season of Once Upon a Time (2011), August (Pinocchio) turns back into a puppet this way.
- In an episode of The Outer Limits (1995), "Quality of Mercy", a human has been captured by aliens. He meets another captive, who is being subjected to numerous surgeries to gradually change her body into that of the aliens. Turns out she was actually an alien spy being reverted out of her human disguise, all the while playing on his sympathies to gain information.
- In the That's So Raven Halloween special, "Don't Have a Cow", Raven and Chelsea perform a spell that accidentally starts turning them into cows which continues as the episode goes on. They get (In order) cow ears, tails, snouts, hooves, and tongues. They also act more like cows as it goes on in which they eat and moo frequently. During the costume contest announcement the rest of the parts come and they are completely transformed until it's revealed that it was all a vision.
- The Twilight Zone (1985): In "The After Hours", Marsha Cole begins to become plastic again after learning that she is a mannequin. Her right leg is the first part of her to transform and she has to drag it in her fruitless attempt to escape from her fellow mannequins. It is followed by her right arm and then her left leg. Refusing to accept her fate, she still tries to escape but soon her head is the only part of her that is still human. In the final scene, she has become fully plastic and is on display in the department store Satler's with all of the other mannequins.
Music
- Ozzy Osbourne's "Shot in the Dark" music video focuses on one female fan, who goes to an Ozzy concert and has a good time... until she notices her fingernails have turned black. Her panic increases as more features are altered. The end of the video shows her on a billboard (advertising the concert) as its lone character.
- In the Radiohead music video for "There There", Thom Yorke's transformation into a tree starts with his left foot, and progresses through his right foot, legs, torso, and arms. His face, still frozen in a scream at the end of the video, changes offscreen.
Video Games
- ANNO: Mutationem: The effects of the Mechanika Virus within in-game documents are described with the infected first experiencing mechanization in one of their body parts, then the roboticisation spreads until the whole body is turned into a machine, resulting in the host's transformation or death.
- LEGO Adaptation Game:
- LEGO Dimensions: In the Midway Games-themed "Retro Wreckage" level, Gamer Kid becomes a Rampage-esque gorilla (and later, reverts back to a human minifigure) a piece or two at a time.
- LEGO Marvel Super Heroes: When Bruce Banner changes into the Hulk, his chest expands first (looking like a distorted minifig body, rather then a "big minifig"), then his arms and legs, and then finally his shirt shreds completely as he goes into full "big minifig" mode. When "Hulking down", he gets Bruce's head first, then his torso and legs shrink down but he keeps the big minifig arms for a moment.
Web Animation
- The Big Dad Wolf: Holan's transformation into a werewolf happens this way. First he notices his arms turning into werewolf arms, and heads out to a water cooler to calm down and turn them back into human hands. Then his chest fur pops out, followed by his head becoming a wolf's, then his ears changing into wolf ears, and the rest of his body following soon after.
- According to his backstory, Trogdor Was Once a Man, but then first became a dragon-man, before finally becoming a dragon.
Web Comics
- In Goblins, Complains is targeted
by a magical effect that tries to turn him into a demon. It's quickly dispelled, but every time he's badly injured, he heals with more demonic features: black blood, a demon arm, Glowing Eyes of Doom, horns, and so on.
Web Original
- In The Cartoon Man, Roy transforms into a humanoid cartoon character bit by bit, beginning with his gloves, then his hair, and finally his eyes.
Western Animation
- In Adventure Time, Simon Petrikov's initial transformation into the Ice King occurred very gradually that took months of using the Ice Crown's magic. In the episode "Betty", the Ice King temporarily became Simon for short period of time due to the cancellation of the Ice Crown's magic.
- In the alternate timeline of Farmworld, the Finn of that reality begins to transform within minutes of using the Ice Crown's magic.
- Danny Phantom: In "Micro Management", Danny, Dash, and Skulker are shrunk by one of Danny's dad's inventions. Unable to handle being a ghost while tiny, he reverts into a human piece by piece: first, the boots of his jumpsuit, then, the legs, then, the arms, and finally, the hair on the back of his head. By the time they've returned to their regular size, only his green eyes keep Dash from learning his secret.
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy:
- The episode "Sickly Sweet" has Grim put a spell on Mandy that would cause her to gradually turn into a donkey/dragon hybrid when she acted mean.
- "Grim for a Day" has Grim and Billy turn into each other this way.
- In a first season episode of Jackie Chan Adventures, Jackie suffers bit-by-bit petrification over the course of the episode.
- The Life and Times of Juniper Lee: In "Oh Brother, What Art Thou", Ray-Ray becomes a dragon this way. First, his hands and feet enlarge, followed by a tail growing. We don't see anymore after that and he's a full dragon the next time we see him.
- In the Looney Tunes short "Yankee Dood It", whenever the Shoemaker says the word "Jehoshaphat", the elf gradually transforms into a mouse (which can be undone by saying the word "Rumpelstiltskin"). First he gains a mouse's tail, then mouse ears, and finally into a full mouse. At the end of the cartoon, when the elf king visits the Shoemaker to check on his business, the shoemaker declares his next line of shoes to be named "the Jehoshaphat Boots", and the King goes straight into the complete mouse form.
- Marvel's What If?: In "What If... Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?", Happy's transformation into the Freak after accidentally getting injected with the Hulk's blood happens this way. His leg, the injection site, is the first to transform and the rest of his limbs and body follow suit as he grows more stressed from the situation.
- In the Sabrina: The Animated Series episode "Board and Sorcery", Harvey turns into a snowman this way. His nose becomes a carrot, then his arms become twigs, before he's a full snowman in a flash.
- Happens in Turbo Teen whenever Brett turns into a car and back.