Gender swap

A gender swap or gender flip, also known as Rule 63, is a technique in fiction in which characters are portrayed as a different gender from the one as which they were originally written. It is commonly used in remakes or reboots, as well as the body swap and isekai genres.

Examples

His Girl Friday, adapted from 1928 Broadway play The Front Page, in which the gender of character Hildy Johnson is switched from male to female.
Ranma ½
Lady Deadpool
Darkstalkers and Street Fighter feature Demitri Maximoff, a vampire whose bite turns whoever he sucks the blood of into a beautiful woman, turning a man into a beautiful woman if he bites a man, and improving the beauty of any woman he bites.
Gender-Swap at the Delinquent Academy
Ghostbusters (2016)
Stormfront in The Boys and Vought Rising
The 2024 concept album Warriors, based on a 1979 action film, took inspiration from Gamergate to reimagine the story's central gang as women.
Fate franchise. Numerous characters in that universe (which debuted with the 2004 game Fate/Stay Night) are based on historical figures, but with their genders flipped from male to female; for example Attila, King Arthur (Artoria), Frankenstein's monster, Francis Drake, Jack the Ripper, Miyamoto Musashi, Mordred and Nero are portrayed as female. These portrayals reflect both the franchise's interest in reinterpreting historical narratives and broader trends within contemporary shōnen anime toward greater prominence of female heroic characters, situated the practice within longer anime traditions of gender ambiguity and gender transformation.
The Saga of Tanya the Evil
That Time I Got NPCed
Petra Parker
Malfoid

References

↑ Perkins, Claire (2020-09-15), "Ghost Girls: Ghostbusters, Popular Feminism and the Gender-Swap Reboot", Film Reboots, Edinburgh University Press, pp. 157–170, doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9781474451369.003.0011, ISBN 978-1-4744-5136-9, retrieved 2025-09-26
↑ Saner, Emine (2017-09-02). "Lord of the Flies to Ocean's Eight: how Hollywood reboots are flipping gender". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
↑ Simmonds, Emma. "From Ocean's 8 to Ghostbusters: a history of Hollywood's gender swap movie trend | Radio Times". Radio Times. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
↑ "Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis on their 'Warriors' musical concept album with Lauryn Hill". AP News. 2024-09-18. Retrieved 2025-09-26.
1 2 Becklinger, Nicole; Swist, Jeremy (2026-06-04), "Necromancing Ancient Heroes and Heroines in the Fate Anime Series", in Sulprizio, Chiara; Marshall, C W (eds.), Animation and the Ancient World (1 ed.), Oxford University PressNew York, NY, pp. 315–333, doi:10.1093/9780197800652.003.0016, ISBN 978-0-19-780065-2, retrieved 2026-05-21
↑ Boyd, David John (2021-06-01). "Affective Anachronisms, Fateful Becomings: Otaku Movement and the Joan of Arc Effect in Type-Moon's Transhistorical Anime Ecology". Screen Bodies. 6 (1): 78–102. doi:10.3167/screen.2021.060107. ISSN 2374-7552.
↑ Konieczny, Piotr (2026-10-12). "Fate/Apocrypha". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
1 2 Konieczny, Piotr (2026-06-08). "Fate/Extra Last Encore". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Archived from the original on 2026-07-20. Retrieved 2026-06-14.

[:1-1] Perkins, Claire (2020-09-15), "Ghost Girls: Ghostbusters, Popular Feminism and the Gender-Swap Reboot", Film Reboots, Edinburgh University Press, pp. 157–170, doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9781474451369.003.0011, ISBN 978-1-4744-5136-9, retrieved 2025-09-26

[:0-2] Saner, Emine (2017-09-02). "Lord of the Flies to Ocean's Eight: how Hollywood reboots are flipping gender". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-09-26.

[3] Simmonds, Emma. "From Ocean's 8 to Ghostbusters: a history of Hollywood's gender swap movie trend | Radio Times". Radio Times. Retrieved 2025-09-26.

[4] "Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis on their 'Warriors' musical concept album with Lauryn Hill". AP News. 2024-09-18. Retrieved 2025-09-26.

[:02-5] 1 2 Becklinger, Nicole; Swist, Jeremy (2026-06-04), "Necromancing Ancient Heroes and Heroines in the Fate Anime Series", in Sulprizio, Chiara; Marshall, C W (eds.), Animation and the Ancient World (1 ed.), Oxford University PressNew York, NY, pp. 315–333, doi:10.1093/9780197800652.003.0016, ISBN 978-0-19-780065-2, retrieved 2026-05-21

[:5-6] Boyd, David John (2021-06-01). "Affective Anachronisms, Fateful Becomings: Otaku Movement and the Joan of Arc Effect in Type-Moon's Transhistorical Anime Ecology". Screen Bodies. 6 (1): 78–102. doi:10.3167/screen.2021.060107. ISSN 2374-7552.

[SFEPK-7] Konieczny, Piotr (2026-10-12). "Fate/Apocrypha". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.

[SFEPK2-8] 1 2 Konieczny, Piotr (2026-06-08). "Fate/Extra Last Encore". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Archived from the original on 2026-07-20. Retrieved 2026-06-14.