Make My Monster Grow

The situation is quickly becoming grizzly.


"Magic Wand, make my monster GROW!"
—Rita Repulsa, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
"... What did you expect? He wasn't going to get smaller!"
—Lothor, Power Rangers Ninja Storm

The villain grows to an enormous size for the very definitely final battle. No, he doesn't go and get mutated into a terrifying One-Winged Angel form, but simply becomes an absolutely huge version of himself, pretty much the attack of the 50-foot villain.

In some cases, this goes with a villain comeback after an assumed death by dangerous substance or fall, or getting hit with a bunch of energy beams and "exploding". There is also a pretty good chance the villain's castle or base will be nearly, if not completely destroyed when the villain does this and in certain funny usages of this, the villain or Monster of the Week will realise the unfortunate consequences of both the enormous size and the misfortune of standing on a piece of flooring that's by far too weak to support him.

Compare Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever, Miracle-Gro Monster, One-Winged Angel, Rent-A-Zilla.

Please try to only list examples where the villain's increase in size is the only change to his appearance, since most One-Winged Angel forms by definition are usually larger than the original character.

Not a Double Entendre. Usually.

Examples of Make My Monster Grow include:

Anime & Manga

  • In Busou Renkin, Victor does this, although it's to combat a giant robot, the Buster Baron. It's explained that he used the bodies of all the dead creatures around him to create a giant version of himself around him. When the Baron destroys the giant form, he leaps out and catches them by surprise. Doesn't explain where he got the giant pants from, though.
  • In the 13th episode of Digimon Adventure, Devimon grows to giant size, eating Ogremon to help himself do this. After beating up the first six Champions this way, he's killed when Angemon uses up all his energy to destroy him.
  • The first arc of Digimon Savers had all their Mons Of The Week several times larger than what they would usually be, and sometimes they were even shown normal sized before growing. This indicated, of course, that there was a reason for this. Ironically, with all the parallels Savers had with SPD/Dekaranger, this was not one of them.
    • Also, the DATS Base doesn't turn into a Giant Robot. Tragic, really.
  • In Dragon Ball, Piccolo Junior did this during his big fight with Goku near the end of the original series. It was Goku who goaded him into doing it, so he can jump down his throat and retrieve the jar holding Kami.
  • Mazinger Z: In episode 12, Baron Ashura used a size-changing ray to turn a tiny robot into a giant Robeast -Bicong O9-. That ray had been invented by Big Bad Dr. Hell, who previously tested it with Ashura himself/herself, briefly transforming it into a giant. Throughout the series, Hell used more Mechanical Beasts could grow their size.


Comic Books

  • Protagonist (sort of) example from Watchmen: After the Big Bad vaporizes Dr. Manhattan with an intrinsic field remover, Doc comes back huge. Then he shrinks down to normal size again after smashing the building open with one hand.
    • Dr Manhattan won the Vietnam War this way as well.
  • The Spectre does this a lot.
  • In the Marvel Godzilla comics, as the heroic monster battles the intergalactic Mega Monsters (Rhiahn, Triax and Krollar), their alien commanders zap them with an "Energex Ray," doubling the monsters' sizes and making them tower over Godzilla.


Film

  • Happens to Sark in Tron and Kingdom Hearts II.
  • Idiocracy lampooned this. During the demolition derby match, the third enemy was so big ... his truck wouldn't fit in the tunnel to enter the arena.
  • Dude, Where's My Car?, of all things.
  • Fridge Logic makes the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters one of these. He started out as a cute little cartoon mascot not unlike the Pillsbury Doughboy, but Ray Stantz's choice of him as the form of the Destructor made him gigantic. In fact, his size and mass are the only dangerous things about him.
  • While not a villain, Jet Jaguar does this to himself in Godzilla vs. Megalon when he realized he had to distract Megalon until Godzilla arrived. The only problem was that Gigan showed up first, and he and Megalon beat the stuffing out of Jet Jaguar...
    • Also, Minya in both Godzilla's Revenge and Godzilla: Final Wars. In the former movie it was part of a child's fantasy, but in the latter it was presented as a natural part of Minya's evolution.
  • Actually averted in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers! The two Ectomorphicon Titans are already giant, and the only "growing" is when Ivan Ooze merges with one of them. (Maligore does make himself grow in the second.)


Literature

  • An unusual literary example is David Eddings's Belgariad. When the final battle between Belgarion and Torak is about to start, both combatants suddenly decide to become huge for no apparent reason.
    • Explained post fight by Belgarath. Since Torak was so much larger than Belgarion, they both grew to even the fight, as dictated by the powers that be.
  • A heroic example: Tanu, the potion master from the Fablehaven series does this occasionally.
    • In the finale of Book 2, the artifact is protected by what appears to be a harmless cat. When you kill it, it is resurrected as a larger cat. This happens eight times, until the cat is a winged, three-headed, three-tailed monstrosity with snakes sprouting out of its back.
  • The demons in Tales of Kolmar have size-changing powers. When they fight their mortal enemies the Kantri, they grow to match sizes. Some flames are exchanged, but the battles are won or lost through physically grappling, biting, clawing etc.


Live-Action TV

  • Super Sentai/Power Rangers. Whenever the Rangers defeated the Monster of the Week, the villain of the season would resurrect it at giant size for the Rangers to fight in their Zords. Each villain had a different method for doing this; let's just list the Power Rangers ones - Trope Namer Rita Repulsa threw her magic staff to the Earth, Lord Zedd threw a magical grenade, the Machine Empire sent out a tiny robot with an enlarging ray...[1] (mind you, the monster being destroyed at small size first didn't become the norm until well into the series, and sometimes can't happen - any form of self-activated growth requires the monster to exist in order to do it.)
    • Some fans wondered why Rita even bothered. Her monster would typically have the Rangers on the ropes, then she'd make it grow, which freed them to summon and combine their Zords, and *splat.* Finster even lampshaded this in one episode, and got slapped for his efforts.
      • The reason Rita didn't leave the monster small is because they'd eventually use the Power Blaster on it which would finish it off even more effectively than the Zords in most cases. For example, the Spit Flower overwhelmed the Dragonzord Battle Mode, but later reappeared small and was beaten by the Power Blaster. And in a case where both defeated a monster, the Power Blaster defeated Gnarly Gnome as did the Megazord. This also happened in season 2 with the Thunderzords when the Power Blaster would continue to defeat enemies, only becoming useless late in season 2.
    • Naturally, there's plenty of Fridge Logic with this: both "why don't they just use the Zords and stomp the monster before it grows?" and "why don't the villains just overwhelm the Rangers with an army of giant monsters?" There has been Lampshade Hanging on both of these.
      • It was Handwaved in the early seasons with the explanation that one of the rules of being a Power Ranger was that they were forbidden to escalate a battle without being forced to, and breaking that rule would result in losing the Ranger powers, though it never said exactly why doing so would cost them their powers. Also doesn't really explain why they don't do it in later seasons, though, when those rules are no longer in effect.
      • If you think about it, it takes place in all the "Fair-play fight" tropes in Power Rangers/Super Sentai. The Rangers won't use the Zords against human-sized monsters, Transformation Is a Free Action for the Zords, and so on.
      • Oddly it was Beetleborgs which gave the best justification: summoning the Humongous Mecha against human-sized monsters in the middle of the city can do more damage than they were preventing. Tomica Hero Rescue Fire also brings this up in one episode.
      • Gou Gou Sentai Boukenger had a memorable instance when Bouken Yellow did summon the giant robot while the team was fighting mooks...which meant the other Boukenger had to dodge giant feet just like the mooks. Yes, Yellow's The Ditz, why do you ask?
    • Averted Trope in Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger/Power Rangers SPD as noted in the footnote above, where the enemies do not grow. Like the Rangers, when they need to escalate things, they hop into a Humongous Mecha.
      • And going back to Super Sentai, Choudenshi Bioman did it first - they don't have growing monsters. Instead, they have five recurring human-sized monsters, and a separate large mecha Monster of the Week (occasionally piloted by one of the three generals).
      • In Dai Sentai Goggle Five the defeated monsters of the week would get revived and then sent a humongous mecha copy of their own body to pilot.
      • In Tokumei Sentai Gobusters, the villains send Humongous Mecha to back up a normal-sized monster. The mecha are actually mass produced, but are given some of the monster's thematic design elements before they're sent out.
    • It's become such a cliche that in Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, the Red Ranger nonchalantly tells the others in the first episode that the monster's going to revive and grow after its defeat. Sure enough, the monster does so, and Shinken Red doesn't even bat an eye before summoning his Humongous Mecha to dispatch it again.
      • Not only that, the process is automatic. All Ayakashi have two lives: whenever a human-sized Ayakashi dies, it's immediately reincarnated as a giant. Shinken Red knew this already, having fought them longer than the others.
      • The Shinkenger crossover in Kamen Rider Decade averts this by virtue of Story-Breaker Team-Up, though: When the Ayakashi Chinomanako stole Daiki's Diendriver and transformed into a corrupt version of Kamen Rider Diend, his biology was somehow altered, meaning that it now had only one human-sized life. Really though, this was done mainly because Kamen Riders don't have Humongous Mecha.[2]
      • Speaking of Decade, Diend does this to Decade[3] in All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker as the final trump card against King Dark, the last man standing of Dai-Shocker after its leaders all went kablooie.
    • In Power Rangers Jungle Fury, growing is a martial arts technique. Monsters are able to do it at will. The Rangers, on the other hand, basically make mecha out of their Ki Attacks.
    • Interesting version with Power Rangers Mystic Force/Mahou Sentai Magiranger and the last set of monsters, the Ten Terrors/the Infershia Pantheon: They were naturally giant sized, and could make themselves human-sized. They'd go back to their natural size for the last round.
    • In Engine Sentai Go-onger, one monster dramatically shouts the usual growth command... and nothing happens. Turns out a Genre Savvy Go-On Gold had removed the monster's module of grow-juice during the battle!
    • In Mirai Sentai Timeranger and Power Rangers Time Force, criminals convicted of time-travelling crimes are flash-frozen and shrunk down to the size of action figures. When they are revived, they have to wear a special seal in order to maintain their normal size, and breaking this seal results in their Humongous Mecha-necessitating growth.
    • Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger lampshades the concept in one episode, where the Big Bad impatiently fires the growth ray early, causing Gokai Green to remark "He grew even though we haven't beaten him yet! Can he do that?!" In another episode, after the monster grows, Gokai Red snarks "We weren't going to skip this part, were we?" Yet another episode has a monster that has the ability to grow as a latent power—as well as shrinking, which lets it get into the team's mecha and wreak havoc.
      • Gokaiger also averts it in a couple of special instances: the Disc One Final Boss has a self-styled Humongous Mecha, as does the Mad Scientist who invented the growth ray. The Rival has his own supply of humongous monsters that he unleashes when he wants to Troll the Gokaiger even more. And late in the series when the Bigger Bad shows up, growths become less common and finally stop entirely after the Mad Scientist is killed (though we do get some mecha battles because at that point, the invasion fleet has arrived).
    • Oddly, the Trope Maker for Super Sentai shows was actually Japanese Spider-Man. Yes, that one. When Toei made a Toku adaptation of Spider-Man, they couldn't think of a good spider-themed finishing move, so they had the villain make the monster grow and then Spider-Man would jump in his giant mecha Leopardon to defeat it. It was that kind of show. And yes, it ended up being a predecessor for Toei's own Sentai.
    • More Fridge Logic: Why not make the monster grow at the beginning of the fight when he's fresh? The majority of the time a Megazord was defeated, it was at the hands of a villain who had not been previously fought at human size. Thunderzords were destroyed by monsters who had never been fought small (well, this time around. Rito the new general came with four past monsters, but this time around, the whole batch was made to grow the second the fight got underway.) The Zeo Megazord was damaged by a monster never fought in human size. Turbo Megazord was captured not by a monster, by by the villain's Humongous Mecha. Turbo and Rescue Megazords were destroyed by a monster created in giant size. Power Rangers in Space may be the first to destroy a Megazord with a monster previously defeated in human size (Tankenstein, despite being in a season not known for doing it this way, blowed up real good before being resurrected in a giant and badder form. By the end of the fight, the Mega Voyager is no more!)
      • It's been done. Lord Zedd often grew the monster immediately, but it seldom helped. On the sentai side, the Gokaiger monsters accused of cheating for doing this also lost anyway, though sometimes it's because the plan wasn't your usual smash and bash.
    • Gosei Sentai Dairanger also has a bit of funny Genre Savvy about growing. Like Morphin' season two, whose monsters it provides, the Dairanger monsters use grow bombs. When Lipstick Songstress (that's Lipsyncher to MMPR fans) gets pissed at having her 'perfect' face scratched, she whips out a grow grenade (clearly, she has no regard for the unwritten rule that you're only supposed to grow when you're losing.) and you can see the Mooks run away before she activates it, not wanting to be squished by her soon-to-be-giant feet! (Not seen in MMPR 'cause the Dairanger Mooks are different.)


Videogames

  • In Spore, during the Space phase, you can eventually obtain an enlarging beam to make a creature colossal in size.
  • Bowser has done this a few times, to wit:
    • Yoshi's Island has giant Baby Bowser, who's big enough that if he gets too close, he destroys the entire castle and Yoshi plummets to his death.
      • In fact, in Yoshi's Island every single boss except two is a normal enemy enlarged by Kamek's magic (The two being Prince Froggy, who remains normal sized while Kamek shrinks Yoshi, and Roger the Potted Ghost, a ghost not belonging to any normal enemy species).
    • Yoshi's Island DS has similar for a giant adult Bowser made that way, again by Kamek's magic.
      • Also true for every boss, with the exception of Hector the Reflector, Priscilla the Peckish, Six-Faced Sal (all of whom don't belong to any enemy species), Moltz the Very Goonie, Big Guy the Stilted (who are both natural King Mooks in that they were already giant when Kamek brings them in) and Baby Bowser.
    • Bowser has also been magically supersized for the final battles in Super Princess Peach, Mario Party 5 and 9, Paper Mario, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii.
    • Also in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Iggy Koopa's magic enchanted Chain Chomp.
    • The trend is inverted in Mario Party DS; every boss except Bowser is larger than usual, due to the cast being shrunk.
    • Also inverted in Super Paper Mario, where O'Chunks does a "CHUNK UP!" for his one-on-one battle with Bowser in World 8-1.
    • In Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, Bowser goes giant-mode several times throughout the game when fighting similar sized opponents. And he's playable. Yes, it's great.
  • DK Jungle Climber has giant King K. Rool as the final boss.
  • Mysterio from one of the Spider-Man games does this.
  • I Wanna Be the Guy: happens to The Guy in the final battle.
  • A monster unit in Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten can fuse with another monster to increase its size by about three times, which grants them a multitude of benefits. In a boss example, Deathzet does this through her own will for the second phase of her battle.
  • DK in Donkey Kong '94 (the Game Boy one).
  • While most of Dracula's second forms in Castlevania are One-Winged Angels, he resorts to this in Haunted Castle.
    • His first forms tend to be huge as well, much taller than the Belmont du jour, at any rate. In the cases where Dracula (or his identically-powered replacement) aren't gigantic, he's typically floating in midair (so the player still has to jump in order to hit his weak spot).
  • For Capcom vs. Whatever examples, Apocalypse in X-Men vs. Street Fighter and more visibly Onslaught in Marvel vs. Capcom.
  • In Drakengard, one of the paths has the final boss be a gigantic Manah that shoots magic projectiles at you.
  • How about if the boss has an attack that only temporarily makes it bigger? An example is Tabuu in Super Smash Bros.. Brawl, who has an attack where he enlarges himself and fires Eye Beams.
  • Ratchet and Clank is made of this trope. The boss at the end of the original pilots a giant mecha. Ditto for Deadlocked and Tools of Destruction. Going Commando has the final boss be a suddenly supersized enemy. This trope is also the main idea behind Size Matters.
  • In Banjo-Tooie, Klungo grows to giant size after consuming his red potion. "Now Klungo sssquasssh!"
  • In the Touhou Project fighter Immaterial and Missing Power, final boss Ibuki Suika does this as a function of one of her declared attacks "Second Card [Giant Oni on the Scroll]." Her power is control of density [4] so it only makes sense that she can do this.
    • in a Touhou imageboard, there was once a discussion over the implications of her abilities, one of them being the possibility that Suika, while in her mist form, could be inhaled; another being that, if she doesn't have a limit to how big she can become, she would be one of the series' fastest characters (despite herself already having impressive agility, according to tengu reporter Aya Shameimaru, who claims to be the fastest character in Gensokyo, the game's setting), with her smallest moves surpassing by far the speed of light; the last of them being, as a joke reply to who would be the most powerful character in the series, one poster mentioned her scale-increasing ability, to which someone else replied saying that "n times zero is still zero"
    • Alice Margatroid pulls off a more literal example of this trope at the end of Cirno's scenario in Hisoutensoku. After some typical spell cards attacks, she causes two of her helper Shanghai dolls to grow twice as big as Cirno and fire wide lasers. Her last attack then causes a single Shanghai doll to grow as big as her house, taller than the screen height and arm it with swords. The swords eventually start shooting lasers themselves.
  • After each boss battle in Ape Escape 2, you would capture the boss, except for Yellow Monkey, who just ran away. Later, The Big Bad has his scary speech interupted by a banana that fell on his head. Looking up, he sees Yellow Monkey, now gigantic, who you have to fight.
  • In many of the Mega Man X games, the Big Bad Sigma. Each game ends with you facing off against his multiple forms. His last form is almost always a large robotic body that fills up most of the screen.
  • This is the resident Monster Clown's whole schtick in Klonoa: Door to Phantomile. He throws something at you, it turns into a giant monster. And later, he does as well.
  • The first Melty Blood. G-Akiha.
  • Both Sonic Adventure games do this with their True Final Bosses, the first game with Chaos, and the second one with the Biolizard.
  • At the end of Hexen II, you wail away on Big Bad Eidolon for a while until he calls upon his Chaos Sphere and triples in height.
  • The final boss of Purple grows into a humongous Background Boss after you hurt him enough.
  • The Abominable Snowbug from Bug!! does this as a Desperation Attack- it roars while beating its chest and flexing all the muscles in its body, growing to twice its size. Unfortunately for him, his hitbox stayed the same, so Bug could effortlessly jump on him like he could before.
  • Kirby in Abobos Big Adventure.
  • World of Warcraft has Prince Kael'thas who, after reaching about half health, will start going mad with power, shattering the giant windows behind him and about doubling in size.
  • Agent Smith actually does this in The Matrix: Path Of Neo. No, really. All of the different Smiths form one giant Smith as the final boss.
  • Dark Souls has Ornstein and Smough, a Dual Boss and That One Boss. The fight has two phases, and when you kill one of them the other absorbs their fallen companion's power. Killing Smough first will cause Ornstein to grow into a giant.


Western Animation

  • The Little Mermaid: In a classic example, Ursula grows into a towering monster in the climax. She does this in the first three Kingdom Hearts games as well.
  • Oddly enough, this is used by a hero in Ben 10: Alien Force. One of Ben's alien forms, Humongousaur, can become larger at will.
  • In Turtles Forever, the 2003 Shredder becomes humongazoid for the final battle. It's apparently a feature built into his new body from Krang's technology.
    • Krang's suit can be seen doing this in an early episode of the 1987 series, as well as in the video game Turtles In Time. He tries it on 2003 Shredder in Turtles Forever too, but doesn't do so well.
    • Shredder has this done to him by a dark fairy in the Japanese-made Legend of the Supermutants OVA.
  • In the Series Fauxnale of Dexter's Laboratory, after Dexter and family have the monster on the ropes, Mandark sweeps in with a laser tank so he can finish it off and get all the credit. However, he's too busy gloating to notice that the monster is absorbing the energy and growing even larger, until it picks him up and eats him (He got better).
  • On Muppet Babies, Bunsen tries to defeat a giant dough monster (played by Piggy) with his beast blaster. Only he used his yeast blaster by mistake, and we all know what yeast does to dough...
    • Bunsen then counters this by inflating Gonzo to her size with his weirdo inflator. But then the two start falling in love instead.
  • One episode of Futurama has a giant Bender terrorising New New York, so the Professor uses a growth ray on Zoidberg to get them to fight one another.
  • The Shushu Rubilax in Wakfu is pretty puny normally (Yugo is taller than him) but each time he gets hit his size increases. Unfortunately, Sadlygrove learns this after he has already rained dozens of blows on Rubilax.
  • In The Problem Solverz episode "Breakfast Warz", Professor Sugar Fish uses the power of his cereal to become gigantic before the fight with Danny's mom. Because sugar makes you grow big. Crazy big!
  • Applied liberally in Swat Kats, especially when Dr. Viper is in the picture.


Web Originals

  • When the League of Mary Sue Factories unleashed the macrovirus in Protectors of the Plot Continuum Headquarters, they arranged to have Paul Bunyan in harm's way. The monsters that carry the actual virus grow in proportion to the host they hatched from.
  • Atop the Fourth Wall: Linkara has done this to himself twice, Mechakara did it once. All these times involved the Magic Coin from the Godzilla Vs Barkley review.
    • The third time it occurred, coincidentally, was during a review of a Power rangers comic book.
    • Not so coincidentally, Linkara quotes the Trope Namer the second time. Magic coin, make my me grow!...wait..."
  • My Way Entertainment, of course, did this in their first Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Gag Dub. In their usual style, it's... changed a bit.

Rita: "Make my niggas GROW!"

Chick as Rita: Curses! Now I shall take a small thing and make it LARGE!

  1. ↑ If you care... Divatox fired torpedoes with grow potion, Astronema fired a ray from her base, Power Rangers Lost Galaxy monsters grew on their own or, rarely, from drinking a potion, Jinxer threw growth cards, which he had in addition to monster and mook cards, mutants tore off "DNA patches," Toxica fired magic seeds, Lothor fired a magic scroll, Mesogog used a device that brought down technobabble-laden rain, alien criminals in Power Rangers SPD used their own Zords, Power Rangers Mystic Force had it as one more easily-cast spell, each Power Rangers Operation Overdrive Big Bad had his own grow method, Rinshi Beasts used a necessarily-vaguely-defined martial arts technique, Venjix... uh, the visuals that accompany "Begin the download, now!" are pretty vague, but consensus is 'download' refers to downloading a growth program into the monster, and Nighloks naturally have a second "Megamonster" life/state/form that kicks in when they're blown up. Whew.
  2. ↑ However, there are Kamen Riders who face giant threats more often than others, though not Once an Episode. Take Kamen Rider J and Kamen Rider Hibiki. The former makes himself grow whereas the latter, in spite of the size of his enemies, doesn't. Kamen Rider Den-O, Kamen Rider Kiva, Kamen Rider Double fight giant monsters semi-regularly, using their Cool Train, dragon castle, bike, respectively. Kamen Rider OOO often doesn't need such things to deal with giant threats, taking out the first with a sword slash in finishing mode. It's too bad we didn't get to see Decade show the Rangers that you don't need giant robots to deal with giant beasties.
  3. ↑ Kinda; it's not that Decade grows per se, it's that Diend used a Final Form Ride to fuse Decade with the giant Kamen Rider J into a humongous Decade
  4. ↑ Presumably by increasing volume and increasing density
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