The Fate franchise (and the Nasuverse, by extension) is so popular that even anime fans who haven’t watched a single episode from any of its countless shows already know who Saber is, specifically Altria Pendragon.
Altria isn’t just the most famous Servant to take up the title of “Saber,” but she’s also a gender-swapped version of King Arthur. She’s not the first gender-bent anime version of a historical figure (fictional or otherwise), and she won’t be the last.
WARNING: Spoilers ahead.
10 The Fate Series — King Arthur Was Actually Altria Pendragon
Altria Pendragon isn’t just the face of the sprawling Fate franchise (which didn’t actually air on TV), but the most popular reimagining of the legendary King Arthur. Saber’s life and death were the same as what transpired in the Arthurian myths, with a key difference being that she was raised as a man and had scholars record her stories as such.
Another layer to this is that King Arthur and Altria are two separate identities. King Arthur is a righteous and infallible king, but he was cold and almost inhuman to everyone else. Altria, in contrast, is an emotionally insecure girl who regretted ever putting on the façade of King Arthur in her dying moments before her reincarnation for the Holy Grail Wars.
9 Battle Girls: Time Paradox — Yoshino Hide Got Isekai’d Into A Gender-Flipped Sengoku Era Japan
At first glance, Battle Girls: Time Paradox seems like a typical historical isekai. On the night before her history test, the clumsy Yoshino decided to pray for luck at the local shrine. A series of hijinks lead to her getting knocked out and waking up in the Sengoku Era but with one major twist: everyone is a woman.
With exception of the dog, Shiro, this Japan has no men. Every figure in Japan’s warring states period, from Date Masamune to Tokugawa Ieyasu, are super-powered warrior women. Even Yoshino is a historical reference, with her nickname, Hideyoshi, coming from Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a daimyo who also came out of nowhere and changed the war’s course.
8 Strike Witches — Wartime Ace Pilots Were Reimagined As Gun-Wielding Magical Girls
World War II has been reimagined in literally every medium of fiction created, and the same goes for anime. One of the war’s weirdest reinterpretations was Strike Witches, which added an alien invasion and magical girls into the mix. In 1939, the Neuroi invade the planet, and the world’s nations united by forming the Strike Witches unit.
The Strike Witches are combat-ready magical girls who use guns, magic, and the Striker Unit system, and they’re all based on or are gender-flipped versions of World War II ace pilots. For example, Sgt. Yoshika Miyafuji was inspired by Japanese pilot Kaneyoshi Muto while Lt. Charlotte “Shirly” Yeager is a gender-swapped American general Charles “Chuck” Yeager.
7 ClassicaLoid — Franz Liszt & Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Were Reincarnated As Women
In ClassicaLoid, classical musicians have somehow reincarnated into modern Japanese society and even have amazing superpowers known as Musik. For the most part, the composers featured such as Ludwig Van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are younger and goofier versions of themselves, but there are two gender-bent exceptions.
Romantic composers Franz Liszt (or Lisz-chan; left) and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (or Tchaiko-chan; right) were reborn as women, much to their surprise. Where Lisz-chan has no problem with being an adult woman, Tchaiko-chan hates being reborn as a teenage idol and constantly regresses to her cranky old self to feel more at home.
6 Bungo Stray Dogs — Kyouka Izumi Is The Only Gender-Flipped Member Of The Armed Detective Agency
Bungo Stray Dogs is founded on the idea of reimagining famous authors or their characters as detectives with superpowers. Pretty much everyone is an accurate de-aged version of a prolific writer like Gone With The Wind scribe, Margaret Mitchell, or horror icon Edgar Allan Poe, with Kyouka Izumi being one of the few gender-flipped exceptions.
Kyouka shares the penname of Kyotaro Izumi, a surrealist Japanese author best known for his societal criticisms. Kyouka’s ability, Demon Snow, is also a reference to her namesake’s famous play, Demon Pond. Along with Koyo Ozaki (named after Japanese author Tokutaro Ozaki’s penname), Kyouko is one of the anime’s few gender-swapped literary references.
5 Nobunagun — A Schoolgirl Oda Nobunaga Fought Alongside A Gender-Flipped Jack The Ripper
As the title implies, Nobunagun reimagined the Sengoku Era daimyo Oda Nobunaga as a gun. Specifically, he was reincarnated through Sio Ogura, who can summon him as a giant gun. Nobunagun takes the historical gender-flipping a step further with Sio’s anti-hero ally Adam Muirhead: the descendant of the infamous serial killer Jack The Ripper.
Historically, Jack was a male murderer who targeted women. In Nobunagun, Florence Nightingale (right), the founder of modern nursing, is Jack’s true identity. That said, Florence was forced to kill specific women to stop the spread of a deadly virus implanted into them. Depending on the situation, Adam can embody either Jack or Florence.
4 Jubei-Chan: The Ninja Girl — Yagyu Jubei Reincarnated Through His Female Descendant
The one-eyed Yagyu Jubei is one of the most famous samurai in Japanese history, and he’s so popular that he’s been depicted in countless forms of fiction and genres, even the magical girl genre. Jubei-Chan: The Ninja Girl is a series where Jubei can momentarily come back to life as a woman.
For clarity’s sake, his centuries-late descendant Jiyu Nanonhana can become a magical ninja girl when she dons a magical eyepatch. This eyepatch transforms her into Jubei-chan, the reincarnation of the legendary samurai. It should be noted that before death, Jubei demanded that the eyepatch be given to a female descendant.
3 The Rose Of Versailles — Oscar François De Jarjayes Is The Gender-Swapped Version Of A Revolutionary French General
The Rose Of Versailles is a shojo anime/manga retelling of the French aristocracy’s last years, so it’s unsurprisingly filled with real-life monarchs and nobles. One of the few exceptions is Oscar (right), the Royal Guard’s commander and bodyguard/love interest to Queen Marie Antoinette. Oscar is based on a historical general, but only loosely.
Oscar all but replaced Pierre-Augustin Hulin in the anime’s version of French history, with her taking his rank and role in the French Revolution. That said, Oscar died when storming the Bastille while Pierre-Augustin survived. Pierre-Augustin exists in the manga, but he’s one of Oscar’s soldiers. Oscar took the gender-swapping further in the genderfluid sense. Examples of this include her androgynous looks and affection for Marie.
2 Steins;Gate — John Titor Was Suzuha Amane This Whole Time
If self-proclaimed mad scientist Rintaro Okabe took John Titor’s warnings about time travel seriously, none of the deaths and suffering in Steins;Gate would’ve transpired. But to be fair, Okabe couldn’t be faulted for dismissing Titor’s ramblings because the real-life Titor, who claimed to be a time traveler from 2036, was little more than a troll.
Titor became infamous from 2000 to 2001 when he appeared on message boards, hunting down an IBM 5100 computer he needed to avert a coming dystopia. Titor was later exposed to be a hoax made by brothers Larry and Richard Haber, but in Steins;Gate, Titor was the real deal and was the time-traveling agent Suzuha Amane’s alias.
1 UQ Holder! — Karin Yuuki Was The Real Judas Iscariot
As a member of UQ Holder, Karin being an immortal being with supernatural powers isn’t anything surprising. What may take people aback, though, are the origins of her eternal life and angst. Without any warning, UQ Holder! casually revealed that Karin used to go by the name of Judas Iscariot centuries ago.
After turning Jesus Christ over to the Romans because she feared what their reprisal against his followers would be, Karin immediately regretted doing so and tried to take her own life. It was while hanging from a tree that she realized that she was now immortal. While she sees this as divine punishment, others see it as a dark blessing.
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