When Maze woke up with amnesia and her room half-destroyed, she couldn't know that was not to be the worst part of her day. No, she had also been transported to a magical realm where she had accidentally saved runaway princess Mills from the minions of the Dark Lord who destroyed her kingdom. Sure, she also has magical light powers that beam their enemies away, and can also summon a huge mecha that belonged to Mills’ family, but that doesn't really improve the situation, especially when, at night, she turns into a man who is far more interested in sex than in trying to find the way back home and their memories.

Maze*Bakunetsu Jikuu is a very nineties comedy. The fanservice scenes are constant, but that doesn't mean the story isn't also intriguing. One of the most interesting parts, especially in the gender-bending part is that both girl Maze and boy Maze have very different personalities and tastes. We can see them as distinct personalities, and not just as a person who happens to change genders depending on the hour of the day. The reason behind that is a good way to solve the plot, so it is definitely a series you have to watch if you like the gender bender genre.

Ranma Hinamatsuri and Rella "Cindy" Shirayuki have a private detective agency in the futuristic but dangerous Kirin Town. Ranma has many issues due to his tendency to take on cases not because they pay, but because he is a gentleman while Rella is quite wealthy and tends to love getting into dangerous situations. But ever since a car accident, neither has seen the other and, even more worrisome, they both have 24-hour blackouts where they can't remember anything they did, but end up waking up in really strange situations. What they don't know is that, after their accident, the doctor that saved their lives ended up putting them both in the same body: so when midnight chimes, they change places without any memory of what the other did.

Cinderella Boy is a very fun anime based on a one-shot manga by Monkey Punch. Ironically, despite what one may think given the main character name, it was written long before the famous Ranma ½ even if the anime was made much, much later. It's a very amusing take on the genre as while their body changes gender, Ranma and Rella were different people, and thus, they react very differently at how they wake up, usually in the other's clothes. A very funny series, that is short, sweet, and will make you laugh at least once every episode.

Megumi is one of the most popular girls at her new school. She has gorgeous long hair, is taller than most, athletic, thin, and quite the looker. So much, that both boys and girls throw themselves at her, including Genzo, the school's bad boy, and, at times, even Miki, her best friend. But the thing is, Megumi wasn't born a girl: Up until she was 9, he was a very rough boy who wished to be a man among men. Unfortunately, the genie he asked her wish to was a very tricky spirit who instead changed him into a girl, making everyone but him and Miki forget he was ever a boy. Since then, he's been trying to find the way to reverse the spell, but every day his goal seems to be farther and farther.

Tenshi na Konamaiki is a funny story that also works as a deconstruction of the way Japanese society tends to see gender. Megumi doesn't change the way he behaves upon his body being changed into a girl's, and that is why a lot of boys at school love "her", as they see how she doesn't act like a demure doormat. Miki is a bit more traditional, and in fact, the one who insists that Megumi shouldn't change her hair, but she also helps to deconstruct gender roles. While the ending may be a bit of a deconstruction, it's still a great story about how people react when their whole world is turned upside down.

The Yamaboshi High's Student Cultural Society Club doesn't have many members. But the truth is that they don't really care. After all, Taichi, Iori, Himeko, Yoshifumi, and Yui formed the club because they didn't fit in any of the other clubs at the academy. However, things aren't quite that simple there. Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, they start changing bodies without warning. It starts when Yui and Aoki switch, but soon, they all have been in the other's shoes at least once. However, this doesn't help bring them closer, as they all have their own dark sides, and no one wants their secrets known by everyone.

Kokoro Connect takes a bit of a more serious turn than the previous entries on the list. It deals both with the problematic parts of waking up one day to find out that your body is no longer the gender you identify with, but also it's not your actual body. You're in someone else's life, and that someone else is a friend of yours. This is taken in some very interesting directions, which make all 13 episodes of the series a real treat.

In the kingdom of Simulicram, every child is born female. This doesn't mean that there are no men: when they reach their 17 birthday, the girls have the right to undergo a special religious ceremony where they're allowed to go into a magical spring that turns them into men if they wish to become one. However, there's a small catch: The kingdom is protected by machines called Simoun, which can only be piloted by those who haven't chosen a definite sex, and so, their military is really young. When war breaks with a neighbor kingdom, however, they grant the current Simoun pilots permission to avoid the springs as long as they want to keep protecting the kingdom.

While it would be easy to dismiss Simoun as just another series that looks for an excuse to have a mostly female cast in short skirts, the story tackles a lot of very interesting genre issues, as well as the idea of choice and how hard some choices may be. We also have more than one character that chooses to become male and get to see them change physically slowly during the story. It comes to a point in which the war plot becomes secondary because the series gives us a lot of world building that is very interesting on its own.

Ryuu Yamada really wanted to make a change when he entered high school. Sure, in junior high he was a delinquent, but he knew he could turn a new page in a new school. Unfortunately, by the second year, he had gotten bored of it so he was back to being the school bad boy, getting called to the principal's office every day. However, after a bad tumble makes him kiss Urara Shiraishi, one of the honor studies, they each discover that they have switched bodies. While they're trying to figure what they can do with this power, they're recruited into the Supernatural Studies Club and are tasked with the mission to find others with similar powers that can activate with a kiss.

We're back in the comedies, and Yamada-Kun does deliver a lot of good jokes. It also is light on the fan service, which can be difficult with a premise where a guy has to go around kissing people left and right. One of the most interesting parts of the story is that Shiraishi and Yamada are falling in love, and yet are the ones who change bodies the most. This gives their romance a completely different angle from other anime and makes Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo a very good enjoyable gender bender anime for you to watch.

Natsuru Senou didn't want a life where he had to fight for his life every day, much less being involved in a strange battle royale scenario where he is led by a stuffed tiger into fighting girls. And yet, that's the life he has. Or rather, "she" has, because while he was selected to become a Kampfer, there's a rule that Kampfers are only female. Sure, he can change back into a boy, but that doesn't mean he won't change again when it's necessary for him to fight. To add to his problems, some of the Kampfers want to kill him, but others, like his best friend, want to date him. With those problems, is no wonder that some days Natsuru wishes he hadn't gotten out of bed the morning he discovered his new body.

Kampfer is one of the most famous gender bender anime today and with good reason. The animation is gorgeous, the characters are very likable, and we can feel poor Natsuru's pain at the crazy situation he is in. While the final resolution may not be to everyone's tastes, what matters in this anime is how they get to that situation. And between the fights, the power-ups, and the characters’ relationship to each other, you will have no time to wonder if they could've ended the series in a better way.

When asked to take her mom's part-time job –after her mom can't do it due to a back injury- Saki Uno wasn't sure of what she expected. But it surely wasn't to be told by a Yakuza with the unlikely name of Kokoro (heart in Japanese) that she was now a Magical Girl and had to fight demons. She definitely didn't expect that she'd turn into a muscular man with a cute pink dress, or that the demons would have cute bear faces and muscular bodybuilder bodies. But that's what she has to do now, especially if she wants to save the boy she likes from the demons, and her own dying career as an idol singer.

Mahou Shoujo Ore is a very fun series. It parodies every single thing that we love about Magical Girls and takes things to the craziest extreme possible. Saki is more often than not the only sane person in the room, and it's her constant surprise at how everyone seems to take the craziness for granted what makes the series even more enjoyable. While it's still airing, and thus we won't know yet if it sticks the landing, for now, it's one of the best new gender bender anime that you can find on air.

When one wishes upon a falling star, there are some risks. But Hazumu Osaragi wasn't really expecting to be killed by a UFO when he was trying to mend his broken heart. Fortunately for him, the alien piloting the ship, Hitoshi Sora, decides to bring him back to life, although Hitoshi makes a small mistake: instead of regenerating him as a boy, they turn Hazumu into a girl. And that's when Hazumu's troubles really begin, as now, the very same girl who broke his heart, is completely in love with "her" and Tomari, Hazumu's childhood friend, is none too happy about the change at all.

Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl, is one of the few gender-bender anime where the gender change is not kept a secret. Hazumu doesn't seem too bothered about the change, and in fact, doesn't try to look for a cure, but at the same time, has no idea how to behave like a girl. Because every character knows she used to be a boy, that makes their interactions with her very different, something Hazumu notices and doesn't quite understand. It makes this an interesting study on gender roles and how people see gender presentation, with some comedy in between.

Ranma Saotome has been trained from birth to be a man among men. Since he was a child, every single interaction with his father Genma has been training different martial arts, as the one true heir of the Saotome's Anything Goes Martial Art School. The drive to be the best is such that Genma took Ranma in a life-long training trip, promising his wife that they wouldn't be back until Ranma was the manliest man on the planet. There's only one little problem: While on said trip, they fell into a cursed spring. And now, whenever Ranma is hit with cold water, he turns into a girl.

Ranma ½ is probably the best-known gender bender anime around the world. As one of Rumiko Takahashi's best selling manga, it was the backbone of Viz Media when they started importing anime, and that made it even more well known and popular. But it's not only its popularity what makes it be the first place on our list: The series is that funny. Every character has their special charisma, and the action is fast-paced. So even if it’s one of the older titles on the list, it’s still the undisputed champion of the Gender Bender genre, and one no anime fan should miss.