Casting a Shadow in Anime & Manga.
- 3×3 Eyes: two of Benares' Juuma summons are based on darkness: the first is Yin Ya (Shadow Fang), resembling a monstrous, multi-eyed reptile monster with huge fangs, used to contrast the light Juuma Guang Ya. The other is An Yu (Dark Fish), taking the appearence of a gigantic salmon with black head and fins united by a body made of gaseous darkness; An Yu can wrap the darkness he's composed of around his enemies, leaving them unable to see and even magically sense their surroundings.
- The Ah! My Goddess manga featured a demon with power over "true darkness", which she used to make the surrounding area pitch black and cancel out all light sources (including flashlights and light magic).
- Users of the Darkus attribute in Bakugan include Ren Krawler with Darkus Linehalt, Alice Gehabich with Darkus Hydranoid and Reaper, and Spectra Prove with Darkus Infinity Helios.
- Black Clover:
- Yami uses Dark Magic, covering his blade in darkness to launch black crescent-shaped blasts or suck magical attacks into a black hole. Because Dark Magic is infamously slow to cast, he uses it more as a supplement for his swordsmanship.
- Ichika, Yami's younger sister also uses Dark Magic, covering her blade in darkness to launch black crescent-shaped blasts or her Black Star spell that drags a target towards her. Later it turns the whole Yami Clan, descended from a group of infamous assassins, were trained as "spirit swordsmen", coating their katanas in their dark magic.
- Nacht Faust uses Shadow Magic, hiding within shadows and dragging foes into them, forming long arms out of shadows to immobilize targets, and shrouding surroundings in shadow with Mana Zone to cut off the light. His Devil Unions give him more shadow-based abilities like forming clones out of shadows and seeing through shadows.
- Bleach has Kyoraku's zanpakuto, Katen Kyokotsu. One of its 'games' is to attack through shadows — between Kyoraku's own shadow and whatever he wants to hit. The target must be casting a shadow, however. In this case, the shadow manipulation itself is less creepy than the inspiration for it — 'children's games' where the loser dies.
- Momose from Bloody Cross has the ability to control shadows. She can summon beasts made of shadows, shoot shadow spikes, and use it for stealth (hiding in people's shadows) and for some form of teleportation (disappearing into a swirl of shadows on the ground).
- Tsukumo in The Dark Queen and I Strike Back has a Divine Craft that creates clones of himself from shadows.
- In Digimon Frontier, darkness is just one more element and not inherently evil. The original Legendary Warriors — the warrior of Darkness included — were all good guys, and the new one, like every bad guy in the first half of the series, was corrupted by Cherubimon but eventually got better, joining the team as the Sixth Ranger. More of his attacks than not have "Dark" or "Shadow" or some other darkness-related word in the name and involve black energy.
- Celty from Durarara!! is a Dullahan capable of manipulating shadows and giving them physical form. The uses of this ability range from creating weaponry (usually a scythe or dagger) and restraining enemies...to instantaneously dressing herself and letting her type faster. It's also interesting to note that the shadows she manipulates aren't restricted by the presence or absence of the sun, meaning she can manifest a weapon at noon just as easily as she can at midnight. Also, her shadow is always drawn darker than all others, even when she's not manipulating it.
- Fairy Tail:
- Kageyama, Jose, Simon, and Zero are all users of this type of magic. Specifically, Kageyama uses Shadow magic while the other three uses Darkness magic.
- Mirajane, after she uses her Take Over, she uses Darkness magic as well.
- Jellal can use Darkness Magic, but it's not his primary magic.
- Rogue, the Shadow Dragon Slayer can use this as his power.
- As can Gajeel, when he absorbs part of Rogue's power to gain Iron Shadow Dragon Mode.
- Pride from Fullmetal Alchemist slices, dices, and eats with his extensible shadows. He's powerless in complete darkness, though. Shadows cannot exist without light. Oddly, full sunlight doesn't slow him down one bit.
- In Hell Girl, throwing blobs of shadow is one of the relatively few known powers to go with Ai Enma's job as the titular Hell Girl.
- Elizabeth in I Got My Wish and Reincarnated as the Villainess (Last Boss)!, being a powerful dark-elemental, can cast darkness over a large radius, as well as shutting off enemies' senses.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- Alessi from Stardust Crusaders has the Stand, Sethan, which takes the form of Alessi's shadow. Anyone who touches it will get de-aged, with how far back they go based on how long they touch it.
- Polpo from Golden Wind has the Stand, Black Sabbath, which can exist and move through shadows, and is weakened by sunlight.
- Megumi Fushiguro from Jujutsu Kaisen. His cursed technique uses shadows to store weapons and summon shikigami. Upon discovering and activating his Domain Expansion technique, he gains the ability to create shadow decoys and teleport between his opponent's shadow.
- Hayate Yagami of Lyrical Nanoha, the Queen of the Night Sky who has Diabolic Emission, a Sphere of Destruction that envelopes the land in pure darkness, as her signature spell. Oh, and she's the cheerfully optimistic Big Good of the series. The Book of Darkness, the one she inherited her powers from, seems to fits the personality type a bit better. However, it is not a pure example either. It used to be called "Book of the Night Sky" before it was corrupted.
- My Hero Academia:
- Fumikage Tokoyami has a Quirk called Dark Shadow, a birdlike Living Shadow which he can manipulate as he pleases... mostly. It becomes weak under bright light, and he sometimes loses control if it gets too dark. Despite having an evil-looking shadow creature with a mind of its own as his superpower, he's an entirely heroic character.
- Another Quirk introduced much later, Black Whip, allows its user to create and control tendrils of dark energy; it's not just great for attacking and restraining, but is also useful for mobility. It belonged to a previous user of One for All, and now Izuku Midoriya has inherited it through One for All.
- Class 1-B has Vantablack, who can physically merge with darkness or dark objects.
- Kushana of Mythical Beast Investigator calls himself the King of Darkness (despite being shaped like a rabbit in a top hat and pledging his loyalty to an all-loving, pacifistic, pre-teen conservationist) — he has the ability to control shadows as if they were physical objects like restraints or lashes. He can also travel through shadows and store objects or captured creatures inside shadows.
- The Nara clan of Naruto have the ability to control their shadows and can "solidify" them in order to use them to control or strangle opponents. Their reach can also be amplified by extending to other shadows (specifically, the length is not "used up" going through another shadow).
- Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
- Takane Goodman, #2 Darkness can manipulate shadows as a form of Imagination-Based Superpower. Prone to getting stripped, as the series has stripping disarm attacks; and when she tried to counter that by making her clothing out of Shadow, she ran up against Asuna and her magic cancel power. She usually uses her power to create golems for attack and defense, the other shadow user who has appeared used his power more like a Green Lantern, forming blades, etc. She is definitely one of the good guys, if a little over serious.
- The Magic World Arc introduces Kagetarou, who acts like an antagonist at first but turns out to be a buddy of Rakan's. There's also Fate Averruncus' accomplice, Dynamis, who can summons swarms of Invincible Minor Minions and a humongous Eldritch Abomination, is stated to be almost as powerful as Fate himself, and tried to kill Nodoka and came damn close to succeeding, wiping out two of her friends who tried to protect her the first time, and only being driven off the second time by Setsuna (who hacked his right hand off at the forearm) and Kaede. His personality and temperament are much less extreme than originally suggested, however. He's actually fairly reasonable.
- There's also Kotaro Inugami, who has at his disposal the ability to summon vast swarms of autonomous spirit wolves made of darkness/shadow.
- In Negima's sequel, UQ Holder! Yue Ayase is shown to be using shadow magic.
- One Piece:
- Blackbeard has the literal "Darkness" power. Oddly, he mainly uses it to nullify his opponent's abilities at a touch and crush them with gravity; the chain seeming to go "dark->black->black hole->super gravity and power absorption/nullification" or possibly the other way around. This is fairly typical of the superpower logic in One Piece.
- Gecko Moria has power over shadows; mostly, he steals them from people and uses them to reanimate corpses into zombies, although he can absorb them himself to become more powerful or just use his own shadow to attack directly as well.
- Pokémon: The Series: in the Sinnoh League, we have Tobias, whose signature Pokemon is the legendary Darkrai. Possibly lampshaded as an Actor Allusion in the dub.
- Rave Master: Haru's Morph Weapon sword has a darkness aligned form, Sacrifar. It turns Haru into The Berserker, though it wasn't entirely the fault of the sword itself.
- In Saint Beast, Luca has shadow as his Elemental Power, standing in contrast to The Hero's power of light.
- The Demon Clan from The Seven Deadly Sins can manipulate a shadow-like substance around their body.
- Medusa Gorgon from Soul Eater plays with this trope. While it's not explicitly stated to be darkness, her magic seems to revolve around a theme of it, as her energy is purple and black and the magic arrows she manipulates behave very much like Tendrils of Darkness and even slither along surfaces like shadows.
- Yumiella in Villainess Level 99 uses Dark-element abilities like Black Hole, Dark Flame and Dark Bind. She is unambiguously a good person, if a bit quirky. Unusually for such characters, she even has a healing spell that is just as effective as any other, though it looks rather creepy in action.
- Onimaru's last Dragon in Yaiba was Dark, the demon of Darkness. He could engulf people in his shadows and send other creatures into another dimesion forever.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yugi Muto's ace card is Dark Magician. He's often accompanied by his apprentice, Dark Magician Girl. Both are Dark-attribute Spellcasters, though they both demonstrate that Dark Is Not Evil.Yugi: Dark Magician, attack with Dark Magic!
- From YuYu Hakusho:
- Hiei's Dragon of the Darkness Flame is a mixture between fire and shadow. He's a Deadpan Snarker though, so it's O.K.
- Asato Kido uses a direct manipulation of his shadow, allowing him to paralyze Yusuke with it during their fight. He also has enough control to use it to write Dr. Kamiya's name in his own blood after being attacked in the hospital.
- Zatch Bell! has Brago, Sherry's Mamodo. His spells are based both on dark energy and gravity manipulation, and from the very beginning was noted to be towards the top of the pecking order.
