Action Girl - Television Tropes & Idioms

In Monster, Nina is not only capable of kicking ass (and running without pain while in heels) but also scaring people completely shitless (and in at least one case, pissless) when they get in her way. It's possible she inherited some of this from her mother who escaped from a high security military base while in labor.
Cowboy Bebop: Knocking On Heaven's Door
Spike: Are all the employees around here like you? You got some classy moves for a corporate girl.
Electra: The more you know, the shorter you life will be.
Spike: I love the kind of woman who could kick my ass.
All of the Sailor Senshi, though Makoto/Jupiter and Haruka/Uranus the most obviously, in Sailor Moon.
- Sailor Moon herself. Sure she's a whiny crybaby, but she's still the one that's always charging into the villain's stronghold to rescue her boyfriend, who has to play the part of James Bondage for her at least once a season.
Riza Hawkeye from Fullmetal Alchemist pretty much defines this status. She is easily the most consistently competent and the least goofy of the Military Men, and let's not forget the "You're useless in the rain" scene. This is even more obvious in the manga where she's protrayed as an expert sniper having saved both Hughes and Mustang's life during the Ishval Rebellion/massacre.
- The manga also gives us Lan Fan bodyguard ninja to Ling Yao, Mei Chan the cutest warrior princess ever, and Olivier Milla Armstrong, who defeats her younger brother Alex in a fight, and takes on a homunculi in a tank.
- The most badass female and arguably the most badass person is Izumi Curtis, the local Action Mom; she cements it during the Tales of a Master flashback to her training in Mount Briggs, where she is forced to fight for her life in Winter and does this by taking out patrols from the heavily trained Fort Briggs, then she throws a bear to the ground, knocks the damn thing out, and drags the bear back to the person who told her to fight for her life for a month. She then beats the shit out of him for being a famous martial artist instead of a famous alchemist.
Pururuun aka Polly Esther in Samurai Pizza Cats. So tough, she has even been known to beat up her own co-workers if they annoy her in any way!
Inoue Miyako from Digimon Adventure 02 gets an honorable mention, for her "Skateboard Thwap Attack" on LadyDevimon, which was definitely her Crowning Moment Of Awesome. Ruki from Digimon Tamers is about as close to an Action Girl as a Mons or Bond Creatures series can get. (Izumi, from the Super Sentai-inspired 'kids-turn-into-Digimon' Frontier, was a Faux Action Girl, unfortunately.)
- Your Milage May Vary. Personally, this troper found the fact that, out of all of her noticeably more powerful friends, the fact that she was the only one of them that could control her Beast Spirit a testament to how far she had come during the series. Note this was before her status was downgraded to Transformation Trinket.
Jo from Bakuretsu Tenshi.
Revy, Balalaika, Shenhua, Eda and Roberta from Black Lagoon. The show is noted for its high ratio of Action Girls, who tend to deliver equally high body counts. Revy's aggressive attitude puts her more in Dark Action Girl territory, however.
Nagisa and Honoka of Futari Wa Pretty Cure. Actually, every member of every incarnation of Pretty Cure, period. Kurumi, Michiru and Kaoru can come too. Sorry, Hikari, you're out.
Jun from Gatchaman, when it's not downplayed by the influence of 70's Japanese sexism.
Anise and Lily of Galaxy Angel II and Galaxy Angel Rune, more obviously so than two previous Angels, Forte and Ranpha.
Eclair, Tweedledee, and others from Kiddy Grade.
Kaede Nagase, Asuna Kagurazaka, Evangeline A.K. McDowell, Mana Tatsumiya, Ku Fei, and Setsuna Sakurazaki in Mahou Sensei Negima. As other girls in the class get involved in Negi's other life, they start drifting in this direction as well.
Julia from Rave Master, in her human form.
Iria from Iria: Zeiram the Animation, and the live-action Zeiram movies.
Shana from Shakugan No Shana.
Honoka from The Third: The Girl With the Blue Eye.
Aisha Klan-Klan and Suzuka from Outlaw Star.
Gally/Alita from GUNNM/Battle Angel Alita.
- The Lady Of War Caerula Sanguis from Last Order qualifies. In spades.
In Dragon Ball, Chi-Chi was one of these, specifically of the Warrior Princess variety.
- Let's not forget Android 18 and Videl in Dragon Ball Z.
Kamiya Kaoru of Rurouni Kenshin is mostly a Faux Action Girl and ba Badass Teacher than a proper Action Girl, but she does have her moments. Misao Makimachi from the Oniwabanshu is no slouch, either.
Maki, AKA Airmaster, is a streetfighting Huge Schoolgirl with an added dash of desperate thrill-seeking. Her Unknown Rival, Sakiyama Kaori is also an Action Girl.
Kallen Stadtfeld / Karen Kouzuki from Code Geass, Ace Pilot of La Resistance.
- C.C. also qualifies, maybe not as much as Kallen, but she can still kick quite a bit of ass.
- Let's not forget Anya Earlstreim and Action Mom Empress Marianne Even more if we consider that Anya was Marianne's Soul Jar. Princess Cornelia bounced in and out of this and Dark Action Girl, though.
Yoruichi Shihouin, Rukia Kuchiki (she still needs to Catch Up, but she is getting there), Kuukaku Shiba, Tatsuki Arisawa, Soifon, Rangiku Matsumoto, Momo Hinamori, Lisa Yadomaru, Hiyori Sarugaki, Mashiro Kuma and other ladies from Bleach. The Arrancar also has a lot of fighting-geared ladies, but with the exception of Neliel they fit more in the Dark Action Girl mold.
Tokiko from Busou Renkin.
Major Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex.
- To clarify: She is likely the best there is in Section 9 at just about everything. The only character who was shown to be better than her at something was also thought to be too cool to exist.
Balsa from Seirei No Moribito.
The first several episodes of The Daughter of Twenty Faces show Chiko's rapid development from a seemingly Spoiled Brat to a cunning, resourceful, and skilled Phantom Thief Action Girl.
Both Elle Ragu and Folli of Shadow Skill. Kyou only wishes she was.
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has Nanoha, Fate, Vita, Signum, Subaru, Teana... you know, it'd probably be easier to list the female mages that wouldn't count as an Action Girl. Even the Staff Chick could kick your ass, or at least have her dragons do it for her.
It would seem that in GaoGaiGar, if you're a female humanoid, you're almost guaranteed for supporting roles on the backstage. However, starting in the OVA, we're introduced with Rune Cardiff Shishioh, who is actually a total Action Girl on her own and is probably the only female who takes combat directly head on. Hell, in Super Robot Wars, she DOES actually take on robots bigger than her size armed with just her bazookas and fists (but with the help of her companion femmebots as well).
Yoko Littner from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
Asuka Langley Soryu from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Painfully and brutally subverted when she gets wtfpwned by the Mass Produced Evas in The End of Evangelion.
- She did single-handedly fight back against the entire offensive, including the mass-produced Evas and kept trying to fight after getting impaled by a mass-produced Lance of Longinus, so her final battle qualifies as a crowning moment of awesome followed by a curb stomp battle.
  - She's even more of an Action Girl in the manga, where her introduction consists of her fighting a gang of street thugs at an arcade and kicking all of their asses!
Hibari Ginza from Speed Grapher. She also fits the Girls With Guns category below, but is not the main character of the show.
- I'd say she's more of a Dark Action Girl, due to her Yandere streak.
Kagura from from Inu Yasha, who has defeated the protagonists multiple times by herself. Sango, a Yamato Nadeshiko demon-slayer with a ludicrously-sized boomerang, of all things. Kikyou also was an excellent Straight Arrow and Lady Of War, and Kagome eventually evolved into an Action Girl of the same type as time passed.
In Naruto, Badass Grandma Chiyo definitely applies. In addition there's Tsunade and Sakura who possess Super Strength, and Temari who fights using her large fan.
- Unfortunately, women in Naruto, including the examples above, are often accused by fans of being Faux Action Girls due to the fact that they rarely get a chance to show off their skills. In a sense, girls in Naruto have the potential to be Action Girls, but these moments are few and far between due to their moments of action being grossly outnumbered by the amount of times they get easily defeated, captured, or seen crying helplessly. The fact that they are always weaker than their male counterparts doesn't help either.
Hayao Miyazaki is already a big fan of putting female characters strong in both mind and body into his films, so naturally there's a few that meet this trope unquestioningly.
- Nausicaa may be a Friend To All Living Things, but she also is courageous enough to face a stampede of building-sized insects and strong enough to wipe out a room full of soldiers with a staff.
- San, Eboshi, and the entire female population of Iron Town, from Princess Mononoke.
The female pilot trio in Martian Successor Nadesico, especially Ryoko.
Shiina Tamai from Naru Taru.
Casca from Berserk was a very credible one until... stuff happened, which resulted in one of the cruelest, more tear-jerking Chickification processes ever.
Yuki Nagato of Suzumiya Haruhi. There's a reason why she's called a Badass Bookworm.
Genkai and Mukuro from Yu Yu Hakusho. Genkai is still one of these as a seventy-plus year-old woman, and, when she was younger, she helped Team Toguro with the Dark Tournament, her being the only girl on that team. Mukuro is so Bad Ass that she rose to the rank of a demon king while having her hands shackled together for hundreds of years.
Pandy and possibly the Warden from Dead Leaves.
Ryoko from Tenchi Muyo! meets this exactly, though most of the cast can kick ass and take names when they need to (particularly Barrier Warrior Aeka).
Also, Kawasumi Mai from Kanon is pretty cool with a sword.
Makie from Blade of the Immortal. Granted, she does not fight much, but when she begins she easily proves herself to be the best swords fighter in the entire series.
Yotsuha from episode 15 of Samurai Champloo, who is a ninja detective in imperial Japan.
Yui Lee from the Vampire Princess Miyu TV series.
Saber, Rider, Caster, and Rin Tohsaka from Fate Stay Night
Allenby Biarzury from G Gundam is an example in the Gundam franchise. Don't let the girly-looking Gundam and the girlish speech patterns fool you: she can kick you ass six ways to Sunday, and she will. If you have to doubt her skill, in her first scene she actually fought Domon in an arcade simulation when they first met; neither of them won, but the machine was the real loser as their combined fighting skills caused it to break down.
- Other action-oriented ladies in the Gundam series are: Waif Fu Lalah Sune, Lady Of War Emma Sheen, Cute Bruiser Elle Vianno, Defrosting Ice Queen Roux Rouka, Team Mom Marvette Fingerhut (along with the girls of the Shrike Team, too bad they don't last), Colonel Badass Lucrezia Noin, Genki Girl Hilde Schbeiker, Frontier Doctor Sally Po, Tsundere Sochie Heim, Ineffectual Sympathetic Villainess Poe Eiji, etc. Heck, when given the chance, even Relena Peacecraft could handle herself passably well with a gun; had she been a Martial Pacifist and not an absolute one, who knows...
- There are also some Dark Action Girls as well, the most noticeable being The Baroness Haman Kahn, Tyke Bomb Four Murasame, Yandere Sarah Zaviaroff, and Princess Kycillia Zabi.
Being heavily action oriented, the Nasuverse is filled with this, with the main heroines always being one.
- Just about all the girls in Kara no Kyoukai. All girls in Tsukihime except Hisui and maybe Kohaku (unless we count Melty Blood, where they're upgraded to Ninja Maids). All female Servents in Fate Stay Night, plus Rin Tousaka and Sakura Matou (though Sakura is more of a Dark Magical Girl). Though Type-Venus never had any action scenes and seem to be very gentle, it is extremely likely she can kick a lot of ass as well; even weakened, she is still one of the "Ultimate Ones."
Lina Inverse from The Slayers: She left a path of devastation wherever she went, kicking the collective arses of everyone between her and whatever goal she was pursuing at the time.
Princess Sapphire is one of the earliest examples in this medium, what with Princess Knight being created way back in the fifties and considered as the mother of all shoujo manga.
Lenalee from D.Gray-Man actually is such an Action Girl that she Action Girls herself past her capabilities and temporarily becomes The Load until she recovers and goes back to being the local Action Girl.
Gintama has quite a few: Kagura, Otae, Sacchan (as long as she has her glasses) and Kyuubei.
Holy moley, Erza Scarlett.
Juliet, Romeo X Juliet. Excellent Swordsman, she was a vigilante nown as the Red Whirlwind and was more than a match for the guards of the city.
Maka of Soul Eater. There is no shortage of instances where she's kicking ass by swinging and twirling that Sinister Scythe of hers. Liz, Patty, and Tsubaki are capable too, on the rare occasion that they fight without their meister partners.
Tomoyo Sakagami from Clannad, making her kinda stand-out in a mostly non-Action anime.
The HiME in Mai-HiME, plus a Robot Girl and a fake HiME.
- Haruka Suzushiro, who isn't a HiME, kicked a tank, held off two armed guards so her friend could run for help, and head butted Shizuru Fujino before dying by disintegration.
The Otome in Mai-Otome.
Genie in Rune Soldier Louie.
Ryoko and Ikuno in Angel Densetsu, being always around Kitano it's a wonder they still mange to find people trying to bother them.
Inner Moka, especially, from Rosario To Vampire, but all of them have solo or tag-teamed at beating the snot out of some hefty Monster Of The Week candidates.
Birdy of Birdy the Mighty
Sumire Iwaya of Kimi Wa Petto (Tramps Like Us), is a classy career woman who's punched out a boss's fake tooth, beaten up muggers on at least three different occasions, taken out Yakuza goons, given her boyfriend a split lip, and busted out some wrestling techniques to use on the men who kidnapped her pet, Momo.
Momo: No wonder they call her the Department of Technique!
Momoko in Sumomo Mo Momo Mo.
Elizaveta/Hungary from Axis Powers Hetalia is an Action Girl of the Ninja Maid type. Though we haven't seen them in proper action, other girls are also hinted to be proficient in self-defense, specially Belarus (a cute-looking Knife Nut) and Belgium (represented in sketches as the tomboyish owner of a BFG).
A cardinal rule of Pokemon Special is that if you have paired X chromosomes and you come into a Pokedex by hook or by crook, you are one of these to a degree without exception.
- Blue is the Classy Cat Burglar who is more than willing to use her feminine wiles (as well as some major advance planning in some cases) to get what she wants. Sabrina and Lorelei learned this the hard way.
- Yellow is the kind of person who would rather befriend Pokémon than fight them, but even Sird realizes (and Lance learns through experience) that cutting off any possibility of diplomacy with her is a cosmically bad idea.
- Crystal is the only trainer in the entire series to complete the Pokédex for all non-legendary entries, and even then she may borrow off the others to fill out those entries. Her accuracy with leg-propelled Pokéballs is second to none, and Arceus help you if she learns Capoeira to compliment that style.
- Anyone who looks under the Wild Child and Badass Normal entries should be aware of what Sapphire is capable of; capable in combat both with and without her Pokémon, and hardly a slouch in the cranial department despite her complications in Roxanne's written challenge. She also developed a soft spot for Ruby, and though he hasn't gotten in a hot spot she needed to wholly bail him out of, it's safe to assume that threatening his safety with her in proximity is akin to a death wish.
- Finally, despite her isolated and spoiled upbringing, Platina Berlitz comes from a family of scholars and can easily classify as the most knowledgeable out of the entire lot. Even though her bodyguards aren't what you'd expect from their profession, it's not a bright idea to tick her off or endanger them, either.
Just about any major female from Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple, except for Kenichi's sister. But special mention goes to Miu.
To some extent, Akane Tendō and most of Ranma's harem from Ranma ½. While they may not be as strong as Ranma and most of the main male martial artists, they can still beat the shit out of 90% of the boys their age.
- For comedic purposes, Akane tends to become temporarily physically stronger than all the characters.
Sakurako and Matsuri from Psyren are "Universal-type" PSI users, which as the name implies means they are good at everything. Fredrica and Marie, despite being kids, are equally capable.

Close Anime & Manga

The archetypical comic book Action Girl is, of course, Diana Prince a.k.a. Wonder Woman, created for just that purpose in 1941. Not the first female superhero, but a true cultural icon and never out of print in 67 years. (Since until recently, if DC didn't keep making it they would lose ownership).
Black Canary is a character who fluctuates between Action Girl and Faux Action Girl, depending on the writer. Gail Simone, in Birds of Prey, was frustrated at the fact that she always seemed to end up as a victim/hostage, and devoted much of the comic to re-establishing Canary's Bad Ass credibility. Sadly, the current "Green Arrow/Black Canary" title has utterly evaporated all that martial arts street cred.
And then there's Big Barda, who's practically a beautiful seven-foot walking tank. And her husband, Mr. Miracle, loves her that way.
Every X-Woman in existence has had an Action Girl moment, but doubly so if she was created/handled by Chris Claremont. Easily the most "Action"-oriented are Psylocke and Rogue, though Storm led the team without her powers during a long period in the '80s, and accumulated several Badass levels during that period.
Chakaal from Groo the Wanderer.
Modesty Blaise
Red Sonja
Agent 355 (and most of the rest of the Culper Ring) in Y The Last Man. A good thing too, as the titular walking Mac Guffin is a definite Non Action Guy. Natalya Zamyatin also fits the bill, as does Hero Brown after her Heel Face Turn.
The Bat Family has a record of having some of the the most awesome Action Girls (Barbara Gordon both as Batgirl and Oracle, Cassandra Cain Batgirl, Spoiler, Huntress and Catwoman, just to name a few) and tending to go through long periods where those girls are stuffed in the fridge or misused in some other way, before making returns.
When creating the new Batwoman, introduced in Fifty Two, the writers were afraid that she would quickly become a Faux Action Girl, especially since, though important, she is not the hero of the story. The Real Life furor surrounding the fact that she was a gay character caught them completely by surprise (They expected a response, of course, but not nearly of the size they got) and they wanted to make sure she was more than a token-anything. As such, they wanted the few action scenes she was in to be explicitly cool, they did not want to just talk about how cool she was. To this end, when writing one fight scene they scripted it as simply "Batwoman is finishing off the last two Intergangers with a devestating move that will have people saying 'holy ***, she's cool!'" When looking at the finished product, Greg Rucka observes what she is doing and points out that the injury she is causing is something "the Batman himself would think twice about before inflicting."
Tulip O'Hare of Preacher fame. She hates guns, except when they're shooting you.
Usagi Yojimbo has at least five or six.
- Tomoe Ame, who kicked the title character's ass as a kid.
- Her cousin/ half-sister Noriko the Blood Princess, who did the same to her.
- Chizu, who qualifies by default as a Ninja and a recurring character.
- Inazuma, who was good enough in a fight to attract Jei's attention...
- Kitsune does not exactly qualify (preferring stealth to more direct approaches), but has been shown to have some skill with swords/battle tops/knees...
Alexandra Goncharova, Makita and Maya Antares from The Red Star.
In Strangers In Paradise, anyone who's ever worked for Darcy Parker.
Elsa Bloodstone, to stupidly ridiculous proportions, kicking the ass of anything with an ass using anything from shotguns to shovels to guitars.
Tara, Mariah and Shakira from The Warlord.
Plourr Ilo. Just look◊ at her! She is a princess and her story is loosely based on that of Anastasia, but she is also a competent mechanic and pilot, a bit of a Tsundere, and both strong and good at hand-to-hand combat.
The version of Rapunzel from Rapunzel's Revenge.
Squirrel Girl. And how!!
The Sonic the Hedgehog Archie comic has Bunnie Rabbot, Julie-Su, and Sally Acorn, though the third has been subject to Chickification at times.
The titular lead of Yoko Tsuno.
Gran'ma Ben of Bone is a great example of when this type of character grows up to be a Cool Old Lady, and retains all of her ass-kicking powers.
Cassie Hack of Hack/Slash.
Comic Hard Graft features all round actiongirl (and madwoman) Bernadette Montez.
Kate Spencer of DC's Manhunter has become an example of this. Add the fact that she stole the weapons and costume she wears and isn't afraid to kill anyone in her way, and you have one crazy woman.
Elena Kurakin, a half-Mongolian swordswoman and Rudinshtein Irregular who killed her commanding officer for cowardice in Nikolai Dante.
Susan, a.k.a. Ginormica, from Monsters Vs Aliens eventually becomes one of these after starting out as a Reluctant Monster.
Marvel's Mockingbird is another good example.
There's also She-Hulk.
Judge Dredd has no shortage of very competent female judges.
Sue Storm! She sure started out as a Faux Action Girl, but man did she ever level up. She's now the toughest fighter on the team, and she's on a team with Ben Grimm!

Close Comics

In The Death of Koshchei the Deathless, Princess Marya Morevna is apparently a fierce and vicious warrior. However, she does come off as a bit of a Faux Action Girl when Koshchei the Deathless kidnaps her, turning her into a Damsel In Distress and forcing her Non Action Guy husband to go on a quest to save her.

Close Folklore

Tigress from Kung Fu Panda.
Mulan. Aladdin, Ariel, Lilo & Stitch, even Kuzco got a TV series, why didn't she?
- Most likely because all the above examples aren't Very Loosely Based On A True Story. Disney was already treading on thin ice with the "ancestors" thing.
EVE from WALL-E.
7 is the only girl out of the group in 9, and makes her entrance by decapitating the Cat Beast in one swing.
Abigail, the tomboyish woodmouse in Once Upon a Forest.

Close Films — Animation

DOA the movie! Christie, Helena, Ayane, Katsumi, and of course Tina.
Emma Peel of The Avengers.
Action Girls were not common in early movies, as the true form usually requires convincing hand-to-hand combat skills. However, a female character in a Western or Pirate movie could get away with the role. Maureen O'Hara is probably the most famous. She had a powerful screen personality, great acting skills, and an ungodly beauty that could carry any part. She also always looked to be having enormous fun whenever she got in a swordfight, most particularly in Against All Flags (as a pirate) and At Sword's Point (as the daughter of one of the Three Musketeers!).
Many Kung Fu movies. In particular, characters played by Cheng Pei Pei (60s and 70s), Brigitte Lin, Michelle Yeoh (both 80s and 90s; coincidentally, she played the aforementioned Wai Lin), and now Zhang Ziyi.
- Yeoh, Zhang and Cheng came together as Shu-lien, Jen, and Jade Fox of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. The sequence in the bar is FANTASTIC, as well as the fight between Shu and the rebel Jen.
The first real example of a lead Action Girl has to be Ellen Ripley from Alien.
- Vasquez from the second film. "LET'S ROCK!"
The title character from Azumi and Azumi 2.
Marion Ravenwood of Indiana Jones is supposed to be one, but she tends to lean more towards Faux Action Girl. She's defintely one in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull though.
Pretty much every female character in Kill Bill.
In Last Action Hero, Slater's daughter is one of these, and at first it's played for laughs by subverting the Distressed Damsel — she's screaming mock-hysterically as she kills the mook sent to take care of her. But it's also deconstructed a bit when Slater mentions that she spent her prom night alone in her room, field-stripping an AK-47.
Trinity from The Matrix.
Elizabeth Swann, from the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, quickly evolves from a Distressed Damsel to an Action Girl over the course of the three films.
Rose McGowan's role in Planet Terror redefined the Action Girl for the next few years at least.
Interesting little semi-subversion in Red Eye. Rachel Macadams' character is manipulated, abused, and (metaphorically) raped by Cillian Murphy's Magnificent Bastard, and eventually she decides to man up (for want of a better term) and brutalize him with a pen, a shoe, and a field hockey stick. She does pretty well (or at least, well enough not to be a Faux Action Girl), but she still needs the help of Daddy Brian Cox, who also mans up just in time.
Zoe in Firefly and Inara AND even Kaylee, after Simon starts talking to her about possible future sex. How does nobody remember Inara's epic dart-bow-gun thing?!
So-Ha from The Shadowless Sword.
Princess Leia Organa from Star Wars often switches in and out of the Action Girl role. She must have got it from her mother, Padmé Amidala, who is, incidentally, the best shot with a blaster in the entire series.
- Leia deserves more credit for being an Action Girl than Padmé does, if only because she manages to stay the Action Girl throughout all three movies and the Star Wars Expanded Universe (particularly after she quits politics). Padme turns into a whiner that dies because she's lost the will to live. Leia picked off a Stormtrooper on top of a Walker with a handgun, shot two Stormtroopers at once, strangled Jabba the Hut, and, in the EU, disarmed her brother, Luke Skywalker, in a lightsaber sparring match while heavily pregnant.
In the first two Terminator films, Sarah Connor grows from Distressed Damsel to one of the most badass heroines of all time, perhaps the only other that can truly stand beside Ellen Ripley.
- While Kate Brewster doesn't see much action in the third film (but she still shoots down a flying HK!), Williams from Salvation is a clear example of this trope.
Trivia: We have (arguably) yet to have a true James Bond Action Girl, though Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh) from Tomorrow Never Dies and Giacinta/Jinx (Halle Berry) from Die Another Day come close.
- Some other girls do have their Action Girl moments, though. We have Hot Amazon May Day (Grace Jones) from A View to a Kill, Straight Arrow Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet) from For Your Eyes Only, Countess Teresa "Tracy" DiVincezo (Diana Rigg a.k.a. Emma Peel from The Avengers) from On Her Majestys Secret Service, Japanese spy Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi) from You Only Live Twice, CIA agent Dr. Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles) in Moonraker, and Bambi (Lola Larson) and Thumper (Trina Parks) from Diamonds Are Forever.
Ukrainian model/actress Milla Jovovich frequently plays Action Girls. She has the attractiveness to get by in Hollywood, and the lean, rangy body of a female athlete.
- Alice, Resident Evil.
- Leeloo, The Fifth Element.
- Violet, Ultraviolet.
- Joan of Arc, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc.
Selena in 28 Days Later has this kind of scheme going on. Since 28 Days Later is on the cynical end of the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism, she may be badass and violent, but she's still just a rather athletic chemist with a machete.
Mace in Strange Days. It pretty much takes an entire police SWAT team to kick her ass. Justified in that she's a professional bodyguard, whom you'd reasonably expect to be able to kick someone's ass if necessary.
Francesca Bruni in the 2005 Casanova movie. Your brother is a poor swordsman who's got himself into a duel? No problem, just take his place and kick ass!
Selene in Underworld, played by Kate Beckinsale.
Pam Grier's film carrier is made up of Sassy Action Girls.
Trixie (played by Christina Ricci) from the Speed Racer movie.
Eowyn from The Lord of the Rings. "I AM NO MAN!"
- In the first film, Arwen Evenstar carries a wounded Frodo from Weathertop to Rivendell, outrunning the Black Riders. (In the book, Arwen was just there for Aragorn to fall in love with, so the film could be considered Politically Correct Fiction.)
  - Or it could be considered a big improvement with the most beautiful film scene of her on the white horse and the nine on their black mounts. Much better then the book in that respect.
The Quick and the Dead (1995) with the unnamed "The Lady" played by Sharon Stone.
Red Dawn. Teenaged girls Toni and Erica, who subvert the usual trope by being too rugged up in the Colorado winter to be much fanservice. After the Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits kill their first Dirty Communists, they state flat out that the guys can do their own washing up. We later see them blasting away in ambushes and using their feminine wiles to get bombs into places where the Russians really don't want them going off.
Maya from Eight Below. Only female dog and the leader of the pack.
Zen, autistic teenage martial arts savant of the Thai film Chocolate.

Close Films — Live Action

Action Girls were popular in classical literature. Examples include the goddesses Athena (Lady Of War) and Artemis (Straight Arrow), Penthesilea the Amazon Queen who appeared ancient epic cycles (and later Kleist's play) and Camilla in Virgil's The Aeneid. The popularity of Amazon women waned in Middle Ages, but they were to make a comeback in Renaissance epic in the form of female knights such as Bradamante and Marfisa in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Clorinda in Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata, and Belphoebe and Britomart in Spenser's The Faerie Queene. In the latter poem, Spenser laments the scarcity of Action Girls in his own time and bids females to start kicking ass again as they did in the old days.
Sharrow in Iain M. Banks' Against a Dark Background.
Novelist Christopher Brookmyre's kung fu cop, Angelique de Xavia. She kills terrorists with her bare hands, and responds to the Big Bad's expository speech by shooting him in the spine and then cutting out his eye to use on a retinal scanner. She's also technically a Violent Glaswegian, especially considering she's a Rangers fan, but since she's about five feet tall and of south Asian ancestry you might not realise it to look at her.
- Jane Fleming was no slouch either.
Ellie Quinn and Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan from Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga, although Cordelia seems to have retired after the events of Barrayar, at least in terms of physical arse-kicking.
In Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files:
- Karrin Murphy with (particularly in early books) a bit of The Lancer thrown in. As she is the Badass Normal, she can have trouble with some of the things that she has to face, but after a while, she learns the rules for battling things, and kicks ass.
  - The Lancer disappeared in the recent books, as Murphy begins to out-badass everyone in every book. Including Harry.
- Miss Gard. A Valkyrie with a penchant for firearms.
Velvet in David Eddings' The Malloreon. She kills one enemy in Demon Lord of Karanda by throwing a viper in his face.
Captain Holly Short and Juliet Butler (on occasion) in Artemis Fowl. Juliet is more of a Cute Bruiser, Holly Short a Fair Cop, among other things.
Kahlan in Terry Goodkind's The Sword Of Truth series and even more so in Legend of the Seeker
The title character from Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher mysteries.
Anita Blake from Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series. She is the ultimate killing machine.
Jame of P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles Of The Kencyrath—a martial arts expert, formerly a professional thief who pulled off some of the most impossible thefts, and in training to be a military officer.
Robert E. Howard wrote some surprisingly strong female characters considering his time, genre and upbringing, including Valeria, Dark Agnes, Tarala, Helen Tavrel, Conchita and the original Red Sonya (totally different and far more realistic than the character better known from Marvel comics and the movie).
David Isaak's Shock and Awe features multiple examples of this, most notably the heroine, Carla, who is probably the most realistic, believable portrayal of an action girl ever seen.
Mara Jade of the Star Wars Expanded Universe switches back and forth between being an Action Girl and a full-on Mary Sue depending on who was writing her, only to end up as a Faux Action Girl purely so the writer could kill her off. She got ridiculously close to killing her killer, and that's not something a Faux Action Girl is capable of, it's something an Action Mom or Mama Bear would do, but if she'd been written accurately, she would have mopped the floor with the jumped-up idiot before the fight even properly started. Sacrifice began the process of restoring her from Faux Action Girl to Action Girl, only to kill her off before getting her anywhere near to her true Badass level.
- Then there's Jaina, who is at once Bad Ass enough to take down one of the most powerful and yet least impressive Sith Lords ever, her twin brother nonetheless, and yet despite being a fully-functioning Jedi Knight and part of the Skywalker line (which practically burns with Force potential), had to get additional training from Boba freaking Fett, a seventy-year-old cancer-survivor with bad knees, all because of Karen Traviss's desire to keep Fett and the Mandalorians relevant. Not to mention the 12+ books where she hung around uselessly before even getting to that point. Twelve books where her twin brother received an obscene amount of god-modding.
  - And don't forget that in the New Jedi Order, she took down the Warmaster single-handedly.
- Let's not forget Tenel Ka, who took down a Nightsister without any weapons!
Catti-Brie, of the Drizzt novels, is a reasonably competent Action Girl. This is helped by her truly badass equipment; her sword would be decent equipment on someone four times her official character level, and her bow is all but epic. She even beats Drizzt in sparring matches now and again, and he's fifty years her senior, still in his prime, and trained since his youth to fight. However, a recent wound to the leg that didn't heal right lead her to taking up magic. After three books of this, she died in the Spellplague..
- In game terms, though, it's noteworthy that she has the lowest character level of any of the Companions of the Hall — Drizzt is 16, Bruenor is 12, Regis and Wulfgar are both 9, and Catti-Brie is (before her magical trainig 4]]. She does, however, have the least overall combat experience, so this is justified.
- Salvatore's other leading original Forgotten Realms female, Danica Maupoissant, is also a warrior. In her case, she's a fighting monk, trained from her youth both in unarmed combat and the use of some very fine knives, and by the second book of the Cleric Quintet the foremost student of a long-dead grandmaster's teachings. She's skilled enough to fight alongside and impress centuries-old elven warriors before she's even thirty.
- The Seven Sisters from the Forgotten Realms all fit the template to some degree.
Mercedes Lackey examples: Georgina (One Good Knight), Tarma (Oathbound series), Elspeth (Mage Winds trilogy) Kerowyn (By the Sword, appearances in Mage Winds and Mage Storms), Silverblade (Silver Gryphon, though she's a bit iffy).
Brienne of Tarth from A Song of Ice and Fire is arguably a mix of Action Girl and Failure Knight. A talented warrior (in a fairly patriarchal fantasy society) who watches the man she loves get murdered by a shadow and still tries to defend him. She also manages to defeat many skilled knights (often outnumbered) and is doing pretty damn well on her quest before being hanged for a traitor. Some people have no luck.
- The series also contains Ascha Greyjoy, Meera Reed, Osha and Ygritte, all who play this trope fairly straight without Brienne's terrible luck. Though, poor Ygritte did have the misfortune of getting sacrificed at the altar of Jon's Woobiedom.
Hekat and Rhian in Karen Miller's Godspeaker Trilogy
All of Tamora Pierce's Tortall protagonists (with the possible exception of Aly, who's more of a Spy/Trickster, but can still hold her own in a fight)
- Daine may be an exception as well; she's more of a certified nature girl who can shoot a bow and use a slingshot, but doesn't have any explicit powers of destruction unless you tell her that you murdered her beloved teacher. Then she gets angry.
  - Her prowess with a longbow against the Stormwings would certainly qualify her in the first book, though.
Terry Pratchett has outright stated that he "can't write 'soft' female characters." Thus, Discworld contains Angua von Uberwald, werewolf cop; Susan Sto Helit, Death's granddaughter; Polly Perks, a dirty-fighting Sweet Polly Oliver and one of a squad entirely composed of them; Granny Weatherwax, an old Action Girl-ish witch; and even normally bland female characters who have their moments. Magrat Garlick, generally rather useless, has taken down a pair of snake-ladies in Witches Abroad and a few evil elves in Lords and Ladies, Agnes Nitt roughs up a few vampires in Carpe Jugulum, and Saccharissa threatens a man with a crossbow near the end of The Truth convincingly enough that he passes out.
- And don't forget Tiffany Aching, who overpowered the Queen of the Elves with only a frying pan on her home turf, and to whom Mistress Weatherwax took off her hat in respect, at the age of nine. That's just the start of her adventures.
- Even Sybil has her moments. On two occasions, in Night Watch and Guards! Guards!, she responds to trespassers by getting down one of the ornamental swords from the wall. She even stops murderous dwarfs with a song from an opera in Fifth Elephant.
- Don't forget Adora Bella Dearheart (do NOT comment on the name) from Going Postal. She chain smokes and threatens to put the heel of her stiletto through a man's foot, among other things.
- Not to mention Kirsty from Johnny Maxwell Trilogy.
- And then there are the Good Omens ones conceived with Neil Gaiman. War is the quintessential amazon, and then there's of course Pepper. Arguments could be made for putting Anathema and Agnes Nutter into this category as well; they were certainly badass enough in their own ways.
Rachel in Animorphs; her signature battle morph is the grizzly bear. She's a Blood Knight, The Big Guy, and good proof that Real Women Wear Dresses: her other passions in life are gymnastics, her boyfriend, and shopping.
Cutlass Cate and, to a lesser extent, Cheng Li, in Vampirates.
Patricia Savage, Doc's pistol-toting cousin in the Doc Savage novels who is quite capable of taking on several armed thugs at once.
Blue Jade in the fifth Finnegan Zwake novel is a (modren-day) pirate Action Girl.
Little My of The Moomins.
Several in Nightrunner, considering one of the major settings is a matriarchy with lots of women warriors. Most notably Beka, the princesses Klia and Phoria, and Retired Badass Thryis.
In the Temeraire series, there are female captains of dragons — and they are almost exclusively captains of the light-heavyweight acid-spitting Longwing breed, critical to Britain's combat formations. There are even three variants presented; a more matronly, heavyset, ladylike woman, a shy young woman who in any other service would be the Sweet Polly Oliver, and the middle road of a woman approaching early middle age with a daughter in the service with a mannish stride and a penchant for smoking and drinking.
In Matthew Woodring Stover's Acts Of Caine novels, there's Talaan in Heroes Die and Olga/Marade in Caine Black Knife.
Just like Terry Pratchett, David Weber is apparently physically unable to ever write a Staff Chick. Even his Distressed Damsels tends to be badass in some way, and are usually able even if not to fight, then trick themselves out of trouble with some sort of Indy Ploy or Bavarian Fire Drill. But more often than not they just start to kick asses and take names.
- Honor Harrington from David Weber's Honorverse novels not only commands starships (and later in the series, entire fleets), but on occasion takes part in various forms of hand-to-hand combat. She's an all round example of the action woman who's both smart and physically very capable.
Since combat is never purely in the cockpit, most of the women in the books of the X Wing Series count. Shalla Nelprin would probably have gotten along well with Plourr, above.
In Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours, during Spider-Man's fight with The Ancients, Mary Jane beats the crap out of the last Ancient with a tire iron while quoting Macbeth. If that's not Action Girl, what is?
Brandon Sanderson seems to like this trope. The main character of Mistborn is Vin, who is one of the biggest badasses in a trilogy full of them even before she becomes a god, and in the first book she has a Dark Action Girl nemesis, Lady Shan. Sarene from Elantris is more of a political Chessmaster type, but she fences in her spare time and is good enough to hold her own agaisnt the Big Bad, a magically enhanced warrior monk. Warbreaker has no really solid example, though Vivenna seems to be becoming an Action Girl in training by the end.
Many of the female characters in Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern novels. Most notable are Lessa and Moreta, though others such as Brekke occasionally qualify.
When she first appeared, Arya of Eragon showed promise as an Action Girl. However, due to Paolini's ~~meddling teenage brain~~ author genius, she's become a perfect example of girls who seem unreachable but really aren't (even though their love is unfulfilled).
If Katniss of The Hunger Games wasn't this before the title event, she is by the end of them.
The Arch-Angel Gabriel (literaly the "strength of god") is often depicted as a female in arts. Hir name is also one that who would go under Gender Blender Name if v wasn't the first to have the name. A being in charge of a race with memebers including eye cover wheels and 4 winged eye covered Flaming Sword wielding guardians likely shouldn't have a penis or vagina (or be humanoid) though. This would also make Gabriel the only female in the 4 Catholic Arch-Angels (Gabriel is one of the 2 who appears outside of Catholic only books)
Clarissa Kinnison (nee Mc Dougall) of the Lensmen novels, and all four of her daughters. Arguably Virgilia Samms from the same universe, inasmuch as she's an integral part of Triplanetary's senior operations planning and is as exposed to danger as any of the men (to the point where she's captured and tortured, and barely escapes with her life). In Masters of the Vortex, there are several female members of Neal Cloud's crew who kick MAJOR arse, including the epic scene where they commandeer the weapons Cloud was issued for use as overclocked drilling and sampling lasers, and reduce the local gangster boss's fortress to a puddle of boiling rock along with everyone in it. The Lensman universe was pretty much Smith's redemption for making Dorothy Seaton such a shrinking violet for all but the very last part of the Skylark quartet.
- Clio Marsden in Triplanetary doesn't fight anywhere near as effectively as her male compatriots; but given that she starts the story as a naive young civilian, she doesn't do too badly.
Milla of the Far Raiders of The Seventh Tower is tougher and more physically competent than any fourteen year old should be... on the other hand, she is still a fourteen year old, and behaves like one, behaving in an incredibly arrogant and at times almost homicidal way towards Tal in the early book. She grows up a lot as the series continues, like Tal, mostly due to common sense being drilled into them both by reality.

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Ace Lightning's spunky sidekick (and Redheaded Hero), Sparx. The name is apt.
The protagonist of Alias, Sydney Bristow. Also Irina Derevko, Lauren Reed, Nadia Santos, Rachel Gibson, Anna Espinosa, Allison Dorren, Katya Derevko and Elena Derevko.
Beka Valentine from Andromeda.
- I see your Beka, and raise you Romi.
Cathy Gale from 1960s action/spy show The Avengers was arguably TV's first Action Girl. She replaced former star Ian Hendry and there were reportedly no changes in the early scripts, so that she was effectively playing a "male" character. She was later replaced with the equally tough Emma Peel, who became the series's iconic female character. Both of them occasionally needed to be saved by male colleague John Steed, but they saved him just as frequently.
Susan Ivanova on Babylon 5 was sometimes one of these, particularly in her speech in "Between the Darkness and the Light": "I am the right hand of vengeance, and the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way back to Earth, sweetheart! I am Death Incarnate, and the last living thing that you are ever going to see. God sent me."
Kara "Starbuck" Thrace from the Battlestar Galactica remake. Kara is perhaps the Action Girl while in the cockpit of a Viper, but is no slouch in hand-to-hand or ranged infantry combat, either — she's described as "the best shot in or out of the cockpit."
Temperance Brennan, Bones. Trained in martial arts, and goes hunting. Just for food though.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the very beginning. Joss Whedon explained that besides the pure female-empowerment angle, he wanted to turn the opening of virtually every horror movie ever on its head; normally, the pretty blond girl walks into the dark alley, the monster goes in after, and the girl dies. Here, the girl rips the monster a new one. Naturally, the movie features such a scene (involving several vampires, but also a telling-off for Buffy for being an idiot).
- This goes for almost every female both in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and in Angel at some point or another.
- ... and in Dollhouse. Spotting a theme,here?
Corporal Jennifer "Pilot" Chase from Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future.
Sarah Walker on Chuck as well as numerous female guest characters.
Max from Dark Angel.
Leela, Doctor Who (after whom the Futurama character may have been named). Also Ace, who was never without her trusty Nitro-9 (who also, incidentally, shot a Dalek in the face with a rocket launcher, and beat the crap out of another with a baseball bat).
- The funny part is that modern writers often say the Doctor is "finally" going to have an Action Girl companion, due to the public (read: "journalists") having Small Reference Pools and only remembering those who stood around screaming in black and white. Of course, this ignores characters like the babarian warrior, Leela, and the ever cool and resourceful Time Lady Romana. Ironically the companions from the new series tend to be rather more Distressed Damsel than half the ones in the classic series. This also applies to some extent to James Bond.
- The Doctor manages to turn all of his female companions into Action Girls eventually. Heck, even Rose's mom is pretty awesome. Traveling throughout space and time with a Time Lord will do that, apparently.
Echo, Sierra and November from Dollhouse depending on the imprint.
Jo Lupo, Eureka.
Aeryn Sun, Farscape.
- The other women on the show are no slouches (except Jool, and even she gets better in The Peacekeeper Wars) in a fight, either. Even Zhaan gets some combat ability. But none of them are highly-trained soldiers who show themselves consistently able to make the hard call.
Zoe in Firefly and River in Serenity.
- Also Inara, who can swordfight like nobody's business, and the owner of the Heart of Gold, although she was shot by the Big Bad of that particular episode., as well as her girls. Not mention Petaline, who shot the father of her baby in the head as he knelt on the ground, introducing her son to him before, and saying "say goodbye to your daddy" after. Kick. ASS. And even to an extent 'Saffron', who's a decent fighter to begin with and compounds on it with her sneakiness (stole Mal's gun), insane acting skills, and interesting weapon choices.
FBI agent Olivia Dunham from Fringe.
Agent 99 from Get Smart.
Ella Dee in Hex. On the rare occasions when the heroes actually achieve anything, it usually involves her doing violence to somebody. Including throttling a priest (who was actually a demon) while wearing a truly terrifying expression.
The titular heroine of La Femme Nikita, both movie and series.
Detective Olivia Benson from Law and Order SVU.
Juliet on Lost. Television Without Pity calls her a ninja. Kate, Ana-Lucia, Charlotte (who rarely got to show it off), and Ilana as well.
Ziva David of NCIS, a Mossad officer trained as an assassin. She's responsible for some impressive takedowns, such stopping the steroid-fueled Unstoppable Rage of a Marine who'd thrown off McGee, Tony, and Gibbs in "Corporal Punishment", and temporarily holding off four Marines at once in "Cloak".
- Am I the only one who finds Ziva fighting really, really hot?
- To be fair, Kate had her moments too. And so did Abby, when she took out the imposter agent with a taser and incapacitated her spy lab assistant with nothing but a roll of duct tape.
Hunter of Neverwhere.
Megan Reeves of NUMB3RS. Not only does she have the firearm proficiency expected of an FBI agent, but she also has a black belt in Krav Maga. As she remarks to Colby, "If you're going to be arresting people a hundred pounds heavier than you, you'll need to learn some hobbies."
Jen from Power Rangers Time Force. When not wearing the shiny Ranger suit, she'll clobber poor Wes in sparring sessions (and once for real while Brainwashed And Crazy) and wields a sniper rifle. (Wes isn't a Non Action Guy, he just isn't police trained.) For that matter, most female Rangers count to some degree: there are Katie (Time Force), Alyssa and Taylor (Wild Force), Vida and to a degree Madison (Mystic Force), Kira (Dino Thunder), Z and Sydney (and temporarily Kat) (SPD)...
- Super Sentai has some examples, as well. Remy from Fiveman and Sakura from Boukenger are a couple of the better examples.
Maid Marian in Robin Of Sherwood, Robin Hood (2006) and, of course, Maid Marian And Her Merry Men.
- Also from 2006's Robin Hood is the Saracen Djaq, who doubled as the team medic. Sadly, both women have now been replaced with a Faux Action Girl.
- In The New Adventures of Robin Hood, Marion was portrayed as a Xena clone.
Teresa Moreno from Sharpe.
Veronica Layton from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World.
Teyla from Stargate Atlantis is easily mistaken for the self-effacing type until she comes after you with a P-90 or her trusty Bantos rods. She routinely kicks Sheppard's butt during their sparring sessions and is not afraid of making her point with a knife to the throat.
- The unlucky fella who ended up with the last option was a Wraith. Yes, those Wraith.
Samantha Carter in Stargate SG-1 prefers to be the thinker of the gang, but when butt kicking is called for, she kicks butt!
Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Jadzia Dax is a dab hand with a bat'leth, and Kira — well, Kira once beat the shit out of a serial killer while the equivalent of nine months pregnant.
Star Trek Voyager: Seems the whole point of the "Macrocosm" episode was to show Captain Janeway stripping down to a sweaty tanktop and going Sigourney Weaver on the macrovirus' hiney. Half-Klingon B'elanna Torres is handy in a punchup too, and Seven of Nine is both a good shot and strong enough to knock someone off their feet and a yard down the corridor.
Star Trek The Next Generation had Tasha Yar for awhile (pity she died) and K'Ehleyr as well, both women who easily counted as Action Girls. Tasha was raised in an anarchist colony and spent time running from rape gangs as a girl, and K'Ehleyr took on Worf in the holodeck.
Trooper Becca Gallagher from Ultimate Force. Okay, Season 3 was when the series (arguably)Jumped The Shark but there was nothing wrong with the character.
Summer Glau as Cameron Phillips in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Despite not being an android, Sarah herself qualifies as well.
- Cameron's a cyborg, not an android. You know, living flesh on metal endoskeleton and all that.
Despite the fact that she seems to be The Chick, Gwen Cooper from Torchwood is actually an Action Girl. Toshike Sato, on the other hand, was definitely a combo of The Chick and The Smart Guy.
Xena Warrior Princess
- And in later seasons, Gabrielle. If you see her in the costume displaying abs o' steel and she has short hair, she's kicking ass.
Velda the Elf and Gundrada from Knightmare at least as much as possible within the confines of a kids show.

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Super Girl (Buttercup) by Shounen Knife.

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Pink in the video for "Trouble".
- Pink in real life, too. In her "I'm Not Dead" tour, she did a full-fledged Cirque de Soleil act forty feet above a stage that had no padding and no net. While singing the entire song live. Every single night. This tour, she's doing a song with a trapeze act that starts out with her blindfolded.

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Metal Gear Solid has The Boss, who is a very extreme example of this trope, probably closer to an Action Hero with breasts and bordering on a female Ace: physically powerful, emotionally intelligent, and deeply perceptive. She beats the snot out of the main character repeatedly; fought in World War II — while hugely pregnant — and became a hero; and makes everyone cry at the end. For a lot of rather complicated reasons, she has never been considered a Mary Sue and is probably the most popular female character in the fandom.
- Meryl becomes one of these in Metal Gear Solid 4. The members of The Beauty and the Beast Unit from the same game are part this trope and part Nightmare Fuel.
- Also Sniper Wolf from 1, Olga Gurlokavich and Fortune from 2 (Fortune also wields the biggest gun in the whole series including Raven's), and to some extent EVE from 3.
Tifa Lockhart from Final Fantasy VII can punch and kick her way with the best of them. She has been trained in martial arts since she was a child, and has super human reflexes and strength.
- If you're going to mention Tifa, it's only fair Yuffie pops in too.
Final Fantasy VI: Celes and Terra are ultimately the most powerful fighters and the most powerful spellcasters in the game, including using "knightly" equipment that most men aren't up to equipping. This is particularly obvious in a Natural Magic Challenge game...
Live a Live has, from the Xin Shan Quan Master's chapter, Li Kuugo, former bandit and one of three possible characters to become the inheritor of the Xin Shan Quan martial arts style. Of the three possible characters, she is the fastest and has decent attack power and health (far faster than Sammo, more health than Yuan, although that ceases to be an issue as your level increases). Of the three characters, she starts with more attacks than Yuan, but less than Sammo, but is the only one of the three to get a whole-screen attack. Like the other two, she becomes death incarnate once she gets her ultimate tech. She is this editor's personal favorite character in the entire game.
- Ditto for this (admittedly nerdy) troper.
- She reminds this troper of Terra. (Square liked this trope back in their golden age.)
Jaheira, of the Baldurs Gate series, wears the pants in her marriage. She's also a warrior and a druid, is not afraid to criticize the PC for doing stupid things, and assumes a role of either leader or trusted advisor. She also has better stats than her husband. There are two parts of the games that are arguably not suited to her being an Action Girl, where she apparently picked up a Distress Ball (or was forced to):
- She is cursed by someone she once had put away for slaving, and requires your help to survive it. This is acceptable because it wasn't a matter of strength; the spell affecting her would have overcome anyone in the party had they been targeted with it, and it was perfectly logical that the person who had it commissioned would come after her (personal vendetta).
- If the PC is in a romance with her, a vampire entrances her and makes her a slave, forcing the party to kill her, though you can bring her back. However, this happens to whomever the PC is romancing, male or female, including Anomen, the tall, "handsome", and bloody annoying knight-errant.
- As a typical example of how good the adaptation is, she becomes an awful Faux Action Girl in the novels.
Krystal, from Star Fox, although it's debatable on whether or not she's an Action Girl or a Faux Action Girl.
- The DS iteration of the series has one possible scenario in which Krystal, Katt Monroe, Lucy Hare (Peppy's daughter), and Amanda (Slippy's fiancée) team up to save Corneria. A good day for gender equality indeed.
Arioch from Drakengard, with the added bonus that she's Ax Crazy. This editor hesitated over whether to place her in here or in Dark Action Girl.
Selan in Lufia II fits this well, despite also having elements of The Chick (although Tia is more of a Chick). She also eventually becomes an Action Mom.
Almost all the girls who don't fit in the Staff Chick mold in Fire Emblem. They're more likely to belong to the Black Magician Girl, Fragile Speedster or Straight Arrow type, but still can handle themselves more than well in the battlefield, and more than often they get more bonus growths than male characters.
- The best example is Princess Ayra from Fire Emblem 4. She is a very tough lady and has the deadly skill Ryuuseiken, which allows her to hit many times in a row for one round, which can easily mow down almost all enemies. This quote probably sums up her status as Action Girl, as she threatens her "boss" for using her nephew as a hostage:
  "You better not double-cross me, Kinbois, because I'll hunt you down and put your head to a stick! Even if it takes me to the ends of hell! Got it!?"
- Another case in point, Mia, from Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn. She drags the resident healer to her training sessions to ensure that she doesn't have to hold back. Said training sessions are always with Ike, who has a similar "no holds barred" training ethic to her. Everyone else on the mercenary crew is too scared to spar with them.
Argilla from Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga.
Alyx Vance of Half-Life 2.
Samus Aran is the original video game Action Girl, even if that wasn't always obvious. Nowadays, everybody knows — and she's still one of the most Bad Ass characters in the video game world, female or no. In-universe, she's considered a living legend, and many of the NPCs she meets in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption are starstruck at seeing her.
Due to budget limitations, we never get to see Sergeant Brooks of the Crusader series of games in an actual fight, but when you consider the lower-ranked NCOs are afraid of her, she lips off multiple times to a superior officer who also happens to be someone who could probably kill her without a breaking a sweat, and survives WEC captivity with no wounds requiring anything more than a two-day stint in a (probably poorly-equipped) hospital, she almost certainly counts.
Queen Catherine Ironfist of Heroes of Might and Magic III, a cunning tactician, skilled warrior, and phenomenal leader. Then there's Mutare, a young human woman who rises to prominence in the "dungeon" cities of Nighon (populated mostly by monsters like harpies, medusas, minotaurs, etc.), makes a grab for power the moment her enemy shows a sign of weakness, and ends up the ruler of all Nighon due to being transformed into a sentient black dragon. There are other female warrior-types who probably count, but those two are the only ones with real characterization — the other characterized lead, Adrienne, doesn't count, because she's a Magical Girl.
Lara Croft, Tomb Raider. Even as the size of her breasts enlarged, she still kicked lots of ass.
From Mega Man: Marino, the sexy thief from Mega Man X: Command Mission, and from ZX, there's Aile and Ashe. Ashe moreso, because she's an experienced Hunter who can kick ass with just a pistol (And Model A increases her ass-kicking ability quite a bit). Even more impressive is when you realize she can beat bosses with a weapon from the armory of one of few groups from Zero and ZX whose weapons are typically useless in the hands of anyone else besides bad guys and other heroes.
- And I forgot to mention that Aile and Ashe are humans, in a series of robotic protagonists. That makes it even more impressive.
Monica from Dark Cloud 2, a time-traveling princess who's just as good with a sword as she is with fire magic (and she's cute, to boot).
Jade from Beyond Good and Evil is both a regular Action Girl and a kind of Action Mom — although she doesn't have any biological children, she is the "mother" of several cute orphans at a shelter.
Mona Sax of Max Payne 2 is a very capable assassin who is the title character's equal when it comes to guns and ass-kicking in general. You get to play as her during the second act, when Max gets in trouble at the construction site and Mona has to ensure that he stays alive. You also step into her shoes during the third act, when Max gets a bullet in the head from Vlad at the funhouse and Mona "comes to get him through the fire." The two eventually go on a two-person castle storm on Woden's manor.
Many fighting game girls would fit here in some way, but a few are more noteworthy:
- The famous Chun Li from Street Fighter II and beyond could turn anyone's head with her looks or one (thousand) of her ridiculously fast and powerful kicks. Her SF legacy is continued by ladies like Cammy White, Rose, Sakura Kasugano, Karin Kanzuki, Makoto, Elena, Hokuto, Pullum Purna and others.
- Chun Li's partner in dishing out leggy Chinese violence, Jam Cloudberry from Guilty Gear is a lethal chef of a different variety.
- Nina Williams from Tekken would also count... though she might be a bit darker than the norm. Ana Williams, michell and Julia Chang, Li Xiaoyu, Asuka Kazama and Christie Monteiro would be more straight examples, then.
- Don't forget the ladies from the King of Fighters saga. You have Cute Bruisers (Athena, Yuri, Hinako, Momoko), Badass Lolitas (Mignon), Action Moms (Vanessa), Ladies of War (Chizuru, Maki, Elisabeth), Blood Ladies (Vice and Mature), Emotionless Girls (Leona Heidern), Bifauxnen (King, though she's also a bit of an Action Mom because she raised her brother), Strong Grapplers (Shermie, Blue Mary) and many others.
- Sophitia "Badass Mother" Alexandria. Fugudsakes, when she thought her daughter Phyrra was in danger, she promptly mowed down almost every single character in the game with ease. Honorable mentions go to the lady ninja Taki, the very talented Ivy Valentine, Sophitia's younger sister Cassandra, Chinese Girl swordswoman Chai Xianghua, Plucky Girl Seung Mina, Femme Fatale Setsuka and the tiny but powerful Talim.
Alicia Winston in Time Crisis 3. Not only does she subvert the series' trend of Distressed Damsels, which the past three games had, but she's also a playable character in the PS2 port.
Shanoa in Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia.
- Anyone from the Belnades clan of witches, and Maria Renard who was fighting monsters before puberty.
- Sonia Belmont, the first Belmont, at least until they dreamed up Leon several years later, and then retconned her out of the timeline altogether.
Lenna, Faris and Krile from Final Fantasy V.
Every female pilots in Super Robot Wars Original Generation series are all Action Girls. It doesn't matter if the said pilot is Moe Moe and shy. Once she enters her mecha, expect multitudes of ass-kicking to commence from her.
Ashley Williams in Mass Effect. Of all of the squadmates, she is the best all-around fighter, being able to use shotguns, assault rifles, and sniper rifles, wear heavy armor, has high hit points (second only to Wrex) and health regeneration, and can use Immunity, Shield Boost, and Adrenaline Burst. None of your other squadmates can do all of this.
- Ash is, however, altogether outdone if Commander Shepard is played as a woman.
Bastila Shan in Knights of the Old Republic. And, like Ashley in Mass Effect, she pales in comparison to the female Player Character, particularly when you learn that the incredibly Badass Darth Revan everybody's been talking about all game, the one who beat the living daylights out of the Mandalorians and the Republic, Jedi Order and all? You're her.
- Mira and Brianna the Handmaiden in the sequel, not to mention the Jedi Exile.
Blaze the Cat is the most straight example from the Sonic the Hedgehog games, but Amy is no slouch with that hammer of hers and Rouge has a more subtle brand of asskicking. Cream... could be considered more of a Technical Pacifist, with her Chao partner Cheese delivering all of the direct attacks.
Jill Valentine from Resident Evil can tear through a Zombie Apocalypse like a hot knife through butter. Plus she has the honorable title of "Master of Unlocking".
- Ada from Resident Evil 4 is also pretty badass.
- Don't forget Sheva Alomar or Claire Redfield either.
Ayla from Chrono Trigger. Okay, she's a cavewoman, but also easily the most powerful character (while fighting barehanded), even without magic powers like the other protagonists. And in-story, she is the leader of her village, and its most skilled warrior (even Kino, her boyfriend, is weaker than her).
Oh, so very much in Valkyria Chronicles, where one of the two female leads is the leader of the local town watch at the start of the game and can run halfway across most maps in a single turn before gunning down a tank and eventually goes super saiyan, and the other is a bigoted former singer who is one of the single toughest characters in the game and carries a machine gun and a flamethrower as standard weaponry. And then there's the Dragon for the big bad, who just dials "action girl" up to 14 in her first encounter with the heroes and gets much much worse.
In Planescape Torment, Annah is a fierce and fearless knife-fighter. She's drawn to the protagonist almost against her will, but then so are the rest of the NPCs, thanks to their torments.
No mention of Ax Crazy Princess Sapphire yet? Also a Battle Couple.
Ashelin from the Jak and Daxter games has had full Krimzon Guard training, and unlike most of the Guard, actually remembers it.
In the Halo 3 level "The Covenant", as Sergeant Johnson is held prisoner by the Brutes, Miranda Keyes crashes her Pelican through the Citadel's window and starts blowing away the Brutes with her shotgun.
Ashei, the lady knight who aids Link in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, qualifies for this trope.
Heather Mason from Silent Hill 3. Arguably, the very nature of the series makes the other female characters varying types of a Faux Action Girl at the very least, but Heather is probably the most well-known and easily identifiable example of a true Action Girl.
Presea Combatir, Judith, and Farah Oersted from the Tales series fill in this category.
- Presea's choice of weapon is a giant ax that is literally heavier than she is and her physical strength is the highest in Tales of Symphonia.
- Judith is the resident air master of Tales of Vesperia and was so popular that she was accepted as one of the characters to appear in Tales of Vs.
- Farah Oersted is so powerful that she is capable of firing three consecutive beast heads with the technique "ground breaker" and she does this ENTIRELY BAREHANDED.
Most of the playable female characters in the Dynasty Warriors series, especially Sun Shang Xiang and Zhu Rong, where there is some basis in the source material.
Ginchiyo Tachibana and Ina from Samurai Warriors 2 are easily the toughest women in the game. Whereas the other female characters either wear robes (Okuni, No) or are ninjas (Nene, Kunoichi from SW 1), Ina is the daughter of Tadakatsu Honda (regarded as the strongest in the land) and wields a giant bladed bow while wearing armor (and one of her alternate costumes in Warriors Orochi 2 has full body armor). Ginchiyo wears full plate and chain mail, wields a serrated, lightning-imbued sword and has one of the most devastating movesets in the game. There's even a line group between her and Zhang He (a very un-masculine character from Dynasty Warriors) in Warriors Orochi:
Zhang He: You are supposed to be a woman, where is your sense of grace?
Ginchiyo: You are supposed to be a warrior! Where is your sense of masculinity!?
Freya Crescent from Final Fantasy IX. To put it in the words of one reviewer:
"Let me see if I'm understanding this. Freya is one of the main heroines of a JRPG — and she doesn't at any point have the hots for the hero, never needs to be rescued by the hero, and in fact shows up the hero in a monster-slaying competition? (Unless the player really knows what he's doing during the Festival of the Hunt sequence, that is.) And wait — does Freya really offer zero fanservice? Not even the slightest effort is made to cater to Secret of NIMH fanboy furries? (..) And am I really not imagining the game, when Freya ends up with the guy she has the hots for — a guy who, again, isn't the game's male main character? Whoa. Not only might Freya be the best Dragoon in Final Fantasy, the best female party member in the whole series (at least from a feminist perspective)."
A staple of Command and Conquer, since Red Alert introduced us to Tanya Adams, a certified Badass "professional volunteer".
- After that in Tiberian Sun we had Umagon, a mutant lady who was Put On A Bus during the expansion.
- Red Alert 2 Tanya returned portrayed by Kari Wuhrer.
- Tiberium Wars introduced a new Nod Commando with a sexy accent and an eyepatch, and it's expansion also introduced a squad of sonic grenade launching jetpack women in form fitting Powered Armor.
- Red Alert 3 one again had Tanya (this time Jenny McCarthy), along with Natasha (Gina Carano), and Yuriko. Oh, and there were flying anime-inspired laser dominatrices; I am not making that up.
Lani, Kidra, and Santes from The Reconstruction. Lani is Hot Blooded, prone to yelling a lot, and bashes any foes that come her way with a giant tower shield, and Santes blasts any foes in your way to oblivion with Judement.
Ophelia, Lita, the Razor Girls, and the Zaulia in Brutal Legend. In other words, every woman in the game.
Ayame from Tenchu, a kunoichi who, after a string of traumatic events in her childhood, took an attitude and became the second best ninja in the Azuma Ninja Clan. Also a Deadpan Snarker in most games.

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Sal Walters in It's Walky... unless you catch her on a bad day.
Anne Onymous, Katie McBride, Samantha "Wolfie" Wolf, and Miranda West in The Wotch.
Ellen Dunkel and Nanase Kitsune in El Goonish Shive.
Oasis in Sluggy Freelance, though not an especially heroic one (which is to say, she is completely psychotic). May be a Robot Girl or a former Tyke Bomb or a vengeful spirit that possesses random passers-by or more than one.
Zeetha from Girl Genius is a warrior woman from a hidden, jungle city which might possibly have a matriarchal society (this is speculation). She appears to be a stronger warrior than any of the humans in the comic, although she is beaten in combat by the superhuman Baron Wulfenbach.
- This editor thinks old age and treachery factored into the above.
- There's also that Baron Wulfenbach is perhaps the most badass individual on that planet. Really, losing to him is no shame for anyone.
- The title character is a proficient in making and using death rays and can hold her ground with a sword, but lacks the physique of a real action girl. Fortunately, Zeetha's working on fixing that.
Haley from The Order of the Stick is a high-level chaotic good thief. Her archery is unmatched in the comic. Maybe Vaarsuvius, too.
- Miko might have been a stick-up-the-butt Knight Templar, but this is a woman that managed to solo the Order twice, defeated a minimum 15th level, artifact-enhanced cleric in a world of codzilla, and can behead people with her feet.
Radical, in Gaming Guardians. Her shapeshifting Evil Twin, Ultima starts out as a Dark Action Girl, but (unusually for the trope) does a Heel Face Turn later — after having put Radical through seven kinds of hell (including fathering Radical's child while disguised as Randarch, and then causing her miscarriage).
Garanos from the webcomic of the same name.
Juno from Starcross'd Destiny.
Virtually every female character in Errant Story qualifies, though special consideration goes to Sara, the resident warrior-monk. Time-mage warrior-monk.
Jane Mighty (formerly Iron Jane) from Everyday Heroes. She introduced herself to her future husband by kicking him in the head.
The title character of The Chalenges of Zona. She and her sister Tula have been known to form a warrior/priestess-mage Lovely Angels duo.
Wendy from Cheshire Crossing
The Cyantian Chronicles: Silver and Celina best embody this trope. Quinn will, once she does more than spar with family and friends. Chatin, Cilke and a few others cover this trope to a (very slightly) lesser degree.
- It helps that the majority of cyantians have some kind of combat training. Especially the members of the Akaelae family and the Mounty royal family. Which makes sense given the need to protect themselves.
Tonya from Shape Quest is this trope precisely.
Chen-Chen in Harkovast has martial art skills that allow her to block swords (with her bare arms!) and smash skulls (with her bare fists!)
Saffron and Felicia from Fetch Quest: Saga of the Twelve Artifacts. Especially the former.
Tristan in Angel Moxie.
Cassie in Acrobat.
While there are several in Schlock Mercenary — Legs, 'Chelle, even Breya fit the bill — Elf takes the cake. Ranging from blowing up a refinery to procto-ing a reality TV host with one of his own cameras.
The Girl from the webcomic A Girl and Her Fed. She's one of the best in the world at Judo, and will use it when necessary.

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This is pretty much the point of Pokegirls.
At the Super Hero School Whateley Academy, in the webfiction Whateley Universe, most of the girls in Team Kimba fit this trope. Chaka, mistress of Ki, has taken down a team of ninjas, fought a guy the size of a Sasquatch to stand up for a friend, and beaten Lycanthros (a super-werewolf kind of supervillain who has multiple wants for murder). Tennyo is so tough the school has had to ban everyone from facing off against her. Phase fought a killer supervillain before she even knew how to use her own powers properly. Generator beat a supervillain in power armor who was trying to hold her hostage with a knife... by impaling herself on the knife first and then taking over his armor. They're all Action Girl types. Except that none of them was born female.
Kit Baxter from Red Panda Adventures.

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She-Ra: Princess of Power has the title character, as well as Huntara, a purple-skinned Grace Jones lookalike who has no powers except a bunch of really cool weapons, but held her own against She-Ra in a one-on-one fight.
- In fact, most of the women in the show were Action Girls, and the guys were the James Bondage types. Understandable since the show was created as the girl's version of He-Man.
Sally Acorn, Sonic the Hedgehog, before her Character Derailment in the later comics.
Mira Nova, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.
Colleen, Road Rovers.
Leela, Futurama.
Elena Potato and Lay Mamery in Monster Allergy.
All three of The Powerpuff Girls.
Sam, Alex, and Clover of Totally Spies! seem to take turns being competent.
Hawkgirl and Wonder Woman, Justice League. In Unlimited we gain Huntress, Black Canary, and Vixen.
Katara (from the second season on), Toph Bei Fong, Suki, and Ozai's Angels (Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee) on Avatar: The Last Airbender; at this point they outnumber the male badasses.
Kim Possible... usually. It's "most of the time, but no boys will watch this show if she saves the day every week". That said, crucial-moment stuff is generally carried out by Rufus. Kim is a true Action Girl most of the time, especially So the Drama is all about giving Kim one Moment of Awesome after another. Unfortunately, the plot often demands Kim to receive a problem she can't solve on her own in order to let Ron, Rufus, or any other supporting character to save the day.
The same goes for Teen Titans's Starfire.
Diana the Acrobat in Dungeons & Dragons. To a more subtle degree, also Sheila the Thief.
Adult Jade of Jackie Chan Adventures.
Lioness from Alpha Teens On Machines.
Shao Lin from Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys.
Niko from Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers, who also had Psychic Powers.
Carbine, a recurring character on Biker Mice from Mars.
Candy from Dave the Barbarian. Sometimes parodied, sometimes played straight. Also Fang, Candy's much more aggressive younger sister.
Sara from Chaotic. Admittedly she looks like the Faux Action Girl for most of the first season, and is quickly defeated in the first battle she has, the first battle of hers that the viewer actually SEES is one of the most intense combats in the series up to that point.
- Some female creatures on the show also provide examples, such as Intress, Laarina, and Takinom.
Cera from The Land Before Time. Granted as a dinosaur, she lacks the attractive appearance, but you have to respect a girl who can shatter rocks with her head.
- More of a Cute Bruiser, though.
Valerie Gray from Danny Phantom. She's been stated as a ninth degree martial artist despite being only fourteen.
Sandy Cheeks from SpongeBob SquarePants.
From ReBoot, all of the main female characters were more than capable of holding their own, though AndrAIa was the only one to be consistently in the fight. Dot and Mouse were more often used for their command and technical skills.
Kiva from Megas XLR.
Yumi Ishiyama from Code Lyoko. Aelita also grows into one throughout the series, to settle it starting Season 3.
Rose from American Dragon Jake Long.
Jessica from Gormiti the Lords of Nature Return, as she proves by single-handedly defeating the Big Bad's pet dragon and knocking down Orrore Profondo (the second strongest of the Volcano Gormiti)
Elisa Maza in Gargoyles.
- And Fox, and Demona, and Angela, and Princess Katherine... Heck, every female in Gargoyles fits this, with the exception of Maggie the Cat.
- And even Maggie is a superhumanly strong, winged mutant who can shoot lightning bolts from her hands. She may not be an Action Girl by temperment, but you wouldn't want to mess with her, either.
Wendy from South Park seems very likely to grow up into one of these based on her Crowning Moment Of Awesome in season 12. (Kicked Cartman's ass.)
Transformers has a pretty good record with this, despite females being in the extreme minority.
- Transformers Generation One: The female Autobots, and to a lesser extent Arcee.
- Beast Wars: Airazor and Blackarachnia.
- Transformers Energon: Arcee.
- Transformers Cybertron: Override and Thunderblast.
- Transformers (film series): Mikaela.
- Transformers Animated: Blackarachnia, Strika, Starscream's female clone and Sari, after she took a level in badass. Professor Princess might technically count, although she's more about the gadgets than actual combat.
The girls of the Kids Next Door, including Numbuh Three (Kuki Sanban), Numbuh Five (Abigail Lincoln) and Numbuh Three Sixty Two (Racheal Mckenzie).
Atomic Betty

Close Western Animation

Joan d'Arc was a French peasant girl who heard the voice of God instructing her to expel the hated English from France. Legend has it that she led a cavalry charge with an arrow wound in her neck, and also not only survived being struck in the head with a cannonball but kept fighting as well. Was eventually betrayed and burned at the stake, but the legend lives on.
- Though this page's quote is about her from Shakespeare's "Henry VI Part 1", Joan d'Arc was actually a Dark Action Girl in that play, through a case of Character Derailment of an actual person.
Artemisia of Caria fought at the Battle of Salamis, commanding five Persian ships against the Greeks. Her ship was nearly captured by the Greek navy, but she turned and rammed one of her own fleet's ships, sinking it and escaping. Nevertheless, she was praised by Xerxes for her ruthless ingenuity.
- The poetic quote from Xerxes: "My men have become women and my women have become men."
I think female Soviet snipers during the WWII were pretty cool girls, eh kills over 300 Nazis and doesn't afraid of anything.
- Then there was the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, who made use of obsolete and generally pacific but nimble wooden biplanes PO-2 to fly under the veil of night and drop bombs. And since the carrying capacity of the planes was rather poor girls would leave the parachutes to take some more bombs aboard. Nazis called them "night witches". Hell yeah!
Zenobia of Palmyra, anyone?
Fights between female gladiators was a standard gimmick in the games of ancient Rome, and female gladiators nearly always fought topless. Fanservice is older than we think...
Japanese has Onna-bugeisha, girls who embrace samurai tropes.
- Let's not forget Tomoe Gozen, either.
- Actually, many Yamato Nadeshiko were expected to at least know the basics of self defense, in case their households were under attack when the samurai and guards were out in the war. The naginata spear was specifically created to be used for women: its lenght allowed the Yamato Nadeshiko to keep attackers at bay easily, then stab/slash them with the pointy tip.
  - As a bonus, whenever a girl of a samurai family left her home to work in the city, she was given a tanto dagger before her departure. She was expected to either use it to comit seppuku (or better said, jidai) if her honor demanded it, the other was for specific self-defense.
Wing Chun. You know someone's an Action Girl when she has a martial arts style named after her.
Ching Shih was one of the most badass pirates of all time. And best of all, she was able to get away with everything, keep all of her loot and avoid suffering the indignity of a death by hanging.

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