Dark Skinned Redhead - Television Tropes & Idioms

For extra exoticism, just add tanning lotion.

Like most character design decisions in anime, colors are often chosen to reflect personalities more than to be realistic depictions. While dark skinned is not a particularly alien choice, it's most often used to reflect a bouncy, energetic, fiery personality than actual nationality. This probably has roots back to the ideal of Japanese beauty including pale skin of the nobility, as opposed to the chain of association with tanned people being outdoorsy, and thus lively and adventurous. Bonus points if they have Eyes Of Gold.

Naturally this includes Bottle Fairies and Tricksters, especially if they're women. The most common combination with this skin tone is a vibrant and noticeable light color. Red is very popular, associated with all sorts of playful Japanese spirits as well as the kabuki wig, so it's also a common (and deliberately unusual looking) palette choice for demons and Cat Girls. Red's a popular hair color for other reasons as well, of course.

Note dark skinned characters with dark hair (olive, purple, black) tend to have muted personalities.

Sister trope to Dark Skinned Blond. Contrast Pale Skinned Brunette. Usually a type of Red Headed Hero.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

Pictured to the right: Gene Starwind from Outlaw Star.
Perhaps the prototypical Dark Skinned Redhead, Kei from The Dirty Pair.
Marie and several other characters from Haré+Guu.
Shayla-Shayla from El Hazard The Magnificent World.
Tanya from Battle Athletes gets the dark skin and straight red hair treatment, despite the Olympic-like premise of the series explicitly telling us she's supposed to be African◊, making her come off more as a quasi-Cat Girl.
Ed from Cowboy Bebop, whose behavior is all over the map. She could be of Turkish decent, as her father's name translates into Turkish, and her real first name is French (no doubt a tradition started at the Napoleonic Wars, which involved the Ottomans).
Petite Princess Yucie's demon princess Greta fits the typical description, but has lavender hair, since she's also an Ojou.
Similarly, Anthy Himemiya from Revolutionary Girl Utena has dark skin and deep purple hair. She's the "muted personality" type. It's implied that she and her brother are from India.
A male version of this trope is Tasuki from Fushigi Yuugi, the energetic fire-fan-wielding bandit.
Karen Joshua from Gundam's OVA The08th MS Team, the fiery CPO of the titular military unit.
Resident martial-artist and Gentle Giant Kanna Kirishima of Sakura Taisen. She hails from Okinawa, and in later games and series, lost some of her darker complexion and bright red hair.
Winia Chester from Scrapped Princess is a more subdued version of this, though she perks up quite a bit around Pacifica.
Xane from Gold Digger: A Hot Amazon, Genki Girl, and Boisterous Bruiser.
The princesses Tatra and Tarta in Magic Knight Rayearth.
Kirche, the bouncy vamp from Zero No Tsukaima.
There was an "athletic" Nurse Joy in Pokemon like this, with a tan/dark skin as an indicator of her personality not being like the others. That and muscles.
Yoko Nakajima from The Twelve Kingdoms upon returning to the Twelve Kingdoms from Japan. In her case she is a "taika", a person from the Twelve Kingdoms world who got carried away to Japan, and thus a shell was covering her to make sure she resembled her "parents". To be fair, the novels specifically mention that she starts out much paler, but after roughing it for several months without shelter, her skin's gotten a very dark tan.
Akane Karasuma aka Sailor Lead Crow, 5th season villain of Sailor Moon. Elza Gray, a one-episode character from the Sailor Moon anime. She was an old rival and friend of Haruka, and introduced her and Michiru to each other.
Jeannie from Rune Soldier Louie, though she's actually The Stoic. She is, however, a very physical Hot Amazon warrior type, so she's not too far off.
Exedore/Exsedol's original design from Macross / Robotech had the colors, but his personality is the opposite of the usual type, being The Spock instead.
Sousou (Cao Cao) from Ikki Tousen, though his personality is quite darker and more conflicted than the standard. Besides, he starts as a brunet, and only is shown with red hair in the second season (Dragon Destiny). In Great Guardians, also, when Saji Genpou (Zuo Ci) drops his Saji facade and retakes his true identity of Ouin Shishi (Wang Yun), his blond hair turns into a blazing red.
Kintarou Tooyama from The Prince Of Tennis.
Anna Maht from World of Quest.
Karui from Naruto was shown to have red hair in a recent color page.
Kougaiji from saiyuki is noble bad guy and seems to deliberately be in color contrast to his Evil Empress stepmother, Gyokomen Koshu, (who is pale skinned with green hair). Possibly to emphasize that their personalities are complete opposites - Kougaiji is devoted to his nakama, while Koshu is prone to killing her followers on a whim. Rather than having a fiery personality he's matched to the element and uses mostly fire attacks.
- Gojyo could also be considered an example, since he's rather tan compared to the others. Also has bright red hair.
One of the female pirates in Van Dread: the Second Stage has red hair and tanned skin. It's implied that she's a high-ranking officer, and didn't come along on the Nirvana because she andher crew had buisiness on Majer. She shows up just in time to spring the crew from jail. I believe her name was "Vera" or something like that.
Libra Dohko from Saint Seiya was a *gorgeous* one when young◊. And he still is. Since his old form is actually a Sleep Mode Size, once he recovers his youth... Squee!

Comic Books

Alicia Masters was portrayed as one of these in the Heroes Reborn (Dork Age) version of the Fantastic Four
Ember from Elf Quest. Dark skin and auburn hair is seen in quite a few elves of the Sun Folk, including Leetah (Ember's mother), Shenshen, their mother Toorah, and Behtia. This does not seem to be connected to characterisation, though.
Jezebel Jet, from Batman R.I.P.

Film

Another non-anime example is Sikozu from the Far Scape movies, though her series form doesn't count.

Literature

The Aiel from The Wheel Of Time.
Finnegan Hob from Abarat.
Brier Iron-thorn in P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles Of The Kencyrath is an example in Western fantasy fiction. A big, strong warrior woman raised among soldiers in the sun-drenched south, she's permanently tanned dark from those long years in the sunlight, and her hair is a "sullen red", an indicator of the passions and hatreds and intensity of her innermost nature, under the stern exterior.
Holly Short from Artemis Fowl
Alia, Leto, and Ghanima Ateides from Dune

Live Action TV

A live-action TV example: Teyla from Stargate Atlantis is dark-skinned with red hair to portray her alienness.

Newspaper Comics

Although most screen adaptations have portrayed her as more fair-skinned, the original Newspaper Comics version of Princess Aura from Flash Gordon was one of these. Of course, most Mongonians were portrayed as slightly dark-skinned, so it would have been odd if she had had a light complexion.

Real Life

"Barbarossa" Hayreddin Pasha, or "Redbeard", the redheaded privateer and admiral.
Ramses II of Egypt (Ramses the Great). Other family members may have had this look as well.
The Hadith describes Muhammad as dying his hair red. But then, it also describes him as somewhat paler than most of his companions, so this trope might not entirely hold.
Not uncommon phenotype among the Berbers.
Ada "Bricktop" Smith, a 1920s nightclub singer and vaudeville actress of African-American/Irish descent.
Averted with Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who some historians think was a redhead. He was also a fierce soldier and commander, and thus would have been very deeply tanned, as Roman soldiers frequently were, but histories record that Sulla wore a wide-brimmed hat while on the march that would have made him look silly if he didn't wear it with such pride.
- Many redheads are physically incapable of tanning. They'll just burn, and when the burn fades the skin under will be as white as ever. Too many burns and the skin will be permanently scarred, though still pale. If Sulla was like this, he wouldn't have tanned if he'd spent his entire life outdoors and bareheaded.

Video Games

Ganondorf and the Gerudo from the Zelda series. Also Din, the Oracle of Seasons.
The beast-taming bandit Moses from Tales of Legendia.
Reid Hershel of Tales Of Eternia is a Dark Skinned Redhead of the tanned variety, with his skin colour reflecting his athletic, outdoorsy disposition; his skin tone may also be a deliberate attempt to visually set him apart from other Inferians, of whom one of the distinguishing traits is pale skin.
Jaffar from Fire Emblem 7 is a male version. Also, Tethys from Fire Emblem 8.
- Tethys hardly counts. Take a look at her in-game portrait◊. She's a lot paler than Jaffar. Looks kinda unhealthy, considering Jehanna is a desert nation...
- Fiona from 10 also qualifies.
Brave Fencer Musashi has Gingerelle, an arrogant beauty queen and captain of the Thirstquencher Empire. While not so much the energetic type, she did have a powerful presence and tended to lord it over her little sister most of the time.
Almalexia, a non-anime example from Morrowind has dark gold skin and red-hair.
Lucia from Devil May Cry.
Psyme from Sigma Star Saga is a purple-skinned redhead.
Asad in Suikoden Tierkreis
Akuma (aka Gouki) of the Street Fighter series is a bloodthirsty martial artist with dark skin and wild red hair. His "Shin Akuma" form in Capcom vs. SNK takes it even further, with dark red skin and pure white hair.
Shauna - a bandit leader and the Hero version of the Gypsy class - from Soul Nomad And The World Eaters.
In a rare western example, Ronny and Sally Dobbs from Backyard Sports.
Nym from Black Sigil is a wild child with dark skin and red hair.
Early concept art shows Alyx Vance as one of these.
Jin of Yo-Jin-Bo, complete with spunky personality.

Web Comics

Marena of Keychain Of Creation.
Ellen in older Questionable Content strips (exhibit A); now that the other characters aren't so pale, Ellen's skin is not significantly darker (exhibit B) Tai, on the other hand, is a more straight (no pun intended) example as seen here.

Western Animation

Sari Sumdac from Transformers Animated. She also appears to have red eyes for some reason. Eventually justified since she's not fully human.
Wuya from Xiaolin Showdown.
Starfire from Teen Titans. And she's actually an alien.
Kim Possible in "Graduation, Part 2". [1]◊
Lua from Kong: The Animated Series.
Kiva Andru from Megas XLR