She's tall, pretty, and generally attracts quite a following wherever she goes. She usually has
waist-length, dark hair.
While it might not be fair to say that trouble follows her everywhere, it's accurate for most cases of the type. This sometimes causes an undeserved reputation as a delinquent.
Often a
target of one or more
Schoolgirl Lesbians. If she is one herself, she'll have a more-or-less
Moe Moe or
Shrinking Violet girlfriend.
This character type crosses over rather regularly with the
Ojou. Feel free to compare the examples.
Sometimes Tall, Dark and Bishoujo will have a genre-defying quirk, especially in recent anime, as this pattern is starting to be meta-recognized.
On the other side of the spectrum is the
Bifauxnen.
The name was originated by the user Starcross in the shoujoai.com forum on June 23, 2004. It is a play on the old description of a man as "tall, dark and handsome".
Examples:
- Tenjou Utena in Revolutionary Girl Utena, one of the early incarnations of this character type — except for her hair, which is pink in the anime and strawberry-blonde in the manga.
- Himemiya Chikane in Kannazuki No Miko.
- Hatsune in Atlach=Nacha.
- Azuma Hazuki in Yami To Boushi To Hon No Tabibito.
- Kuga Natsuki in Mai-HiME.
- Ogasawara Sachiko in Maria-sama Ga Miteru.
- Ceres in Ayashi No Ceres.
- Sakaki in Azumanga Daioh subverts the trope by being obsessed with cute things, despite her looks and bad luck with cats.
- Amatsuka Megumi in Tenshi Na Konamaiki. (She has the wrong hair color, however.)
- Kazetsubaki Kuriko in Maburaho.
- Zakuro in Tokyo Mew Mew.
- Aoyama Motoko in Love Hina.
- Lieutenant Kanuka Clancy from Patlabor. Possibly a part of her rivalry with Bifauxnen Lt. Kumagami.
- Madoka in Kimagure Orange Road.
- Akira in ARIA.
- Shion in Otome Wa Boku Ni Koishiteru.
- Caren in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, and later, the other members of the secondary trio.
- Karen and Komachi in Yes! Precure 5. Karen best fits the personality part, though.
- Sai in Kidou Tenshi Angelic Layer.
- Mai in Kanon, with the "undeserved delinquent reputation" variant.
- Konoe Tsurugi in Hanaukyo Maid Tai.
- Tomoyo in Clannad, who immediately gained fangirls upon transferring and received gifts from them (And if you don't believe, compare on how tall she is compared to the other girls by looking at how tall her life-size teddy bear outfit is). Kyou has also been revealed to be very popular amongst female underclassmen.
- Shizuma from Strawberry Panic. She has white hair, but otherwise fits this trope just fine.
- Tsugumi Komachi in Ever17.
- Simone from Shiroi Heya No Futari, the first shoujo Girls Love manga ever from way back in the '70s. Yes, this trope has existed ever since the beginning of the genre.
- Maaya Chiaki from the Webcomic Red String.
- Jun Fudo in Devilman Lady.
- Rider in Fate Stay Night embraces this trope. And her true Master was actually a Moe Moe girl (unless she snaps...)
- Kan'u Unchou in Ikki Tousen. To be expected since she's supposed to be a voluptuous schoolgirl version of the resident Genius Bruiser and Gentle Giant of Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, Guan Yu.
- Asagi from Yotsuba&!, only the waist-length hair is brown and she's more troublemaker than troubled.
- Saki Tsuzura of Arcana Heart. The fact that she looks like Chikane may just be a coincidence, really.
- Ran, titular character of Kazemakase Tsukikage Ran, is a textbook example of the trope, particularly in that she attracts trouble like a magnet (or is attracted to it?) and has a Moe Moe Chinese Girl following her around most of the time. However, she dresses and acts in a masculine way, despite looking quite feminine; if she were ever taken for a boy (oddly, no one makes this mistake) she would be bounced right over into Bifauxnen territory.
- People are often in the dark about her gender until she starts talking, though.
- Hinamori Amu from Shugo Chara wears a public persona that makes her appear as an example of this trope to her schoolmates — in reality, she's plagued by self-image issues and hates acting that way.
- Kanae Kotonami from Skip Beat fits this trope—at least the physical description, anyway. Her true personality is a bit more fiery.
- Shanoa from Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, some of the women she rescues flirt with her, even.
- Isayama Yomi from Ga-Rei -Zero-. To certain extent, the main character Tsuchiyama Kagura also count.
- The chief of the Environment Ministry special division and her secretary, as well.
- And Natsuki Kasuga from the unfortunate Defense Ministry squad.
- Come to think of it, is there any woman not fitting this trope in Ga-Rei -Zero- ?
- Tatsuki from Hyakko, although it's her blond friend Torako who gets the fangirls.
- Maki Izumi from Martian Successor Nadesico is something of a subversion of this. Physically speaking, she's quite attractive; however she's always cracking bad puns, has a habit for playing the ukilele (terribly) and nobody seems sexually interested in her while she never shows any sexual interest in anyone else. At least not until the episode where everyone's repressed personalities come to the forefront and her sexual side tries to convince both Akito and Akatsuki to have sex with her. Of course, this is also the episode where it's explained that she's repressed her sexual side because both of her fiancees died young and she's convinced if she opens up to anyone they'll inevitably die as well and she'll just be alone and heartbroken again.
- Anego from Dai Mahou Touge is the full-blown delinquent variety, even though she is nothing compared to the protagonist.
- Setsuna Meioh (AKA, Sailor Pluto) and Rei Hino (Sailor Mars) from Sailor Moon.
- Also Tear Grants from Tales Of The Abyss
- Maya from Maya's Funeral Procession, another Girls Love manga from the '70s.
