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Aloof Dark-Haired Girl
(aka: Tall Dark And Bishojo)

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Aloof Dark-Haired Girl (trope)
"The blackness of my hair tells you what I feel about your opinion."
"[Kirsten] is a stunningly beautiful woman with dark hair and a fierceness that's both scary and inspiring."
Harper, Set It Up

Look carefully. Is the character dark-haired? Check. Is she tall? Check. Is she aloof? Check. Does she have admirers despite (or maybe because of) her distant behavior? With these characteristics, she fits.

The Aloof Dark-Haired Girl is a fairly common character type combining both appearance and personality. She will generally be taller than her peers, more physically developed, and her hair will be very long and dark. Frequently, her skin will in contrast be very pale. She looks older and more beautiful and meets a certain classic ideal of feminine beauty combining maturity, a quiet attitude, and a combination of long hair and very pale skin.

The Aloof Dark-Haired Girl will not merely look older than her peers, however. Frequently, she will also act more reserved and aloof and thus seem more mature, which may earn her some younger female admirers. It is not uncommon for her to be fond of teasing her peers or acting as their big sister, though in all cases she will still maintain her dignity. Occasionally, she will even look cold and distant, but in this case, she is still probably a nice person deep down. Finally, it is essential to remember that despite the usual popularity of the girl in question, she does not seek it out. Instead, people simply gravitate towards her with admiration.

See Tall, Dark, and Handsome for the Spear Counterpart. Compare Onee-sama and Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette. May lead to Even the Girls Want Her in the right sort of series. Contrast Creepy Loner Girl who has a similar hair and skin color and introverted disposition but is much more volatile in temperament, less fashionable, and is looked down on as a weirdo by others.

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Examples

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    Fan Works 
  • The Night Unfurls: Olga Discordia is six feet tall, with ankle-length black hair and a bountiful form. Her pride and aloofness are backed up by her status as the Queen of the Dark Elves, along with her exceptional talent in magic.
  • Princess Luna Equestris of RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse. Taller than most anypony, long black hair, and revered by her subjects as their ruler, goddess, and protector against her mad sister.

    Films — Animation 
  • Pocahontas: Pocahontas herself is a downplayed example. She is very tall and beautiful, has long black hair that reaches down to her hips, and is extremely calm, composed, and serene most of the time, on top of her tendency to look dignified, graceful, and majestic whenever she stands against the wind. Alongside that, however, she is also quite friendly and open towards others and has a cheeky and free-spirited side to her.
  • In Turning Red, Priya has dark hair, is the second tallest in her friend group, and is The Stoic. She has at least one admirer in the goth girl.

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • Ellington Feint in All the Wrong Questions. She is tall, beautiful, has dark hair, and is a distant and mysterious Fille Fatale.
  • In Girls Kingdom, Himeko Amonotsuka is already tall, dark-haired, and beautiful, but now is nice, chipper, and friendly. However, during her first year at Amonotsuka Academynote , she kept to herself and despite being more than popular enough to get numerous offers from Domestic Arts students to be her maid (an official function of the school is to pair up domestic arts students, which are maids-in-training, with Societal Arts students, who are rich girls) which she always refused. Meeting Misaki and taking her on as her maid signaled the change in attitude.
  • Yozora Mikazuki from Haganai is a deconstruction of this kind of character; she has long dark hair and many other students appreciate her looks, but the reason she's so aloof is because she's a misanthropic jerk who's incapable of making any real friends.
  • Subverted by Emi L'Hime in Hands Held in the Snow. Emi comes across as cold, stoic, and princessly to strangers, but the moment you peel past that, it turns out that's all a cover for intense social awkwardness.
  • The titular Haruhi Suzumiya is a subversion. She may have the dark hair, beauty, and intelligence, but her aloofness comes largely from being weird. While she does have admirers, most people are hesitant to approach her because of how eccentric she is. She almost entirely drops the "aloof" part of this trope after she befriends Kyon, as she cuts her long hair shorter and reveals her true Genki Girl personality.
  • Dee Moreno from The Hearts We Sold has long, dark hair, and even though both Gremma and James adore her, James outright declaring love for her at one point, she's very emotionally closed-off from other people. Even Gremma, her best friend, knows very little about her personal life. She's never mean about it, however, and it's mostly a result of her upbringing. She slowly gets better.
  • Utaha Kasumigaoka of How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend has long black hair, is admired by many at her school, and acts cold and distant to most people.
  • Chifuyu Orimura from Infinite Stratos is the main character's tall, raven-haired sister. She's a stern and strict teacher who's also admired by most of her students in the academy.
  • Ogasawara Sachiko in Maria Watches Over Us is tall, has long purple hair, and is described as cold and aloof despite being universally admired throughout her school.
  • Yukino Yukinoshita from My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, as I Expected is quite The Stoic with long black hair, has been described as a beauty multiple times, and at first behaves cold and distant. For all of her proud and aloof attitude she genuinely is a kind person, though, and becomes friendlier and less distant later on (thanks to Genki Girl Yui and her Love Interest Hachiman).
  • Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai: Played With in regards to female protagonist Mai Sakurajima. She's a beautiful and fairly tall girl with long dark hair and is composed, serious, and polite. While she has some shades of being aloof early on, losing trust in people as she became invisible, and therefore warning Sakuta not to get involved in her personal affairs, this changes very soon as she starts having faith in the boy, ultimately making this a Subverted Trope, and she turns out to be a very friendly, approachable person. Why is she a well-liked character after all? People generally appreciate her likable and approachable personality which compares favorably with colder, more abrasive LN heroines.
  • Shimoneta subverts the trope with Oboro, to set up a surprise gender reveal. As head of Tokioka Academy's "Deceny" Prefects, he garners much respect from the student body, who refer to him as "Ms. Tsukimigusa". They're unaware that he's actually a male, because, by all outward appearances, he looks and sounds like an emotionless dark-haired girl. And had it not been for Tanukichi's accidental discovery in chapter 10, no one would have suspected otherwise.
  • China Sorrows from Skulduggery Pleasant is very much this trope: she's tall, beautiful, dark-haired, aloof, and can make men and women fall head-over-heels in love with her.
  • Villains by Necessity: Valerie fits the type largely, though unusually she's an openly evil sorceress. She's tall, has an "impressive" chest, and is very beautiful, though human men wisely steer clear of hitting on her as her kind eats humans. Her attitude is mostly cool and standoffish.
  • Yuusha De Aru: Washio Sumi Is a Hero: Washio is a serious 11-year old Ojou with long black hair. She's respected by her classmates but doesn't have any friends. This changes when she becomes a Hero and she's forced to become friends with her two teammates. Washio's a bit shy behind her aloof-seeming facade.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The Book of Boba Fett: Drash is a composed, beautiful cyborg gang member with dark brown hair who is the leader of her gang and seems popular among them.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Faith, though this may be a subversion as she does desperately wish to make friends; a combination of trust issues, a Dark and Troubled Past, and bad choices are what keeps her aloof. Still, dark hair, charming though a loner, tries consistently to give advice to the titular character, plays Cool Big Sis with the Potential Slayers, and generally comes off more world-weary than the Scooby Gang.
  • Community:
    • Michelle Slater, Jeff Winger's Season 1 Love Interest, is a tall, brunette, as well as a poised and rigid Hot Teacher.
  • Dark Matter: Two is a dark-haired woman often in dark clothing who can be very aloof and has an air of coolness. Even so, she's beautiful and charismatic, which makes her pretty popular.
  • Fiona Coyne of Degrassi: The Next Generation carried all the pinnings of this trope, just in a western setting. This includes the crossover with Ojou and some Tall, Dark, and Snarky for good measure. She's spent her whole run fighting boys off, even after she came out, and trouble is not in short supply. Her girlfriend even fits the Shrinking Violet (when it comes to their relationship) trope.
  • Lady Mary Crawley of Downton Abbey is a textbook example: a tall, dark-haired beauty, persistently frosty, haughty, and detached, with several suitors that we've seen, to say nothing of her sister Edith's persistent but almost entirely one-sided rivalry.
  • Robin Scherbatsky in How I Met Your Mother is a tall and cynical raven-haired woman who has a Happily Married Ambiguously Bi friend who occasionally makes a pass on her.
  • Laguna Beach: Season 3 introduces Lexie, nicknamed "the Ice Princess," known for her implacable beauty (complete with long dark hair) and standoffish personality. Unlike most of the cast, she never hooks up with anyone and rejects three potential suitors, mostly to avoid getting distracted from her dance training. She even skips the after-prom party because she has an early-morning dance class the next day.
  • The Marvel Cinematic Universe continues the trend in TV.
    • Melinda May in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. may not be tall, but she is dark-haired, aloof to the point of hostility, and every agent who attended the Academy is in awe of her.
  • The Mick: Sabrina is a tall brunette with a cool and distant personality. She is pretty and never lacks for romantic partners.
  • The Outpost: Talon fits this perfectly, with long dark brown hair, pale skin, a large bust, and a somewhat cynical, taciturn attitude which helps make her look older. At first she's quite reserved and distant to others, although she loosens up over time, making very good friends with people who stand with her facing great dangers. She still is cold and hard at times though, which isn't too surprising given her very harsh life.
  • Elizabeth in Poldark. She is highly desired by men in upper-class society (including all three major male characters: Ross, George, and Francis). She has a reserved Proper Lady personality and is a tall gorgeous pale-skinned brunette.
  • Faran Bryant in Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin. She's a ballerina with long black hair and is a poised, closed-off young woman, not wanting to trust the Liars at first.
  • Watson: Ingrid is a beautiful, buxom woman with dark brown hair who acts aloof from other people and even worries she's The Sociopath, never telling them anything about her personal life while declining celebrating her birthday publicly. Despite this, her colleagues all appear to like her, though she mostly remains coolly professional toward them.

    Mythology & Religion 

    Professional Wrestling 

    Video Games 
  • Akatsuki Blitzkampf: Kanae is a beautiful, dark-haired Action Girl with a height that's nothing to sneeze at (especially thanks to her gorgeous legs) and a serious, professional attitude. Many people comment in-story about how beautiful and classy she is.
  • Shanoa from Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia is tall, shows little emotion, and even has some of the women she rescues flirting with her.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Princess Garnet from Final Fantasy IX is dark-hared and is the World's Most Beautiful Woman. While generally personable, she becomes increasingly dour after tragedies struck her one after the other, though she gets past it. There's also the Belligerent Sexual Tension between her and Zidane, resulting in her acting this part towards him.
    • Lulu from Final Fantasy X. She is cynical, stoic, and snarky to boot. She initially appears detached from everyone other than Yuna and acts dismissive even towards her childhood friend Wakka.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War has perhaps the franchise's trope-defining example in Ayra, a serious, cool, and unapproachable swordswoman with very long black hair. (Though if her talks with Lex are anything to go by, she certainly has her fair share who try to approach her.) Her nephew Shannan, though starting out as a Cheerful Child, also ends up fulfilling the trope with his similarly distant attitude and gloriously long black hair.
  • Primrose Azelheart from Octopath Traveler fits this trope like a glove, being a dark-haired odalisque that was viewed as snobbish by her fellow dancers due to her tendency to keep to herself and being favored by their master, though it's clear that she does care for her friends and serves as a Cool Big Sis to the female party members. While she is insanely gorgeous and attracts several admirers, they also include the wrong sort of attention like her master Helgenish and her Stalker with a Crush Simeon, who is madly obsessed with her and is responsible for all tragedies in her life.
  • Yukiko Amagi from Persona 4 is a subversion. She has long, black hair in a traditional Hime Cut and is very popular at school for her beautiful appearance. Her classmates admire her but find her impossible to approach romantically since she rejects everyone. However, Yukiko is revealed to be an utter goofball who bursts into laughing fits when hearing silly jokes, instead of the seemingly perfect Yamato Nadeshiko she's thought to be. Not only that but when she's comfortable with the people around her, she gets very excited about telling scary stories.
  • Ikaruga from Senran Kagura. Physically she is the closest to the ideal of Yamato Nadeshiko beauty, she is the most mature of the Hanzo girls, and some family issues have made her some kind of a loner, or at least someone who has difficulties opening up to others (she's already recovering by the beginning of the game, but remains somewhat aloof). Subverted in the anime, where the staff loved to make fun of her personality.

    Visual Novels 
  • Rin Tohsaka from Fate/stay night has long raven hair, is beautiful, elegant, intelligent, and admired amongst her peers but uses this to cover her otherwise infamously temperamental standoffish personality.
  • Kotonoha Katsura from School Days is a subversion; she looks the part (is tall, dark-haired, and buxom) and has a number of male admirers. People assume she's aloof and uncaring because she keeps to herself a lot, but the true reason she does so is due to a lack of self-confidence. It's also deconstructed: her beauty, apparent aloofness, and popularity with her male admirers mean that most of her female classmates mistake her as some sort of seductress out to steal "their" men, which spurs some of them to bully her using almost every trick in the book. And depending on the approach the player takes, Kotonoha can either stay quiet and gentle... or she can become a Manipulative Bitch who uses her beauty to her advantage... or can snap in the most horrible ways... or even end up dead.
  • Orihime Tsukishima in The Shell who is the tall, elegant, aloof, and refined Student Council President. She's also highly repressed and ends up starting a prostitution ring involving herself and girls that she knows who feel the same way.
  • Ava Crescentia from Sunrider is tall, has waist-length brown hair, and maintains a professional distance from the rest of the ship’s crew in her role as its executive officer. She’s also quite attractive, as the crew is surprised at how well she fills out a swimsuit.

    Web Animation 
  • AoHaru Manga Library: Zig-zagged. Many of the heroines take this form, especially when they're cast as CEOs, but it's usually Nagisa who gets this role, as she often has to play as the cold beauty with a tough exterior to be eventually melted after the encounter with Keiichi, especially if she's in a harem episode; she'd look like the tall and cool one compared to Yui and Noa. However, she's just as likely to play as a sweet-natured lady with the same model.
  • Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged: Tifa Lockhart is still the Ms. Fanservice Dude Magnet with a Dark and Troubled Past she was from the original game, but Adaptational Jerkass has given her an unapproachable (if not downright hostile) demeanor.
  • RWBY: Blake Belladonna starts out as one, having the most Mysterious Past compared to the other members of Team RWBY, a standoffish demeanor, and being a Deadpan Snarker. She has since, however, dropped the "Aloof" part thanks to her teammates and friends (most notably Yang and Sun) helping her out of her shell. It's also darkly deconstructed, as in truth her aloof personality is in reality fear and distrust caused as a result of her abusive ex-boyfriend and terrorist Adam Taurus' mistreatment of her, and her understandable terror that he'll come and harm the people she loves. After he makes good on his threats, she regresses back into a variant of this, with only a combination of time and help getting her back out again. When Adam is finally out of the picture, her true personality emerges as being more of a relatively quiet, but still cheerful and quippy young woman.

    Webcomics 
  • The Free Willies: Naomi is the tallest of the protagonists, has long dark hair, and is more aloof than her excitable peers. However, she is also rather sarcastic and close to her friends.
  • Magick Chicks: Tandy is an expy of Rin Tohsaka, from her dark hair, to her long, flowing twin-tails] As both a member of the Artemis student council and captain of their Ninja Club, she's well-known and respected around campus. But she rarely says a word more than she has to unless she's with her best friend, "Gabby".
  • When Javert got gender flipped for a short time in Roommates he became this archetype. Tall (the tallest cast member), graceful, with long dark hair and aloof (at times snarky) personality, who was the voice of reason and maturity in the madness. Also many, many fangirls thought it was a shame when the magic ended.
  • Sandra on the Rocks: Zoé actually fits this trope very well, in both appearance (she's tall, fairly pale, and supermodel-grade beautiful) and manner (being aloof and controlled); she also has a few admirers, although she earns them by being very good at what she does. She comes at the trope from a slightly unusual direction, though, being Tall, Dark, and Snarky and not treating many other members of the cast as friends. The only problem is that her aloofness is prone to being compromised when she loses her temper with other, less sensible characters.
  • Julia Chae from Weak Hero has long dark hair, dark eyes to match, and pale skin accentuated by makeup. She also has an aloof and disinterested personality. When Rowan first meets her, he's quickly smitten.

    Web Video 

    Western Animation 

Alternative Title(s): Tall Dark And Bishojo, Tall Dark And Bishoujo, Tall Dark Aloof Girl

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