Black Magician Girl

aka: Black Magician Boy

She may be small, but don't underestimate her. This spunky little thing is packing enough heat to take down a Swiss Bank, and that's just with the spells she learned in kindergarten.

The Black Magician Girl is a character type frequently found in fantasy that is primarily an offensive magic user. In personality, she is likely to be immature and outgoing, frequently a Genki Girl and Tomboy. This is carried over to her design, which is far less likely to be as elaborate or impractical as the Lady of Black Magic. She's also far less likely to be Ms. Fanservice than the Lady.

Physically, the Black Magician Girl is weaker than the fighters, often being a Squishy Wizard or Glass Cannon and being unable to attack for much, if any, damage. Her weapon of choice is usually a rod or staff, although ranged weapons are not uncommon, nor are improbable ones such as books. Her primary role in combat is to stand back and pelt the enemy with Fire, Ice, Lightning, not to get down in the mud, the blood and the beer with the melee types.

She will often be younger than The Hero, both physically and emotionally. Due to this, she will almost never be a love interest for him.

Black Magician Girls are, as the name would suggest, usually female, but male examples do exist. Black Magician Boys will be as immature as their female counterparts and may be physical cowards.

Subtrope of Black Mage. Compare to Lady of Black Magic, the other character archetype for Black Mages found in fantasy. In personality and skillset, this trope is the inverse of the White Magician Girl, for which this character type is often a Foil. See also Black Magic, which is magic that is evil, and White Mage.

NOT to be confused with Dark Magical Girl, which is largely a personality trope - although overlap in terms of abilities and appearance is common.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Schierke of Berserk could qualify, being a powerful witch and significantly younger than most other characters (except Isidro). However, her personality is almost a complete aversion, aside from tending towards being Skilled, but Naive.
• Large Ham Lutecia in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid, in sharp contrast to the more quiet White Magician Girl Caro. Yes, that Lutecia. Looks like she was right in her belief that she'd get a "heart" once her mom revives.
• MARRIAGETOXIN: Shiori takes on this persona with Kinosaki's style expertise to sell the illusion of her exorcising "Chladni" (really Naruko's Grand Actor) and free her fellow students from his brainwashing. To do this, she uses her company's highly advanced party goods to play at summoning at fire demon she subs "Inferniel" and launch it at the golem. The explosion's pretty big.
• Nami from One Piece is the hotheaded Fiery Redhead who has all the trimmings of this due to her Clima-Tact: she's the weakest of the crew in a physical fight, but she's able to control weather effects as though they're magic spells being cast from a staff (with lightning being her specialty, although she's more than proficient with heat, wind, cold, water, sea clouds, and illusory techniques as well). Some of her opponents have even referred to her as a witch in response to her fighting style.
• Symphogear G
  • Kirika Akatsuki is the Genki Girl and Perky Female Minion of the Terrible Trio, who (along with Shirabe) is the youngest of the current Symphogear users. Her design bears strong resemblance to the Trope Namer, but since the series is a Magical Girl Warrior show where the Symphogear users have Magitek weapons, there is not much magic to use, but she has the ability to destroy souls with her Sinister Scythe, which is the closest thing of an abstract magical ability you can get in this series. Kirika also averts the part with the weak physical abilities, since she's physically stronger than Shirabe and Chris.
  • Chris Yukine may also count as an example, depending on how one views the Magitek nature of the Symphogears. Her power manifests in a wide variety of bows, guns, and missiles, making her the go-to heroine for ranged attacks and massive explosions while the others fight more directly.
  • Carol Malus Deinheim, the Big Bad of season 3, plays with this. As an alchemist who fights with elemental glyphs, she's a far more traditional mage than the heroines. She also has the look down most of the time, appearing as a young girl in robes and a large pointed hat. However, she is MUCH older than she looks and tends to adopt an Older Alter Ego when fighting seriously.
• The Dark Magician Girl from Yu-Gi-Oh!, the Trope Namer, as well as Ancient Egyptian counterpart, Mana, whose early appearances show just why extreme genkiness + powerful magic = trouble — before she gets dangerous.
  • Dark Magician Girl deserves extra credit for actually being named Black Magician Girl in Japanese, which is where the trope's name was taken from.

Fan Works

• Memento Vivere, a Final Fantasy X fanfiction, uses this trope to describe Rikku whenever she's using the magical powers of her Conflagration Grid, particularly during the battle on Mushroom Rock Road.

Film — Live-Action

• Mythica: Marek's magic is mostly offensive, and is partly powered by Necromancy.

Folklore

• The White Witch of Rose Hall: A variation of the legend says the titular witch learned how to perform voodoo from her Haitian nanny.

Literature

• Harley Merlin and Tatyana Vasilia are this in Harley Merlin as although Harley isn’t categorised as dark or light, she uses offensive magic. Played straight with Tatyana, due to her ghost talking abilities.
• Sadie from The Kane Chronicles can do a lot of things with magic, but explosions are a favourite of hers. She also fits the personality type, being feisty and rebellious with a generous dose of snark. Meanwhile, Zia Rashid is more a Lady of Black Magic.
• Megumin fron KonoSuba could be considered one of these as she only knows one spell, but it is the offensive one, Explosion. At the start of the series, it's powerful enough to blast a giant frog to bits and it just gets more powerful as the episodes pass. She's not the physical type as she's outclassed in martial arts by pretty much everyone, and even her own spell is enough to make her fall to the ground helpless.
• In "No Need for a Core?", there is a thirteen-year-old, three-tailed kitsune witch who fits the trope rather well.
• Penny, the twin sister of the Red Room series' protagonist, is a badass sorceress who wields a magical staff once belonging to Hiawatha.
• Pictured above: Slayers's Lina Inverse. While talented with many types of magic, she leans heavily toward offense and has a habit of tossing around an Unholy Nuke capable of leveling mountains when provoked.
• Maryine from the Stories of Nypre series is this even when her powers are severely limited.
• Three Parts Dead: Despite professing to be all about courts and contracts, Tara spends most of her time working (mainly necromantic) Craft on the offensive, and quite impressively so, and has enough power and talent to still be relevant despite having been thrown out of the Hidden Schools while fighting her professors. As the youngest of the people tasked with investigating Kos's case, she's got a forceful personality and can act foolishly but isn't above admitting that she's still got a lot to learn.
• Villains by Necessity: Valerie, who's the only truly evil member of the party. Her magic is almost entirely offensive, and she's self-described as liking to hurt people.

Live-Action TV

• Enid Nightshade gets upgraded to this in The Worst Witch TV adaptation. She is shown using her magic offensively far more often that the rest of the girls. Her book personality gets swapped to become more mischievous and spunky after becoming proper friends with Mildred.

Tabletop Games

• Magic: The Gathering gives us Chandra Nalaar, a very literal Fiery Redhead. She frequently serves as the poster child for Red Magic, which in this setting is the type most focused on Elemental Powers.

Video Games

• Both Imoen and Nalia from Baldur's Gate II fit this trope.
• Baten Kaitos features one as a major plot twist: It turns out under that mask and odd clothing, Mizuti is a 14 year old girl.
• Guillo from Baten Kaitos is an odd example, being a genderless godcraft that was made by combining the souls and personalities of both a male and female sorcerer. It just barely qualifies because it has a female figure and mannerisms, and openly admits to being in love with Sagi.
• Orendi from Battleborn is a psychotic multi-armed little witch that uses chaos magic in a Science Fantasy based game.
• Aurora from Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled. Tomboyish, Fiery, and loves tossing fireballs about.
• Yuna Springfield from Counter Side is an optimistic Witch-In-Training who wants to follow in her grandmother's footsteps to become a Great Witch. Her friend and associate Ingrid is also a Witch-In-Training who Jumped at the Call when she learned that witches existed and wants to be like her favorite Magical Girl show.
• The Wizard from Diablo III is the youngest of the playable characters, but they wield terrifying amount of destructive magic powers in addition of their cocky but tempered attitude. This is quite moreso seen in Heroes of the Storm, where the female Wizard, Li-Ming, gets to duke it out with other spellcasters that Blizzard Entertainment offered... and she came off pretty young (compared to Jaina, Kael'thas, Medivh, Gul'dan) but no less dangerous.
• Merrill in Dragon Age II: Genki, moe, optimistic, dabbles in Blood Magic and deals with demons. Her magic repertoire is strictly damage-dealing, and her two main specialty powers are called "Blood of the First" and "Wrath of the Elvhen." Unusually, however, she's an adult and is both one of the nicest characters in the series and a potential Love Interest.
• Dragon Quest:
  • Dragon Quest IV: Maya is a cheerful, impulsive, hot-headed cloudcuckoolander. She also masters Fire and Explosive magic.
  • Dragon Quest V: Subverted. Nera has a personality type more closely associated with that of a White Magician Girl, but her stat growth and equipment selection, coupled with the fact that most of her spells are offensive in nature, lands her squarely in this role.
  • Ashlynn from Dragon Quest VI is a tomboy, and the youngest member of the party. She also knows several of the strongest offensive spells in the game and is the only party member able to learn the ridiculously powerful Magic Burst (normally only learned by mastering a vocation which is only available post-game) prior to defeating the final boss.
  • Veronica in Dragon Quest XI is an energetic and hot-tempered Little Miss Snarker with the largest number of offensive spells of any party member. She contrasts with her sister Serena, a sweet, mild-mannered White Magician Girl.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • In Morrowind, the Master Trainer in Destruction magic isn't a high-ranking official in the Mages Guild, or even an ancient Great House Telvanni mage-lord...it is a little Breton farmer by the name of Leles Birian. She can train you to a higher level in the Destruction skill than anyone else in the entire game.
  • Delphine Jend in Oblivion. She's a sweet little woman who likes to kill cute woodland creatures with Expert-Level destruction spells.
• Kano Kirishima in Eternal Fighter Zero is able to cast tiered versions of fire, ice or lightning spells to fight. Her powers are also a reference to her wishing for magic in AIR, although it's very likely that becoming a magician, and as bonus, a strong fighter, was not what Kano had in mind.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Refia from Final Fantasy III DS, is a hot-heated, spunky blacksmith's daughter. She can change-class to Black Mage.
  • Final Fantasy IV:
    • Rydia, who starts out a child but undergoes a Plot-Relevant Age-Up. To an extent, Rydia seems generally boisterous, but this is tempered by her past as the sole survivor of her Doomed Hometown. She also isn't in love with any of the other heroes, but does serve as the unrequited love interest of Edge and comes to see Cecil as a father figure.
    • Also Palom is a Black Magician Boy.
  • Relm from Final Fantasy VI. While the other two female members of the team are also very powerful spellcasters, they're more Magic Knights and she's the only one that fits this personality type.
  • Vivi from Final Fantasy IX is a more contemplative Black Magician Boy than most of his female counterparts, but he packs more magic than any other mage into a body half their size!
  • Vanille in Final Fantasy XIII is cute, funny, genki and all around adorable. She's also the best Saboteur.
  • Selphie Tilmitt of Final Fantasy VIII fits the trope. Although she is eighteen, she is by far the most childish member of the main cast. Her Limit Break is magic based. Unusually for the trope, she does become a love interest - but it's part of the Beta Couple.
• Female mages in Fire Emblem tend to either be Badass Bookworms or start as White Magician Girls before becoming Magic Knights through promotion, but there are still a few true Black Magician Girls (generally thunder or fire mages), including Linde from Shadow Dragon and Mystery of the Emblem, Tailtiu from Genealogy, Nino from Blazing Blade, and Lute from Sacred Stones. Empress Sanaki from Radiant Dawn (she appears in Path of Radiance as well, but only in cut scenes) specializes in fire magic, but she's also skilled in thunder, wind, and light... and the only fully-promoted magic-user who can't use staves. And yes, she has the personality for it, much to Sigrun's consternation.
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses has Lysithea, Golden Deer's black magic specialist. The youngest student in the academy, she's quite irritable and hates being treated like a child, which only highlights her childishness. Her short temper, however, gets deconstructed, as it at least partly stems from her shortened lifespan, a result of being experimented on to give her a second Crest.
• Glory of Heracles (DS): Eris looks like a little girl despite her Complete Immortality, has monstrous magic stat, and is very snarky, commonly making remarks on Heracles' intelligence.
• Annie from League of Legends is a cute, perky six-year-old girl who has a magical pet bear and a penchant for fire magic.
• Lufia in Lufia & The Fortress of Doom, though she's The Hero's age (and his girlfriend, too).
• Subverted in Lunar: The Silver Star. Mia Ausa, the Black Magician Girl, is the quiet, friendly, introverted one; whereas Jessica de Alkirk, ostensibly the White Magician Girl, is the loud, brash one.
  • Played straighter in the sequel Eternal Blue where Lemina (Mia's descendant) fits the trope by being the attack magic user and a Genki Girl while Ronfar, the healer is...um, a brash gambling guy.
• Genki Girl Arle from the Madou Monogatari and Puyo Puyo series is this. She's a One Girl Army who wanders around dungeon crawlers to beats up huge elephants, giant chickens, zombies, dragon girl, and Satan on her own simply with her magic, and she's just a kindergarten student in some of those games.
• Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy has Chloe, who has one of the highest magic stats in the game. Her inherent skills tend towards demon summoning and monster analysis, both dark elemental, and her personality is... fitting.
• Nico Minoru in Marvel: Avengers Alliance specializes in offensive magic and bigger emphasis is put on the Perky Goth aspects of her personality than with her comics counterpart, who is more of a Lady of Black Magic.
• Master of the Monster Lair: Tomboyish Kate uses primarily uses offensive magic, in contrast to Owen's repertoire of healing and support magic. She asks the magic shopkeeper for ever more powerful spells to use against monsters. To round out the trope description, she primarily equips bows and staves as weapons.
• Qara in Neverwinter Nights 2.
• The various Nippon Ichi Strategy RPG games have witches and mages, usually mastering different elements.
• Melody Farklight in Nostalgia (Red Entertainment), complete with tons of spunk (and a side helping of tsundere-ness).
• Persona 5 features Ann Takamaki, a lively member of the phantom thieves with a massive Sweet Tooth. Her persona specializes in fire spells backed by the team’s highest Magic stat, with a secondary focus on Status Infliction Attacks and very basic healing.
• Aht of Radiant Historia fits the personality type of this trope so well you'd think the writers read this trope first. Her primary combat role is powerful trap and Area of Effect spells. She also comes with decent healing magic, but she's not as good in this role as White Mage Marco.
• The sprite kid Popoi from Secret of Mana is an impulsive and energetic male version of this trope. Except in the German translation, where this character was generally referred to as female. In the Video Game Remake the sprite kid gets referred to by gender neutral they/them pronouns exclusively instead.
• Alice in Shin Megami Tensei. One of the few demons capable of effortlessly maxing Magic stats, and a One-Hit KO master as well, with her Signature Move being "Die For Me!", the ultimate Dark-aligned move.
• Aika from Skies of Arcadia defines this personality-wise, despite arguably not being the best spellcaster.
• Tales Series:
  • Arche from Tales of Phantasia is a young half-elf, who happens to be one of the most powerful mages in the world. She is quite immature and mischievous, and is contrasted with White Magician Girl Mint. She also rides a broom, for some Cute Witch points.
  • Meredy from Tales of Eternia is a powerful craymel mage and a brilliant engineer, who nonetheless acts like a hyperactive child, which is exacerbated by the flawed Universal Translator that renders her speech irritatingly cute. She also doesn't fight in melee at all, leaving it to her pet Quickie, that she directs with whistles.
  • Genis from Tales of Symphonia gender-inverts this. He is a 12-year-old Bratty Half-Pint, and yet is probably the second most intelligent party member (after his older sister), as well as your magic specialist. His weapon of choice is a cup-and-ball toy, of all things.
  • Rita from Tales of Vesperia, a massively powerful mage, Tsundere in personality and the brains of the party. Worth noting she's only deredere for the White Magician Girl Estelle.
  • Pascal from Tales of Graces is more of a Magitech specialist, wielding a shotgun staff and building robots, but she still has the most powerful magic among party members and is a very immature Genki Girl.
• Them's Fightin' Herds: Oleander is a young unicorn who specializes in dark magic (which is looked down on by others of her clan) with help from a demon and a Tome of Eldritch Lore.
• Touhou Project's Marisa Kirisame fits this trope to a T. Loud, brash, and a pretty capable thief who uses her lifespan as an excuse for never returning anything she steals, and her favorite spell is a massive Kamehame Hadoken. Yet she's still one of the heroes of the setting, relatively speaking.
• Melia from Xenoblade Chronicles 1 has several elements of this, despite being technically the oldest party member, being a High Entia. She's the only party member capable of manipulating ether by herself, and has a few nasty Limit Breaks under her sleeve.

Webcomics

• All five Agents of the Realm are girls and, with exception of Norah's shield, all have purely offensive powers. Additionally, Kendall and Adele fit very well with personality.
• For the first half of Errant Story, Meji (note, on the subject of improbable weapons, that she uses her familiar as a bludgeoning weapon!), albeit with no intention of being a team player. Then she gets, well, Senilisized ... and she goes from taking it up to eleven, to taking it up to about 342.
• Evon, of the comic of the same name. An Unskilled, but Strong (but improving) magic user who can go full-on Person of Mass Destruction when stressed.
• Homestuck has Rose Lalonde, although she is just thirteen, definitely is an Action Girl more powerful than John who is just as old as her. ^note  For comparison, John did several panels just strifing with one imp, which took him three turns to defeat even with a prototyped weapon. Rose took out two (twice prototyped, arguably stronger) imps and an ogre with her basic weapon in the span of an animated panel. She is also a Nightmare Fetishist who knows her way around that black tome of hers. While initially wise around it, when she enters the game she also gets access to Item Crafting, she combines it with her knitting needles making the Thorns of Oglogoth.
• Angelika, from Our Little Adventure is a straight example. Even Emily the Squishy Wizard doesn't match Angelika's offensive magical power in combat.
• One of the main characters in Van Von Hunter exemplifies this trope to the point of parody.

Web Original

• DSBT InsaniT: Portica is very skilled with her telekinesis and Eye Beams in battle, and is always up for dispatching villains.

Western Animation

• Toph Beifong from Avatar: The Last Airbender is a twelve-year-old tomboy and snark goddess who deals mountains of damage to baddies. Her Earthbending abilities are equally useful for defense and offense, but she loves dealing out a good offensive smackdown (or just a good game of horseplay), and this definitely qualifies her as a Black Magician girl. Unlike most, though, her attacks aren't always ranged; she's perfectly willing to get into the grit of battle. For instance, she had a mud wrestling match with Katara (erm...That Came Out Wrong), and she once actually covered her body in metal to take down a Fire Nation airship from the inside.
• Charmcaster from Ben 10. She's got the brash, forceful personality down; but unlike most examples listed, she's a villain.
  • As of the Ultimate Alien, that status gets somewhat blurred, since she becomes of a Dark Magical Girl Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds with a tragic backstory and sympathetic motives.
• In The Dragon Prince, Claudia leans toward this trope while also having some Lady of Black Magic traits. She's actually a little older than protagonist Callum, and he has a crush on her, but she's still a teenager and a total dork, despite also being elegantly dressed and a scarily-competent Dark Magic prodigy.

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